Well, for one thing, UO President Richard Lariviere will go before the University Senate to explain why he won’t abide by the UO Senate’s Riverfront Resolution. That’s probably not much of a mystery, considering he outlined it in this letter. But it could be kind of awkward and the president might take tough questions.
Hopefully our own Ross Coyle will be there covering it, provided Prof. John Russial lets him out of class to do so. I have to work, which is disappointing.
Further reading:
The meeting’s agenda. (UO Senate website. The new one. Yeah I’m still disappointed.)
Recently, students at Stanford had a novel idea: they petitioned to be excused from classes during the Orange Bowl. Of course, that went down in flames- glorious flames. Their commendable effort leaves me wondering “why UO hasn’t asked the same?”
The petition, signed by over 1,600 Stanford students did not ask for a shift in the academic calendar, but merely the excusal of those students traveling with the team. The petition argued that Stanford was known as a team that didn’t travel well and students wanted to change their reputation but were worried about missing valuable class time:
Stanford has been ruthlessly defamed across the country as being a school that doesn’t “travel well”, a highly contestable assertion given our presence at last year’s Sun Bowl. We believe that Stanford students should have the chance to attend the Orange Bowl without fearing that a professor will drop them from a course.
Therefore, President Hennessy, we petition you, Provost Etchemendy, and Vice Provost Elam to excuse the absences of those students who will be traveling to Miami, so we may witness a piece of Cardinal history while once and for all putting to rest the notion that Stanford fans do not support their world-class sports teams.
The request was both logical and reasonable, in fact, too reasonable. Why should campus only close for traveling students and students affiliated with the team? All of these students take up a significant portion of the student population, at UO it’s estimated at about 2,000 students (out of the university’s 23,389). With all of these students absent from classes, it would make more sense to shift the academic calendar.Yeah, it would be slightly inconvenient, but less of a mess than the disaster no-show drops are going to cause. In addition, when too many individuals are absent, the whole class suffers as they try to catch up.
Furthermore, traveling students are not the only ones affected by Bowl games. It’s not an excuse, but it’s a fact that for many students, watching their team on TV and getting smashed are simultaneous. Presumably, faculty also partakes in the football watching, though the after game tradition of celebrating by drinking or drinking ones sorrows away seem to include the whole community. The day after a bowl game is a day needed for necessary recovery. Therefore, when a bowl game conflicts with an academic calendar, it is in the best interest of that school to readjust its schedule. But I digress; students from Stanford were met with a somewhat pointed letter from the Provost (emphasis mine): (more…)
As families come together for the holiday season, it’s important for us to remember the less fortunate among us. Even as we share in the joy and love of this time of year, there are still those poor souls who quite obviously don’t have two brain cells to rub together to warm themselves during these cold winter nights. So let us pause to remember those who, but for the grace of common sense, we could easily be this December. Like these idiots:
Airport security officers in Lafayette, Louisiana who, after seeing an “odd and not readily identifiable” package in a scanning machine, evacuated the terminal and closed the airport while they figured out what it was. It turned out to be a headlamp and some frozen chicken. Bonus points available if Homeland Security bans meat products in checked baggage. (Thanks for this one to The Daily Advertiser)
Administrators at a high school in Haymarket, Virginia who couldn’t give the same reason twice for why they slapped ten unsuspecting bros with detention and other punishments for giving candy canes to their fellow students. Their stated motivations varied from preventing litter to student safety (administrators alleged that the candy could be fashioned into a weapon.) Furthermore, one official seemed to thing that the “Christmas cheer” the students were spreading could cause other students to commit suicide. (Thanks to WUSA-TV)
The editorial board of The New York Times who proclaimed President Obama’s legislative agenda during the 111th Congress to be a rousing success. Except for the part where Congress, driven by a heavily marginalized Republican Party, basically held him at gunpoint to massively rewrite his health-care proposal, refused to pass the Dream Act, forced him into extending the vast majority of the tax cuts he campaigned against, and repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” not because they wanted to, but because the Federal Judiciary was about to do so for them. Yeah, guys… quite the grand achievement on the national political scene.
St. Paul, Minnesota school officials who are apparently banning not only the sale of, but the possession and consumption of candy and other sweets during the school day. As told by The Star Tribune: “’All my friends say, ‘This really sucks,’’ said Misky Salad, a 10-year-old fifth-grader at Chelsea Heights Elementary. ‘A lot of us feel it should be up to us to determine what we should do with our bodies.’” Look forward to kids in St. Paul ducking into bathrooms to “hit some M’s (M&Ms)” and sitting out back drinking Coca-Cola from a brown paper bag.
