Duck volleyball falls in Civil War match | 5
Oregon Daily Emerald
An independent newspaper at the University of Oregon
www. dailyemerald. com
Since 1900 | Volume 107, Issue 39 | Tuesday, October 18,2005
Meredith
Fleming pins
a purple
ribbon on
her jacket
Monday
afternoon in
support of
YWCA's
Week
Without
Violence.
The YWCA
will have a
pledge table
outside the
University
Bookstore all
this week.
Nicole Barker | Senior photographer
YWCA Purple Hands Pledge
raises awareness of violence
University activists ask students to not use words or
hands to discriminate against women and minorities
BY KATY GAGNON
NEWS REPORTER
In an effort to raise awareness about
violence against women and minori
ties, the University’s YWCA is encour
aging students to take a pledge to re
frain from using words and hands to
discriminate and thereby disrespect
women and people of racially diverse
backgrounds.
The YWCA’s annual Week Without
Violence Purple Hands Pledge began
Monday. Throughout this week,
labeled National Week Without
Violence, members of the YWCA will
be stationed at various locations on
campus encouraging
students to sign a
petition agreeing to
not use violence.
Students who sign
up will be given a pur
ple ribbon.
Supporters who
wear the ribbon will help
raise awareness about violence
against women and minorities, said
Stephanie Carriere, executive director
YWCA, page 3
University
might feel
effects of
tax repeal
Government report predicts
that $25 billion could be lost
if 'death tax' repeal passes
BY NICHOLAS WILBUR
NEWS REPORTER
In the next year, the U.S. Senate will decide
whether to repeal a tax on inherited estates, a
move that some say could drastically cut do
nations to nonprofits and universities. While
one University expert doesn’t expect any dras
tic effects to the University’s current fund-rais
ing campaign, a government report estimates
up to $25 billion could be lost nationwide.
The estate tax, sometimes referred to as
the “death tax,” is one of the oldest and
most common forms of property taxation.
When an owner dies, the federal govern
ment taxes the remaining property if it’s
worth $1.5 million or more.
The issue has been postponed in the Sen
ate because of Hurricane Katrina, but politi
cians and media pundits still debate the ef
fects a repeal would have on nonprofit
Organizations and universities. Also, be
cause the federal government would experi
ence a drop in tax revenue, some people are
expecting cuts to federal grants and con
tracts to universities.
A Congressional Budget Office report pub
lished in July 2004 found that the amount of
charitable giving to universities, hospitals,
museums, churches and many other non
profit organizations would drastically de
crease because donors would no longer ben
efit from tax write-offs. The report said 30
percent of taxpayers do not pay income tax
on charitable donations.
The University has raised $371 million to
date in private donations as part of Campaign
Oregon: Transforming Lives, a fund-raising
project shooting for $600 million to support
the future development at the University.
University Development Gift Planning Di
rector Hal Abrams said that he has been fol
lowing the estate tax repeal but said that it
likely won’t have a significant effect on char
itable donations to the University because
the majority of donations come from people
with “mega-estates” worth $20 million.
Those with $5 million dollar estates might
be less likely to donate if the tax is repealed,
he said, but the bigger estates usually have
bigger effects.
ESTATE TAX, page 4
HANDS-ON PSYCHOLOGY
ssmmm
Psychology professor brings
human brain to class
Students in Michael Anderson’s Psychology
201: Mind and Brain course were given a first
hand look at their subject of study on Monday.
Anderson, an associate professor of cognitive
neuroscience in the psychology department,
brought a human brain to class.
“This is an exceptionally rare opportunity,”
Anderson said. “The vast majority of people
on the planet Earth never get to have this
experience. ”
Anderson said he has been bringing the
brain, which is kept in Huestis Hall, to class for
about four years.
At the end of class, students had the opportu
nity to don gloves to protect against the skin-ir
ritating preservative the brain is bathed in and
handle the brain.
The preservative made the brain feel harder
to the touch than brains are in their natural
state, Anderson said.
“When I picked it up, it felt like an eraser,”
sophomore Japanese major Nici Grigg said.
Junior human physiology major Craig Jordan
said seeing the subcortical regions on the un
derside of the brain was the most interesting
Kate Horton | Photographer
part for him.
“They were a totally different texture than I’d
seen before,” Jordan said.
Anderson didn’t know anything about the
brain donor’s life or the circumstances of the
donor’s death, although he said because brain
size is proportional to body size, the donor was
probably a large person.
“This was somebody who was thinking
about lunch, thinking about what they were
going to do next week,” Anderson told his
325 students. “This was a person just like all
of you.”
Eva Sylwester
New director takes office at Lewis Center
Scott Frey's goals for the neuroimaging center include garnering
departments' interest and clarifying use of defense funds
BY EVA SYLWESTER
SENIOR NEWS REPORTER
A new director of the Lewis Center for Neu
roimaging began work Monday.
Assistant professor of psychology Scott Frey
hopes to increase the number of departments
that use the center — a component of the Uni
versity’s Brain, Biology and Machine Initiative
— and hopes to attract more students to work
as research assistants or perform research
projects. He also hopes to allay fears about
the center’s research that is funded by the
Department of Defense.
“We want to kind of transcend being exclusive
to any small handful of departments,” Frey said.
The center, located on the north end of
Straub Hall, is built around the Siemens Alle
gra 3 Tesla, a machine that performs function
al magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans
of the human brain. The machine is essential
ly a large magnet that tracks brain activity by
measuring the flow of blood and oxygen to
various regions of the brain.
While the actual operation of the machine
must be done by trained operators, Frey said
most aspects of designing a study that uses fMRI
technology could be done by an undergraduate
honors student.
Currently, most of the research done with the
machine is from the departments of psychology,
biology and human physiology. Some of the cen
ter’s current projects include the effect of drugs
on adolescent brain function, the role of being left
or right-handed in stroke recovery and a simula
tion of how a congenitally deaf person sees, ac
cording to the center’s Web site.
LCNI, page 8