Features
Womenspace recruits a male rock band
to headline an upcoming benefit.
Pap I_
Spirts
The Oregon men topple No. 13 UCLA
to stay undefeated at Mac Court this year.
Pap I
http://www.dailyemerald.com
Friday, February 1,2002
Since 1 900
University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 103, Issue 87
PFC may be forced to cut approved budgets
■While calculating projected enrollment
numbers into incidental fee fund totals,
a $536,000 budget mistake was made
By Jeremy Lang
Oregon Daily Emerald
An accounting error made fall term will force
the ASUO Programs Finance Committee to re
call, and possibly cut, a number of student
groups’ budgets already approved for next year.
PFC will decide what budgets will get a
second look and what cuts will be made
starting Tuesday night, the day after regular
budget hearings end.
The problem occurred in the days before
Thanksgiving break when PFC had to calcu
late the cost of incorporating groups that had
previously gone to the student ballot for
funding into its budget — a total of more than
$1.2 million.
The 10 groups, including OSPIRG and the
Career Center, couldn’t go to the ballot after
the U.S. Supreme Court changed the way stu
dent groups are funded with its Southworth
decision.
With only one night to convert projected
2002-03 enrollment numbers into incidental
fee fund totals, ASUO Accounting Coordina
tor Jennifer Creighton accidentally calculat
ed the cost of funding those groups for one
term, not three.
The enrollment numbers came from EMU
Director of Student Activities Gregg Lobisser
right before the mandated Nov. 15 deadline,
which forced Creighton to work fast and pro
duce a fee total before PFC’s Nov. 16, 8 a.m.
budget meeting.
The error made the groups appear to cost
about $536,000 less they actually did, and
PFC used the figure the next morning to set
its 68 percent increase for the entire pro
grams budget.
With the error corrected, the programs
Turn to PFC, page 7
The ‘something little’
$536,000 accounting error:
Original 2002-03 numbers:
Groups from the ballot measure: $1,220,087
Total PFC budget: 54,014.654
Increase from 2001-02:68 percent
Actual 2002-03 numbers:
Groups from ballot measure: $1,756,205
Total PFC budget: $4,550,771
Increase from 2001 -02:90 percent
Online classes growing in popularity every year
■With class sizes on the rise,
some students are opting to learn
through distance education
By Eric Martin
Oregon Daily Emerald
The number of students learning via
University of Oregon Distance Educa
tion courses has increased five-fold
since the program’s cyberspace incep
tion five years ago.
Students registered for 647 spots in
distance education classes this term,
according to the registrar’s office. It is
the highest enrollment of any term in
the program’s history. And data record
ed since 1996 shows that more online
students are registering each year.
They are surfing through course
work for undergraduate physics, eco
nomics, astronomy, political science,
geology, linguistics and arts and ad
ministration classes from the confines
of their keyboard consoles. The lec
ture hall is replaced with a home
page in the digital universe where
students can access their assignments
and readings online.
But some are hesitant to embrace
distance education courses because
they could mean lost professorships.
“We think that might be in the vi
sion of some of the promoters of
distance education because they
believe it will cut costs and they
won’t need as many faculty,” said
Ruth Flower, public policy direc- Mm
tor for the American Association *
of University Professors.
Turn to Online, page 7
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Emerald
News brief
Winona LaDuke addresses
Public Lands Symposium
She was 15 minutes late, but the
nearly 200 people who gathered in
175 Knight Law Center on Thurs
day to hear 2000 Green Party vice
presidential candidate, author, en
vironmentalist and indigenous
rights activist Winona LaDuke
speak weren’t complaining.
Before her speech, members of
the Native American Law Stu
dents Association presented
LaDuke with strings of beads and
a Navajo-style blanket to wide
spread applause as group mem
ber Raymond Zakari introduced
her as “a sage.”
LaDuke’s keynote address
kicked off the Journal of Environ
mental Law and Litigation’s Pub
lic Lands Symposium, which
will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to
day at the law center and will fea
ture attorneys, environmental
leaders and university professors
from all over the United States.
In her hour-long speech,
LaDuke addressed the issue of
sustainable use of public lands
and the laws governing land prac
tices, as well as the differing opin
ions about land use between en
vironmental groups and Native
Americans. She pointed to the
formation of national parks out of
Indian land in the early 20th cen
tury and the loss of control over
the surviving buffalo herds in re
cent decades as prime examples
of the division between conserva
tionists and Native Americans.
“We are fighting over the
crumbs that remain of this great
land,” she said.
LaDuke also criticized the ener
gy policies of the Bush administra
tion and at one point referred to
Vice President Dick Cheney as “Dr.
Evil,” saying the vice president’s
support for increased nuclear pow
er seemed characteristic of some
one “who had been frozen for 30
years and then came back to life. ”
It was a sort of homecoming for
LaDuke, who said she spent a
good portion of her life in the
mountains of southern Oregon.
She advocated the return of pub
licly-held reservation lands to
Native Americans and called on
Oregonians to make “an earnest
commitment” to restoring the
habitat of the Klamath Basin.
— Leon Tovey
Center offers
funding for
career goals
■The Career Center is accepting
applications for student groups’
career development programs
By Danielle Gillespie
Oregon Daily Emerald
With the 2001-02 school year reach
ing the midway point, the Career Cen
ter still has $18,400 in student fees just
waiting for the taking.
Each year, the Career Center allocates
$25,000 from grant money to help fund
any campus organization or depart
ment’s career related activities. This
year they have received only 14 propos
als, allocating just $6,600 to student
groups and departments.
“This grant is an additional funding
source for those seeking money for ca
reer related activities,” Career Center
director Larry Smith said. “What we are
trying to accomplish is to provide a link
between the work students are doing to
their careers.”
The $25,000 is part of the student in
cidental fee money allocated to the Ca
reer Center last year via ballot measure.
This is the second year the Career Cen
ter has received the grant money. In
2000-01, it didn’t spend an estimated
$5,000 from the grant, and this money
carried forward to the $25,000 being of
fered for this academic year.
To receive funding, the Career Center
requires student groups and depart
ments seeking assistance to fill out an
application and submit it to the Career
Council. The only criteria is that there
needs to be a direct correlation between
the event and career planning and there
should be a significant number of stu
dents participating. Groups can use the
money to send students to a conference
or to sponsor an event.
“A lot of student groups fund raise
for their events, when we have money
to give. We want to help those groups
who do not have the funds to grow, and
we are open to new, creative and inno
vative ideas for possible events,” Career
Council member Kellie Matecko said.
Turn to Career Center, page 8