Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012, February 18, 2005, Page 5, Image 5

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    Budget decreases available
athletic tickets for students
BY PARKER HOWELL
SENIOR NEWS REPORTER
The ASUO Student Senate on
Wednesday passed about $1.3 mil
lion for the committee that bargains
with the Athletics Department to buy
student tickets to sports games for
next year, approving a budget de
signed to address two past problem
areas for the committee.
A 3.11 percent decrease from last
year, the budget falls below the 5.3
percent increase limit set by the Sen
ate for the Athletic Department
Finance Committee.
For the first time, the budget will
bring the committee in fulfillment of
a contract stipulation requiring stu
dents to fund 50 percent of the fair
market value of sports tickets, ADFC
Chairman Kevin Day said. He said
the budget also addresses the “no
show factor” — students who receive
tickets to games but don’t use them.
Students will lose 400 seats at home
football games and 300 seats at men’s
basketball games because of changes
to the contract. Day said that will help
address the no-show problem.
He added that the draft of the con
tract includes a stipulation that if the
no-show average is below 5 percent
of student tickets for two years, the
ADFC will redress the number of
tickets. The proposed contract would
also stipulate that students must re
ceive 2,300 seats in the University’s
new basketball stadium, which could
be built in four years “if everything
goes right,” Day said.
The ADFC’s contract with the
department will be signed later in
the spring, ADFC member Jack
Crocifisso said.
ASUO Vice President Mena Ravas
sipour said the ASUO Executive was
in “full support” of the budget. Al
though Senator Barett Volkmann
spoke out against a reduction in
seats, several senators commended
committee members for presenting a
budget below benchmark.
“They’ve essentially done every
thing we could have ever wanted
and more,” Senator Austin
Shaw-Phillips said.
The ASUO Student Senate will hold a
special meeting Monday to approve ASUO
Executive appointments to Senate Seat 3, which
sits on the Programs Finance Committee, and
to a PFC at-large seat.
The PFC has been stalled because injunc
tions placed against three of its members have
prevented the committee from making quorum
requirements necessary to hold meetings, delay
ing groups’ budget hearings more than a week.
Once appointments are made to the posi
tions, the PFC will meet quorum.
The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the
EMU’s Owyhee Room.
— Parker Howell
But Senator Stephanie Stoll ques
tioned whether meeting 50 percent
this year when students are losing
seats would set a precedent for future
years when it might be harder to meet
the 50 percent clause.
Day said future budgets depend
partly on the department’s ticket
prices, which have increased by
about 3 percent in past years.
SENATE, page 12
Multi-task: Computers pose special challenge
Continued from page 1
content of the banner ads, but they
still slow you down,” Hornof said.
Mayr researches the amount of
time it takes people to switch be
tween tasks. In the studies, people
perform simple computer tasks,
related to the colors and shapes of
objects, in a certain order.
“If you go from task A to task B, you
actually have to suppress in your mind
task A,” Mayr said. “The bottom line
is, it can be really hard for people to
switch back and forth between a lim
ited number of tasks because you have
to suppress a task, and it takes you
longer to get back to it.”
But multi-tasking, on some level, is
an unavoidable part of life.
“Some multi-tasking activities
are crucial, such as being able to fol
low a lecture and take notes at the
same time,” Hornof said. “Students
tend to be very good at this particular
multi-tasking activity.”
However, some types of multi-task
ing are more problematic than others.
Mayr said the more similar the two
r
tasks are, the more difficult it is to do
them at the same time. He gave the ex
ample of a person trying simultaneous
ly to drive a car to one place while talk
ing on a cell phone and giving
someone directions to a different place.
“You can’t use spatial representa
tion more than once, so you’re either
giving your friend faulty directions,
or you’re not able to navigate well in
your car,” Mayr said.
Hornof, also using the example of
combining cell phone use and driv
ing, said speaking and mental
processes of navigation are both con
trolled by the phonological loop, the
voice inside one’s head, and attempt
ing to use the phonological loop for
two different purposes at the same
time can cause problems.
Mayr said when a person is talking
on a cell phone about something oth
er than navigation while driving, the
effect is less than the combination of
two spatial tasks, but still noticeable.
“In the end effect, you will have
less focus on either one of the two,”
Mayr said.
Computers pose a special challenge
for people multi-tasking.
“This constant decision-making —
am I going to stay focused or not? —
has a very heavy cost,” Mayr said. In
the case of e-mail alerts, he suggest
ed that computer users who need to
improve their productivity turn off e
mail alerts and set a specific time
each day to check their e-mail.
“I think that, in general, computers
and the interfaces need to get sim
pler, more minimalist,... less in your
face,” Hornof said.
However, he emphasized that
computers are not entirely at fault
for the diminished productivity that
multi-tasking causes.
“Ultimately the responsibility is on
the user to develop their ability to fo
cus on one task at a time if they really
mean to be productive in each one of
those tasks,” Hornof said. “Improved
focus can be achieved through activi
ties such as meditation, yoga and
turning off instant messaging.”
evasylwester@ dailyemerald, co
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