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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 26, 2001)
The Track Town Thriller America’s best runners squared off in the 1,500, and a no-name won. Page 9 Refund request? The state may ask the University to return Jeffrey Grayson’s donation. Page3 Tuesday, June 26,2001 Since 1 900 University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon Volume 103, Issue 1 Putting the USA inliack Town By Peter Hockaday Oregon Daily Emerald Four days was all it took for America’s greatest track and field meet to unfold. Four days was what it took for Maurice Green to shake up the track world, for Mar ion Jones to beat the pants off her competi tion, for Marla Runyan to notch one more amazing feather in an already-full cap. Four days. Eugene fans were treated to some of the finest competition American track has to offer over the four-day US A Cham pionships last week. Athletes in each event competed for the coveted top-three position that would ensure a spot on the American team for the World Championships. While the rain marred Sunday’s com petition slightly, the runners, jumpers and throwers managed to enjoy Track Town’s offerings. “It’s such an honor to compete here,” Runyan said. “It always means so much. ” Each day had its own stories. Thursday was the day Green ran the fastest American 100 this year at 9.9 seconds. Friday was the day Bob Kennedy found redemption for last year’s Olympic failure. Saturday was the day Regina Jacobs started a feat ac complished only once before in history, when she won the 800 and 1,500 titles at the same national championship meet. Sunday was Marion Jones’ day to shine, as she handily won the 200. It was also Runyan’s day, as she held off Jacobs and won her first-ever 5,000. Four days. A hundred stories. Only in track and field. baiiaga»i8mi^8&&&_ _I Marion Jones, ‘The World’s Fastest Woman,’ R. Ashley Smith Emerald took the national 200-meter crown at last weekend’s U.S.A. Championships. Student’s petition reignites sign language debate ■ Citing an Oregon law, Jim Evangelista will petition the University to allow him to fulfill the foreign language requirement with American Sign Language By Kara Cogswell Oregon Daily Emerald Returning student Jim Evangelista knows the University expects him to complete two years of a foreign language to graduate with a bachelor of arts degree. But he doesn't want to learn Spanish, or French, or even Japanese. In fact, Evangelista said he doesn't think he should be required to learn how to speak another language at all. That's because the only language Evange lista wants to learn requires no words — only hands. This week, Evangelista will submit a writ ten petition to the University Academic Re quirements Committee to allow him to use American Sign Language (ASL) to fulfill the University’s foreign language requirement. Evangelista, who plans on working with deaf children after he graduates, said he be lieves the present foreign language require ments indicate a lack of appreciation for deaf children’s needs. “We are so conscious in this community for the needs of those who are handicapped or otherwise disabled,” he said. “So why is it that this institution is not acknowledging American Sign Language as a language?” Evangelista is not the first to ask that ques tion, academic requirements committee member Hilary Gerdes said. Nationally, she said, requirements com mittees have discussed the issue for years. And many prestigious schools — including Brown, Yale and Purdue — now allow stu dents to use ASL credit to fulfill the foreign language requirement. But at the University, few students have petitioned the committee to use ASL credit to meet the graduation requirements, she said, adding that those who have are usual ly deaf students. Evangelista is unique in another way, Gerdes said. As a basis for his petition, Evan gelista is relying on an Oregon state law passed in 1995 that states ASL classes offered at state universities “shall satisfy any second language elective requirement.” Although the debate is not new, this law has never been considered in those discus sions, Gerdes said. ASL program coordinators at Western Oregon University, for example, used that law to establish ASL as a recognized lan guage there, she said. Gerdes said she believes the law is open to interpretation, but she does support ac cepting ASL for the language requirement. And she is hopeful that Evangelista’s peti tion will spark further discussion of the is sue by the University Senate. The academic requirements committee can rule on individual cases, but this is an issue Gerdes said that needs to be decided for the entire student body by the University under graduate council. The council has discussed this issue be fore. In 1994 the council passed a motion to continue barring ASL from meeting foreign language requirements, Gerdes said the council also quickly dismissed a motion for ASL to meet the foreign language require ments in 1997. But next year, the council may discuss the issue again, according to undergraduate council chairman John Nicols. At the end of Turn to ASL, page 4 Legislators boost OUS binding ■The Education Subcommittee approved a budget $65 million biggerthan proposed, including a smaller-than-expected tuition hike By Jeremy Lang Oregon Daily Emerald SALEM — Legislators pushed the higher education budget over a major hurdle last week, adding more money for universities and slightly reducing the proposed tuition increase along the way. The Oregon Legislature’s Education Subcommittee rubber-stamped a $792 million two-year budget — $65 million more than originally proposed by Gov. John Kitzhaber — which should go to the Joint Ways and Means Committee for a vote sometime this week. The budget establishes a 4 percent tu ition increase starting this fall and a 3 percent increase the next year. Al though University students and educa tion lobbyists were pushing for a 5 per cent total during the two years, they agree the number is a pleasant surprise from the 4-and-4 split they had begun to think would become a reality. “In terms of the budget climate, we came out as best as we could,” said Julie Suchanek-Ritchie, the spokeswoman for the Oregon Student Association. The OS A, among other activities, has been lobbying legislators to increase funding and decrease the tuition hike. If school administrators want to raise tuition above the 4 percent or 3 percent level, respectively, they would need ap proval from the Legislature’s Emer gency Board, which functions when the full House and Senate are not in ses sion. But Suchanek-Ritchie said she doubts many schools will come back asking to go over the cap. “It doesn’t look that good politically to go back,” she said. The subcommittee also included a stipulation that money raised from in creased tuition must stay in the higher education budget. Without that stipula tion, the extra funds students paid could have funded any other part of the state budget from road repair to social servic es. “This wouldn’t have happened if stu dents didn’t make a fuss,” Suchanek Ritchie said. One of those students, former ASUO State Affairs Coordinator Brian Tanner, agreed, but said some minor problems still linger with the budget that will have lasting effects at the University. The budget is still about $31 million less than what the Oregon University System originally requested. With that cut still existing, Tanner said, too much money has been earmarked for specific programs such as computer science and Oregon State University’s Bend branch campus. He said specific programs deserve funding, but with some cuts unavoidable, more of that money should have gone to Turn to Budget, page 5