Everyone involved in the arrest of a 13 year old who was caught writing on a piece of paper with a permanent marker in class one day in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The boy’s teacher, thinking the marker would bleed through the paper and stain the desk, and citing an obscure ordnance against the possession of such markers, promptly called the police who transported the suspect to a juvenile detention facility, while taking the marker into evidence. It pains me to decide who is more absurd in this instance: the teacher who called the cops, the officer who actually arrested this kid, the police chief who had not fired that officer yet, or the local lawmakers who voted to ban Sharpies. Stories like these make me feel better about covering the ASUO because it really could, in all reality, be a lot worse. Ok, maybe just a little worse. (Thanks to The Smoking Gun)
Our favorite anonymous professor over at UO Matters has a breakdown on proposed changes in public records legislation for the state of Oregon to be addressed in the new legislative session. The first provides some clarity on fees and deadlines for filling public records requests, and the second requires certain public bodies to digitally record their meetings and make those recordings available. Interestingly, the second also requires the Attorney General to create trainings for public employees on public meetings law. Our anonymous professor’s comments:
Delays and fees are a common strategy of UO Public Records Officer Liz Denecke, as they were for her predecessor Melinda Grier. The OUS board, meantime, has not prepared written minutes of its meetings since Dec, 2006. So I think both these laws will have an immediate and positive effect for transparency at UO.
University of Iowa freshman Will Tapella said he smokes a pack of cigarettes a day — and he usually lights up outside Burge Residence Hall.
While smoking is banned on the University of Iowa campus, the 19-year-old said he has never received a citation. Generally, he said, there is only one police officer who has said anything to him outside Burge.
…
Smoking on the UI campus has been illegal for more than two years, but people lighting up on campus is still a common sight. The Smokefree Air Act went into effect July 1, 2008, and smoking on the UI campus became an offense carrying a $50 citation.
But the number of citations for smoking in a prohibited area has decreased since the ban was enacted. According to UI police, officers wrote 25 citations in 2009 for smoking in a prohibited area. Since the beginning of this year, they have written eight.
Public safety officers at UI say this is because more people are aware of the policy, but students are not so sure.
“I have never seen the police handle a situation,” said sophomore Nolan Petersen, 19. “It’s like a myth. I always hear of kids getting smoking tickets, but I’ve never seen it.”
Other students — both smokers and nonsmokers — agreed.
“This is a non smoking campus, and I see a lot of people smoking,” said freshman Kayla Beck, 19. “I’m concerned about their health and those around them.”
Since the ban, signs have gone up around campus including all building entrances and exits, in parking structures, and at other key points around campus. The signs list the fee for smoking on campus and a number to report someone.
Some Iowa students think that increased enforcement is the answer.
Some Oregon students (this one in particular) think spending a large chunk of a million dollars on a smoking ban that may or may not even be enforced at all is a waste of money and an infringement on student rights.
Students and alcohol are never far apart, but most manage to hold off the booze when they’ve got an important test the next morning. Now it seems they needn’t worry, as researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health have found that combining last-minute revision with a couple of beers isn’t a problem. Heavy drinking the night before an exam had little effect on a student’s academic performance, but they did have worse moods and slower reflexes.
…
Unsurprisingly, 70% of students assigned to the alcoholic beer complained of a hangover the next morning. This didn’t seem to affect their exam performance however, as regardless of beverage all students scored relatively high on a mock exam and a quiz on a lecture from the previous day. Despite this, students rated their own test performance as worse if they were hungover.
These findings contradict previous research showing links between alcohol consumption and academic problems. The researchers suggest that a third factor such as personality could be the cause of both – perhaps some failing students are driven to drink. They also warn the research shouldn’t be used as an excuse for excessive drinking.
That’s right, kids. Drinking the night before a test does not have the detrimental effects we once thought it did. (Editor’s note: The Commentator accepts no responsibility for test grades. That F is all on you, buddy.)
Hat tip to the Desert Lamp for the story. They are serious champions.
Posted in Booze, Education | Comments Off on Studying and drinking — an unlikely pair.
What if the UO accidentally posted the names, grades, addresses and — for God’s sake — Social Security numbers of 40,000 alumni online for all to see? That would be a disaster, no? Well, I’ve returned to Hawai’i, where I grew up, for the break, to find the local university system did just that.
