Philanthropists donate to aid helping paws I 4
Oregon Daily Emerald
An independent newspaper at the University of Oregon
www. dailyemerald. com
Since 1900 | Volume 107, Issue 68 | Wednesday, November 30,2005
■ Tracking Department of Defense funds
Campus military research underfire
University Senate will hear a motion that could
make research funded by the U.S. military public
BY EVA SYLWESTER
SENIOR NEWS REPORTER
Is brain research funded by the
U.S. Army being used to con
trol the thoughts of soldiers, or
only to teach dyslexic children to
read?
Is making the Internet faster in
tended to help communications
between doctors and rural pa
tients, or to help pilot robots that
will kill people?
These questions are part of a
larger debate that sprung up this
year on campus concerning the
University’s use of U.S. Depart
ment of Defense funding for re
search, although administrators
say the University has been accept
ing this funding since 1965.
This afternoon, the University
Senate will hear a motion related
to DoD research. If passed,
the motion will require public
forums to be held, where Univer
sity researchers and administra
tors will discuss the nature of
military research projects taking
place on campus.
University Senate President
Peter Keyes is also planning to
create an ad hoc committee on
issues related to research policies,
which would report to the Senate
and to Vice President for
Research and Graduate Studies
Rich Linton.
Keyes said the motivating force
behind the motion has been
emeritus professor of biology
Frank Stahl. Stahl said he became
interested in investigating mili
tary research following the ac
tions of peace studies graduate
student Brian Bogart, who is
spending the academic year sit
ting in a tent across the street
from Johnson Hall in protest of
military research.
Keyes, an associate professor of
architecture, said the proposed
hearings and the ad hoc commit
tee could lead to faculty mem
bers, including himself, becom
ing more informed about the
issue of military research.
“I know nothing about it,” he
said. “The military doesn’t fund a
lot of architecture research.”
Funding
Currently, 19 DoD grants are
being used in many departments,
including psychology, economics
and physics. These grants com
pose about 2 percent of the Uni
versity’s total research budget of
nearly $84 million for the 2004
2005 fiscal year, according to data
obtained from Linton.
Despite slight year-to-year fluc
tuations, University Federal Af
fairs Director Betsy Boyd wrote in
an e-mail that DoD grants have
consistently accounted for about
MILITARY, page 6
FRANK STAHL
BIOLOGY PROFESSOR EMERITUS
Frank Stahl, biology professor emeritus and American Cancer Society
Professor, is part of the campus movement against military research.
Stahl grew up in Boston and attended Harvard University. He
earned a Ph.D. at the University of Rochester and did post-doctoral
work at the California Institute of Technology. After a year at the
University of Missouri, Stahl
came to work at the Universi
ty’s new Institute of Molecular
Biology in 1959.
When Aaron Novick, the in
stitute’s first director, recruited
Stahl, he emphasized that the
University was not doing mili
tary research, Stahl said. Novick
helped develop the atomic bomb
during World War II and after
ward became very opposed to
military research, Stahl said.
Stahl said he was primarily
focused on his own scientific
research for most of his career,
so he did not know a lot about
campus military research until
recently. His research focused
on genetic recombination* the process in which two parent organisms
create an offspring containing DNA from each parent.
Stahl retired in June but still has an office on campus.
In late 2002, Stahl tried to get the University Senate to pass a resolu
tion against what was then a possible war in Iraq, on the grounds that
the war would divert national resources from education. The senate
refused to vote on the issue, so Stahl circulated a petition to have a
faculty assembly.
He and his partner Jette Foss enlisted the help of Concerned
Faculty for Peace and Justice to collect the necessary 500-plus faculty
signatures, and have been involved with the group ever since.
Stahl said he has been interested in removing the Reserve Officers’
Training Corps from campus for years as a statement against
militarism and the military’s homophobic policies. He said he became
specifically interested in military research when graduate student
Brian Bogart came to campus and shared his ideas with him.
— Eva Sylwester
UNIVERSITY RESEARCH FUNDING
2004-05
Source: Rich Linton
Department of Defense funding
Chris Todd I GRAPHIC ARTIST
RICH LINTON
VP FOR RESEARCH AND GRADUATE STUDIES
As the University’s vice president for research and
graduate studies, Rich Linton works to find grant funding for
University research.
Linton grew up in Pennsylvania and earned a bachelor’s degree in
chemistry at the University of Delaware, Newark in 1973. His college
years were during the height
of the Vietnam War, and Lin
ton said he attended a few
anti-war protests in Wash
ington, D.C., at that time.
After earning a doctorate
in chemistry at the Univer
sity of Illinois, Linton was
hired as a chemistry profes
sor at the University of
North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
He said his research inter
ests were similar to those
of the Oregon Nanoscience
and Microtechnologies
Institute in the realm of
surface analysis.
He said he did not have
military funding for his re- __
search projects, but he knew researchers who did, and he col
laborated on projects that were funded by the Office of Naval Re
search. During the mid-1980s, Linton also served as the
University of North Carolina system’s assistant vice president for
research and chief research officer.
Linton came to the University in 2000 to be the vice president for
research and graduate studies. He is also technically a chemistry
professor but said he is too busy with administrative duties to teach.
Linton said his mission is to make the University successful,
and he enlists external support as needed. He said his personal
political views, which he declined to describe, are not involved in
his decisions about funding sources.
“In my capacity as the research vice president, politics certain
ly is part of the job, but political persuasion and orientation on is
sues like that are peripheral to the mission of my office,” Linton
said. “I try to maintain professionalism in the work of the office. ”
— Eva Syl wester
Oregon
holds out
hopes for
BCS bowl
The football team will go to the
Holiday Bowl if it is not selected
for the prestigious matchup
BY MEGHANN M. CUN1FF
NEWS EDITOR
When a football team goes 10-1 during the
regular season, it’s a reason to celebrate.
But University officials are hoping for more
than just a celebration for this year’s team.
They’re hoping for an all-out fiesta.
The Ducks are one of at least three teams in
the running for the two at-large berths in the
Bowl Championship Series’ Fiesta Bowl. If
they don’t go to that bowl game then they’re
assured a spot in the Holiday Bowl, which
takes the third runner-up in the Big 12 and the
Pacific-10 runner-up.
Invitations to the BCS games will be
announced Sunday afternoon.
The difference between the two bowl
games is tremendous.
On paper, it comes down to the money con
ferences get.if their teams make it to a BCS
bowl. Travel expenses — estimated at $1.2
million by the Athletics Department — for the
team and support personnel are paid with
money from the earnings, and the rest is split
between the 10 teams in the conference. The
first team from a conference chosen for a BCS
bowl earns between $14 million and $17
BCS, page 5
Hillel hosts
lecture on
Israel's need
for peace
Omer Caspi gave his opinions
on actions that could resolve
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
BY NICHOLAS WILBUR
NEWS REPORTER
The Israeli’s sacrificed their homes as their
part of the peace process and now the ball
is in the Palestinian Authority’s court to do
its part, San Francisco’s deputy consul general
to Israel told about 20 people Tuesday night
at Oregon Hillel, the foundation for Jewish
campus life.
Omer Caspi discussed the history of peace
movements between Israel and Palestine and
encouraged Palestinian authorities to take the
next step to end terrorism.
“The only way for Israel to survive in the
Middle East is to sign peace treaties with our
neighbors,” Caspi said during the presenta
tion, entitled “Beyond Disengagement:
Israel’s Quest for Peace in the Middle East. ”
Oregon Hillel hosted Caspi’s speech, which
SPEAKER, page 12