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 February 23

1. One university's creative culture goes on rare display

Register-Guard: "The Long Now," which runs at the University of Oregon's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art through April 8, provides a momentary glimpse into the collective mind of the UO art faculty. That mind is, as you might expect, intellectual, a bit quirky, sometimes deep and almost always interesting. As you might also expect in a group show of work by 22 artists, the art is definitely not of a single mind. And yet, as you walk through the spacious Barker Gallery at the Schnitzer, you can't help but be struck by how similar the artworks are to one another. They definitely come from the same time, place and conceptual framework. And to continue the mind metaphor, those 22 separate artists come across as fastidious, detailed and sometimes downright obsessive. Let's start with that obsession, which strikes me as the strongest theme of what is, by definition, a themeless show.

2. University area: 'If I were not a college student ... I would avoid it'

KVAL News: Dorm life is considered a part of the college experience, but for many students, there comes a time to move off campus. But for the last three years, the University of Oregon has taken preventative measures to tackle a negative stereotype. Many people associate off-campus living with parties, heavy drinking and even a history of riots, but with nearly 20,000 students residing off-campus, the University is trying to change that image. ... With one of the largest enrollments in school history, off-campus services said one of their main priorities at Wednesday's 3rd annual Off-Campus Housing Fair is breaking the stereotype of living off campus. "I think that there is a stigma with the university housing off-campus. people tend to think of partying and riots," said Molly Bennison with CommUniversity. Bennison lives off campus, too, and is working with the school to repair negative images.

3. Sexual assault on Oregon campuses

Oregonian: Two women enrolled in the University of Oregon law school say they were sexually assaulted, and possibly drugged, in 2010 by a fellow male student, as The Oregonian's Maxine Bernstein reported Sunday. The allegations prompted a police investigation and a separate university disciplinary process that ultimately led the accused student to withdraw last spring from the school. ... No one can know with certainty (or even presume to know) what happened between this unnamed male student and each of the women involved. However, we do know how the women students say they were treated -- by the university, by law enforcement, by medical personnel and by their fellow students. The treatment suggests a growing sophistication around sexual assault allegations, with all of their real-world messiness and legal complexity. In the University of Oregon cases, I see three noteworthy developments. ... Second is the university's more professional handling of the allegations. Campus officials didn't discourage the women from telling police, and they apparently didn't try to minimize the alleged crimes by treating them as teachable moments. They also made clear that the university's disciplinary actions are separate from a criminal prosecution, which is something many college students don't understand. In fact, one of the women said the university laid out her options and urged her to tell police first. This is good news: Many colleges in Oregon (including the University of Oregon, at times) have a long history of trying to keep reports of campus assaults under wraps, whether to protect victims from a traumatic criminal investigation or to protect their own institutional reputations.

4. Globetrotter appeal is timeless

Register-Guard: When I heard the Harlem Globetrotters were coming to Eugene for a Friday night game against basketball's biggest losers -- the team's foil, the "Generals," have lost 22,500 games over the years -- I was surprised. The Globetrotters? Didn't they sort of go the way of rotary phones, Afros and Marcia Brady? ... Ah, but the story, I've come to find, isn't that the Globetrotters are no longer culturally relevant. The story is that they are. The team's 2010 tour drew more people than any other time in its history. Friday marks the third straight year they've come to Eugene. Mike Duncan, an associate athletic director at the University of Oregon who books events for Matthew Knight Arena, expects perhaps 5,000 people -- not a sellout, but better than many Duck games have drawn this year. "The Globetrotters wouldn't be stopping in Eugene and we wouldn't be booking them if there wasn't a good market for them," Duncan said.

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Late mentions for February 22

1. Off-Campus Housing Fair Draws Hundreds Of UO Students

KLCC: Hundreds of students looking for a place to live next fall chatted with about a dozen property management representatives at a housing fair at the University of Oregon Wednesday. The EMU Ballroom had a carnival-like atmosphere, decorated with yellow and green balloons everywhere. Agencies competed for tenants, offering prizes such as candy bars, Frisbees or a free month of rent. ... The supply and demand of student housing has still not equalized in the Eugene area. Despite the recent construction of hundreds of units, higher enrollment means students have to be at the front of the line to snag a coveted apartment or house near the state's flagship university.

2. Corporate tax cut: Good idea, but won't stimulate economy

CBS MoneyWatch by Mark Thoma, UO economics professor: The White House is proposing to cut corporate income taxes from 35 percent to 28 percent. President Obama also recommends that manufacturers get a further cut, to 25 percent, and he wants to impose a minimum rate on foreign earnings to discourage the use of tax shelters. There would other less substantive changes as well under his plan. The cut in the statutory tax rate, however, may not have as large an effect on the corporate sector as many anticipate. The reason is that this is intended as a revenue neutral change in taxes. To accomplish revenue neutrality, the cut in the tax rate will be accompanied be closing loopholes, i.e. a broadening of the base. Thus, every company receiving a tax break will be matched somewhere else by companies experiencing a tax increase. Thus, while some firms will benefit, others will get hit harder by these taxes and the net effect overall should be roughly a wash.

