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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 2005)
The Red Room brings dance to the EMU MERALD An independent newspaper www.dailyemerald. com Since 1900 | Volume 106, Issue 91 | Tuesday, February 1, 2005 UO to start journalism program in Portland The journalism school will use funds from a $15 million gift to create the program in the fall BY ADAM CHERRY NEWS REPORTER The School of Journalism and Commu nication announced plans Sunday for the creation of a program at the University’s Portland Center. The program, slated to be gin as early as fall 2005, will initially in clude an undergraduate internship and graduate studies in public relations. “We’ve been talking about a journalism school presence in Portland since the late 1980s,” said Tim Gleason, the dean of the School of Journalism and Communication. “From the beginning of (Campaign Ore gon), it’s been one of our goals.” The University received an anonymous $15 million gift, the third-largest in Univer sity history, at a fundraising gala Saturday. The Portland journalism program will re ceive $4.5 million of the $6.5 million dedi cated to the School of Journalism and Communication. Portland offers access to a number of major media organizations, Gleason said. While the initial master’s program in Portland will have a public relations focus, the hope and vision for the program will stretch across the journalism school’s fo cus areas, Gleason added. Apart from pub lic relations, students at the journalism school can focus on advertising, magazine, news-editorial, communication studies and electronic media. “We’re still in the initial stages of deter mining what the first programs will look like,” he said. JOURNALISM, page 3 IN BRIEF ASUO to hold town-hall meeting today in EMU Students can express their concerns and give suggestions to members of the student government today during the first ASUO town-hall meeting of the year. ASUO representatives from different branches of student government will be on hand during the open forum from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Ben Linder Room on the ground floor of the EMU. ASUO President Adam Petkun said stu dents are welcome to discuss anything they want during the forum. “We want them to tell us what’s on their mind, what they want us to be working on,” he said. “We want to talk to them about some of the things we’ve worked on, show them how amazing students have been this year. ” Petkun said he hopes discussing students’ successes so far this year will be empower ing and help student leaders “carry that mo mentum into other ventures.” He added that students interested in run ning for government positions next year can learn more about the process during the fo rum, although a formal event about elec tions will be held later this year. — Parker Howell Examining ASUO ASUO sets punishment timetable Student leaders who violated conduct code on an October retreat will perform community service by May instead of repaying student fees BY PARKER HOWELL SENIOR NEWS REPORTER Student government leaders who violated the Student Conduct Code during an October Sunriv er retreat will complete their punishments, in cluding community service and extended office hours, by the end of May, ASUO officials an nounced Friday. Multiple retreat attendees smoked marijuana and drank alcohol on the Oct. 8-10 nip, but the ASUO has refused to disclose their names or how many of the 39 students who went on the trip committed the violations. Students who participated in the retreat will perform 100 total hours of community service as a group by the fifth week of spring term, hold 10 exUa office hours each by May 25 and will create a “dos and don’ts” video and other reneat guide line material by March 10. In a letter regarding potential punishments de livered to Student Judicial Affairs Coordinator Chris Loschiavo on Nov. 19, retreat attendees ini tially proposed paying back all of the incidental fee funds used on the trip in addition to other punishments. While Loschiavo approved of the committee, video and community service, repayment was not finalized as a punishment because ASUO offi cials said it would not be feasible to raise the money or determine how much money would be necessary since most of the activities on the re treat were productive. ASUO Public Relations Director Nathan Strauss said the group of retreat participants for mulated the schedule. “Like everything else, like the punishments, (it was done) as a group and it was sent to everyone in the group to be discussed,” he said. Strauss said officials sent a letter with the schedule to retreat participants for approval by Friday morning. No suggested changes had been received as of Friday afternoon. He said the timeline was designed to allow par ticipants