Evidently, a faculty member at the University of Hawai’i’s West O’ahu campus left the information online for about a year, having amassed it in the process of performing some sort of research. The faculty member said he believed the server he was accessing was secure, but, unsurprisingly, he no longer works for UH.
There are precious few specifics — for instance, aside from its being a “database,” I’ve not seen anything that says to what kind of site the data found its way — but at least one person is claiming the mistake cost him about $740 after three people apparently stole his identity. A national nonprofit charges that “UH has a pattern of breaches and unfulfilled promises,” according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. That article goes on to say that more than half of the Hawai’i government records whose security has been breached in the last five years, about a quarter of a million of them, have come from UH.
So there’s obviously an incredibly serious institutional problem going on here, but what surprises me is the complete lack of apoplexy over this. One state senator says she will “schedule a hearing to discuss improvements.” UH says it’s trying to figure out how not to do this in the future. Nobody seems too angry, although it also happened a couple of months ago, so maybe I just missed that.
Can you imagine how brutally the UO would be savaged if it did this, or had this kind of track record? I grew up here and I’ve lived in Oregon for the last four-and-a-half years, and I have, as yet, no insights into this.
Posted in Education, Government, Politics, University | Comments Off on University of Hawai’i releases tens of thousands of Social Security numbers accidentally, nobody seems to care.
In an act of complete and utter idiocy, the principal of a Manhattan school severely restricted students’ access to bathrooms, purportedly because of two fights in the lavatories during class (WINS New York). It backfired a little bit — hundreds of the school’s 2,400 students responded by rioting, a the local CBS affiliate reported.
School surveillance cameras captured the scene. The typical chaos ensued as they swarmed the halls screaming and protesting. Some students identified in the footage are facing disciplinary action.
While bathrooms are merely a privilege afforded to students, this event leads me to wonder whether American schools becoming too authoritarian. What do you think?
Being as it’s dead week, the ODE was kind enough to share its reporters’ opinions on where to study. Of course, there are other noteworthy coffee shops (Full City and Vero for starters), not to mention Sweet Life. However, there are other alternatives:
Rennie’s Landing, 1214 Kincaid St. — It’s right next to campus, so you can stumble to class five minutes before it starts. Perfect place to grab a pitcher and watch a game or read a textbook.
Eugene City Brewery, 844 Olive St. — Bring your book and order a pint and a burger. On Fridays Eugene City has a trivia night. Since it’s dead week, I’m sure the trivia will be on “organic chemistry” and “microeconomics”.
The Bier Stein, 345 E 11th Ave. — Incentivize your studying by buying yourself a beer, one for every chapter you read, one for every hour you study, one for getting out your notes….with so many reasons to study and Cheba Hut next door, it’s a guaranteed win for everyone!
Reser Stadium, 105 Gils Coliseum, Corvallis — Screw finals, its CIVIL WAR.
University of Oregon Adjunct Professor Bill Hillar is under investigation by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Department for fraud after some of his students at the Monterey Institute of International Studies discovered that Hillar had been lying about his exploits as a member of the US Army Special Forces and receiving a doctorate degree from the University of Oregon. Hillar had been a part-time instructor at the Institute, which is an adjunct campus of Middlebury College. He was scheduled to teach a Substance Abuse Prevention Program class this term at the University of Oregon, and during winter term 2010 taught a SAPP class in International Drug Trafficking that had 241 enrolled students. He also was one of the keynote speakers at last year’s Slavery Still Exists conference. He was scheduled to give a lecture at the University of Portland this month, but failed to show up, and all contact attempts have been fruitless. His website has since been taken down.
Bill Hillar, a part-time instructor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, told students enrolled in his workshops on terrorism and human trafficking about what he described as his own dangerous exploits as a former colonel in the U.S. Army’s Special Forces.
He also boasted, they recalled, that the 2008 action movie “Taken,” starring Liam Neeson, was based on his life and his daughter’s kidnapping by men who wanted to enslave her.
Such claims, along with incidents in which Hillar seemed to borrow material from other people’s books, raised suspicions among some of his graduate students about Hillar’s resume and background. “He didn’t seem to act like a veteran or someone who served so highly in the military,” recalled Brian Hubbs, a graduate student and Marine veteran.
So this fall, Hubbs and several other veterans attending the graduate institute began investigating Hillar’s resume. And the school now says their suspicions had merit.
Monterey Institute officials said Hillar, who has taught workshops twice yearly at the school since 2005, had claimed to hold a doctorate from the University of Oregon, but a check showed that he had only attended classes there. The institute, which is well-regarded for its foreign language and international relations courses, has been unable to confirm the instructor’s claims of military rank and service, officials said.
