UO E-Clips is a daily report prepared by the Office of Communications (http://comm.uoregon.edu) summarizing current news coverage of the University of Oregon.

Media mentions for December 16

1. Higher education: Universities' research collaboration boosts Oregon

The Oregonian, by Guest Columnist Jonathan Fink (PSU): With the recent furor about the departure of University of Oregon President Richard Lariviere, some might think that our state's higher education community is deeply divided about the best ways universities can contribute to regional economies. Not true. While declining state funding has held back Oregon's research universities relative to their counterparts across the nation, "going it alone" is not a solution. Even with the generosity of private donors, UO, Oregon State, Portland State and Oregon Health & Science University are not likely to catch their peers on their own, given the decades-long head start of strong public, philanthropic and corporate support that leading schools in other states draw upon. The competitive edge that has been largely overlooked in the recent uproar is the collaborative research environment built in Oregon over the past decade. Most clearly exemplified by three Signature Research Centers in nanotechnology, drug development and energy-efficient construction, the level of cooperation among the state's four research universities, high-tech industry, state government and federal laboratories has few parallels across the country.

2. Applying While Asian

National Review Online: To check or not to check the Asian box? That is the pointed choice faced by Asian-American students applying for admission to what are supposed to be the most tolerant places on earth, the nation's colleges. The Associated Press ran a report on Asian students of mixed parentage checking "white," if possible, on their applications to avoid outing themselves as Asian. The Princeton Review Student Advantage Guide counsels Asian-American students not to check the race box and warns against sending a photo. ... Stephen Hsu, a professor of physics at the University of Oregon and an outspoken critic of current admission practices, laments that Asians seem strangely accepting of the unfair treatment of their children. The official Asian-American groups tend to support anti-Asian quotas because they are captives of liberal orthodoxy before all else.

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Media mentions for December 15

1. UO awaiting direction on state hiring freeze

Register-Guard: Oregon universities, including the University of Oregon, will abide by Gov. John Kitzhaber's call for a state hiring freeze while lawmakers wrestle with expected declines in tax revenue, state officials said Wednesday. Presidents of all seven state universities are expected to meet with Oregon University System Chancellor George Pernsteiner today to discuss the freeze and how it will be carried out. Kitzhaber declared the freeze late Tuesday, saying the state needs to take a variety of steps to curb spending in the wake of continued sagging revenue. State government funds only a small slice of Oregon's higher education budget. The UO, for example, gets only about 7 percent of its total funding from state government, with the rest coming from student tuition and fees, research grants and the like. But an OUS spokeswoman said universities need to follow Kitzhaber's lead.

2. UO to share $2M grant for fuel cell materials research

Sustainable Business Oregon: The U.S. Department of Energy announced this week that the University of Oregon will share $2 million with three other organizations to develop and test hydrogen storage materials for use in fuel cells. The funds are available as part of a push on the part of the feds to fund technologies that can be used in fuel cell electric vehicles. In all, the DOE is investing $7 million to fund four 3-year projects in California, Washington in Oregon. "Targeted investments in cutting-edge hydrogen storage technologies will spur American ingenuity, accelerate breakthroughs and increase our competitiveness in the global clean energy economy," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a press release.

3. Religious believers count atheists as about as trustworthy as rapists, says new study

Daily Mail UK: Religious people believe atheists are about as trustworthy as rapists, new research indicates. A team of psychologists from the University of British Columbia and University of Oregon made the startling finding in an investigation into why believers dislike non-believers. In a poll conducted as part of the study, a description of an untrustworthy person was judged more representative of atheists than of Christians, Muslims or, incredibly, rapists.

4. SSC partners University of Oregon to develop Singapore sports industry

The Singapore Times: The Singapore Sports Council (SSC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Thursday with the University of Oregon in a bid to boost Singapore's local sports industry. The five-year partnership means the two parties will collaborate in areas such as providing local sports leaders with learning opportunities at the American university, as well as connect local students to sports-related education and industry experience in Oregon. Graduate students from the university will also have the opportunity to work with the SSC and local industry partners. The collaboration will be a shot in the arm for the Singapore Sports Hub, expected to be completed in 2014, said SSC chief executive officer Lim Teck Yin. He said: 'The training and development of world-class personnel is going to be important to the evolution of Singapore's sports scene. This partnership will no doubt infuse more energy, efficiency and innovation in the development of our sports industry.'

