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. ’ ’