Queer Prom generates safe, fun environment
LGBTQA held the dance for students who might have
missed high school prom because of insecurity
BY BRITTNI MCCLENAHAN
NEWS REPORTER
Many lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender students never went to
their high school proms because of
insecurity caused by negative atti
tudes toward them from some stu
dents, parents and faculty.
For that reason, the Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, Ttansgender, Queer Al
liance first held Queer Prom three
years ago — to give these students a
chance to go to the prom they might
have missed in high school.
On Saturday night, the LGBTQA
held this year’s Queer Prom at the
Red Lion Hotel with the theme “Rain
bow Royalty. ”
But this year’s event, created to
promote diversity and acceptance in
the Eugene community, was more
about having fun, Prom Queen and
event organizer Jenn French said.
“There’s a lot of community sup
port — it’s great,” French said.
“We’re here to have a great time. ’’
The event was a venue for groups
of high school and college students
and for community members to
dance and sing in unison to house
music all night long. Donations col
lected from the event were used to
help fund the prom, French said.
University freshman David Hill of
fered to volunteer at the event.
“The point is to promote diversi
ty,” Hill said. “This is a big issue and
I think events like this one do a good
job of telling people we’re here.”
Luke Good volunteered at the
event and said he was really excited
to just have a good time.
“It’s great to get everyone together
and have a good time. It’s a good
end-of-the-school-year event,” Good
said. “There’s homosexuals, hetero
sexuals — everyone. We’re having
fun, we’re dancing and we’re togeth
er. It’s all that matters.”
Good, a freshman at Lane Commu
nity College, said there’s more diver
sity in Eugene compared to his home
town of Roseburg.
“Roseburg is a cesspool of igno
rance and arrogance,” he said. “It’s
full of people who can’t just accept
people who are born the way they
are. It’s awful.”
Good and Hill talked about
the difference between Eugene
and Roseburg.
“Let me put it this way, in Rose
burg, Luke or I would never have
gone out in heels,” Hill said, referring
to Good’s strappy high heel shoes.
“We wouldn’t have even thought
about it,” Good said.
North Eugene High School stu
dents Joey Slagley, Naomi Bradley
and Ehren Indell attended the Queer
Prom for the first time on Saturday
and said the event was a lot of fun.
They agreed that while Eugene is
better than a lot of cities with its
liberal views, it still has some
progress to make in accepting and
promoting diversity.
“I think it’s overrated,” Slagley
HI_K.
Matt Nicholson | Freelance photographer
Jenn French is crowned queen of the LGBTQA’s Queer Prom at the Red Lion Inn on Saturday night.
said. “The community perpetuates
that it’s accepting but it really de
pends on where you are.”
“Our school’s pretty good, but
there are some people who make you
feel uncomfortable,” Indell said.
University students Billy Hatch, an
international studies major, and
Minh Quan, a pre-med student, went
to the prom for the fun and dancing
and didn’t think of the event as ad
dressing a larger social issue.
“ (Queer Prom) gives a lot of peo
ple a place to show their identity and
feel comfortable,” Quan said.
“A lot of people say they’re cool
with it but they’re full of shit,” Hatch
said. “There’s a difference between
being tolerant and being accepting.”
bmcclenahxin@dailyemerald.com
Class features chance to see like a CEO
The class consists of only 20 students and provides an
opportunity to see the inside of big business firsthand
BY EVA SYLWESTER
NEWS REPORTER
A University class this term of
fered select students the opportuni
ty to look at businesses from a
unique vantage point: that of the
chief executive officer. Five current
and former CEOs of Fortune 500 cor
porations visited the University and
worked closely with students.
Chuck and Gwen Lillis co-taught
the CEO Leadership Series in the Lil
lis Business Complex, built in part
by their $14 million donation. Both
have doctorates in business; Chuck
Lillis earned his at the University
and was the CEO of Fortune 500 ca
ble and broadband communications
firm MediaOne Group, Inc. until
AT&T bought it.
“My observation was that you
learn a lot of things in business
school, but you don’t have an op
portunity to see how those things
come together at the higher level of
management in large public compa
nies,” Chuck Lillis said. “I was fortu
nate to be an academic and a CEO.”