5. Sins of the ousted University of Oregon president

Statesman Journal: Robert Berdahl possesses a critical trait that should help him succeed as interim president of the University of Oregon: He's an Oregonian. Time and again, new executives -- especially in education -- have flamed out because they didn't grasp the culture of Oregon and the ways of Oregonians. Ousted UO President Richard Lariviere fell faster and farther than most, lasting not even 21⁄2 years after arriving from the University of Kansas. Lariviere had the gall to flout his bosses -- the higher-education chancellor and board. In fact, he acted so unlike an Oregonian that some have speculated he wanted to get fired. In contrast, Berdahl was a UO history professor from 1967 to 1986, including serving as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Last summer, he and his wife retired to Portland after his distinguished national career in education, and he rejoined the UO this fall as a part-time special counsel to Lariviere.

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Media mentions for December 14

1. Fired U. of Oregon President Reflects on Leading a Flagship and Looks Ahead

The Chronicle of Higher Education (Richard W. Lariviere was fired last month as the University of Oregon's president after two years in office. To his supporters, Mr. Lariviere is the architect of a bold and thoughtful plan that would have split the flagship campus from the state system and weaned the university off public funds over three decades. To his detractors, Mr. Lariviere is a defiant rogue whose parochial ambitions for his campus came at the expense of statewide interests and ultimately brought about an ugly and bitter end to his presidency. Mr. Lariviere spoke by phone this week with The Chronicle from the university president's office, which he has to clear out of by December 28. Robert M. Berdahl, a veteran higher-education leader whom Mr. Lariviere hired as a consultant in October, will replace the departing president on an interim basis. Here's an edited version of the interview.

2. Religious Believers Don't Trust Atheists, Says New Study

ABC News: If an atheist ran for president, a recent poll suggests, he or she wouldn't win many votes. That might be at least partly because of the main reason religious people dislike atheists: They think nonbelievers can't be trusted, according to a new study. "Where there are religious majorities -- that is, in most of the world -- atheists are among the least trusted people," said the study's lead author, Will M. Gervais, a doctoral student at the University of British Columbia, in a press release from the University of Oregon, where a co-author is an assistant professor.  The research was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

3. School Bullying Program Developed by UO Professor

KEZI: Cascade Middle School's new anti-bullying program is receiving positive and negative feedback. The man who developed Cascade Middle School's new anti-bullying program is a professor at the University of Oregon. "Generally, about 30 percent of children actually say they've experienced bullying within a month. It's much more pervasive than you'd expect," said UO Education Professor Dr. Rob Horner. That's why he spent the past 25 years researching positive behavior systems. The program he developed is a little different than what most of us were taught. For decades, the approach has been identify the bullies, fix them or remove them. But Horner says that wasn't working. "Generally, bullying is maintained by the attention and the recognition that those behaviors get from others," Dr. Horner said. So Horner's system instead involves the victim telling the bully to stop, walk away and tell an adult -- stop, walk and talk.

4. Oregon index inches along

Register-Guard: Oregon's economy firmed up a bit in October, but not enough to shake off fears that the state -- along with the rest of the country -- might fall back into recession next year, according to the University of Oregon's monthly Index of Economic Indicators. The index, a gauge of the state's economic health in coming months, rose to 89.3 in October, up 0.3 percent from September. The index uses 1997 as the base year of 100. The higher the index, the better the economic outlook for the next few months. Compared with the previous month, the index strengthened a bit. But compared with six months ago, the index has fallen 3.6 percent, said Tim Duy, UO economist and the index's author. "Since we've emerged from the recession we've seen this period of stop-start growth," he said. Economic activity in Oregon waned over the summer and has begun to pick up again in the last few months, Duy said.

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Media mentions for December 16

Higher education: Universities' research collaboration boosts Oregon

By Guest Columnist Jonathan Fink

The Oregonian

With the recent furor about the departure of University of Oregon President Richard Lariviere, some might think that our state's higher education community is deeply divided about the best ways universities can contribute to regional economies.

Not true. While declining state funding has held back Oregon's research universities relative to their counterparts across the nation, "going it alone" is not a solution.

Even with the generosity of private donors, UO, Oregon State, Portland State and Oregon Health & Science University are not likely to catch their peers on their own, given the decades-long head start of strong public, philanthropic and corporate support that leading schools in other states draw upon.

The competitive edge that has been largely overlooked in the recent uproar is the collaborative research environment built in Oregon over the past decade. Most clearly exemplified by three Signature Research Centers in nanotechnology, drug development and energy-efficient construction, the level of cooperation among the state's four research universities, high-tech industry, state government and federal laboratories has few parallels across the country.

