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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 2001)
Wednesday Looking forward The Oregon men's basketball team hopes to salvage its season with a strong second half. PAGE 5 Planning pay The big topic at the Crisis Center's Programs Finance Committee hearing was pay for counselors. PAGE 3 Weather today high 55, low 40 www.dailyemerald.com An independent newspaper January 31,2001 Volume 102, Issue 84 Counting OSPlRG’s rings 1971: OSPIRG is founded on campus ' ill! 1997-1998: Students vote to de-fund OSPIRG, but the group remains on campus with national PfRG funds OSPIRG 1998-1999: Students vote to restore OSPIRG’s fee funding at $128,000 each year for two years 2000: The Student Senate approves the second year of OSPIRG’s budget to comply with state regulations 2001: OSPIRG will return to the ballot for next year’s campus funding and refocuses on environmental campaigns Russell Weller Emerald OSPIRG goes back to ASUO ballot The group will once again ask students for incidental fee funding in the ASUO general election By Lisa Toth Oregon Daily Emerald The deadline to file measures for the ASUO ballot is today, and OSPIRG is certain to make an appearance. For the first time in two years, students will decide if the Oregon student chapter of the national Public Interest Re search Group will receive stu dent fee funding and remain on campus for another year. OS PIRG is working to inform stu dents at information tables and by distributing handouts on campus about how it spends its money.OSPIRG wants to make sure students are informed so the group will receive its mon ey and avoid the funding con troversies that have haunted it in previous years. This year, OSPIRG will ask for $149,904 — or $2.88 per student per term — in the ASUO general election, set for March 5 to March 8. Students granted OSPIRG two years of incidental fee funding two years ago. But last year, the group discovered that revisions to Oregon’s Clark Document re strict ballot measures to only one year of funding. “Any group receiving inci dental fees cannot get multi year funding through a ballot measure,” ASUO Accounting Coordinator Jennifer Creighton said. To solve the problem, the ASUO Student Senate ap proved OSPIRG’s 2000-01 budget last year for $128,000. Creighton said OSPIRG gets Turn to OSPIRG, page 4 High schools’ lesson plans scrutinized ■ University administrators and faculty participated in a conference to discuss areas in which high-school students need-better preparation for college By Mandy Toomey Oregon Daily Emerald Freshmen entering universities across the country are having a difficult time grasping basic higher education concepts, a group of University faculty members meeting Monday and Tuesday on campus said. The faculty gathered for the National Conversations confer ence to address the fact that 40 percent of all college students are having to take some remedial classes in preparation for standard college courses. Faculty and administrators broke into focus groups during the conference, with subjects including math, science, social science, English and foreign lan guages, to discuss areas where students need the most improvement and to cri tique samples of exemplary student work submitted by faculty members. In the English discussion group, partic ipants raised their concerns that many in coming students are lacking general back ground knowledge, which is necessary to understand the context of subject materi al, said Andrea Conklin Bueschel, facili tator for the English discussion group.A lot of first-year students don’t have the clear cultural or historical background knowledge needed to understand texts, Conklin Bueschel said. This conference served as a pilot for five others, which will be held February through May across the nation as part of the national Standards for Success proj ect, sponsored through the Association of American Universities. The AAU univer sities are divided into regions, with con ferences being held at the University of Oregon and the University of California, Berkeley on the West Coast; the University of Iowa and the University of Missouri in the Midwest; and at Rutgers and the Mass From these conferences, we get a much better idea of what the faculty want from students. David Conley director, Center of Applied Policy Studies yy Senate confirms nominations of Whitman, Norton By John Heiiprin The Associated Press WASHINGTON — New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman and former Colorado Attorney General Gale Nor ton won Senate approval Tuesday to direct the nation's environmental and natural resources policies. The Senate voted unanimously 99-0 to confirm Whitman as admin istrator of the Environmental Pro tection Agency after voting 75-24 minutes earlier, along partisan and geographical lines, to accept Presi dent Bush’s choice of Norton to be secretary of the interior. Most of those opposing Norton, 46, were Senate Democrats from Eastern states. Her most vocal support came from Senate Republicans in Western states with a large percentage of fed eral-owned lands. Sen. Byron Dor gan, D-N.D., who backed both women, missed the votes due to weather-related travel problems. The votes left all of Bush's Cabi net seats but one — that of attorney general — filled just 10 days after bis inauguration. Whitman, 54, a two-term Repub lican governor popular with law makers, will resign her post one year shy of completing her second and final term. “It’s an honor,” Whitman said of her new job at EPA. “There are hard decisions to be made with this agency, and you can't make every body happy.” Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chair man of the Senate Energy and Nat ural Resources Committee's panel on forests and public lands, said the Bush administration is going to make important policy shifts on the environment. “What you're going to see this ad ministration say is that environ mental policy will become a rule of law again and a rule of process and procedure with credibility,” Craig said in an interview. At her confirmation hearing, Whitman promised “a strong feder al role” on environmental protec tion but said she will review several regulations issued in the last month of the Clinton presidency, including expensive new diesel standards. Norton, a past advocate of state’s and property rights, encountered more opposition in becoming the gov ernment’s chief steward for half a bil lion acres of federal land and natural resources as secretary of the interior. Republicans said they were confi dent Norton could balance preserv ing and developing those resources. “She grew up in Colorado; she un derstands what wilderness means," said Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H. Democrats said they only hope that Norton, a protege of Reagan-era Interior Secretary James Watt, does n’t live up to their worst fears. “I hope she listens to this and proves me wrong,” said Sen. Bar bara Boxer, D-Calif., who voted against the nomination. “She’s out of the mainstream of thought. ” Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R Colo., disagreed. “I’ve listened to some of the detractors on the Senate floor,” he said, “and I have to tell you that is not the Gale Norton I know. ’ ’
