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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 2005)
Basketball extra: a team with no seniors I 7 Oregon Daily Emerald An independent newspaper www.dailyemerald.com Since 1900 \ Volume 106, Issue 80 | Friday, January 14, 2005 Eugeneans back LTD drivers at demonstration mt n i l i •„ ! * ■> Danielle Hickey | Photo editor Justin Kemerer portrays "Pepper! The Greed Fighting Possum,” an informal mascot for fighting management, pickets at the LTD Bus Station Thursday evening. Union members protested contracts, criticizing health care and leadership BY MEGHANN M. CUNIFF SENIOR NEWS REPORTER Citizens from Eugene and the surrounding area rallied sentatives have said a union strike would halt all LTD services. According to LTD, nearly 3,000 University students and employees use the bus to get to and from campus. LTD gets $583,250 in student fees to provide students with “unlimited ridership on all routes and schedules,” as stated in its contract with the University. Reynolds said the purpose of the rally was to prevent a strike by showing LTD representatives the support the union cu me L,diie iidiiMi uisuia uuwmuwn sidiiun Thursday afternoon with LTD bus drivers and members of unions around the Northwest, showing support for the drivers’ contract negotiations with LTD representatives. About 100 people picketed on the corner of West 10th Avenue and Olive Street, holding signs condemning LTD’s leadership and demanding MOREONLIN^ For up-tcxiate information on the LTD-ATU negotiations, visit asuo.uoregon.edu. For car pool information, vistit ltd.org. nas mrougnoui me community. LTD bus driver Richard Shrope said all driv ers understand how devastating a strike could be and are hopeful one can be avoided. “We’re hoping to get people aware of what’s going on so maybe there can be some pressure on people to get things resolved,” Shrope said. Many LTD riders said they were unaware of ua u uuci d new cumidci uidi uuei> uui ueu ease ueiiems. “We felt we had to alert people because the negotiations are deteriorating,” Amalgamated TVansit Union Division 757 spokesman Jason Reynolds said. ATU represents 80 percent of LTD’s workers, and LTDrepre a potential strike until tne rally and were alarmed at me thought of being without bus service. “It’ll put the public in a big crisis,” Bridget Perini said. Perini, 23, who lives in Cottage Grove with her 3-year-old LTD, page 5 East Wing remodeling underway inside EMU The Master Plan to modernize the building crawls along as administrators search for funds BY ADAM CHERRY NEWS REPORTER All the doors weren’t on the hinges yet at the newly expanded EMU Craft Center Thursday afternoon. Craft Center adminis trators, still without a real office, have sec tioned off part of the large room to house their desks and computers, which have collected a thin film of sawdust. Not that they’re complaining. The center just received an expansion of more than 1,000 square feet. “The wood shop is now roughly twice as big,” Craft Center Coordinator Diane Loffman said. The old one was becoming a safety hazard because it wasn’t big enough to fit tools, wood and people, she added. Across the hall, the ASUO Women’s Center just added more than 400 square feet by extending its floor space into the hallway. “Before, people were right on top of each other,” Women’s Center Interim Director Erin O’Brien said, adding that the old office only had space for staff. “There wasn’t a usable space to fulfill our mission.” These projects have one thing in com mon: They took place in the EMU’s East Wing, which, in May 2003, was slated to be 70 percent demolished and reconstruct ed in a more modern and efficient design. However, the “EMU Master Plan,” a multi million dollar face-lift on the 55-year-old building, was indefinitely delayed in the summer of 2003 due to budget woes. Now, improvements are being made one section at a time. EMU Director Dusty Miller said the stu dent building fee doesn’t have the more than $40 million needed to complete the Master Plan. “So the plan has been delayed,” Miller said. “There are only possibly four ways to get this new building.” EMU, page 3 Students' perceptions of diversity clash While some non-white students feel accepted, others express uneasiness BY AMANDA BOLSINGER NEWS REPORTER Her first class at the University wasn’t until noon, and the fresh man student thought she knew the right building. She was wrong. Lost, she asked a passing student for directions, which confused her even more. A second student guid ed her to the right building and told her the correct door was at the building’s rear. It wasn’t. She rushed back to the front of the building and went inside. Twenty minutes late, she rushed into class, made her breathless apologies and sat in the first open desk she could find. Then, she looked around the room at her classmates and real ized that she was the only minor ity student in a full class. This experience isn’t an isolated one for freshman student Victoria Chang and other minority students at the University. With a campus that is 87 percent Caucasian, even the largest classes often have only one or two non-white students. “Often in the classroom I am to kenized,” said Scott Lu, fourth year student and member of the Asian Pacific American Student i 1.7% White, non-hispanic Declined to respond Multi-ethnic Native American Hispanic African American Asian, Pacific Islander BretFurtwanglerI Grahic artist Union. “If I am the only person of color in a class, then I am expect ed to represent and speak for all people of color.” With Martin Luther King Jr. Day approaching, people are celebrat ing the progress that has been made in diversifying the commu nity and showing tolerance, exam ining current circumstances and asking how far they have come. Opinions vary as experiences vary. Some students say the University is relatively diverse. Others say it’s not at all. Students’ perceptions often depend on their personal backgrounds. Freshman football player Kwame Agyeman said the Univer sity is more diverse than his home town, Chicago. “I lived in the northwest sub urbs of Chicago; it’s not nearly as diverse as people think. 1 grew up and went to school with all Caucasians,” Agyeman said. He has also found that on cam pus people assume he is an athlete because he is black and people are quickly accepting. “On campus, people are quick to know if you’re black, you’re an athlete, and you’re OK,” Agyeman said. Agyeman said it’s not just the campus that is more diverse, but that most people are more open minded here. "In Chicago, the parents were kind of the last generation with problems with things like interra cial dating,” he said. “Here people are much more OK with it and a lot more laid-back. ” Lu had other perceptions. He grew up in Southern California and remembers his impression of the first day of classes at the University. “I just looked around and thought, ‘Wow, it’s really white here. What am I doing here?”’ Lu said. He also remembers that toward the end of spring term of his fresh man year he was on campus and a couple came up to him and asked him slowly and loudly where a building was, assuming that he was an international student be cause he is Asian. While the school doesn’t have an open problem with racism, Lu said it’s hidden and subtle here. “It’s not that whites hate blacks. It’s a multilevel problem and it’s extremely subtle. People think it’s all OK, but it’s not, and it’s obviously not for the people DIVERSITY, page 4 Finals Week library schedule in jeopardy Lauren Wimer | Senior photographer Erin Toews studies Spanish in the Knight Library on Tuesday afternoon. BY PARKER HOWELL SENIOR NEWS REPORTER The Knight Library may no longer offer students a place to study around the clock during Fi nals Week next year unless stu dent leaders authorize incidental fees to cover half the cost for the popular service, a move senators appeared hesitant to make during Wednesday’s Student Senate meeting. The library began offering 24/7 service during Dead Week and Finals Week in spring 2003 to provide students a safe place to cram for exams throughout the night. Yet keeping the building open — which costs about $4,000 a term for security — will no longer be affordable after this year for the cash-strapped library, University Librarian Deb Carver said. Library records show that the extended library hours are used about 4,000 times per term, Carver said. “There’s a big demand,” she said. “It’s ended up being a much more popular service than I would have expected.” Carver said the library won’t LIBRARY, page 5