Funded by tens of millions of state, federal and corporate dollars and endorsed by our congressional delegation, these three initiatives help pay for labs and projects across Oregon that have led to new federal grants, patents, contracts and the spinning out of companies from UO, OSU, PSU and OHSU. Earlier this year, for example, the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded the three research centers a prestigious $1 million grant to set up additional programs to move their discoveries into the economy.

Though the rivalry between Ducks and Beavers rivets Oregon sports fans, the faculty, staff and students at the state's four research universities find more ways to work together than to compete. It helps that the schools have distinct research identities.

As Oregon's flagship university, UO conducts research in the sciences and humanities, while also involving its professional schools, such as architecture and law. OSU was founded as Oregon's "land-grant" university, giving it preferential access to certain types of applied federal funds (from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for instance). It also has the state's largest engineering program. As a leading medical school, OHSU is Oregon's largest recipient of funding from the National Institutes of Health and anchors a growing biotech sector in metro Portland.

Portland State is Oregon's "urban-serving university," forging strong partnerships with government agencies, social welfare organizations and local companies. Those connections make PSU competitive for large training grants and for interdisciplinary studies of how metropolitan regions can become simultaneously more prosperous and more sustainable.

Through collaboration, the four schools team up to win large grants that they would otherwise not get. Examples include $20 million from the National Science Foundation to UO and OSU for a new "Green Chemistry" Center; $19 million for a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center studying coastal processes, led by OHSU and involving OSU, UO and PSU; and $16 million for a U.S. Department of Transportation Research and Education Center based at PSU in partnership with OSU, UO and the Oregon Institute of Technology. The universities are submitting many more joint proposals on research topics from malaria vaccines to cybersecurity.

For Oregon to be economically competitive, research universities and their backers need to nurture this growing culture of collaboration.

Jonathan Fink is vice president for research and strategic partnerships at Portland State University.

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Applying While Asian

Celebrate your heritage -- unless you're trying to get into college.

To check or not to check the Asian box? That is the pointed choice faced by Asian-American students applying for admission to what are supposed to be the most tolerant places on earth, the nation's colleges.

The Associated Press ran a report on Asian students of mixed parentage checking "white," if possible, on their applications to avoid outing themselves as Asian. The Princeton Review Student Advantage Guide counsels Asian-American students not to check the race box and warns against sending a photo.

In a culture that makes so much of celebrating ethnic heritage, especially of racial minorities, and that values fairness above all, Asian-American students think they need to hide their ethnicity because the college admissions process is so unfair. If African-American motorists fear that they will be pulled over by the cops for the phantom offense of "Driving While Black," these kids worry about what will happen to them when "Applying While Asian."

Studies have demonstrated what every Asian parent and kid knows: Asians are discriminated against in the admissions process. They are disadvantaged vis-à-vis other minorities and perhaps vis-à-vis whites. In 2005 the Center for Equal Opportunity, a think tank opposed to racial preferences, looked at males applying to the University of Michigan from within the state who had no parental connection to the school. If the applicant had a 1240 SAT score and a 3.2 GPA, he had a 92 percent chance of admission if black and 88 percent if Latino. If white, he had only a 14 percent chance, and if Asian, a 10 percent chance.

Thomas Espenshade, the Princeton University academic and co-author of the book No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal, examined applicants to elite private schools with comparable grades, scores, athletic abilities, and family histories. He concluded that whites were significantly more likely to get admitted than Asians.

This accounts for what must be the first mass effort of a minority group to "pass as white" since Jim Crow. If nothing else, you can see the emotional appeal of favoring black applicants over whites as a tiny, belated step toward making right a grave historical injustice. (Of course, the white applicants did nothing to deserve this mark against them.) But what have Asian-Americans ever done to anyone else? Do the sons and daughters of Asian immigrants immediately arrive on these shores and begin repressing Caucasians with their famously diligent studies and high test scores, such that the panjandrums of higher education must redress the imbalance with pro-white discrimination?

All of this is done to promote a "diversity" of a crude, bean-counting sort. The private California Institute of Technology doesn't use quotas; its student body is 39 percent Asian. The University of California at Berkeley is forbidden by law from using quotas; its student body is more than 40 percent Asian. Only a bigot would believe that these schools are consequently worse learning environments, or that they are places characterized by monochromatic, lockstep thinking because so many students share a broad-brush ethnic designation.

