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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (April 14, 2016)
NEWS • Lane Community College will hold its 26th Annual Job Fair on Thursday, April 21, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Center for Meeting and Learning, Building 19, main campus, 4000 E. 30th Avenue, Eugene. This is a free event open to the public. Career and Employment Specialist Tina Hunter recommends that people come dressed as they would for a job interview, bring a resume and prepare a pitch. Participants can enter to win door prizes, including $100 gift certificates for classes and gift cards to the LCC Titan Store. • Tyler Head of Turning Point Realty Group is spearheading a shoe drive for Soles4Souls, “a nonprofit global social enterprise committed to fighting poverty through the collection and distribution of shoes and clothing.” The Turning Point Realty Group office at 112 E. 13th Avenue in Eugene is a Soles4Souls drop-off location. Soles4Souls “has collected and distributed more than 26 million pairs of shoes to people in need in 127 countries around the world and all 50 states in the U.S.” For more info on Soles4Souls, go to soles4souls.org/get-involved/. CORRECTIONS/ CLARIFICATIONS In last week’s Slant, we lamented the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s recent decision to kill four wolves and wrote that Oregon’s wolf plan does not require nonlethal practices before wolves are killed. Although we consider some of ODFW’s nonlethal measures debatable — it seems more like common sense to build fences and avoid leaving piles of carcasses out — in this case, we meant to point out that Phase II of the wolf plan requires less stringent nonlethal mitigation than Phase I of the plan. ODFW says that ranchers were using livestock protection dogs and delayed pasture rotation to keep cows close to the road among other strategies; however, not every non-lethal option was exhausted. 10 A pril 14, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com BY MOHAMMED ALKHADHER COASTERS TEST FOR DATE RAPE DRUGS C an coasters that test for date rape drugs help solve the University of Oregon’s sexual assault problem? Or are they a drop in the bucket of a larger institutional issue? The Courtside and Skybox apartments teamed up with local medical supply company Med-Tech Re- source to provide current and potential residents with coasters that test for the date rape drugs ketamine and gamma-Hydroxy- butyrate (GHB), says property manager Sandra Coombs. The coasters are promotional material and designed to raise awareness of sexual assault in UO’s campus community. A survey done by UO professor and institutional betrayal expert Jennifer Freyd released in 2015 reported that approxi- mately one in five women say they’ve been subjected to rape or attempted sexual assault at the UO, and the university has been at the center of several high-profile sexual assault cases in the last couple years. “It’s a great way to get our brand and name out there,” Coombs says, “and it’s also great for raising awareness.” Coombs says she was given a marketing budget to promote the apartments and her brother, Michael Coombs, a Med-Tech representative, proposed the distribution of coasters with the rental company’s insignia. The coasters are the product of a campaign Med-Tech launched about a year and a half ago, says Med-Tech owner Michael Modrich, but it didn’t succeed as they expected. “We’d contacted some sororities and bars in the area, to see if they wanted to promote a safe environment,” Modrich says, “and it really didn’t take off a lot.” Modrich says personal interest spurred the product. His daughter, a UO graduate, uses the drink tests regularly when she goes out. He adds, “There was a time where I was obvi- ously very concerned, reading all the reports on what was go- ing on.” The goal is awareness more than profit. The coasters are about $1.60 with a company logo printed on them, and they can test up to two drinks per coaster. Users apply two drops of liquid, and the coaster turns blue. A less expensive alternative is available, Modrich says: “We have this little book that looks like a little package of business cards that can do the same thing, but they cost sig- nificantly less because they’re not as thick, and they’re not designed to be handed out as much as just to put in a girl’s purse.” “Here in Eugene, we’ve had a big huge problem with it, especially on the UO campus,” Michael Coombs says of the sexual assault issue. “Which is something I don’t like to say too much because I’m an Oregon Duck and I don’t want any- thing to go bad there.” Michael Coombs, who has two daughters, says he’s do- ing everything he can to decrease the percentage of women who are date raped and make sure his children don’t have to deal with such threats when going to school, adding, “It’s just scary.” John VanLandingham, assistant director of the Lane Coun- ty Legal Aid’s Survivors Justice Center, says, “From my per- spective, anything that educates people about date rape strikes me as a good idea. This just strikes me as a clever way for a particular landlord to appeal to a particular market, which is young people, going to college and concerned with date rape.” Rape survivor and UO graduate Laura Hanson says she wants to see the UO itself do more to combat sexual assault. “It seems like a fine product,” she says of the coasters, “and it’s great people are trying to solve the problem, but I’m wor- ried that it would provide a false sense of security.” The coasters would not have prevented her own sexual as- sault, which she says involved a date rape drug. “I was handed a can of beer at a house party,” and students are not going to carry the coasters around at parties. “Men and women should feel safe and trust their peers,” she says. “It shouldn’t be put on the victims to protect themselves,” Hanson adds.