reasonable time to complete their punishments. “We basically just consider everyone in volved is really busy with their positions and fo cusing on getting all their other duties accom plished,” he said. ASUO President Adam Petkun said there is no formal plan for who will record the hours, although he will probably oversee the commu nity service. “I might probably do it since I’m kind of an outside party, so I’ll be going along for the ride and doing the community service because I think it’s a good thing for the community anyway even though I wasn’t in the retreat,” he said. “So that way I can also kind of, from afar, keep track of who has (done service). ” ASUO Vice President Mena Ravassipour said retreat participants will do service both on and off campus. Strauss said the group will be notified when service opportunities arise. Opportunities for par ticipants to serve as a group will be beneficial, ASUO, page 8 Tolerance I and the |orah A rabbi's visit to the Hillel this weekend helps shed light on sexuality, religion and family BY MORIAH RALINGIT NEWS REPORTER Rabbi Michael Latz is tired. Bags under his eyes attest to late nights spent car ing for his 10-month-old daughter, Noah, a blonde-headed girl with glowing blue eyes and an endless supply of energy. The 18 or so University students who have gathered over Chinese food to hear him speak are warned that Latz is running on Noah’s time, and that he’ll probably have to cut out early to put her to bed. Latz balances his many roles as gracefully as possible. He manages to keep one eye on the rambunctious infant while answering stu dents’ questions. In addition to managing a household of three children, two dogs, one cat and a fish “that just died, thank God,” Latz is the rabbi and founder of Kol HaNeshamah, a progressive synagogue community in west Seattle. He’s also gay. Latz traveled from Seattle to lead Shabbat, or Sabbath, services at the Hillel on Friday night. On Saturday night, he sat down to dis cuss his experiences as a rabbi and as a father in his community after Havdalah, a ritual marking the end of Shabbat, was performed. He spoke about the community he leads in west Seattle and its philosophy of inclusiveness. “My philosophy is that when you walk in the synagogue you shouldn’t have to check your identity at the door,” he said. Senior JulieAnn Steinberger, who self-iden tifies as queer, helped coordinate Latz’s visit. She said “historically, religion has been such a core of conflict in terms of sexuality” and added that Latz’s visit was part of Hillel’s ef fort to reach out to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community. Tim Bobosky | Photographer Rabbi Michael Latz traveled from Seattle to talk about sexual orientation and religion at the Oregon Hillel on Saturday night. “I wanted to be a rabbi that had an inclusive agenda," he said. “It’s important in this modem time to con nect people’s religion and their sexuality,” she said. Latz said the Jewish community has been notably progressive in its acceptance of homosexuals. “Reform Judaism has long been at the fore front of accepting homosexuals,” he said. In the 1990s, rabbinical seminaries began accepting gays and lesbians, and in 2002, a seminary accepted its first transgender stu dent. Rabbis have also sanctioned gay and lesbian marriages. But Kol HaNeshamah’s inclusiveness ex tends far beyond sexual identity. “We are gay inclusive and gay friendly, but I had no desire to be ‘the gay rabbi,’” he said. - Kol HaNeshamah is a new, small congrega tion of about 70 families, and most members know one another in the tight-knit communi ty. Latz said it has a notable number of single parents, mixed couples (couples with one non-Jewish partner), transgender couples and survivors of domestic violence. Another distinctive aspect of Kol HaNeshamah, Latz said, is it requires a high level of participation. “I don’t pussyfoot around and assume that every person that walks in is broken,” he said. Congregants are typically asked to participate in different synagogue activities, whether it be serving on a committee or helping with music. Graduate student Jordan Holtz is a former member of Latz’s congregation and also helped coordinate his visit. Holtz said Latz re quires a lot from his members. “It’s not just drop-by Judaism,” he said. “You’re going to be asked to be an active part of the community. ” Latz said he encountered resistance as a gay rabbi in the first synagogue he worked at. One board member raised a complaint about him kissing his partner during services. “I told him I’d stop kissing my partner when he’d stop kissing his wife,” he said. “That end ed that conversation pretty quickly.” Latz also spoke of references to homosexual ity in the Torah, saying while homosexuality is implicitly prohibited, the authors of the Torah RABBI, page 8