The author of The Price of Admission, Daniel Golden, calls Asian-Americans "the new Jews," a reference to the 20th-century quotas that once kept Jews out of top schools. The difference then was that Jews collectively didn't stand for the policy, now a watchword for disgraceful bias. Stephen Hsu, a professor of physics at the University of Oregon and an outspoken critic of current admission practices, laments that Asians seem strangely accepting of the unfair treatment of their children. The official Asian-American groups tend to support anti-Asian quotas because they are captives of liberal orthodoxy before all else.

The Obama administration's misnamed Justice Department has joined with its wishfully named Education Department to urge schools to get creative in circumventing Supreme Court limits on affirmative action. It's not quite "Asians need not apply," only that they should expect their ethnicity to be used against them should it become known to the authorities.

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Media mentions for December 15

UO awaiting direction on state hiring freeze

It's not clear to what extent the governor's directive will affect the state's universities

By Greg Bolt -- The Register-Guard

Oregon universities, including the University of Oregon, will abide by Gov. John Kitzhaber's call for a state hiring freeze while lawmakers wrestle with expected declines in tax revenue, state officials said Wednesday.

Presidents of all seven state universities are expected to meet with Oregon University System Chancellor George Pernsteiner today to discuss the freeze and how it will be carried out. Kitzhaber declared the freeze late Tuesday, saying the state needs to take a variety of steps to curb spending in the wake of continued sagging revenue.

State government funds only a small slice of Oregon's higher education budget. The UO, for example, gets only about 7 percent of its total funding from state government, with the rest coming from student tuition and fees, research grants and the like.

But an OUS spokeswoman said universities need to follow Kitzhaber's lead.

"We feel it's very, very important to follow the governor's mandate with the hiring freeze," said Di Saunders, spokeswoman for the OUS.

UO spokesman Phil Weiler said the university had not received any official notice or direction from the university system on Wednesday but expected to get that after Pernsteiner's meeting with university presidents today. He said the UO would abide by whatever directions are issued.

It's not clear yet how the freeze will affect universities or the communities where they're located. The UO, with its growing student population, has been a strong jobs generator for Lane County throughout the recession, often showing hundreds of job openings on its website. Shutting down that growth could hurt employment opportunities locally.

Kitzhaber, who imposed the freeze at the request of legislators, exempted hires "essential to the state's business." It's not clear how agencies will define that, but part of today's meeting of university presidents will include a discussion of what constitutes essential services.

Saunders noted that enrollment at Oregon universities is at an all-time high, and that full-time and part-time professors are needed to meet classroom demand. With so many students, more tutors, advisors, financial aid specialists and other support staff also are needed.

It's possible some of those hires will be considered essential. Saunders said more detailed information on how universities will address the freeze should be released later this week or early next week.

Another issue that some universities wrestle with is the fact that state revenue only provides a small slice of the overall budget. Some on the UO campus believe it's unfair for the state to exercise such broad control over UO spending, given such a small investment.

The freeze applies to all state agencies and is expected to be in place until the Legislature meets for its interim session in February. However, the OUS will cease to be a state agency on Jan. 1, when reforms passed by legislators earlier this year take affect.

Instead, OUS will be considered a public university system, similar to the community college system, with less direct supervision by the state. But Saunders said universities will continue to pay attention to the governor's wishes.

"We will still take the mandate seriously as a public university system," she said.

Messages left with the state Department of Community Colleges and Workforce Development, which works with community colleges, were not returned Wednesday.

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UO to share $2M grant for fuel cell materials research

By Christina Williams

Sustainable Business Oregon

The U.S. Department of Energy announced this week that the University of Oregon will share $2 million with three other organizations to develop and test hydrogen storage materials for use in fuel cells.

The funds are available as part of a push on the part of the feds to fund technologies that can be used in fuel cell electric vehicles.

In all, the DOE is investing $7 million to fund four 3-year projects in California, Washington in Oregon.

"Targeted investments in cutting-edge hydrogen storage technologies will spur American ingenuity, accelerate breakthroughs and increase our competitiveness in the global clean energy economy," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a press release.

The goal of the investment is to lower the cost of and improve the efficiency of hydrogen storage systems, key components of fuel cell electric vehicles.

The UO will share up to $2 million with the University of Alabama, DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Protonex Technology Corp., a fuel cell technology company in Southborough, Mass. Researchers from the organizations will work together on hydrogen storage material for use in mobile and stationary fuel cells.

Leading the research for UO is Shih-Yuan Liu, chemistry professor in UO Materials Science Institute, who this year developed a boron-nitrogen-based liquid storage material for hydrogen.

In a November news release from UO, Liu explained why a liquid-based storage system was significant.

