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