The 20 students in the class,
mostly M.B.A. students, were each
chosen through a competitive
application process.
“We wanted to put together ...
teams of students with balanced
skills,” said professor of manage
ment Rick Mowday, who helped co
ordinate the class.
The class met for three hours,
once per week. The Lillis’ home is in
Denver, Colorado. For the first few
weeks of the term, the couple tried
living at a local hotel, but having pet
dogs made that problematic, so they
switched to flying to Eugene for two
days each week and staying in touch
with students via the Internet,
Chuck Lillis said.
The other four CEOs involved
with the class were Tim Boyle, CEO
of Columbia Sportswear Co., Jeff
Fettig, president and CEO of
Whirlpool Corporation, Steve Mal
colm, chairman of the board, presi
dent and CEO of the Williams Com
panies, which deal with natural gas,
and Jeff Noddle, chairman and CEO
of Supervalu, Inc., a food retailer.
Each visited the University to hear
presentations from students and
give public lectures.
Mowday said the Lillises ap
proached 18 corporations and all
were willing to participate in the
class. Of those 18, four companies
that face a variety of challenges in
the business world were selected.
For instance, Mowday said, Su
pervalu, Inc. directly competes
with Wal-Mart in the realm of gro
cery retail.
“If that doesn’t make you a little
bit nervous, you probably need
medical attention because Wal
Mart’s a formidable competitor,”
Mowday said.
In addition to the CEOs, Mowday
said the Lillises also brought
consultants who work with CEOs
to the class. The consultants talked
to students about leadership and
how to give presentations to high
ranking executives.
The class was divided into five
teams of four students, and each
team researched one of the corpo
rations involved with the class.
Each team then visited its assigned
company’s headquarters, which
meant, depending on the team,
traveling to Ttilsa, Okla., Benton
Harbor, Mich., Eden Prairie, Minn.,
or Portland, Ore.
Zane Ritt | Photographer
Jeff Noddle, CEO
and chairman of
the board for
Supervalu Inc., a
parent company
of many grocery
store chains,
spoke before an
audience
Thursday in the
Lillis Business
Complex.
Accounting masters student
Daniel Geiger visited Supervalu, Inc.
in Minnesota with his team in mid
April and found the school-funded
trip educational.
“You never get to know anything
about a company just from reading
articles,” Geiger said.
“When you can really get out and
touch and feel a real company, that’s
a great advantage the University has,
and the University should retain
that,” Noddle said. He added that
the common practice of teaching
business through case studies is in
effective because case studies quick
ly become outdated and don’t reflect
the unplanned events that come up
in the course of running a business.
Noddle said the students’ bright
conceptual thought and speed with
which they learned about the corpo
rations impressed him.
“It once again told me that our
country’s in great future hands,”
Noddle said.
evasylwester@dailyemerald.com
Budget: Fees
slated to rise
in colleges
Continued from page 4A
to pay for it.”
The law school’s fee will increase by
$600 per term next year if the fee book
passes, a 16 percent change Paris said
will help pay for increasing costs in
salaries and benefit plans. She added
the fee also addresses expenses like
scholarships. Law students paid $3,125
in resource fees per term this year.
The AA&A college has proposed a
$75 or $125 fee for its students next
year. According to an e-mail from
Doug Blandy, AA&A associate dean for
academic affairs, the purpose of the re
source fee is “to provide new and ex
panded non-instructional support
services for students.”
Blandy anticipated that 40 percent
of the revenue would be returned to
AA&A programs and departments for
distribution and 60 percent would be
allocated to enhance the college’s in
frastructure, including improvements
to computing and faculty and student
facilities and career services.
The Honors College would increase
its fee rate, which steps down as stu
dents progress through five years in
the program. Next year’s freshmen will
pay $700 per term according to the Fee
Book. Sources at the Honors College
said this year freshmen paid only $500.
“The populist in me is not real hap
py about it,” Richard Kraus, Honors
College director, said of the fee. “But
...we need it.”
Kraus added that the Honors
College already operates “in the
red.” The number of tenure-track
faculty in the college and the 25 stu
dent cap on classes differentiates it
from the rest of the University.
“If our students can afford this, it’s
still a bargain I think,” Kraus said.
adamcherry@dailyemerald. com