"The field of materials-based hydrogen storage has been dominated by the study of solid-phase materials such as metal hydrides, sorbent materials and ammonia borane," Liu said. "The availability of a liquid-phase hydrogen storage material could represent a practical hydrogen storage option for mobile and carrier applications that takes advantage of the currently prevalent liquid-based fuel infrastructure."

Liu said the bulk of the research money will got to UO and PNNL with smaller amounts going to the University of Alabama and Protonex, which will be testing the technology in fuel cells.

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Religious believers count atheists as about as trustworthy as rapists, says new study

By Damien Gayle

Religious people believe atheists are about as trustworthy as rapists, new research indicates.

A team of psychologists from the University of British Columbia and University of Oregon made the startling finding in an investigation into why believers dislike non-believers.

In a poll conducted as part of the study, a description of an untrustworthy person was judged more representative of atheists than of Christians, Muslims or, incredibly, rapists.

The study's lead author, Will Gervais, a psychology doctoral student at British Columbia, said: 'Where there are religious majorities - that is, in most of the world - atheists are among the least trusted people.

'With more than half a billion atheists worldwide, this prejudice has the potential to affect a substantial number of people.'

The poll was one of six studies with 350 American adults and 420 university students in Canada, posing a number of hypothetical questions and scenarios.

Researchers gave participants a hypothetical scenario of an untrustworthy man willing to behave selfishly when other people will not find out.

They then asked whether participants thought it was more probable that the man was a teacher, a teacher and a Christian, a teacher and a Muslim, a teacher and a rapist, or a teacher and an atheist.

The correct answer in each case, logically speaking, is the teacher, since the more specific conditions there are the less probable the description is.

Nevertheless, 48 per cent of those taking part selected 'teacher and an atheist', about the same proportion who chose 'teacher and a rapist'.

Untrustworthy: Atheists were found to fit the description of an untrustworthy person more than Christians, Muslims or rapists

According to the research paper, 'this implies that a description of an untrustworthy person is not viewed as representative of religious individuals, be they Christian or Muslim.

'On the other hand, this description ... was only seen as representative of atheists and rapists, and people did not significantly differentiate atheists from rapists.'

The researchers concluded that the religious believer's distrust - rather than dislike or disgust - was the central motivator of prejudice against atheists.

Study co-author Ara Norenzayan, professor of psychology at UBC, said the research was motivated by a Gallup poll that suggested only 45 percent of Americans would vote for an atheist presidential candidate.

Poll respondents rated atheists as the group that least agrees with their vision of America, and that they also would most disapprove of their children marrying an atheist.

Professor Norenzayan said: 'Outward displays of belief in God may be viewed as a proxy for trustworthiness, particularly by religious believers who think that people behave better if they feel that God is watching them.

'While atheists may see their disbelief as a private matter on a metaphysical issue, believers may consider atheists' absence of belief as a public threat to cooperation and honesty.'

The new study is published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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Sins of the ousted University of Oregon president

Robert Berdahl possesses a critical trait that should help him succeed as interim president of the University of Oregon: He's an Oregonian.

Time and again, new executives -- especially in education -- have flamed out because they didn't grasp the culture of Oregon and the ways of Oregonians. Ousted UO President Richard Lariviere fell faster and farther than most, lasting not even 21⁄2 years after arriving from the University of Kansas.

Lariviere had the gall to flout his bosses -- the higher-education chancellor and board. In fact, he acted so unlike an Oregonian that some have speculated he wanted to get fired.

In contrast, Berdahl was a UO history professor from 1967 to 1986, including serving as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Last summer, he and his wife retired to Portland after his distinguished national career in education, and he rejoined the UO this fall as a part-time special counsel to Lariviere.

State wrong to fire prez

Last week the State Board of Higher Education appointed Berdahl as interim president, effective Dec. 29. He has no interest in the permanent job.

In talking with Berdahl, it's clear that he "gets" Oregon -- the state -- even as he thinks higher-education officials erred badly by firing Lariviere.

Lariviere's great sin was he got too big for his britches, which suggests he was a poor hire in the first place.

It's not that Oregonians are xenophobic or arrogant, thinking they're better than outsiders. But they consider this state to be a unique place, and they cherish their peculiarities and abhor those who violate the state's unwritten customs.

That characteristic can be good and bad. Institutional humility and the commonality of Oregonians are part of what makes Oregon a great place to live.

However, despite the presence of Phil Knight and a few others of his entrepreneurial ilk, it's also difficult to imagine Oregon giving rise to such an eccentric -- and ultimately successful -- entrepreneur as Apple founder Steve Jobs, who was very much a product of California.

