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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 1976)
Center focuses on attitudes toward aging By KATHY CRAFT Of the Emerald "I think attitudes towards older people are improving in this country, but it’s a slow process,” says Dr. Frances Scott, director of the University Center for Gerontology. Speeding up that process is a major goal of the students, faculty and staff involved with the gerontology center, the coordinating facility for a multi disciplinary University instructional program devoted to the study of aging. Although the center, which was estab lished in 1968, is part of the College of Health, Physical Education and Recrea tion (HPER), gerontology courses and field work are offered through a variety of other areas, as well, including the Wal lace School of Community Service and Public Affairs, the College of Education, and the architecture, telecommunica tions, political science and philosophy departments. Gerontology is not a degree-granting program at the University. Rather, it is a supporting area for majors in related schools and departments interested in the aging process. In the past, the word gerontology never appeared on the dip lomas of students who completed the gerontology curriculum. For many, that’s still the case, but this fell! HPER intro duced a degree option in “Health Educa tion: Gerontology” for health ed students who specialize in courses focusing on the concerns of senior citizens. In addition to its academic program, the gerontology center also sponsors a number of research programs designed to furnish information on aging. For ex ample, the Widowed Services Program is concerned with determining the needs of widows and widowers. Another re search program, which recently re ceived a $96,000 grant from the U.S. Public Service Commission, is designed to develop programs for pre-retirement counseling for persons approaching re tirement age. According to Scott, those involved in the center also hope to establish a prog ram “to bring men and women who are over 55, especially retired people, to campus as regularly matriculated stu dents. If they wanted, they could be teamed up to study with students under 30 or they could take classes about re tirement, widowhood and death.” Scott wants to see more students en roll in gerontology classes “as part of their general education. With the propor tion of seniors in our population increas ing rapidly, the aging process is some thing students need to know about." Too often, she points out, students have no direct contact with seniors and the picture of the elderly they're exposed to via the mass media is often negative. She admits “the media image of older people, especially on television, is grow ing more positive" but adds much change is still needed. “The media must become self-conscious about seniors in much the same way as they have with blacks and other minorities.” It's still rare, for example, “to see old people advertising anything but Doan's pills," Photo by Tonya Houg Jeannie Edwards (third from right), a University student, is involved in prac ticum work through the Center for Gerontology, including assisting an activity director in a nursing home. Edwards and friends Rosina Lassie, Lottie McClure and Mahon Short examine some creative macrame work. she points out. In Scott's opinion, when students deal with seniors directly, any negative stereotypes they harbor about the el derty begin to disappear Once they meet a senior who is not a relative," she says, "they realize that an old person can make a really good friend." L Business for Project Intercept is picking up By BOB GULDIN Of the Emerald Project Intercept is the most vis ible recycling effort on campus, but it’s a program riddled with paradoxes. Paper recycling is going better than ever before, but it’s still going terribly. State law requires recycl ing, but the state provides almost no funds. And the University Phys ical Plant can help out, but not where help is needed most, paper products, much more than last year. And that doesn’t include newspaper donated to the Eugene Mission. In fact, Perry says, the program may be dose to breaking even. "A year ago,” he estimates, “it was costing two or three times what our income was. We're not doing it to try to make money, though.” Project Intercept is the University’s paper recyding prog ram. Its metal barrels are stationed around campus and In tercept is doing better than ever before, according to Carl Perry, building maintenance superinten dent. Between January and Au gust of this year the physical plant picked up and sold 39 tons of Clayton-Ward Co. of Salem picks up paper from the University once a month. The company has contracted to buy all of the state's recyclable paper output. All income from Intercept goes into the state's General Services Division. That means there is no financial incentive or any way to directly use the income to strengthen the program Perry attributes this year’s im provement to better organization and a more conscientious pickup schedule. One part-time worker picks up more than 80 satellite Whipple describes goals Blaine Whipple, Democratic candidate for secretary of state, brandished his record, voiced