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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 2005)
Today Friday Saturday High: 45 High: 43 High: 43 Low: 30 Low: 32 Low: 34 Precip: 30% Precip: 10% Precip: 60% IN BRIEF Air ambulance crashes in Wyoming, killing three RAWLINS, Wyo. — An air ambu lance crashed, killing three people, and the sole survivor was rescued after calling authorities on his cell phone and guiding them to the wreckage by describing the sirens and other sounds he could hear. Timothy Baldwin, 35, a medic, spent about 90 minutes on his cell phone directing rescuers to the site. The plane went down in snow and fog Tbesday while on its way to pick up the victim of a car accident. The pi lot and two medics were killed. Rescuers had difficulty tracing the plane’s emergency transmitter and had to rely on Baldwin’s description of the sirens and train whistle to figure out whether they were getting closer. “It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” airport manager Dwight France said. “A lot of country, a lot of tough country to cover.” Baldwin had to be pried out of the plane, and reached the hospital early Wednesday in critical condition. The cause of the crash was under investigation. The Associated Press £ Programs Finance Committee Job stipend debate delays more budget hearings Tuesday BY JORDAN THIERRY DAILY EMERALD FREELANCE REPORTER Questions and concerns regarding stipend job positions continued at Tuesday's Programs Finance Commit tee meeting, pushing some budget hearings back nearly an hour. The first half of the meeting ap peared to be a continuation of Mon day’s meeting when PFC members could not come to a consensus on how to approve stipend job positions. The Black Law Students Association’s pro posal ignited the quandary. PFC Chair Persis Pohowalla, who said she was BLSA’s controller last year, recommended the group receive no stipend position because she “saw no leadership and poor spending” at that time. Vice Chair Mason Quiroz said he didn’t see any reason not to approve the stipend position because the group met ASUO requirements. Quiroz added that funding shouldn’t be based on a group’s previously poor spending record. PFC member Jael Anker-Lagos questioned PFC’s consistency in approving stipend positions, while Quiroz advocated approving the positions because they fall within ASUO guidelines. “I still don’t approve of these job de scriptions, and I wouldn’t pay some one to do these duties. All they’ve done is gone to conferences,” ASUO Controller Rosie Sweetman said. After BLSA representatives empha sized the growth and youth of their group, Anker-Lagos made an amend ment to approve the budget with no increase from last year. ASUO Senator Kevin Day disagreed with the amendment. “You have gone back on your word with this amendment. If I recall cor rectly, in the past two meetings you’ve said you wouldn’t consider new lead ership of groups when approving budgets,” he said. Anker-Lagos recalled the amend ment and a budget was finally passed for BLSA of $1,062, a 9.6 percent de crease from last year. The Asian Pacific Law Student As sociation budget generated similar dis cussion and controversy. Pohowalla recommended not approving a stipend position, while Quiroz advocated ap proving the position. The APLS defended the stipend po sition by stressing the limited time law students have for extra-curricular ac tivities and the expenses incurred or ganizing their events. However, Sweetman supported Po howalla's recommendation. “I do not approve of the job descrip tions. I do not think they should be do ing the work to get paid, but to con tribute to the cultural enrichment on campus,” she said. Day strongly recommended the PFC “sit down and figure out how to evalu ate the stipend position so this conver sation doesn’t continue to arise in front of every group. ” Minutes later the room was silent and the meeting seemed to halt. “I feel like the PFC is in a position to force something simply because we just can’t get it together right now,” Quiroz said. In the end, APLS agreed to have its stipend funds transferred to program ming funds and a budget was passed of $1,941, a 21.48 percent decrease from last year. The Hong Kong Student Associa tion’s budget hearing brought a new mood to the room, largely because of its organized proposal. The PFC commended HKSA for spending 98 percent of last year’s budget and fundraising over half of it. “They definitely deserve more of an increase for their spending,” Quiroz said. The PFC passed a budget of $3,649, increasing it 22.2 percent from last year. The Korean Student Association’s budget proposal seemed to top the charts Tliesday night. KSA raised more than $3,000 last year, almost tripling last year’s budget. The PFC passed a budget of $2,836, an increase of 101 percent. “This is a huge increase, and we would give you more if we could,” Quiroz said. The Chinese Student Scholars Asso ciation requested a budget increase for its Chinese New Year event to be held at a better location. The PFC passed a budget of $3,270, a 2.39 percent in crease from last year. The Alternative Dispute Resolution Advocates requested a $1,000 increase from its previous budget of $300 in an effort to send members to a regional mediation competition in March. The PFC suggested motor pool as a means of traveling to the competition instead of by air and passed a budget of $530, an increase of 76.6 percent from last year. The Association of Anthropology Graduate Students received a budget approval of $354, an 18 percent in crease frpm last year. Fate of student tickets uncertain Student Senators discussed a proposal that will save money, hut will leave fewer student tickets next year BY PARKER HOWELL SENIOR NEWS REPORTER Students may lose seats at football and basketball games next year if cost-saving measures under negotia tion by the Athletic Department Fi nance Committee and the Athletics Department are ratified, Senator Kevin Day said on Wednesday during the Student Senate meeting. The proposed changes call for stu dents to trade their current seats in Section Nine, located near the march ing band at the west side of Autzen Stadium, for seats in Section Four. The swap would result in a loss of 400 seats, Day said. Students would also lose half of their current seats in the third bal cony of McArthur Court under the new terms. Day said the reductions would help address the no-show factor — a recurring problem caused by stu dents who get free tickets to games and don’t use them. “It didn’t seem economically right to keep those seats for the cost long term,” Day said. Groups whose budgets are under review by the EMU Board of Directors will have to wait until the end of the