Super-egos need not apply

It's in Oregonians' DNA to disdain elitism. People who belong to country clubs don't flaunt it. Most public officials drive their own vehicles to work. Many elected officials, including our U.S. senators, are on a first-name basis with constituents.

Oregonians don't shun the national or global spotlight, but neither do we seek it. We are proud to lead the way on bottle deposits, agriculture and timber research, beach cleanups, land-use planning, in-home care of seniors and many other areas. But that national leadership is a happenstance of looking out for what's best for Oregon.

Officials and organizations ignore that critical distinction at their peril.

The Chalkboard Project is an organization that grasps it. Chalkboard is nationally renowned for its bottom-up innovation in public education, yet you won't hear its leaders brag on that. They focus on how they're helping Oregon teachers and classrooms improve.

Another example is the Mid-Valley's Fostering Hope Initiative. Spearheaded by Catholic Community Services, it is a national model for helping prevent child abuse. But the local talk is about what it's doing here.

National ambition unwanted

This also explains why Salem-Keizer Superintendent Sandy Husk doesn't resonate with residents when she talks about the district becoming a national leader in education or when she's spending much of her time on state education initiatives that correlate with national ones. Taxpayers want the focus on local -- on Salem-Keizer classrooms.

Oregonians often take this to the extreme, embracing a "middling" effect. For example, whenever Salem-Keizer builds a new school, people insist it be no better than existing schools -- instead of making it the best building and curriculum possible. That's how Salem-Keizer has perpetuated the mistake of constructing high schools without swimming pools, even though water is part of our culture and every young person should know how to swim.

Neither do academic degrees and titles impress people. That's why Oregon Treasurer Ted Wheeler got little mileage out of citing his Stanford, Columbia and Harvard degrees while seeking election. And why people chuckle when Salem-Keizer School Board members and administrators dutifully refer to the superintendent as "Dr. Husk" while the community calls her "Sandy.

'Stars' don't matter

Thus, outside the academic community, it fell on deaf ears when Lariviere espoused to make the University of Oregon a world-class university. Or when his supporters predicted that "the stars" -- the elite faculty members -- would bolt from the UO if he were fired.

Contrast his exit with how former Western Oregon University President John Minahan adroitly worked the Oregon culture to turn his university into a top-notch school. He succeeded where his predecessors as WOU president -- outsiders Philip Conn and Betty Youngblood -- struggled.

For better or worse, one lesson of Lariviere's demise is: You don't have to be an Oregonian to succeed here. But you have to understand Oregon -- and that is an unending process.

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Media mentions for December 14

Fired U. of Oregon President Reflects on Leading a Flagship and Looks Ahead

By Jack Stripling

Richard W. Lariviere was fired last month as the University of Oregon's president after two years in office. To his supporters, Mr. Lariviere is the architect of a bold and thoughtful plan that would have split the flagship campus from the state system and weaned the university off public funds over three decades. To his detractors, Mr. Lariviere is a defiant rogue whose parochial ambitions for his campus came at the expense of statewide interests and ultimately brought about an ugly and bitter end to his presidency.

Mr. Lariviere spoke by phone this week with The Chronicle from the university president's office, which he has to clear out of by December 28. Robert M. Berdahl, a veteran higher-education leader whom Mr. Lariviere hired as a consultant in October, will replace the departing president on an interim basis.

Here's an edited version of the interview.

Q. Even before your firing, there was a tremendous outpouring of support for you from students and faculty. What has your reaction been to that?

A. Both my wife, Jan, and I were deeply touched and moved then and now, because the outpouring continues. But we also know very well that the real passion and the depth of feeling that's being shown is not really about me. Really it's about passion for the future of the University of Oregon.

Q. Did you see any irony in having someone whom you recently brought on as a consultant replace you so quickly? Moreover, Mr. Berdahl is a person who has been very critical of the way the board treated you. In a recent opinion piece for the Eugene Register-Guard, he said, Oregon's next president should "be prepared to knuckle under the chancellor." Is this a person you thought the board would turn to?

A. I don't think they turned to him instinctively. When the faculty unanimously demanded that Bob Berdahl be the interim president, it really became necessary for the board, in spite of what they may have felt, to choose him.

