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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1997)
CONTACTING US NEWSROOM: ADDRESS: (541)346-5511 Oregon Daily Emerald E-MAIL: P.O.BOX 3159 ode@oregon uoregon.edu Eugene, Oregon 97403 ONLINE EDITION: www.uoregon.edu/-ode EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Sarah Kickler EDITORIAL EDITOR Mike Schmierbach NIGHT EDITOR Shannon Sneed University needs to push fora diverse community AN EMERALD EDITORIAL Too few minorities are employed on the faculty at the University, as a recent report shows If you are reading this in class, take a moment to look at the people sitting around you. Odds are, many of the faces you see are white. Now, look at the person standing in the front of the room. According to a report by the Oregon State System of Higher Ed ucation, there is little more than a 10 percent chance your instructor is a minority. Overall, the report indicates the University and the state system as a whole rank roughly equal to oth er comparable institutions in mi nority hiring. In itself, this is not as inspiring as it might seem. The fact is that higher education facili ties throughout the country have a disproportionately small number of minorities on staff. Ideally, the minority popula tion at a University would be roughly proportional to the over all numbers of particular minori ties in society. This doesn’t mean the University should carefully count the number of different eth nic groups hired, adding one here and subtracting one there just to get the proper mix. It does mean the University should be aware of the discrepancy and should attempt to hire quali fied minorities when possible. In particular, the University and the state have done an abysmal job of hiring and retaining African Americans. The report indicates the University’s staff is only 1.4 percent African-American, far be low the national level of roughly 9 percent and even lower than the actual percentage of African Americans in the population. The University is certainly not oblivious to the problem. Efforts to recruit minorities are under way, and some departments are even eligible for incentives if they strengthen their recruiting efforts and succeed at their goal. Nevertheless, at some level these numbers indicate a failure on the part of the University and the state. They are not without ex planation, however. The biggest problem is the same one that plagues every aspect of Uni versity operations—lack of money. Without more funding from the state, the University can’t afford to pay any of its faculty adequately. This is particularly harmful for minority recruitment. Because they are poorly represented, mi norities are heavily recruited by all schools, including those which have large amounts of money to offer their faculty. There is another problem, though. Many minorities look at the current lack of diversity in the state and in the schools and feel uncomfortable with Oregon. The University’s lack of minori ties is matched by the lack of mi norities in the community. The message of diversity being sent by the school is not being reflected in Eugene or in the faculty. This is the fundamental problem with our minority hiring. A diverse faculty is important for minority students, who often feel uncomfortable when sur rounded by almost exclusively white faces. Diversity is also im portant for white students, who need to be exposed to a range of cultural experiences. While the University has tried to provide diversity for both these reasons, its reach has been limit ed. Not only is the faculty insuffi ciently diverse, but the communi ty is excessively white as well. Students need to bring the lessons of diversity into the community where they live, eat and work. Until the message of diversity at the school reaches beyond a mul ticultural requirement and a smat tering of groups associated with the Multicultural Center, the Uni versity will continue to have a dif ficult time recruiting minority fac ulty members. This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial board. Re sponses may be sent to ode@ore gon.uoregon.edu Drawing Board Worn comfv RAtxf' /VtoBE COMpUkiHOHm AUDITORS/ OLD QVE MJ All YOUR MOWVNOW. I _ NEW GIV**£ AIL YOUR /VONCY TOMOWOW. Utt (OHPuCWO Pfip&WQRKf [adowr JINP AU VDIIB money TO; INTERNW- WVtHUt SWVICF 585&na**i*°* Than"! #* appnenUt^buw»i^ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Homosexuality more than sex While I thoroughly agree with your support of Portland’s policies regarding all agencies’ treatment of queers, you showed an irresponsi bility in referring to queer rights as an issue of “who one sleeps with.” Queer theory has advanced far beyond the issue of mere inter course; likewise, few queers would announce their sexual orientation has to do with nothing else besides sex. Being queer involves a host of perceptions, experiences and thoughts that extend far beyond one’s sexual behavior. Kyla Schuller Comparative literature New policy framework Your editorial (ODE, Oct. 16), which disagreed with President Frohnmayer’s proposal to change the way campuses are funded, was a sad defense of the status quo when new policies are needed if Oregon’s colleges and universities are to meet society’s new needs. Higher education is more impor tant to standards of living and qual ity of life in the Information Age than ever before, but campuses are receiving less state