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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 2001)
EMU tobacco sales come under fire ■ Professor Pat Lombardi is aiming to have all tobacco sales banned at Erb Essentials By Kara Cogswell Oregon Daily Emerald The sale of tobacco products earns the EMU thousands of dollars in rev enue each year, but one University professor says it’s not right for the school to profit from smoking. V. Pat Lombardi, a professor in the biology department, said he was “ap palled” when he learned that Erb Es sentials, a convenience store in the EMU basement, sold cigarettes and smokeless tobacco. “Cigarette smoking is the number one cause of premature death in the U.S.,”he said. “For the University to profit from (tobacco sales) ... is ab solutely a tough thing to swallow, to say the least.” Lombardi intends to ask the EMU Board to ban all tobacco sales in the EMU. EMU Board Chairwoman Christa Shively said the students, adminis trators and staff members who sit on the board want to find out whether students support selling tobacco products in the EMU before they make a decision. If the EMU lost tobacco revenue, she said, it could mean more student fee money would have to be spent on EMU expenses such as utility and maintenance. EMU Food Services Director John Costello said tobacco sales accounted for 7.5 percent of total EMU food serv ice sales last year. Of the $317,360 Erb Essentials brought in last year, more than one third of that money — $103,686 — was from tobacco, he said. But those figures don’t reflect corollary purchases by tobacco cus tomers, he said. If Erb Essentials stops selling tobacco products, the store may lose those non-tobacco sales as well, he said. Senior Shari Takara, who works in Erb Essentials, said banning ciga rettnsales in the store wouldn’t dis courage students from smoking be cause students would still buy them somewhere else. “If we don’t sell them, they’re just going to walk to 7-11, ” she said. Regardless of whetherstudents buy cigarettes elsewhere, Lombardi said, it is not ethical for the University to in directly support the tobacco compa nies and profit from tobacco sales. Lombardi, who has several relatives who have died from smoking-related illnesses, said tobacco profits are “tainted money” because they are made at the expense of people’s health —smokers directly and non-smokers indirectly from secondhand smoke. “I feel bad for students if they lose funds,” he said. “But the University should never have gotten into (tobac co sales) in the first place. ” The EMU Board will meet at 4 p.m. Wednesday in the EMU Board Room, located on the third floor of the EMU. The meeting is open to the public, and students are encouraged to come, Shively said. Kara Cogswell is a student activities reporter for the Oregon Daily Emerald. She can be reached at karacogswell@dailyemerald.CQm. MCC continued from page 1 improve diversity. “There is not a university in this country that is doing good work in this regard,” Floyd said. “It is impor tant to address these issues.” Floyd had already visited the University in the summer, but came back while classes were in session to talk to more students on matters involving race and issues of diversity, he said. “I wanted a chance to hear your perspective before I go back to the ad ministration with my recommenda tions,” he said. One perspective the audience gave him was the lack of trust and response students get from the Uni versity when dealing with diversity issues. Audience members said the administration is not listening to them and voiced their frustration in dealing with them on these matters. “There is no sense of general lis tening of the student community,” MCC director Steve Morozumi said. “When meeting with the provost and other administrators, they actually said dealing with di versity is boring.” ASUO Multicultural Advocate Mario Sifuentez said there are two problems when dealing with diversity on campus: students “pay for every thing” and students “sit on everything.” “A reason we sit on everything, in part, is we don’t trust who the Uni versity is going to hire,” he said. “Part of the reason we pay for every thing is so we can get an input.” Sifuentez used the MCC director’s position as an example. Students sat on the hiring committee, fought for its creation and the incidental fee pays for the position. Students wrote the contract and then the University “went behind students’ backs” and added a clause that they had hiring and firing power, he said. “We don’t trust them,” Sifuentez said. “It’s frustrating.” Morozumi said he feels the Univer sity is 20 or more years behind other universities when it comes to diversi ty. He said the University’s excuses for this are Oregon is a “white state” and teachers’ salaries aren’t as high as oth er universities to attract a more di verse population. Morozumi does not think these are good excuses. Sifuentez agreed, adding Ore gon State University is “light years ahead” of the University in mat ters of diversity, and he attributes this to their president. “We’ve lost students to OSU,” he said. “Not to say they are doing a great job, just better.” Floyd believes an answer to stu dents’ concerns would be to hire someone that holds a senior position that deals with matters of diversity. He said a problem is there are a lot of units on campus focusing on different aspects in the diversity issue, but they aren’t integrated. Creating this posi tion would fill in this gap, he said. “Students work closely together, but administrators don’t,” Floyd said. “There must be someone in (Johnson Hall) to work on it.” He added there needs to be some one to serve as the “champion” who will always keep diversity initiatives at the forefront He said a student serv ing as the “champion” works in the short run, but not in the long run. This is because students eventually gradu ate, and there needs to be someone to keep the initiatives going, he said. “Your student body is very unique,” Floyd said. “Unlike so many student bodies, this student body will have an initiative, a fo cus and is willing to produce the funds to back it up.” Anna Seeley is a student activities reporter for the Oregon Daily Emerald. She can be reached at annaseeley@dailyemerald.com. 100 to June 30,2001 Total Erb Essentials Sales $317,360 Tobacco Sales $103,686 Morgan Dethman Emerald ir@ _ p@adtrip II g without crashes or injuries If § about iIPAShba not DUls and mips n 9 Ifi about preserving our community not destroying it B Him™ It'S about _ alcohol... n rasprasAly or not drinking 3t all.... Office of Student Life University of Oregon