Q. Mr. Berdahl has said he'd like to carry out a lot of the agenda you set forward.

A. Yes.

Q. So did this cause need a martyr, and are you it?

A. [Laughter]. I'm not very good at identifying martyrdom or martyrs, so that's not for me to say.

Q. I'll just cover a couple of the instances that have been described by your critics as examples of your going rogue. In October 2010, you apparently told the State Board of Education that you would not directly lobby for the New Partnership that would have split off the flagship from the rest of the system, but would allow the University of Oregon Foundation to do that. The next month, you wrote a Wall Street Journal column that appears to engage in the same direct advocacy you'd said you would not engage in. Early this year, it was reported that you agreed with Gov. John A. Kitzhaber to keep pay raises modest in the down economy, but then you surprised him by giving raises to faculty in the millions of dollars. Are they instances of your saying one thing and doing another?

A. I really don't want to make this conversation about me. I don't think those characterizations are accurate, but making this a conversation about me misses the most important point here. The most important point is that flagship institutions throughout the country have to be given greater autonomy, and have to be given the freedom to fulfill the obligations to the states in which they are located. In many instances, and Oregon is among the most serious, the administrative structure, the bureaucratic structure, is grounded in 50-, 60-, 70-year-old administrative designs that inhibit the ability of those institutions to deliver the services to the state that they have to, and that was the case here.

Q. But does your story imply that someone who comes in and tries to challenge that antiquated system does so at the risk of losing his or her job?

A. We could say with some certainty that at least in Oregon that was the case.

My first obligation was the welfare and the future of the most important public higher-education institution in the state, the only one with membership in the Association of American Universities, the flagship institution. The repeated concern here [from critics of my agenda] has been that if it's good for the University of Oregon but not good for all the other institutions, it can't be good for the entire state, and no one has ever been able to put meat on the bones of that argument.

Q. You describe the University of Oregon as the most important institution in the state, partly because of its membership in the Association of American Universities, which includes the nation's most-prestigious research institutions. Does a statement like that invite criticism that you don't see the other institutions as equally important?

A. Yes, that has been one of the criticisms.

Q. But is the University of Oregon, by virtue of its research enterprise and AAU status, more important to the welfare of the state than perhaps the community-college system?

A. In a very different way--because of its mission, because of its research agenda, because of its wealth-creation model--yes, it is more important than any given community college. But that's not to say that community colleges are unimportant. It's simply to say that they have a very different mission.

Q. The last few weeks of your presidency brought about some bitter exchanges. Matthew W. Donegan, president of the State Board of Education, called your tenure a "long dysfunctional ride." The governor said you'd damaged the system and even the university. How do you assess the fallout?

A. One of the things my firing did was highlight the nature of the dysfunctional structure that we've got here and gave a sense of urgency to remedying it.

Q. Phil Knight, the Nike co-founder and a longtime major donor to the university, was very critical of your firing. Do you think donors will be discouraged by what has taken place?

A. It's no secret that when something like this happens that significant donors and even relatively modest donors feel they have only one tool or weapon at their hands, and that is to withhold their donations to demonstrate their disapproval. I've spent nearly all of my time since this happened talking to donors large and small, urging them not to do that. I've had some considerable success, I'm glad to report.

Q. Are you interested in another presidency?

A. I don't feel any diminution in energy or enthusiasm or excitement. We'll see what the future holds.

Q. Have you been directly approached about a job?

A. A lot of people have my phone number.

Q. While people may not know how to pronounce your name [La-riv-ee-air], they know you as the guy in the fedora. Post-presidency, are we still going to see the hat?

A. Of course. That's not an affectation. That's to keep the rain and the sun off the top of my incredibly bald head.

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Religious Believers Don't Trust Atheists, Says New Study

If an atheist ran for president, a recent poll suggests, he or she wouldn't win many votes.

That might be at least partly because of the main reason religious people dislike atheists: They think nonbelievers can't be trusted, according to a new study.

"Where there are religious majorities -- that is, in most of the world -- atheists are among the least trusted people," said the study's lead author, Will M. Gervais, a doctoral student at the University of British Columbia, in a press release from the University of Oregon, where a co-author is an assistant professor.  The research was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

In six separate studies, the researchers asked 770 people – American adults and Canadian college students – a number of questions.  In one study, when presented with a description of an untrustworthy person, participants said they believed that description represented atheists and rapists to a similar degree and wasn't as representative of gays, feminists, Christians, Jews or Muslims.

Another co-author, the University of British Columbia's Ara Norenzayan, said one of the reasons for doing the study was a recent poll that found that only 45 percent of Americans who responded would vote for an atheist presidential candidate.  Those who were polled said atheists least represented their vision of America.

