ID forum dominated by angry student government

Tension ran high at the first forum on Portland State's new student ID/debit cards yesterday, with accusations from representatives of student government of lies, misinformation and coercion.

The new student IDs will be distributed by the HigherOne company beginning in November. Among other features, students will have access to a checking account with their ID and use their ID as a MasterCard debit card.

At the forum, HigherOne CFO and Chairman Mark Volcheck and PSU administrators Dee Wendler, director of business affairs, and Doug Samuels, vice provost of student affairs, took control of shaping the dialogue about HigherOne at PSU.

Volcheck began with a brief presentation of the benefits that the HigherOne program will have for PSU then opened the floor to questions. Natalee Webb, a coordinator for the PSU conflict resolution program, moderated the forum and set ground rules for questioning.

In response to a student query regarding what kind of revenue PSU would be gaining, Wendler denied that PSU would be obtaining any.

"Oh my God, you are full of shit!" cried Christy Harper, president of the Associated Students of PSU in response. She went on to cite part of the contract between PSU and HigherOne in which the financial benefits to PSU are mentioned.

Wendler replied that Harper was looking at cost savings, not revenue.

Perhaps the most salient concern raised by ASPSU and other student groups about the situation with HigherOne is the apparent lack of student involvement in the process. Wendler responded that she had sent out requests for input in the request for proposal process to several student groups through student affairs.

"How can you stand up there and consider yourself to be ethical?" asked Ryan Klute, vice president of ASPSU, going on to accuse Wendler of overtly lying to students at the forum.

According to Harper, all of the student groups represented at the forum deny ever having received such a request.

Order was hardly maintained throughout the questioning session, with students interrupting the process with passionate concerns about HigherOne.

Jody Ramey, former co-coordinator of the Students with Disabilities Union, wanted to know how PSU was planning to make sure that students with special visual needs or those with learning disabilities would be able to get all of the information they need about the HigherOne card.

Further, several students voiced concerns that HigherOne offers information in no other language than English.

"The University will do everything in its power to accommodate students who speak other languages, who are from other backgrounds and students with disabilities," Samuels firmly replied to such concerns.

The forum was intended to end with an automated presentation from HigherOne regarding the activation of the cards via HigherOne's web site, but the company could not go through with the presentation due to technical difficulties.

Harper then gave a presentation of her own, activating a mock card on a laptop hooked up to a projector. Her presentation was intended to illustrate the confusion involved in card activation, further accusing PSU and HigherOne of coercing students into using the company's banking services via their web site.

After the forum was formally over, ASPSU expressed several other concerns about the forum itself.

"Our first reaction was that this was worse than we thought it could be," Harper said, "the way that they were answering questions and dodging them. It's frustrating."

"We want students to make their own choice," said Tony Rasmussen, communications director for ASPSU.