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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 31, 2001)
Dievendorf continued from page 1 Dievendorf was a “gross injustice” that only shows the administra tion’s desire to exert more power over students’ money. “Leaving students out of the process is a sign of the continuing policy of the administration to usurp student control of our own fee,” she said. “Students will not tolerate the administration over stepping its authority and silencing student voices.” Lobisser, director of student ac tivities and one of Dievendorf s su pervisors, said he could not com ment because the issue involves personnel matters. Miller could not be reached for comment. Although Dievendorf said the ad ministration did not give her a rea son for her termination, she said she believes the decision was made be cause she had clashed with her su pervisors throughout the year about her management of the forum. She said she suspects her supervisors want to change the direction of the program. “They said they wanted me to change my leadership style and tell students what to do,” she said. “That’s not the way we work. ... Students help drive the direction, and I think this is problematic for my supervisors.” Cultural Forum Regional Music Coordinator Steven Sawada said Dievendorf has played an integral role in the program, which organ ized several events this year, includ-, ing the Willamette Valley Folk Fes tival and Spike Lee’s visit to McArthur Court. Sawada said such events “may soon be gone” if Dievendorf leaves. “She is the glue that holds us to gether,” he said. “This puts every thing we do in jeopardy.” He added that the administra tion, which does not always attend forum meetings or events, does not understand how much the pro gram depends on Dievendorf s job. He said because of her experience, Dievendorf has been able to pro vide students with the guidance and knowledge they need to plan events and foresee problems. “When you have a bureaucratic system, you have people sitting on the top who have no idea what goes on in the program,” he said. “I wish the administration would observe more of what we do and the way we do things ... To lose a director is a real tragedy. If this happened at the beginning of the year, I would have quit.” Cultural Forum members also spoke about how Dievendorf gives students the chance to discuss events and vote on them as a group. Sawada said he feels “cheated” and “betrayed” by the administration’s decision to fire her against the con sent of all program members. “Linda has always responded to students’ interests,” he said. “I don’t think there could be a better person for the position. ... I respect her more than I do anyone else on this campus.” Debby Martin is the program coor dinator for the Student Activities Re source Office and was co-director of the Cultural Forum with Dievendorf for 15 years. She said she hasn’t spo ken with Miller or Lobisser about their decision, but she is concerned about it. She said that like Dieven dorf, she also follows the philosophy of “working with students,” and added that she’s worried about the fu ture of the Cultural Forum. “We’re a team,” she said. “One of my concerns is that perhaps she was terminated because she’s an advo cate for students ... I’m concerned about the Cultural Forum and stu dent control of student programs.” Dievendorf said the Cultural Fo rum works hard to provide educa tional programs for both the campus and the community, and she wants to make sure the administration does not take that value away from the organization. “It’s been a real honor for me to work with students,” she said. “I’d miss that a great deal. ” But, she said, “the most important thing for me is to maintain the integrity of the Cul tural Forum—with or without me. ” Former ASUO President Jay Breslow encouraged campus and community members to share their concerns about Dievendorf’s termination with administration members by writing e-mail mes sages, sending letters and making phone calls. “This is not something the ad ministration can do without us pay ing attention.” he said. “Let’s make sure they know we are not going to sit by and let this go. ” Recycling continued from page 1 val may not be become a completely “zero-waste” event, the new idea is a feasible way of making it a “re duced-waste event.” “This is a one-time investment that will last for years to come,” he said. Borgida, a junior planning, pub lic policy and management major, said that next year the primary chal lenge volunteers and student recy cling staff will face will be washing plates and getting them back in the food booths. At a May 23 ASUO Student Sen ate meeting, senators granted Cam pus Recycling $8,075 from the over realized fund, which contains extra student incidental fee funds gener ated from higher-than-expected stu dent enrollment in previous years. The funds are to help the group pur chase 5,000 plates and 3,000 sets of silverware. “People just enjoy eating off real forks and plates,” Borgida said. “It‘s like eating in the comfort of your home at a festival.” But the transaction will not be fi nal until the University president and ASUO president approve the idea. “Some people are worried that the plates will get stolen, but I don’t think people will want to take off with them,” Borgida said. Members of Campus Recycling are also considering the option of re quiring people who want to eat at the festival to pay a $2 deposit to re ceive a plate, utensils and cup. The deposit would be returned after they took their dishes back to a re covery station. Chism said Campus Recycling es timated that about 20,000 meals are served at the Folk Festival each year, depending on the weather. Borgida added that as this idea evolves, it will ideally create more opportunities to use the plates at other campus events. Kaplan said it will take time for people to get accustomed to the new system. But similar pilot proj ects implemented at football games, food booths and the No vember 1999 Sustainable Business Symposium have shown members of Campus Recycling that waste re ducing opportunities are possible. And, Kaplan said, the main goal of Campus Recycling is to cut down on waste. “If everybody at the U of O reused a cup everyday, we would save 20,000 cups a day, 140,000 cups a week and 7.2 million cups in a year, just from that one little tiny action of reuse,” Kaplan said. Borgida said he hopes this con cept will be implemented at other events in the community, and that citizens will start to bring their own dishware to events such as the Sat urday Market. Alex Cuyler, a recycling analyst with the city of Eugene’s Solid Waste and Recycling Program, said the University will be leading the way in environmental conservation by bringing this program to campus. He said that for the last several years, there’s been a large amount of waste coming from street faires and festivals, and this program will al low for more of an emphasis to be placed on collecting organic waste. please re cycle this paper! The City of Eugene is working to clarify permit requirements for compost facilities, which are regu lated by the Department of Environ mental Quality. The city is also working to find more waste collec tors for festivals and faires, because there are not many people available to do the job now. “There just is not a whole lot of demand for it,” Cuyler said. Cuyler said the liquid coming out of the landfill in Lane County comes primarily from food discards and items from festivals create a methane gas that is hazardous to the environment. “Food in landfills contributes a lot to management costs of land fills,” Cuyler said. By eliminating the net discard, he said the program at the University will extend the life and reduce the cost of landfills. “It will be really interesting to gauge how the festival goers re spond to it,” he said. Courtesy Photo At this year’s Willamette Valley Folk Festival, volunteers set up waste stations like this one to encourage recycling. Next year, the group will take their efforts a step further as patrons’ food will be served on reusable plastic plates instead of disposable paper. 2001 UO Summer Session Basses Begin > lime 25. BookYour Summer in Oregon Pick up your free summer catalog today in the Summer Session office, 333 Oregon Hall, or at the UO Bookstore. You can speed your way toward graduation by taking required courses during summer. University of Oregon Summer Session http://uosummer.uoregon.edii/