his goals and hammered Ns oppo nent Norma Paulus during a cam paign stop on campus yesterday. Whipple, a state senator from the Beaverton area, summarized his legislative record to a group of 30 people and said that it illus trates his commitment to the fu ture. "We’ve got to take away from the fat cats and the special in terest groups the funding of cam paigns in Oregon,” said Whipple as he mentioned that he was the senate sponsor of Oregon Ballot Measure No. 7. Ballot Measure No. 7 provides for public financing of the com munication expenses of candi dates for major state offices dur ing the general November elec tion. He also said that as secretary of state he would look at state gov ernment agencies and see how they are performing their function. Whipple said he wants to make sure state agencies operate in an effective, efficient manner and to be assured that recipients of state programs receive the services to which they are entitled. Whipple blasted his Republican opponent Norma Paulus for her comments on Ballot Measure No. 7. He said that Paulus had labeled the measure as not being restric tive as to content. He feels that Paulus' comments were intended to “confuse the voters” and that she was “attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of the voters.” Whipple mentioned his support for a legislative pay increase say ing the increase was necessary to open up the legislative process so that “more than just the wealthy can afford to be a part of the - Oregon Citizen Legislature.” Whipple said he was instrumen tal in bringing about the passage of Senate Bill 269, which he said brought about the distribution to taxpayers of earnings from their tax reserve payments. “I put the whole thing together and now the lenders are out to get me,” he said. The candidate noted his sup port for the Oregon bottle bill and his support for the proposed ban on aerosol cans. He also said his “one man crusade” was instru mental in bringing to Oregon “one of the finest oil exploration bills you will find.” Whipple said Oregon's oil exploration bill pre vents the “selling out of the Oregon coast" and protects one of Oregon’s greatest public re sources. Whipple said he opposes the extension of the field burning deadline and that he opposes the repeal of the Land Conservation Development Commission (LCDC). Noting that the secretary of state serves on the state Land Board which administers 1,600,000 acres of public land, Whipple said there should be somebody on the board “commit ted to the conservation and pre servation of the peoples re sources.” barrels around campus, as well as the three centralized drop-off points at the EMU. the Computing Center and the science complex. "We may have to hire new peo ple,” says Perry. “Were getting requests for new pickups from students and secretaries.” But the people at the University's Survival Center dis agree. Bruce Walker, Survival Center director, says the recycling prog ram is much better at Oregon State University, where there is a higher level of commitment, staf fing and funds. Oregon law calls for state institutions to recycle “where economically feasible," and Walker claims the physical plant here too often refuses to ex pand its recycling efforts on the grunds that the program lacks economic feasibility. Cindee Perhats is assistant di rector of the survival center and volunteer teacher of this quarter’s SEARCH class on recycling and resource recovery. As a student heavily involved in the campus re cycling effort, she sees lots of problems. “The biggest problems are the transition of students, and not hav ing enough people to publicize, educate and supervise recycling," she says. While she admits Intercept is doing better than before, Perhats emphasizes how much still needs to be done. “A survey taken at the old Day Island landfill showed 90 per cent of the paper dumped cam© from the University “Even now," she says, "the percentage of waste being recovered is very small." The key is publicity, to edu cate people about recycling, says Perhats. "But the physical plant can’t supply funds for publicity. It's like a Catch-22 situation. They won t put more workers on until there s more volume. But to get volume up we need more people working on publicity." In past years, some of that edu cation and organizational work was done by students working for credit in the SEARCH class on re source recovery. This quarter, though, only 12 people enrolled in the class, compared with a previ ous average of 30. Faced with an energy shor tage of its own, the recycling prog ram is seeking new alternatives. Perhats suggests either the use of work study people or a new ar rangement in which money from sales of recyclables would go more directly to those working on the program. Perhats points to the state law requiring recycling where economically feasible. “If the state wrote the law," she says, "it should provide the money to im plement it.” As of now, Project Intercept can still place more barrels in academic buildings on campus. There are two types of barrels, those for newspaper an those for notebook and typing paper. To ar range for placement of an Inter cept barrel, contact either the Sur vival Center or Carl Perry at the physical plant.
