Commentary
Oregon Daily Emerald
Monday, September 20, 2004
NEWS STAFF
346-5511
JARED PABEN
EDITOR IN CHIEF
TRAVIS W1LLSE
MANAGING EDITOR
BEN BROWN
OM1E DRAWHORN
NEWS REPORTERS
RYAN NYBURG
PULSE EDITOR
ALEX TAM
SPORTS EDITOR
CLAYTON JONES
SPORTS REPORTER
AARON SULLIVAN
ILLUSTRATOR
KIRA PARK
DESIGN EDITOR
BRET FURTWANGLER
GRAPHICS EDITOR
ERIK R. BISHOFF
ONLINE & PHOTO EDITOR
AMANDA EVRARD
RYAN NYBURG
COPYEDITORS
BUSINESS
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JUDYRIEDL
GENERAL MANAGER
KATHY CARBONE
BUSINESS MANAGER
REBECCA CRITCHETT
RECEPTIONIST
NOAH EVENS
JOHN LONG
MALLORY MAHONEY
HOLLY MISTELL
XAVIER XIONG
DISTRIBUTION
ADVERTISING
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MELISSA GUST
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
TYLER MACK
SALES MANAGER
MATT BETZ
HERON CALISCH-DOLEN
MEGAN HAMLIN
DOMENIQUE LAJNEZ
MIA LEIDELMEYER
EMILY PHILBIN
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TRINA SHANAMAN
CLASSIFIED MANAGER
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MICHELE ROSS
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TARA SLOAN
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR
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ANDY HOLLAND
DESIGNERS
The Oregon Daily Emerald is pub
lished daily Monday through Fri
day during the school year by the
Oregon DailyEmerald Publishing
Co. Inc., at the University of Ore
gon, Eugene, Ore. The Emerald
operates independently of the
University with offices in Suite
303 of the Erb Memorial Union,
me Emerald is private property.
Uoivvful removal or use of
s is prosecutable by law.
OREGON DAILY
EMERALD
LETTERS POLICY
Letters to the editor
and guest commentaries
are encouraged, and
should be sent to
letters@da ilyemera Id .com
or submitted at the
Emerald office in
EMU Suite 300. Electron
ic submissions are
preferred.
Letters are limited to
250 words and guest
commentaries to 550
words. Authors are limit
ed to one submission per
calendar month.
Submissions should in
clude phone number
and address for verifica
tion. The Emerald
reserves the right to edit
for space, grammar
and style. Guest submis
sions are published at
the discretion of the
Emerald.
■ Editorial
Summer news highlights include
officer conviction, campaign stop
Welcome to (or back to) campus, reader. While the ac
ademic school year may stop in June, the news does not.
To catch our readers up to speed, we’re dedicating the
editorial space to a discussion of the summer’s most im
portant news stories from campus and the community.
• Summer opened with sad news: Longtime Universi
ty architect Garry Fritz died of cardiac arrest June 9,
and University pre-journalism major Michael Joyce died
when he was hit by a vehicle on East 13th Avenue
on June 12.
• Former Eugene police officer Roger Magana was
convicted of 41 counts of various crimes, including rape,
July 1, and was sentenced to 94 years in prison July 13.
• In mid-July, the Oregon State Board of Higher Edu
cation proposed a $710 million budget for the 2005-07 bi
ennium that increases tuition for students by 5 percent,
a hike that the board said it hopes will keep education
“accessible and affordable.”
• A divided Student Senate Summer Committee debat
ed in its July 15 meeting whether it could assume the
full senate’s authority to pass resolutions, like the mo
tion it passed June 24 supporting the Graduate Teaching
Fellows Federation in its stalled labor negotiations with
the University. In addition, the Senate was unable to
supply the administration with documented minutes,
because of technical difficulties.
• Courtesy of a Department of Defense appropriations
bill passed July 22, the University snagged $8 million
for research. The allocation included a $3 million grant
for the Brain, Biology, and Machine Initiative and $5
million for the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnolo
gies Institute.
• Some 5,657 young athletes converged on Hayward
Field July 27-Aug. 1 to compete in the 2004 USA
Junior Olympic TYack & Field Championships, packing
area hotels.
• A day after holding “Empty Campus Day” Aug. 4 —
in which many GTFs held classes off-campus in what
they called a show of solidarity before entering arbitra
tion with the University — the GTFF reached a contract
settlement with the University that union President Eric
Lindgren said was “twice what we asked for.”
• Both Presidential candidates, President Bush and
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., campaigned in Portland Aug.
13, touting their qualifications.
• In mid-August a conservative Eugene group
launched a campaign asking outgoing Mayor Jim Torrey
to consider a write-in campaign against primary winner
Kitty Piercy this fall. Torrey announced Sept. 9 that he
would not run for a third term.
• Also on Sept. 9, the Eugene-based anti-war group
Justice Not War held a candlelight vigil to honor the
1,000 U.S. soldiers who have died since major combat
began in March 2003.
• Finally, parcels of campus were Cyclone-fenced off for
much of summer as construction workers built several new
and in-progress sites around the University, including the
Heart of Campus, the Living Learning Center and the Many
Nations Longhouse. See page 1C for more details.
■ Guest Commentary
ASUO President Adam Petkun
talks about his goals for 04-05
Given that you have a few more ex
citing things to do right now, I thank
you for reading this. You have likely
been told that college will be the best
four, five or six years of life: a time of
exploration and growth... and, well, a
lot of fun. In many ways the archetyp
al college campus, I have found that
all of these things can be true at the
University of Oregon.