budget process to learn if they will gain money for growth because of an accounting error in the spreadsheets used to determine the board’s bench marks, Senator Toby Hill-Meyer said during the meeting. Hill-Meyer said the projected benchmark has dropped from about 9.2 percent to about 3.8 percent since EMU Director Dusty Miller notified an EMU Board member of the error over winter break. The benchmark could fluctuate further, although the board will try to stay within the cur rent guideline, Hill-Meyer said. Senate Ombudsman Stephanie Er ickson announced that two students filed grievances against the Oregon Commentator this week because of content published in its recent issues. One unidentified student filed a griev ance last week against the conserva tive journal of opinion. Erickson said she turned the grievances over to the ASUO Execu tive because the Senate will need to approve the Programs Finance Committee’s budget recommenda tions for The Commentator, which could be a conflict of interest. parkerhoweIl@dailyemerald.com jM# Tech Thursday Freeware, open source offer free alternatives for software BY ANTHONY LUCERO NEWS REPORTER Computer users may spend hun dreds of dollars to equip their ma chines with software. But thanks to freeware and open source software that can rival high-priced software, those on a student budget may not have to choose between buying a software program and eating. Freeware and open source soft ware are both free programs but the primary difference is that open source allows anyone to see and modify the program’s code whereas freeware products may be owned only by a specific company. Sam Crow, an EMU Computer Lab student tech assistant, said the appli cation OpenOffice could help stu dents do their schoolwork, such as viewing and writing Microsoft Word compatible files, PowerPoint presen tations or Excel spreadsheets. OpenOffice comes from the StarOf fice productivity suite created by Sun Microsystems for the Linux open source operating system but has since expanded to an open source option for Windows and Mac operating systems. Crow said many students can get along fine with an entirely open source and freeware computer set up by using a Linux operating sys tem and OpenOffice, which can ac complish most students’ tasks. For PC users Crow also recommends OpenOffice, but he thinks the out-of-the-box AppleWorks suite functions better than OpenOffice for Mac users. However, Crow said many student users may be discouraged from com plex installations and lack of famil iarity with the user interface, particu larly with Linux, which has many variations or environments that can affect the user interface or may have completely different ways of navigat ing from Windows or Mac systems. But there are Linux environments that are similar to the Windows XP interface — SUSE and Mandrake from Red Hat in particular are avail able commercially, for a price. University students can also ben efit from picking up the Duck Ware CD from the Microcomputer Ser vices helpdesk at 151 McKenzie. The DuckWare CD contains many freeware programs including OpenOffice and the CD-burning software BurnAtOnce, which makes copying data onto a CD as easy as dragging and dropping the desired data onto the CD icon. Other sites like www.download.com and www.tucows.com list programs in every category and gives users the option to look only at free programs. Business major Craig Cooper said when he bought his PC laptop, the only software he purchased for it was Microsoft Office. “My PC came with a Microsoft word processor but when I got the computer, i upgraded and bought the Office Professional Edition so that 1 could get Excel and Power point too,” Cooper said. “Those are important for me because I’m a business major.” Cooper said he was discouraged from getting more software because of the high price of many programs and also because he had no need for extra programs. But that hasn’t stopped Cooper from downloading full programs from peer-to-peer Web sites that let users download entire programs with registration codes so they can use the product as if they had bought it in the stores. “I usually try and find the software instead of buying it, but usually you run into problems and it’s not as easy to find a good source,” Cooper said. Holly Jones, a journalism major who recently bought an Apple iBook, said she also only bought Mi crosoft Office for Mac and said the only other product she’d buy is Pho toshop. Her iBook is mainly used for basic work on campus and listening to music at home. Jones said if she wanted software and couldn’t pay for it, she would not try to download it because she would not know TECH, page 4 Barriers: Students share adjustment stories Continued from page 1 different idea of punctuality. “It is very rude in my culture if you show up on time. You always show up a half hour to an hour late,” he said in class. “We respect people more than time.” As the discussion continued, the class explored more subtle and sensi tive cultural differences, such as the concept of individualism versus col lectivism. Mariko Yamaguchi said she felt collectivism was more preva lent in Japan and compared her experiences with self expression in both cultures. “I can be more myself here because American people are willing to listen to what I am thinking,” she said. The class also gives students the opportunity to share the difficulties of living in a new environment. Freshman Katherine Compton spent a year of high school in Japan and was the only white student. “Even though it was hard being the ‘white girl,’ the people were very generous,” she said. Freshman Aleah-Marie Beephan came to the United States four and a half years ago from Ttinidad. “I would say it’s getting better,” she said in class. “From the first day 1 came to Oregon I hated it.” Freshman Philip Bristol, who spent a year in Germany as an ex change student, said people often un derestimate the challenges that inter national students face. “This class has reinforced my awareness about how difficult it can be to be a student in another country,” he said. Exchange student Maki Fujuha ja of Japan said the class has made the transition to the University a little smoother. “This class makes me more active because there are a lot of internation al students," she said. “In other class es, we don’t have the opportunity to discuss very seriously. ” Shirzadegan said the course is important because it equips students with the skills necessary to survive in an increasingly multicultural job market. “We’re living in a more and more global community,” he said. “You can’t function today in the job mar ket if you can’t communicate across your differences and cultures.” moriahbalingit@dailyemerald.com