Hillar, who has also been an expert speaker on security and leadership at other colleges and police agencies across the country, did not respond to messages left Monday at the phone number and e-mail address listed on his class syllabus.
An apology from the Monterey Institute of International Studies can be found here. It seems Hillar fooled a lot of people, including various law enforcement agencies.
Also from the LA Times, on the investigation:
Deputy Keith Bickford, who heads the human trafficking unit of the Multnomah sheriff’s agency and is helping in the investigation, said he had heard Hillar speak twice at conferences and emotionally recount the supposed kidnapping and murder of his daughter.
“The story that he told was very sad and he did a very good job in making everybody feel horrible,” said Bickford, who did not initially suspect Hillar’s credentials. “If he is a fraud, he’s hurt a lot of people and taken advantage of a horrible, horrible crime,” he said, referring to trafficking.
Hillar could not be reached for comment at the phone number and e-mail address he listed on a syllabus for his Monterey Institute class.
Retired Green Beret Jeff Hinton started a website, professionalsoldiers.com, in order for Special Forces members to discuss their lives. Hillar has been listed on the website as a fraud for over a year. From KION News:
Hillar has been posted as a fraud for over a year on the website Jeff Hinton started, professional soldiers.com. A place for special forces to network with each other. It was there that Brian Hubbs and the other students at the Monterey Institute of International Studies found more evidence to back up their research on Hillar.
A client list from Hillar’s now defunct website shows a lot of people believed his stories for a long time, “It’s because he’s never run across a real Green Beret… They read just enough or watch just enough movies to pass themselves off,” said Hinton.
This story is still unfolding. Updates will be added as they are received. If you have any info on Hillar, or have taken a class with him, please email us at [email protected].
The University is building a new expansion to the Len Casanova Athletic Center, to great controversy because the process involved will be the same as that used for the John E. Jaqua Academic Center for Student Athletes. UO Matters posted a couple of days ago a long mp3 of a meeting at which President Richard Lariviere outlines his rationale for accepting the donation from Phil Knight/Phil Knight’s various organizations.
This is the important part, I think. The mediated form hinders the ability of those being mediated to make a considered, rational argument, so I’ll just block-quote the thing in its entirety. Emphasis mine.
It really doesn’t have much to do with the central mission of the University of Oregon. The mission of the University of Oregon is education and research.
We live in a very odd society in that every society feels passionately about sports of one sort or another. You know this from your travels internationally. Soccer in most of the rest of the world. People spend billions of dollars on that entertainment. The odd thing in this country is that some significant portion of that entertainment world is associated with higher education.
There’s in my view an unconscionable tolerance for confusion around this. All of us who know better need to be educating the public that athletics is entertainment and education and research is why the University exists.
Now, do I wish that there was as much passion and willingness to part with treasure that focused on the humanities and the social sciences and the natural sciences as there is around football? You bet I do. That’s not the world we live in.
And should we be puzzled that a family that have made billions of dollars in the sports industry and love the University of Oregon are interested in giving money to this entertainment enterprise? It’s not much of a mystery for me and I don’t think it probably is for anyone.
If we don’t accept this gift, is it likely that the donors will get out of bed tomorrow and think, “Oh, what were we thinking? We should have been giving it to promote Sanskrit at the University of Oregon”? I don’t think so.
If we don’t accept this gift, what will be the negative consequences for the University’s education and research mission? Probably not much — in the short term. But they could be really, really profound over the long term. Really profound. This is an important gift for our future. So that’s all I have to say on that.
Once, Matt Petryni, an ex-Emerald columnist with whom I used to work there, told me that if the UO would just come out and say this, he’d understand the flirtation with sportswear corporations. And we’re talking about a guy who organized a march on Johnson Hall in an effort to end the UO’s relationship with one.
There are questions raised, though, such as what kind of “really, really profound” “negative consequences”? I guess I’ll ask Lariviere next time I see him. On the other hand, nobody in a position of power has ever been this forthright about the UO’s relationship with Knight on the record, at least that I can remember.
Media digests: They’ll return once all the content for the magazine gets copy-edited.
