Photo by Michael Clapp
The new Public Safety Communications Center is under construc
tion at the Eugene Police Department and will help coordinate
emergency service vehicles.
New emergency number
speeds emergency aid
By Michele Matassa
Of the Emerald
People calling for multiple emergency ser
vices in the Eugene-Springfield area go through
a time-consuming process.
They have to place the original call, then
wait until the operator repeats their call to any
emergency services before help can arrive.
But a newly consolidated communications
center, scheduled to open in July, will eliminate
that wasteful repetition by coordinating fire,
police and ambulance services at the same loca
tion, says Clay Durbin, director of the new
center.
"With the present system, you're doubling
the calls and the conversation," Durbin says.
"With everything being dispatched from the
same center, you cut that down."
Construction of the new Public Safety Com
munications Center should be completed next
week, and when computerized radio and
telephone equipment is delivered in late June,
the center can begin saving time for 86 percent
of the county's population, Durbin says.
The dispatch center, located at the Eugene
Police Department, will serve the Eugene and
Springfield police and fire departments, along
with 19 rural fire stations, and should field
about 300,000 calls per year, he says.
The $500,000 project, which the city has
been working on for a couple of years, is a giant
step toward modernization and improved public
service, Durbin says.
especially since a woman niea in uanas,
Texas, after an ambulance dispatcher question
ed the caller's need for help, quality service has
become an important goal, he says.
"The public is becoming very aware of how
calls for emergency services are handled," he
says.
As another way to improve the handling of
those calls, the city will add a 911 service —
which already operates in about 50 percent of
the United States — in january 1985, Durbin
says.
With that addition, callers will only have to
dial 9-1-1 to reach a central dispatcher who
operates all emergency services, he says. And
since most callers are nervous and frightened,
the simplification will pay off, Durbin says.
"When people call the police or fire,
generally speaking they are very upset," he says.
"They don't have time to think rationally."
Dialing 9-1-1 will be an easy, automatic
reflex and will eliminate the caller's present
burden of deciding which service to call and
which number to dial, Durbin says.
That public benefit is why the state of
Oregon has mandated 911 service and is requir
ing its public safety departments to implement it
by 1991, he says.
And that public benefit is why the city of
Eugene will implement it in early 1985.
"Nine-one-one isn't designed for public safe
ty departments," Durbin says. "Nine-one-one is
designed so the public can access emergency
services."
Grade inflation shrinking under scrutiny
By Michael Hosmar
Of the Emerald
Grade inflation is disappearing, according to some
University administrators and faculty members.
"There's a new attitude of seriousness about
grades — professors are more firmly in charge,"
University Pres. Paul Olum says.
Grade inflation — higher grades for work which
would have earned low marks several years ago —
was partially caused by individual departments and
teachers competing for students, Olum says. If a par
ticular department padded grades, it attracted more
students, which in turn made increased funding for
this department easier to obtain, he says.
'You could call it a re-valuing of
academic performance'
— Shirley Wilson
Because underfunded departments were scrutiniz
ed more closely than their larger, better funded
counterparts, teachers in stronger departments could
"have a more permissive attitude toward students,"
he says.
Grading on a curve has also contributed to grade
inflation, and he discourages its use, Olum says. If
one professor presents the same subject to two dif
ferent groups of students, he says, grade curves may
not present an accurate picture of each student's
ability.
"What if one class is smarter? What if one class is
skewed from the norm?" Olum says.
It's unfair to give a student in one of those classes
an 'A', when he would get a 'B' in the other class, he
says.
But Olum says he believes professors have notic
ed these inconsistencies and are improving the
credibility of their grading practices.
Gerard Moseley, associate provost of student af
fairs, also says grade inflation is slowly disappearing.
"My experience is that there is grade inflation that
happened over a period of time," he says, "and I
think that it has been abated by the recognition, na
tionally, that it was occuring."
Before he came to the University, Moseley con
ducted a detailed study on grade inflation at the
University of Texas — one example of a school trying
to stamp out grade inflation, he says.
The results of the study — including evidence that
one professor was grading substantially easier than
the other — were circulated to the dean and pro
fessors in the communications school, he says.
"The faculty began to question whether their
grading practice was okay or not," Moseley says. "The
dean was particularly perturbed because it appeared
that the grades being assigned were too easy."
"Attitude shift" from negative reinforcement to
positive reinforcement may have also contributed to
grade inflation, says Shirley Wilson, University dean
of students.
Research results show students produce better
work when professors reward them for ac
complishments rather than punish them for shortcom
ings, Wilson says.
But some professors argue that giving students
higher grades hasn't damaged the credibility of the
grading system because students are producing better
work, she says.
"You could call it a re-valuing of academic perfor
mance," she says. "Students do the same work, but
we just evaluate it differently.
In the past, professors and administrators wanted
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File Kraphit
to send more students through school each year to
better prepare them for the specializing job market,
says journalism Prof, jack Ewan. To do this, they grad
ed easier, he says.
"Teachers have a higher tolerance for mediocre
work today than in the past," Ewan says. "There's a
point, however, where the importance of respectable
grading standards will become more important than
the number of students making it through school."
"Someday, the market will be flooded with
mediocrely-educated people and we'll have to up
grade standards," Ewan adds.
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