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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 11, 2005)
Oregon State Volleyball takes down Ducks in five games I 5A Oregon Daily Emerald An independent newspaper at the University of Oregon www. da ilyemerald. com Since 1900 | Volume 107, Issue 57 | Friday, November 11, 2005 Schools affected by hurricane to reopen Katrina-displaced students can return to damaged campuses; some choose to stay at University BY JOE BAILEY NEWS REPORTER For most of her college career, Stacie Gould lived in Braith waite, La., and commuted north to attend the University of New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina struck her home last August, she moved to Eugene and enrolled at the Univer sity for fall term. Gould, a senior, is one of thousands of col lege students nationwide who moved to a dif ferent school after Hurricane Katrina shut down their home campuses. Now, with schools in the New Orleans area set to reopen in January, students like Gould must decide whether to return to their old schools and friends or remain at their new campuses. Assistant Vice President and Director of Admissions Martha Pitts, who worked to en sure students affected by Hurricane Katrina had a smooth transition to the University, expects the majority of relocated students to return to New Orleans. “We encourage them to return to their home schools, if possible,” she said in an e-mail. Pitts said some students may choose to remain at the University, and they will be accommodated. STACIE GOULD SENIOR a very sman numoer ox siuuexus nave in dicated that they are unable to return,” she said. “We have provided those students with information about the processes necessary to enroll at the UO.” Gould, who has been pursuing a major in Hotel, Restaurant & Tourism Administration, decided not to return to New Orleans, fearing the city would provide a bleak job market for someone with her skills. “New Orleans is pretty much shot as far as the tourism industry for the next five to 10 years,” she said. Sharon Gruber, vice chancellor for university advancement at the University of New Orleans, said students might not return for various reasons. Traditionally, the University of New Orleans has a large number of commuter students who live outside the city. Damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina means that some of these students have no home to commute from, Gruber said. “We are probably going to lose some of the students who were enrolled in the fall,” she said. “In some situations, that’s not going to be of their choice.” Tulane University expects most all of its students will return in January; so far only 150 students have officially withdrawn, said Mike Strecker, director of public relations at Tulane University. “We’re anticipating that the vast majority of our students will return,” he said. Strecker noted that at this point, the actual number of returning students “is a guessing game.” Whatever their concerns, students cited a KATRINA, page 4A Under the RADAR Veterans Day honors military men and women, some of whom attest to feeling unrecognized BY KELLY BROWN NEWS REPORTER r ■ lhey work in the Business Affairs Office, in University Housing and in JL the Geology department. They are classified staff, students and professors. De spite the fact that they have been awarded medals and ribbons for service to their coun try, they form a quiet minority on campus, and they say people do not recognize them. They are the military veterans at the University. Today we honor them. Michael Ray Thompson, a custodian at Westmoreland, is one such man. He enlisted in the Navy at age 17 because he thought the Navy would give him eco nomic opportunity — he was later able to buy a house for his mother — and graduated from high school on an aircraft carrier. In 1975, he participated in the airlifts that evac uated Saigon when the United States with drew from Vietnam and the Northern Vietnamese took over. Tim Bobosky | Photo editor (Top) David Musgrove, a former sergeant for infantry and artillerymen, lent his Vietnam War era helmet and combat boots to the Veteran’s Day display in Oregon Hall. (Bottom) Musgrove shows one of his achievement metals. Over the course of a week, he helped move marines and embassy workers and aided the wounded. “You’ve got tens of thousands of dead people,” he said. “It was an overthrow of a country. ... A history book is not a very good measure of the end of Vietnam,” he said. “We pulled 300,000 people out of the country in a matter of days. ” He said the stigma of the United States VETERANS, page 3A Travel via skateboard could illicit EPD ticket Following complaints, police will enforce an ordinance banning skating on East 13 th Avenue BY KATY GAGNON NEWS REPORTER Skateboarders coming from campus will have to pick up their boards and walk when they reach East 13th Avenue and Kincaid Street. Unless they want to get ticketed. Eugene police have recently cracked down in enforcing a city ordinance that bans the use of skateboards on the streets and sidewalks of East 13th Avenue from Kincaid Street to Pearl Street. An increase in the number of skateboarders and business owners’ complaints have pres sured police to begin issuing warnings and eventually tickets to skateboarders in the area, said Eugene police officer Randy Ellis. Police started strengthening the skateboard ban after meetings with the University Small Business Association, which partially funds the University Eugene Police Department substation, Ellis said. In response to business owners’ complaints, Eugene police installed a video camera outside of the University substation and monitored how many skateboarders passed by. In six hours of observation over two days, police monitored 81 skateboarders, averaging about 14 skateboard violations per hour, Ellis said. Police are currently warning skateboarders about the law by handing out informational cards. Most skateboarders will be given a warn ing on their first offense, but will be ticketed thereafter, Ellis said. In the past six weeks, only one ticket for skateboarding on East 13th Avenue has been issued, Ellis said. Fines for skateboard ing are $50 and boards can be confiscated by Eugene police. Signs prohibiting skateboarding are currently posted on East 13th Avenue but are up high and may not be easily seen, Ellis said. Skateboarders can be dangerous in an area with a lot of pedestrians because skateboards do not steer or stop easily and skateboards rolling without riders can injure people, he said. “When you have a neighborhood that’s so dependent on pedestrians, you need to make it SKATEBOARDS, page 3A Campaign combats high textbook costs A report on rising book prices confirms Public Interest Research Groups' research; campus chapter releases information in bookstore BY NICHOLAS WILBUR NEWS REPORTER University sophomore Mike Filippelli pays for his textbooks on a credit card. His student loans go toward expenses such as rent, food and electricity bills. Filippelli, who is the newly elected Student Senate treasurer, said he is taking two tuition-dis counted classes this term. “I don’t exactly have the time for another job,” he said. This scenario isn’t rare. As part of a national campaign, Oregon Stu dent Public Interest Research Group and state PIRGs around the country are taking action against “skyrocketing” textbook prices in an effort to make college more accessible and af fordable for current and future students. A report published in July by the Government Accountability Office confirmed previous re search by state PIRGs that textbook prices are rising at four times the rate of inflation. “The average student will spend $900 each year on textbooks, equivalent to 17.5 percent of tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and 43 percent of these costs to two-year public in stitutions,” according to Ripoff 101, the state PIRGs’ higher education project from February. “Over a four-year college career, textbooks will add $3,600 or more to the average student’s college expenses,” it states. The national campaign against unnecessary new editions and the common practice of “bundling” books with CD-ROMs is now attract ing the attention of student governments across the nation, including the ASUO. Last week the ASUO Executive and Student Senate joined the coalition by signing a resolu tion to “keep the cost of producing textbooks as low as possible,” give options to buy unbundled textbooks and “pass on cost-savings to students once purely online textbooks are on the market. ” Three leading higher education textbook publishers, Thomson, McGraw-Hill and Pearson, had not responded to Emerald inquiries as of press time. Jenny Manning, coordinator for OSP1RG, said Tuesday during a press conference in the Univer sity Bookstore that any practices which impede the affordability and access of a college educa tion should be closely monitored. TEXTBOOKS, page 8A