Oregon daily emerald., May 13, 2005, Image 1

The business of etiquette I 7
MERALD
An independent newspaper
wunv. da i lyemera Id. com
Since 1900 | Volume 106, Issue 155 \ Friday, May 13, 2005
UO Senate
discusses
salaries
for faculty
The process for drafting the
diversity plan was also a topic
of conversation at the meeting
BY MEGHANN M. CUNIFF
SENIOR NEWS REPORTER
The newly drafted diversity plan and the
long-lasting search for more funding for
faculty salaries were topics of discussion
at Wednesday’s University Senate meet
ing. University Vice Provost for Institution
al Equity and Diversity Greg Vincent ad
dressed concerns about the process for
drafting the diversity plan, and Senior Vice
President and Provost John Moseley de
fended the administration’s role in the
search for salary funding.
Steve Hsu, chair of the Senate Budget
Committee, outlined where the average
University professor’s salary stands in
comparison with other universities. He
emphasized that the differences in average
salaries are becoming so problematic that
the overall quality of the University as an
academic institution is suffering.
The average total compensation for fac
ulty members stood at 82.5 percent of fac
ulty compensation at universities consid
ered to be the University’s peers, according
to the report. Last year, that figure was
84.9 percent.
When comparing salary only, University
faculty members made 77.3 percent of the
average faculty salaries at competing
universities, down from 79.3 percent the
previous year.
The University is currently in the middle
of a $600 million fundraising campaign,
and Hsu said a portion of those endow
ments need to be dedicated to fixing the
salary crisis that is threatening to remove
the University from its position as a lead
ing research institute.
“If you make a choice not to do it, how
can you claim that faculty compensation
or faculty quality are your top priority?”
Hsu said.
Moseley responded to the comment.
“The endowments are all designated for
specific purposes,” he said. “It is a mis
statement to say that the administration
could make a decision to direct $150 mil
lion or even $10 million of that.”
Hsu agreed that the statement was “a lit
tle overly provocative” but said he intend
ed it to be that way in hopes of getting the
administration’s attention.
Moseley said he agrees that faculty com
pensation is a pressing issue but empha
sized the difficulty of finding one solution
to the problem.
“I absolutely place it as a top priority,
and I am very concerned about the warn
ings that you give based on these num
bers,” Moseley said. “But let’s not get a
message out that there’s some simple so
lution if the administration would just get
off its rear end.”
Vincent updated the Senate on the Di
versity Work Group’s recommendation, a
recommendation Senator and math profes
sor Huaxin Lin said is not at all reflective
of what was discussed during the diversity
advisory council meetings.
“Last Friday, I found a printed docu
ment from somebody else with my name
SENATE, page 4
s
Nicole Barker | Photographer
Sophomore business student Aaron Alway shoveled and spread mulch for University Day on Thursday morning.
Mark of a century V
More than 775 people participated in this year's University Day
by spreading bark mulch, planting flowers and picking up litter
BY EVA SYLWESTER
NEWS REPORTER
The University campus got a fresh coat of
mulch and flowers Thursday as part of
the annual University Day.
This year’s event, dubbed “Leave Your Mark,”
commemorated the 100th anniversary of the first
University Day, which took place in 1905. In the
early 1900s, the University held an annual spring
celebration called Junior Week that included pa
rades, dances and social events. Members of the
class of 1906 instituted the community service
event to make their Junior Day celebration more
meaningful, according to a press release. Univer
sity Day fell dormant in the 1920s, but Brian
Sandy and Doug Untalan, two students who
heard about University Day on a campus tour,
resurrected the tradition in 1990.
“I think that we all get a lot from our campus
and it’s important to give back,” University Day
Committee chair Heidi Rivinus said, describing
UNIVERSITY, page 6
Middle East
Club enters
scene with
first festival
Participants said the event,
filled with music and mingling,
promoted a positive cultural view
BY BRT1TNI MCCLENA1 JAN
NEWS REPORTER
The Middle East Festival was in full swing
Thursday night at Riley Hall as students, visi
tors and community members mingled and
spoke Farsi, Arabic, Hebrew and English
throughout a night filled with traditional food,
music, film and culture.
The Middle East Club, a group that was
formed in fall 2004 and sponsored the festival,
was founded primarily by undergraduate stu
dents Natalie Tajipour, Babak Ghafarzade and
Laila Taraghi. The group initially began as an
Iranian student group but grew to include the
people and cultures throughout the region.
The festival was the group’s first event.
“We had no idea what to expect tonight,”
Ghafarzade said. “It’s really nice to see so
much support from the community for the
Middle East Club and to see so many people
interacting with each other.”
The Middle East Club has applied for recog
nition as an official incidental-fee funded stu
dent group for the upcoming school year, but
Thursday night’s event was paid for entirely by
club members’ personal funds and the Resi
dence Hall Association.
The festival kicked off with the musical tal
ents of seventh grader Seena Maleki playing
the santur, a trapezoid-shaped stringed instru
ment played by striking the strings with light
wooden hammers. Fifteen-year-old Farbod
Sedeh played the tar, a stringed instrument re
sembling a guitar. Music education major
Pouria Sayrafi played the tombak, a Persian
hand drum.
CLUB, page 3
Students' fine art displayed on campus
The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art will host
an exhibit of the works of nine graduate students
BY ADAM CHERRY
NEWS REPORTER
The University’s annual Master
of Fine Arts Exhibition will make a
long-awaited homecoming to a
newly remodeled museum today.
The exhibit, a showcase of art
from graduate students in the Col
lege of Architecture & Allied Arts
MFA program, will open to the
public at 6 p.m. at the Jordan
Schnitzer Museum of Art. Nine
students will show select paint
ings, photographs, prints, jewelry
and other art.
The show marks the debut exhi
bition for all of the artists, museum
spokeswoman Katie Sproles said.
“Such a big part of our mission
is as an educational institution,”
Sproles said. “We’re proud of all
the hard work these students
have done. It’s an honor to show
their work. ”
Sproles said it’s exciting to
display work by students at the
University’s own art museum.
“Typically, this show has a lot of
interest with students because it’s
their peers who are working on it,”
Sproles said.
“The show at the museum is
an extremely big deal,” said Kate
Wagle, director of the Department
of Art. “It’s an opportunity
to show in a first-class exhibition
environment.”
The museum closed to the pub
lic in fall 2000 for a renovation proj
ect that lasted through January of
this year, forcing the MFA exhibit to
find a new home in the interim.
“When the museum closed, we
had to find a new space, which
felt a bit like a catastrophe,” Wa
gle said.
Wagle said it was difficult to find
galleries with necessary security
and proper lighting for the exhibi
tion while the University museum
was being remodeled, but the ex
hibit finally settled at Portland’s
Tim Bobosky | Photographer
Sally Metcalf has fiberwork on display at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art
as part of the Master of Fine Arts Exhibition.
Pacific Northwest College of Art.
“We had an alum who was dean
there,” Wagle said. “He was inter
ested in housing us, and it ended
up being a very good thing, but
they’re glad to be home.”
Amjad Faur is one of the stu
dents whose work, a series of pho
tos entitled “We Who Believe in
the Unseen,” is on show. Faur
hopes to earn his degree in June
and described his art as a “tonally
rich, black-and-white image of a
table or pedestal and a stage where
some sort of event takes place.”
One of his images shows a pillar
of smoke descending upon a table.
ART, page 4