This week before classes begin
can be especially entertaining, as
you begin to enjoy student life with
out having to attend class. As such,
it is vitally important that you be
come aware of the services available
for your personal safety as you navi
gate your first weekend. One note
worthy service is the family of shut
tles, funded by your student
incidental fees, that can be reached
at 346-RIDE when you need a safe
way to return to your home. When
cognizant of such services, one can
begin to construct a safe space in
which to enjoy new surroundings.
It is important to note that despite
the opportunities here, there is cer
tainly improvement to be made. You
enter this institution in the midst of
unbearable tuition increases linked
inexorably to eroding state funding.
You come to a town without housing
standards — leaving student renters
with inadequate protection from
shoddy housing off campus. You are
living in a community where many
people still fight to feel as welcome
here as I hope you do.
You are also part of the solution.
The Associated Students of the
University of Oregon — the
ASUO — is not the student govern
ment you became acquainted
with during high school. We do not
spend our time planning prom
here. The ASUO is responsible for al
locating $9.8 million of your student
incidental fees (you are paying
$180.75 this term) to the EMU, the
Athletic Department Finance Com
mittee and over 120 student groups,
such as the Designated Driver Shut
tle and the Multicultural Center. The
ASUO Executive office represents
and organizes students so we can
exact change on this campus and in
the community.
The ASUO, like everything else
you will encounter here, can be as
effective as you are willing to make
it. This term, among other things,
we will endeavor to mend the prob
lems listed above. Only with the en
ergy of you and your fellow students
will we succeed. As students, we are
on a tight budget, with little room
for expenses beyond caffeine. We
cannot throw $2,000 checks at our
problems. However, we do have
power in our numbers.
The election this November is im
portant not only because we will
choose our president, but because it
also yields an opportunity we must
not let pass. This November we will
have the opportunity to employ our
power by voting. Only if we vote will
we be able to challenge the Oregon
State Legislature to invest in making
higher education affordable. This
same effect extends to city
government, where we will fight for
housing standards this fall.
It is imperative that all students
(excluding those from Alaska)
register to vote at their current ad
dress by October 12, and equally im
portant that they educate them
selves and vote. The ASUO has
joined the Student Vote Coalition
and set a goal of registering 7,500
students to vote on this campus and
30,000 statewide. Many students
have already volunteered to join
what has become the most extensive
non-partisan voter registration drive
conducted on this campus.
In order for us to exceed our goal,
we need more students to come by
our office and volunteer their time to
better this university — and wear a
lovely, green T-shirt. The best way
to become involved is to swing by
our office in the breezeway of the
EMU and sign up to intern for course
credit. In addition to supporting the
voter registration campaign, oppor
tunities exist to aid our office in
work on other campus and commu
nity issues such as housing
standards and multi-cultural advoca
cy. Furthermore, there are over 100
open student seats on committees
governing any imaginable aspect of
campus life.
Good luck with the start of this new
period of your life, and I hope to see
you join in improving this campus.
Adam Petkun, a senior majoring
in economics and political science,
is president of the ASUO.
■ In my opinion
JARED PABEN
HELP WANTED
Emerald
history
is long and
distinguished
As I listen to sappy, overly sentimental John
Mellencamp songs at 11:45 p.m. on a Friday
night almost a week before my time as Emerald
editor in chief ends, I’ve come to a few sappy,
overly sentimental conclusions about what the
summer of 2004 meant to me:
It meant moments of divisiveness when
deadline was missed, but it also meant pride in
working with devoted, talented staff.
It meant frustration when mistakes were
made and angry phone calls poured in, but it
also meant a sense of accomplishment watch
ing two guys sit at Maple Garden and discuss
every front-page story.
Lastly, it meant something I didn’t really un
derstand until I sat down and started doing re
search for an article on the Emerald’s history: The
Emerald staff, the people it covers and the stories
it records will someday end up in a green-cov
ered, hardbound book on a shelf in the Emerald
library. This didn’t truly hit home until I realized I
will someday represent a humble slice of time in
the newspaper’s 105-year history, sharing work
with editors who did my job throughout a long,
tumultuous 20th century.
Now, I could outright declare that the Emer
ald has a long and proud history of reporting on
the University campus, but that doesn’t say
anything more than this 32-word sentence can.
So, I’m going to share a little bit of that his
tory — milestones in this paper’s history and
the news of the day:
• The Emerald’s first issue published on Feb.
12, 1900. The paper, which at the time was
named The Oregon Weekly, was published by
the Eutaxian, Laurean and Philogian Societies
of the University of Oregon.
• On October 1,1900, the paper became a pub
lication of the ASUO, and remained so until 1952.
• In the fall of 1909, the paper’s name was
changed to the Oregon Emerald, and it began
publishing twice weekly.
• The paper began publishing five days a
week (Tliesday-Saturday) and changed its
name to the Oregon Daily Emerald in fall 1920.
A headline on the front page of the second is
sue, published Thursday, Sept. 30, reads, “REG
ISTRATION FOR TWO DAYS IS 1300: Enroll
ment Higher Than For Same Time Last Year —
2,000 Mark Expected.”
• In 1941, Helen Angell was named the first
female Emerald editor. A December 11,1941, is
sue of the Emerald carried a front page story
headlined, “Japanese Cash Ordered Held.” The
story starts: “On orders from Washington the
funds of all University students of Japanese de
scent have been ‘frozen’ in local banks, accord
ing to Clifford L. Constance, assistant registrar.
“T\venty-three second and third generation
Japanese students have been affected by this
sweeping war-time order...”
• In 1942-43, the Emerald was staffed almost
entirely by women because of World War II.
The size of the paper was cut from eight pages
to four, an army page was added and a special
section was sent to soldiers overseas..
• Monday issues were printed for the first time
in 1949-50, but because of budget problems staff
members were forced to accept pay cuts to keep
PABEN, page 4A