"Outward displays of belief in God may be viewed as a proxy for trustworthiness, particularly by religious believers who think that people behave better if they feel that God is watching them," Norenzayan said in the news release. "While atheists may see their disbelief as a private matter on a metaphysical issue, believers may consider atheists' absence of belief as a public threat to cooperation and honesty."

Atheists also tend to trust religious people more than they trust other atheists.

"Those people who did not identify with a religion still tended to find believers to be more trustworthy," said the third co-author, Azim Shariff of the University of Oregon.

That's because people trust "those who fear supernatural punishment," Shariff added, and because atheists aren't especially vocal, powerful or connected.

Despite that, the study authors said these feelings toward atheists could be far-reaching.

"With more than half a billion atheists worldwide, this prejudice has the potential to affect a substantial number of people," Gervais said.

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School Bullying Program Developed by UO Professor

By Brandi Smith

EUGENE, Ore. -- Cascade Middle School's new anti-bullying program is receiving positive and negative feedback.

The man who developed Cascade Middle School's new anti-bullying program is a professor at the University of Oregon.

"Generally, about 30 percent of children actually say they've experienced bullying within a month. It's much more pervasive than you'd expect," said UO Education Professor Dr. Rob Horner.

That's why he spent the past 25 years researching positive behavior systems.

The program he developed is a little different than what most of us were taught.

For decades, the approach has been identify the bullies, fix them or remove them. But Horner says that wasn't working.

"Generally, bullying is maintained by the attention and the recognition that those behaviors get from others," Dr. Horner said.

So Horner's system instead involves the victim telling the bully to stop, walk away and tell an adult -- stop, walk and talk.

"When we implemented this program in schools in Eugene, there was a 72 percent reduction in the likelihood that the most aggressive kids would engage in taunting, teasing and bullying," Dr. Horner said.

One of the schools that implemented it recently is Cascade Middle School.

"We had a group of about 20 student leaders who came in in August and did a two-day training on peer mediation and also on this 'Stop, Walk, Talk' system," said Cascade Middle School Principal Dana Miller.

As Horner suggested, the students personalized the program, choosing their own slogan to tell bullies to stop what they're doing.

"They thought, just to tell people 'Let it go,' that's an effective way to say 'Stop what you're doing,'" Miller said.

When asked how he feels about 'Let it Go', Horner said, "How I feel about it is irrelevant. The real key is if you vetted it with your community."

Because Cascade students did that, Horner thinks the program could be as successful there as it has been in other Eugene schools.

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Oregon index inches along

While things pick up a bit, the state economy is still not immune from falling back into recession

By Sherri Buri McDonald -- The Register-Guard

Oregon's economy firmed up a bit in October, but not enough to shake off fears that the state -- along with the rest of the country -- might fall back into recession next year, according to the University of Oregon's monthly Index of Economic Indicators.

The index, a gauge of the state's economic health in coming months, rose to 89.3 in October, up 0.3 percent from September.

The index uses 1997 as the base year of 100. The higher the index, the better the economic outlook for the next few months.

Compared with the previous month, the index strengthened a bit. But compared with six months ago, the index has fallen 3.6 percent, said Tim Duy, UO economist and the index's author.

"Since we've emerged from the recession we've seen this period of stop-start growth," he said.

Economic activity in Oregon waned over the summer and has begun to pick up again in the last few months, Duy said.

"That in a sense is a positive sign," he said. But Duy said he wants to see substantially better numbers in the coming months to allay concerns that the decline in economic activity this summer might have been an early sign that another recession is in the offing.

"I remain extremely concerned about the situation in Europe and the interconnectedness of our financial systems," Duy said. "I don't think that that problem has been resolved. Actually it's likely to get worse as the year progresses, and (Europe's) recession is going to get worse as the year progresses."

International Paper, a multinational corporation with headquarters in Memphis and a containerboard mill in Springfield, responded to the financial turmoil in Europe by reducing the amount of euros it holds in Europe and exchanging those funds for U.S. dollars to avoid exchange rate risk, spokeswoman Amy Sawyer said. But so far, the company hasn't seen much direct impact on its operations.

"The headlines seem worse than the actual business climate at the moment, in our view," she said.

International Paper acquired the Springfield mill and more than 100 other sites from Weyerhaeuser Co. for $6 billion in August 2008. The Springfield plant has about 250 employees.

The UO index tracks seven economic indicators, including initial unemployment claims and residential building permits in the state, and national consumer sentiment.

To broaden his analysis, Duy recently added an Oregon Measure of Economic Activity, which includes information not tracked by the index, such as a wider variety of labor market indicators, and export activity from the Port of Portland.