taxpayer sub sidy. Following our old policies, as you suggested, will only cause our colleges and universities to slowly circle the drain. Your editorial said that if Presi dent Frohnmayer’s proposal was adopted, “the University of Oregon would be forced to compete with other schools. ” We already do. And the level of competition is increas ing as state funding declines. We need to think of the funding from the state Legislature as a sub sidy because the price of the service we provide to students is lower than it costs us to deliver it. We are only able to provide a college edu cation at a loss because the state Legislature provides a subsidy and because we have received private donations. As the state taxpayer subsidy has declined, the Univer sity has become more tuition-dri ven and market sensitive. We might wish that things were different and some still hope that state support will increase substan tially to historic levels. But that did n’t happen last year. In spite of a very strong economy, higher educa tion’s share of the state’s general fund declined again. And don’t ex pect relief in the future because Measure 11 requires new prison construction and because health care costs rise as people live longer. One of your justifications for maintaining the status quo was that “the University receives state mon ey, and it was created to serve the needs of the Oregon community.” Let’s put that statement in perspec tive. When the Oregon State Sys tem of Higher Education was creat ed in 1929, two-thirds of the total budget came from the taxpayers and tuition was about $100. Today, the state taxpayer subsidy compris es only 15 percent of the Universi ty’s total revenues. It is time to let go of the old notion that the Univer sity is state supported with a little bit of tuition revenue and accept the fact that the University is now tuition-driven with some subsidy. In this context it is not a matter of trying to avoid competition with other schools but rather which policies will allow campuses to compete effectively in a less subsi dized and more market sensitive survey. Reasonable people might differ about the merits of a centralized board of higher education versus a more market-driven approach. But, I think we would all agree that the central system and the revenue sharing approach advocated in your editorial works better in a highly subsidized context. The University's high subsidy days are far behind it. As President Frohnmayer’s pro posal and the recommendations from the Governor’s Task Force are discussed in the months ahead, those with vested interests in the status quo will argue that we will lose some things by changing the system. They will be right. It would be silly to think that there were no good qualities to the old system or that the people who have dedicated their professional lives to making it work have some how failed. Rather, it is simply that the world has changed and there is no going back. If Oregonians want higher standards of living and qual ity of life in the Information Age, then we must have strong univer sities and colleges, which will only happen after we let go of some out dated beliefs and create a new poli cy framework for less subsidized and more market sensitive condi tions. Gerald Kissler Associate protessor New data on death The Emerald’s opposition to Measure 51 (ODE, Oct. 13 and 14), which would repeal our assisted suicide law, did not surprise me. It was the lack of candor on behalf of the editorial board which surprised me, and several points deserve to be set straight with our student body. According to a well documented study in the Netherlands, the as sisted suicide, hemlock-style elixir fails one out of every four times it is used. The Oregonian cited this study in its support of Measure 51. This failure ratio is neither difficult to explain nor understand; when the human body ingests poison, it attempts to expel it through vomit ing or a myriad of different tech niques, as our first instinct is sur vival (see Darwin). The fundamental problem with Ore gon’s current assisted suicide law is that, because we do not allow eu thanasia (the killing of a patient by the doctor, which is widely prac ticed in the Netherlands — in fact, 7 percent of all deaths in the Netherlands are now assisted), the doctor cannot take it upon himself to end the suffering, poisoned pa tient’s life if the attempt fails. I ask you, members of the editorial board, what should be done with the one in four patients who sur vive the “dose of death” when they suffer from excessive vomiting and pain? Surely you don’t support eu thanasia; your article frowned on it. Measure 51 is not a debate on the virtue of assisted suicide. Measure 16 decided that for us, but when news of the Holland study came out, our Legislature sent the bill back to the people, knowing that these newly divulged facts might possibly change our minds. The Emerald editorial board must therefore believe that the Oregon Legislature should have performed a quick fix on a poorly written bill — specifically by legalizing eu thanasia. In fact, the Legislature, bowing to the moral genius of the people, believed legalization of eu thanasia to be a decision too grave for its power and gave the voters a second chance to decide for our selves, in light ofthese new facts. Use that second chance wisely and vote yes on Measure 51. Jonathan Collegio Economics and political science
