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 October 18
Inside Higher Ed: A sharply divided federal appeals court on Wednesday refused to reconsider a March ruling that revived a lawsuit by a former graduate student against the University of Oregon. And the dissenting judges on the appeals court say that the refusal could endanger academic freedom and leave faculty members vulnerable to litigious graduate students. The lawsuit charges that the university illegally retaliated against the graduate student after she complained of gender discrimination against female doctoral students in her program.
Lance Armstrong quits Livestrong post, loses endorsement deals
Los Angeles Times: Nike, Anheuser-Busch and other companies on Wednesday said they will end their endorsement deals with cycling great Lance Armstrong ... “He is no longer a viable figure in a marketing platform for anyone moving forward,” said Paul Swangard, managing director of the University of Oregon's James H. Warsaw Sports Marketing Center ... Swangard said the sponsors' departures mark a stark close for a “once-in-a-generation figure” who emerged from an obscure sport to become one of the top 20 endorsers in sports ... “He transcended the sport,” Swangard said. “While other sports survive when cheating athletes are found out, there won't be any amount of ink used to discuss who will win the Tour next year. That's the sad reality.”
Drinking culture could be producing more than just hangovers
USA Today College: A culture of heavy drinking could have some college students tiptoeing the line of alcohol dependency ... “This culture actively promotes drinking, or passively promotes it, through tolerance, or even tacit approval,” said Jennifer Summers, director of substance abuse prevention and student success at University of Oregon. School nights have turned into drink specials at bars, 21st birthdays are a rite of passage where heavy consumption is encouraged and pre-football tailgates are filled with beer-chugging collegiates.
Forensic Magazine: In a recent symposium and follow-up feature article in its weekly newsmagazine, the American Chemical Society (ACS) highlighted the role of the Innocence Project in “challenging improper use of DNA testing and other elements of forensic science” helping to free nearly 300 wrongfully convicted prisoners ... “Education is essential, says Carrie Leonetti of the University of Oregon School of Law. ‘Most prosecutors and defense attorneys are just not trained to deal with forensic science issues.’ After the report was released, she says, there was a flurry of training for public defenders, but it wasn’t sustained.”
United Steelworkers expected to OK contract with ArcelorMittal
WSBT Chicago: United Steelworkers members are expected to ratify a new contract Thursday with steel behemoth ArcelorMittal that calls for a slight increase in wages without adding a lower pay scale or giving up seniority rights or pensions as other unions have accepted ... That drop in membership opened the door for Indiana to become a right-to-work state, said Gordon Lafer, a political economist with the Economic Policy Institute and an associate professor at the Labor Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon. “Why did the law pass Indiana now and not 15 years ago? It's because the labor movement is weaker,” Lafer said.
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Late mentions for October 17
Armstrong Stands to Lose $30 Million as Sponsors Flee
Bloomberg: Lance Armstrong’s loss of support from Nike Inc. (NKE) and other sponsors after the cyclist was tied to performance-enhancing drug use will cost him about $30 million in earning potential, according to a sports marketing agent ... “This ultimately ends the marketing storyline of Lance the brand,” Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, said in a telephone interview. “He just simply won’t be able to rekindle and re-energize his Madison Avenue appeal, and Nike, as the one who stood by him through all of this, making the decision they did is about as much a career-crusher as anything I could ever imagine.”
Childhood environment affects brain growth and function, new studies find
The Washington Post: It’s long been known that early childhood experiences can have a profound affect on later opportunities and life chances. Now, a collection of new studies suggests that those experiences may actually affect the size and workings of the brain ... The lead author, Eric Pakulak, a research associate at the University of Oregon’s Brain Development Lab, said the team also found that if parents and children from lower-income families participated in an eight-week training session -- parents received training in stress reduction and children in attention -- their memory development improved significantly.
University of Oregon Professors Honored for Innovative Sustainability Efforts
The Green Register: Nico Larco and Marc Schlossberg, co-directors of the University of Oregon’s Sustainable Cities Initiative, have won a national award for an innovative program that pairs students and professors with local governments to complete important sustainability projects, according to the university ... “The Sustainable Cities Initiative has tapped into a moment where there is a global realization that sustainability issues are critical and cannot be addressed by any single discipline alone,” Larco said. “At the University of Oregon, we have a strong track record of sustainability and a huge host of faculty and students committed to working across disciplines on real-world problems.”
Art & Efficiency Meet In SSL Gateway Demos
Environmental Leader: A little over a year ago the US Department of Energy started a program called Gateway Solid-State Lighting Technology Demonstration Program. As part of a broader study on energy efficient lighting, the DOE replaced halogen and incandescent lighting at several museums ... The museum part of this demo started last year around the same time that artist Chris Jordan asked the question: “What does consumption look like?” This thought-provoking question coincided with the Gateway project already happening in the galleries at the University of Oregon ‘s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. The artists’ composition, called Running The Numbers, depicted 320,000 light bulbs, equal to the number of kilowatt hours of electricity wasted in the United States every minute from inefficient residential electricity usage.