As I’m posting this from the EMU computer lab, I see quite a few students around, generally either studying for midterms or on Facebook. Truly the story of our generation. Anyway, if your midterms are anything like mine and involve a stunning number of formulas and equations, I would like to recommend the self-titled “computational knowledge engine”, Wolfram|Alpha, to any of you who may not have heard of it. You can access it at http://www.wolframalpha.com/ and from there simply plug in anything you might need to know. If you’re in business then it knows dozens of things about calculating annuities and all that jazz; if you’re struggling through any kind of algebra then it can solve entire equations (i.e. punch in something like x^2 + 7x – 10 = 42 and it’ll solve for x).
Obviously using the thing to solve all your homework problems is not that good of an idea, but knowing what the answer is can be pretty helpful. Think of it like bare-bones Wikipedia articles: it just has the crunchy bits you want, and none of that gristle. Once again, http://www.wolframalpha.com/, because seriously the thing is pretty boss.
The University of Oregon, unlike many universities in this country, does not get a day off for Columbus Day. In fact, the holiday is not even present on the UO’s academic calendar, much to the dismay of the ASUO’s Multicultural Center and Native American Student Union. But, if the day were present on the academic calendar as “Columbus Day,” I can’t imagine the MCC and NASU would be any more pleased.
Today, in the EMU Amphitheater, NASU and the MCC are hosting an event for “Indigenous Solidarity Day,” complete with traditional drummers, speeches, red armbands, and t-shirts with the words “RED POWER” proudly displayed in bold, bright red text. Today’s protest, led by a Native American UO student and veteran, is considerably less abrasive than years past.
During last year’s protest, the amphitheater was decked out in posters proudly proclaiming that, “Custer got what he deserved,” along with quippy phrases, such as, “Columbus: America’s First Terrorist.” NASU also set up a table with a sign that said, “Native American Travel Agency,” and handed out one-way tickets to non-Native students back to “where they came from.” (The bottom of the ticket said, “Price: Free, just leave.”)
For those not in the know, the University of Oregon is home to the Many Nations Longhouse. Built in the 1960s, its website boasts that it is “the longest standing off-reservation public longhouse in the state of Oregon.” Used by many different tribal organizations, the Longhouse causes the UO to be a beacon for Native American activism and tribal ceremonies all over the state of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.
I am pleased to say that this year’s Indigenous Solidarity Day event does not make me feel alienated as a non-Native UO student. I certainly find it easier to be an ally when I am not being ostracized for the color of my skin or the different uniqueness of my heritage.
I love it when it’s “everyday students” who start railing against the ASUO, and not those who are watching their every move.
As an addendum to Rockne’s post below, here is the video of Amélie’s convocation speech (this is the whole convocation, her speech starts at 12:30). It is, as Rockne professed, embarrassing, and incredibly disrespectful to those who allowed her the microphone in the first place.
There is a certain level of responsibility that goes with the title of ASUO President. When you speak in public, you are speaking on behalf of more than yourself and the little office you work in. You are speaking on behalf of every incidental fee-paying student at the University of Oregon.
This poses a considerable problem when you are charged with making a speech to introduce a batch of around 4,000 brand new students to the University. As ASUO President, you have not made any headway in trying to deduce how students feel about any particular issue — mostly because students are not informed about most things happening on campus. It is for this reason that most convocation speeches (at least in the last few years) by ASUO Presidents have been largely apolitical, for fear of misrepresenting student views and being disrespectful to students in the process.
It becomes much harder when you decide to throw all of your responsibility out the window and flat out lie to those sitting before you. Amélie’s description of the riot on September 25th — that the Eugene Police Department started taking action because of one person throwing one beer bottle at one cop car — is completely absurd. The crowd was asked to disperse because they were blocking traffic and being loud, and when they did not disperse, actions were taken. And then, in a stunning display of putting the cart before the horse, she goes on to talk about arming the Department of Public Safety. What? DPS was nowhere near the incident, as it was not in their jurisdiction, and the proposals for DPS do not include arming them — at least not at the moment.
Her criticisms of President Lariviere’s New Partnership proposal were just as absurd, if not more. I’m not even going to address this one, because you can all read the white paper and see for yourself just how misinformed she is. I wonder if she’s even read it yet.
The worst part about all of this is the 4,000 freshmen who believed every single word she said. I have encountered those people, and no matter how many letters run in the Ol’ Dirty Emerald, there is going to be a large group of people who believe what she says and continue to do so throughout the year.
If any University undergraduates are reading this, please do your part to get informed about issues on campus. Especially when it comes to the ASUO, titles are meaningless. Just because a president says it, doesn’t mean it’s always true.
Then again, just because a managing editor says it, doesn’t mean it’s always true either.
