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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 2, 2005)
Park: A land swap plan' could solve safety issues Continued from page 1 “and bringing a lot of positive activ ities will combat the negativity with their presence.” Ellis said he did not disagree, but that some of the “positive feeling” on 13th Avenue will be lost if the park is re-opened because the peo ple the park attracted will filter out onto West University’s most popu lar stretch. “It doesn’t take long to overrun the park,” Ellis said. “You will start the war over again. The negative potential outweighs the positive po tential of doing this. But I don’t think you should give up on it.” The WUN board went on to dis cuss some small improvements they could make before giving their pro posal to the city to reopen the park in case it is denied. University student and board member Kellyn Gross suggested a test run where interested neighbors and board members could start to clean up the park little by little. “If it doesn’t work out and we see problems, then we’re not so invest ed,” Gross said. At the meeting Bob Quinney an nounced that he and his wife, Leslie, the owners of the land next-door to the park, are planning to tear down the house on the corner of 14th Av enue and Hilyard Street. Part of the proposed rebuilding plan includes a possible land swap that would ex change his corner lot for land facing 14th Avenue Alley. This would improve visibility from the street and close off the back portion of the park. The Quinneys would also like to build a two- or three-story apart ment complex that would include second- and third-floor balconies and windows looking down on the park. “The reconfiguration would eliminate alley access and improve visibility by making it shallower,” said landscape architect Robin Hostick from the City of Eugene Parks Department. Hostick has been working on a plan with the Quinneys and developer Gordon Anslow of Anslow and Degeneault, a design and construction firm in Eugene. “I would begin to suggest that a land swap would eliminate the problem, but you can increase the success of the park by reconfigura tion (because) criminals want places that are out of sight, dark ... as it is right now the park feels like a no-man’s land,” Anslow said. “Lots of eyes seems to make peo ple feel safer,” Anslow continued. “It’s not breaking any new ground to say that if you reconfigure the park it won’t be quite as appealing to criminals.” Property owner Bob Quinney said reconfiguration makes sense for everybody. “It’s a win-win, we think. Once (City Councilor David Kelly) hears that the park is behind it and the neighborhood association is behind it, it... will go a long way.” The board moved to vote on the proposal, which passed unani mously. WUN board member and secretary Deborah Healey then wrote a statement to send to the City Council: “The West University Neighbors Board supports the proposed land swap by Bob and Leslie Quinney in order to create a shallower, wider park with greater visibility.” Hostick said that the council must approve this before the plan can be gin and emphasized the need for community input in the decision. “We would need councils in volved and the neighborhood asso ciation showing support; that would be a step in the right direction,” Hostick said. WUN Board Chairman Drix Rix mann said that if WUN Park can make an improvement like this, “it could spread to other parks.” Noting that about 60 percent of West University residents are students, Rixmann said it is extremely important that students get involved. “If you live here now, it’s your community,” he said. “People need to feel that it’s their neighborhood, because it is. The city wants all in put, so just come in and talk.” Healey agreed, “five out of nine board members are students,” she said, including ASUO President Adam Walsh. “The board works well when we have sophisticated representa tion of students,” Healey said. “The students’ energy is what restarted (the West University Neighborhood Association).” The next WUN board meeting is Thursday at 7 p.m. in Central Pres byterian Church located at 555 E. 15 th Ave. Contact Rixmann for more infor mation on how to get involved by calling 485-1585, e-mailing him at Drix@msn.com, or by mail: West University Neighbors c/o 307-1/2 E. 14th Ave. Eugene, OR 97401-4207. nwilbur@dailyememld.com New programs will prepare students for an economy closely tied to East Asia Oregon has an interdependence with East Asia because of location and similarities in industry BYGABE BRADLEY NEWS EDITOR Several departments at the Univer sity are teaming up to better prepare students for the challenges of work ing in an economy that is closely tied to East Asia. The enterprise, spearheaded by the University’s Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, involves lin guistics, political science, history departments and the business school, among others. The initiative is partially fueled by the projections of economists and business analysts, which claim China will soon overtake the United States as the world’s largest market. “The new economy in Oregon has a huge interdependence on East Asia,” said James Bean, dean of the Lundquist College of Business. Bean said many Oregon firms have operations in East Asia while many East Asian firms have opera tions in Oregon. Many businesses in this state have told the business school that they need more students who are comfort able with and informed about East Asian culture, Bean said. Bean said the increasing impor tance of East Asian culture on Oregon businesses has several causes, rang ing from geography to a similarity of business types. “Partly we’re on the pacific rim and partly the economies of China, India and Korea are exploding in the area of high tech — the area that Oregon is very into.” “We have a long-term partnership with Japan at the University,” Bean said. “This is partly because East Asian Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences is one of the strongest in the country.” Relying on the strengths of several schools and departments will be vital to the success of the new programs. “We don’t have a lot of internation al business faculty,” Bean said. Faculty from other parts of the Uni versity would be involved in teaching the new programs. Bean said the process has been highly collaborative, in order to “make the whole bigger than the sum of its parts.” However, the final details of the ini tiative have not yet been decided. “We’re in the process of plan ning the new programs,” Bean said. “We’re putting together some proposals for the federal govern ment right now. ” The federal grant proposals that would fund the project are due in the fall. According to Bean, the program will involve learning modules in East Asian culture and East Asian busi ness practices. Also, the program will culminate with a trip to East Asia and tours of several businesses. “Each year we would do a different emphasis. The first year we have planned is sports business because we already have close contacts with the 2008 Beijing Olympics Commit tee,” Bean said. “And every year we’d do something else, like manufactur ing or electronics.” Bean said each year’s trip empha sis would be selected by the adminis tration with the help and advice of faculty and students involved. Estimated participation for the first year of the program is between 20 and 30 students, according to Bean. Bean said the goal of the initia tive is to make participants more competitive in the job market and the global economy. gabebradley@dailyemerald.com Your Summer Check out the September Experience Courses September 6-16, 2005 • Short on electives? • Looking for a unique way to wrap up your summer? • Want to get ahead in your course of study? • Excited to get back in the swing of classes? • Does $500 for 4 credits sound like a deal to you? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you need to find out more about the September Experience Courses. Resident and nonresident students take one course for 4 credits in nine days for just $500. Classes meet from 8:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. Monday - Friday. Courses are included in Summer 05 DuckHunt. Course No. Course Title Instructor, CRN. ANTH 310 Anthropology of Film & TV P. Scher 43424 ANTH 399 Origins of Modern Humans G. Nelson 43425 INTL 407 Womens’ Movements Around World A. Weiss 43423 GEOG410 Physical Geography of Oregon M. Power 43422 PSY 383 Pyschoactive Drugs TBA 43431 HPHY410 Pathophysiology B. Nichols 43466 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON SUMMER SESSION Register using DuckWeb <http://duckweb.uoregon.edu/>. Visit our Summer Session web site, <http://uosummer.uoregon.edu/SepExp.html>; call us, 346-3475, or send us email, <septexp@darkwing.uoregon.edu.>
