Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (July 9, 1981)
Vol -86, No 7 Eugene, Oregon 97403 Thursday, July 9, 19fi1 Koinonia evicts anti-draft groups By HEIDI SWILLINGER Of ttw Enwaid Clergy and Laity Concerned and the Coalition Opposing Registration and the Draft have been asked to move out ot their offices in the Koinonia Center, at 1414 Kincaid St According to John Skillern, a board member of University Christian Properties — an in terfaith group that owns the Koinonia Center — CORD and CALC have been asked to leave because "the Meth odists are leaving the Wesley Center (1236 Kincaid St ), and they need the space " However. CORD member Christina Cowger says, "A large motivation for (University Christian Properties) to evict us is political " "The draft is going to be more ot an issue in coming months," she says "The CORD office will become a center of activity again " Cowger says Skillern told her that "philosophically, your activities don't meet with the purposes of the building Skillern does not deny mak ing the statement and says, "The purpose of the (Koinonia Center) is to provide space for Christian ministries on cam pus " "CORD is not a church CALC is not a church (Koinonia) was formed to get all denominations on campus under one roof he says Cowger says that while the Methodists may move into the vacated CALC offices no other group has shown an in interest in renting CORD'S basement office "It's highly unlikely they'd ever find anyone to rent this space tor an office,'' she says Cowger says the Campus Interfaith Ministry invited CORD to use the basement free of rent about two years ago However, she says the move never was officially authorized by University Christian Properties, who vot ed last month to evict the two groups The Campus Interfaith Ministry didn’t struggle very hard against UCP's decision.'' "It makes life hard," she says, adding that until August 15, CORD will share office space with CALC — scheduled to move from the building on that date CALC staff member Doug Barber agrees with Cowger that CORD'S eviction is poli tically motivated However, in CALC’S case Barber says he believes the original decision was made based on space problems "It was a priority use of space," he says Neither group knows yet where it will relocate "We d like to stay on this side of town," Barber says "We've been here seven years now, and have developed ties to the faculty and students we'd like to maintain.” Cowger says CORD is plan ning a fund raising dinner for July 14 The benefit will be held at the Keystone Cafe, 395 W 5th Avenue and begins at 5:30 p m We re also asking anyone who knows of space for low rent or no rent that is prefera bly centrally located to let us know " Photo by Bill Wack Christina Covvger, member of CORD, hauls boxes out of the Koinonia Center after being evicted from her office. Cop lab finds LSD in body Traces of LSD have been found in the stomach of a man who was killed by an off-duty state trooper in Cottage Grove last week when the man threa tened to hit a small boy with a hammer. A medical examination by state police lab technicians Tuesday confirmed that small pieces of paper found in Todd Schiesz’s stomach contained LSD, according to Lieutenant Chuck Vaughn of the Eugene criminal investigation lab LSD that "leeched out" of the papers also was detected in stomach juices, but it is impos sible to tell if the LSD was in the man’s bloodstream or affected his actions, Vaughn said. "All you can do is assume it had time to get into his system,” he said The papers in the stomach match LSD-saturated papers found in a small container Schiesz reportedly threw during his erratic behavior Friday after he attended the Oregon Jam concert in Autzen Stadium According to Cottage Grove police, Schiesz rammed an other car on Interstate 5, then jumped out of his car and ran into a residential neighborhood in Cottage Grove. He then ran into four houses, demanding guns and explosives. The last house he ran into belongs to trooper Ronald Nelson. After Nelson chased him with a gun, Schiesz scooped up a 2Vi-year-old boy, apparently as a hostage. Nelson identified himself as a policeman and fired a warning shot after Schiesz threatened to hit the boy with a hammer. Schiesz then raised the claw end of the hammer, and Nelson fired, killing him in J stantly If Johnny can’t write, at least he’s trying By ANN PORTAL Of Dm EmaraM Editor's note This is the first of a three-part series examining a renewed emphasis on student writing abilities Can Johnny write yet? No, the statistics say As well as before, some scholars say Five years ago, the identifica tion of an American literary cri sis caused many schools to re examine their curriculums Overloaded with ‘ relevant” courses — such as citizenship, home economics and health — schools abandoned the value judgement approach and began to sift through the educational debris to salvage the basics "A large group of students were not learning anything but how to get in touch with them selves," says University English prof Kathleen Dubs, director of composition Today, educators acknow ledge that schools still are producing functionally illiterate students — the statistics spell it out: • Performance on the verbal section of the SAT has declined alarmingly • A recent National Assess ment of Educational Progress study indicates that the writing abililities of pre-college students have improved little since 1970 • Albert Joseph, president of the International Writing Insti tute in Cleveland, estimates that at least two-thirds of the peo ple who pass through the educational pipeline come out unable to write a simple letter or report " However, some professors say the problem may be due more to increased expectations than decreased skills University English prof John Gage says that he feels writing has not gotten any worse "Freshmen writing has al ways been awful," but now tests can objectively measure that awfulness, he says The real literacy test today is not how well Johnny compares to his forefathers, but whether he is learning the skills neces sary to survive in a world of increasing technology Students may feel that the widespread use of telephones, televisions, radios, computers and video display terminals is smothering the need for writing abilities, but an electronic society will demand even greater writing fluency and proficiency, according to com munications experts Edward Corbett of Ohio State University said in a May article that students should consider the written word a means of access, a tool and — when needed — a weapon “Business, industry, educa tion and the professions are consuming more paper and us ing more writing every year," he said “As an information storage system, language is cheap, sta ble, readily available and indis pensable.” The cry for better writing skills has not gone unnoticed by the American educational system Writing, once considered the bastard child of university Eng lish departments, has become the legitimate study of rhetoric and communication The combining of educational theory, psychology and linguistics has produced an ex plosion of different techniques for teaching writing — and the University English department is feeling the shock waves. Gage says that "all these new solutions to old problems haven’t accomplished very much." Competing theories and approaches have destroyed the homogeneity once character ized by primers and composi tions. But the new practices are revitalizing English depart ments, stirring up the muddy waters of grammar and usage, and pumping energy and op timism into the struggle to teach Johnny to write "No assumptions are sacred anymore,” Gage says
