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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 1987)
Women’s hoop team wins over Portland See Page 5 Oregon Daily Emerald Tuesday, January 20, 1987 Eugene. Oregon Volume 88, Number 83 Task Force explores University child care strengths and needs By Sarah Kitchen Of lh» Kmerald The ASUO Child Care Task Force held its first public meeting on Monday, upholding ASUO Executive's promise of making child care a high stu dent government priority. The purpose of Monday night’s meeting was not only to begin fufilling an Incidental Fee Committee budget note require ment on money allocated to subsidize child care costs, but to explore the need for child care at the University in order to make improvements in the system. The task force plans to pre sent its findings to the Oregon Student Lobby. "The average age of the stu dent being 27 on this campus, we know how important child care is to the parents and how important it is to retention of students on the campus, so we are going to try to do all we can to strengthen child care.” said Steve Nelson. ASUO president. "The purpose of us bringing the task force together is to try and go through, and then make an evaluation of the child care facilities we do have that we spend incidental fees on in the hopes of making improvements and expansions," he said. In the report, the task force will describe and evaluate the existing University child care facilities, as well as identify strengths and weaknesses and recommend solutions. The IFC requires the report in order to release $30,000 in child care subsidies for low income student/parent. The money is being held by a budget note. The report is due to the IFC by Ian. 31, 1987. "The parents can use the money not only at University day-care centers, but at any other centers in the area," said Susan Sowards. ASLJO Ex ecutive coordinator. The IF(' had questions about child care that were not answered last year so it put a budget note on the subsidies and requested the ASIJO to form a task force and answer those questions, said James Randall, 1FC member. "The fee committee can real ly only force issues by putting a budget note saying something shall happen before a certain date" or funding will be frozen, Randall said. The OSL is drafting a child care bill, which will be written between the end of January and Feb. 15, Nelson said. "We will take the data that we will have and turn it over to the Oregon Student Lobby, and this will be a part of what is go ing to be in the bill,” Nelson said. One weakness with Universi ty child care is there hasn't been a unified voice advocating the needs of parents or children, said James Munyen, committee chairman for Westmoreland te nant's day care council. Parents need to be seen as a cohesive group, although it is difficult to find the time to organize, he said. "There has been a big reluc tance by the University ad ministration to acknowledge this whole demographic group we are talking about, and the result is so little is known of Turn to Care, Page 4 Photo bv lohn (ountinn Upon receiving one of 200 1987 Presidential Young Investigator awards, assistant chemistry Professor Diane Hawley “went out and bought some more equipment,” she said. Professor earns award for biochemical research By Stan Nelson Of the hmerald Assistant chemistry Professor Diane Hawley's laboratory and office are hardly distinguishable from the many others that oc cupy Science I. Yet the biochemical research produced and continued in the Diane Hawley lab has been nationally recognized. I lie National Science Foundation recognized Hawley's work by awarding her a 1087 Presidential Young Investigator Award, one of only 200 awarded in the nation to outstanding young scientists and engineers in the nation. The NSF established the awards three years ago to recognize outstanding young scientists within five years of receiving their doctoral degrees and to help them establish their academic research. Downplaying the recognition of the award. Hawley said she was pleased her research received recognition but was quick to acknowledge her fellow colleague's t Jniversity research. “I was relieved because yyhuu one is star ting to do laboratory work and set up. the pro blem is a lay time between the time you start and the funding starts. I've written some grants but I am still waiting to hear whether they will be funded,” she said. The NSF will provide Hawley with a base Turn to Professor, Page 3 Clients Council educates poor on rights By Carolyn Lamberson Of the Emerald The Clients Council is an organization designed to inform the poor people of Lane County of their rights concerning welfare, food stamp and other federal assistance policies, said Suzan Stern, the group’s coordinator. Clients Council was establish ed in 1975 as a division of the county Legal Aid program, Stern explained. There are 10 active volunteers on staff who do everything from answering phones to doing lay-out on the Clients Council News, she said. The Clients Council News is a 16-page newspaper distributed throughout the state. It features articles on low-income bills be ing discussed in the Legislature, schedules of health clinics, updates on welfare policy and other items of in terest to low-income people, she said. One of the main jobs of Clients Council is to take phone calls from people having a hard time understanding the welfare and food stamp systems. Stern said. “We keep the welfare manuals here in the office. Each phone advocate, the volunteers who answer questions, are pro vided with what we call the ad vocacy manual,” she said. “This manual is essentially the welfare manual in brief. “People who feel they are get ting the run-around from the welfare office, or if some policy is unclear, or if they can’t get ahold of their own social worker, can call us, and hopefully one of the phone ad vocates can help,” Stern said. Jennifer Edwards has been an phone advocate for the Clients Council for almost a year. She is on welfare, and said she enjoys being able to help people who are having the same problems she has had in the past. “It’s amazing how many case workers are not available when the welfare clients call but are in when I call,” she said. "We try to teach people who are ask ing for help not to be in timidated by the welfare system.” (’alls for help also come from people who are having landlord/tenant problems, need money to pay either rent or utilities, are stranded and need bus fare out of town, need a place to stay, are out of food, or are going to work and don’t have the proper clothes, she said. '‘Generally, we try to help solve any problem that exists because of a lack of money,” Stern said. Aside from answering about 300 phone calls per month and putting out the newspaper, the Clients Council also has several ongoing projects, Stern said. “We operate a welfare hotline for people on government assistance, and we hope to start an outreach and community education program on the feminization of poverty,” she said. “A majority of the poor are women. And they’re not teenagers or weirdo-hippies having children all over the place either. A lot of the poor women were once married middle-class people." Stern said. “And then for some reason, they became divorced and were trying to support themselves and their children on an unrealistic amount of money. "There are a lot of pool women in this area. With oui feminization program, we'rt trying to get other groups tc help us spread the word about this problem and help out." sh» said. Clients Council also is activi in lobbying on behalf of the im p o v e r i s h e d in the s t a t • Legislature. Stern said. "During the last legislativi session, we were part of a coali tion that helped to push twi bills on welfare through." shi said. "We believe we are in strumental in keeping welfart and federal assistance policy humane," she said. "Our main purpose is to help improve policy that affects th< poor.” Stern said. Turn to Council, Page 3
