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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 10, 2002)
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union PO.Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com Online Edition: www.dailyemerald.com Editor in Chief: Jessica Blanchard Managing Editor: Jeremy Lang Editorial Editor: Julie Lauderbaugh Assistant Editorial Editor: Jacquelyn Lewis Monday, June 10,2002 Editorial Making history: University life through the year The 2001-02 school year has been nine months of odd anecdotes ranging from a massive wind storm to a false anthrax alarm. But many of these small stories will shape administrative decisions for years to come — including policies on campus safety and athletics ticket distribution. The following is a run-down of the top stories of the year that will affect future generations of Ducks for years to come: Title town USA This year, Eugene became known as “Title Town USA” for all of our success in athletics. The football team won the Fiesta Bowl in a smash ing defeat of Colorado, men’s basketball surged into the Elite Eight and women’s basketball added the WNIT championship. The Club Sports volleyball team also became national champions for the second con secutive season and the track team placed second overall in the Pacif ic-10 conference. Next year, the Athletic Department and ASUO will rightfully work to eliminate massive ticket lines and situations where students have to skip class just to get tickets. Campus safety Eight campus assaults, several public masturbation reports and even an attempted armed robbery made campus safety a top priority this year. University administrators and the Department of Public Safety made small strides with plans to improve lighting on footpaths, in holding a safety forum and the creation of the Yellow Jackets volunteer safety patrol. But frustration with the attacks was apparent as several women’s groups took center stage at the EMU Amphitheater in protest. Quiet riot Eugene hasn’t seen a major riot since Halloween 1998. But the Eugene Police Department was busy when as many as 500 rioters clashed with police May 31. The reasoning behind the riot on 17th Avenue and Patter son Street is up for debate, but we applaud the clean-up crews for clear ing away tons of broken glass from die streets in record time nevertheless. Before we can assess whether the officers acted correctly or if the partygoers instigated the whole debacle, we need more details of that night. But we can say that any riot involving college-age people gives a bad name to all students. We are not all violent rebels as most riots suggest, but the events of May 31 did little to detach all students from that stereotype. Incidental fee In one of the Programs Finance Committee’s most trying years, nearly all student groups and programs funded by the PFC had their budget hearings recalled so that committee members could rectify a $500,000 accounting error, and groups like OSPIRG and the Oregon Commenta tor were under scrutiny for the content of their mission statements. Allowing four unsupervised student volunteers to allocate $4 mil lion in incidental fee money is simply a bad idea, and student organi zations suffer because of it. There must be more supervision of PFC members so they can make better decisions. Anthrax The effects of Sept. 11 terrorism trickled to the University in Novem ber when a letter supposedly laced with anthrax arrived for a professor in Willamette Hall. HazMat arrived on the scene and men in protective suits combed the professor’s office and secured the building. In the end, tests determined die powdery substance on the letter was not anthrax, but the scare tested the quick reflexes of response teams. Dry greek houses President Dave Frohnmayer’s decision to keep alcohol out of frater nities indefinitely was a huge administrative stance on an age-old moral issue. The decision was something Frohnmayer had been con templating for a long time — and something some fraternities had been dreading for even longer. But with few guidelines on how to go dry with basically no help from administrators, we’ll have to wait and see if Frohnmayer’s plan will fundamentally work next fall. ah, the memories By 4 p.m. Tuesday, it will all be over. Four years. Three majors. Two actual degrees. One fine college educa tion. This column is supposed to be my glori ous farewell to the Uni versity, but some things you just can’t do in a few hundred words. In stead I would just like to thank a few people, recall some Columnist memories and pass along a cou ple words of thought. You can take them the way they stand, but better yet, take them with a grain of salt. This past year, my columns have caused controversy and outrage, but most importantly, debate. The best way to com pliment a columnist is to re spond to something he or she wrote. If people never sent me e-mails or wrote letters to the editor or guest commentaries, then that meant I failed at my job. Everything that I have written has been truthful, logi cal and my opinion. If readers disagreed with anything I wrote this year, then good. I would be a bit scared if they didn’t. Now, of course, my time here at the University hasn’t all been spent working for the Emerald. I had the dubious honor of spend ing some time working for ASUO and I even ran for ASUO Execu tive in spring 2001. It might be a surprise, but I really didn’t learn much from working with the stu dent government. I did learn though that you can break the rules and get away with it and also that green paint is really hard to get out of your hair after painting the World’s Biggest Bal lot Box. Four years ago I entered the University just as lost as every other freshman. Thankfully, the love of FIG 25 was there to get my college career off to a great start. The only thing better than beginning college with you all is being able to end it with many of you, as well. There isn’t enough space to mention all the professors who have helped me during the past few years, so I’m not even going to try. You know who you are and I only hope that I can take what I learned from each and every one of you and make you proud. The same goes for everyone in my public relations and advertis ing classes. What you learn is often attributed to those you learn it with. Thanks for your humor, your patience and your friendship! *1 ‘ ‘ Finally, I can’t leave the Uni versity without acknowledging the transformation of Oregon athletics during my time here. I remember coming down for the Michigan State football game my freshman year before classes even started. It is interesting to note that my friend and I picked up tickets the day of the game, something that you just can’t do anymore, and also the Ducks were underdogs at Autzen Stadi um. Oregon won the game and it helped spur the unbelievable success die program now enjoys. What the basketball team did this year surprised everyone ex cept for Ernie Kent. It is pretty amazing for a team that had litde expectations to end up battling Kansas for a spot in the NCAA Fi nal Four. But that is what college sports and college itself is all about. Expect the unexpected. I only hope though those who have become Oregon fans while the teams have been at the top will be there when the years are not so good. So here it is. The end of col lege. I’m about to move out from behind the protective walls of higher education, but there is one last final to take and it is about time I start cramming for it. Hey, it has worked for four years, so why stop now? E-mail columnist Jeff Oliver at jeffoliver@dailyemerald.com. His opinions do not necessarily , V^mfhfc&bftfi^EWefafd1 ‘ * * *1 * *1