3. Winners of art contest to decorate walls of campus building

KVAL News: The winners of the University of Oregon Campus Copy Inaugural Art Contest will be announced at 1 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 23, in front of Campus Copy at the Erb Memorial Union. The contest asked UO students to submit original artwork, including painting, photography and digital art. There were 79 submissions. Winning submissions will be displayed on the walls of the EMU in an exhibition. The goals of the contest were to promote student art; decorate sparse walls in the lower EMU; and to inform university students about the services provided by Campus Copy. The finalists were notified and are invited to the unveiling event, where Interim President Robert Berdahl will attend and congratulate the winners.

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Media mentions for February 23

One university's creative culture goes on rare display

22 members of UO's art faculty have work in this new exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

"The Long Now," which runs at the University of Oregon's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art through April 8, provides a momentary glimpse into the collective mind of the UO art faculty.

That mind is, as you might expect, intellectual, a bit quirky, sometimes deep and almost always interesting.

As you might also expect in a group show of work by 22 artists, the art is definitely not of a single mind. And yet, as you walk through the spacious Barker Gallery at the Schnitzer, you can't help but be struck by how similar the artworks are to one another.

They definitely come from the same time, place and conceptual framework. And to continue the mind metaphor, those 22 separate artists come across as fastidious, detailed and sometimes downright obsessive.

Let's start with that obsession, which strikes me as the strongest theme of what is, by definition, a themeless show.

Fastidiousness and ants

Laura Vandenburgh's "Drainage" -- which lies unprotected on the gallery floor, seemingly just waiting for a careless visitor to step in the middle of it -- presents, at first glance, a large topographic map of what may be an imagined landscape.

But as you look more carefully, you find an odd assortment of materials -- including fur -- and the paper doll-like construction of the map, which is cut intricately like a doily. You imagine the artist madly working with an Xacto knife for hours, days and weeks, deep into the night.

The piece is beautiful in what seems like a deliberately pointless way.

That obsessive quality is reflected around the room. One of a pair of untitled mixed-media works by Charlene Liu even shares the same cut-paper doily-ness, if you will, a sprawling lattice that blends into a floral pattern beyond.

And then there are the ants.

Apparently without prearrangement, two different artists in the show used live ants in making their work.

Carla Bengston visited a remote field station in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where she presented tropical leaf cutter ants -- a species that cuts pieces of leaves and carries them off to their nests -- with colorful Dutch Boy paint chips and nontoxic ink.

The resulting work would be more fascinating if the ants seemed to have more than an accidental connection to its creation.

And in "Beautiful Isle of Somewhere," Colin Ives created a video of ants reducing a sugary lollipop to nothingness. If you stand under a spotlight in front of the video screen, your presence causes the video to speed up -- and the sound of the UO Gospel Choir to play.

Go figure.

Photography and sharks

There is some pure quirk to be had.

Michael Salter weighs in with "ANDY, (the) Autonomous Nautical Deepwater stYrobot," more clearly described as a 20-foot shark built entirely of plastic foam packing inserts.

It's a sculpture begging for a Jimmy Buffett soundtrack. (Talk about recycled art: At last, a use for the utterly useless.)

There's the quirky and beautiful here, too: Anya Kivarkis has made a pair of possibly wearable necklaces based on one she saw in the film "To Catch a Thief."

Photography has its place, from the sharp and fascinating conceptual work of Craig Hickman, who offers a series of color photographs of objects and signs with his own verbiage seamlessly added, to Dan Powell, who shows straight black-and-white photographs of the ocean and sky that are an elegant study of gray.

In "Surface Tension," Teri Warpinski goes a more documentary route with photos demonstrating that international borders the world around resemble each other more than do the cultures they separate.

Art and crates

In a fun aside, the Schnitzer invited each exhibiting artist to pick the work from the museum collection to put on display in a smaller gallery.

In "Art Faculty Selects," which is up through March 15, the best choice award simply has to go to Brian Gillis, who had the nerve to select one of the intricate storage boxes designed and built by the museum to house ceramics from the museum collection.

I've often seen such crates scattered around the gallery when shows were being installed and have, I confess, on occasion found them more fascinating than the work being hung on the walls. Gillis, whom I've never met, is apparently a kindred soul.

It's been six years since the UO has had a faculty show at the museum. I hope it doesn't wait another six years for the next one.

Art review

The Long Now

What: An exhibit of works by 22 artists and faculty members at the University of Oregon

Where: Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, 1430 Johnson Lane

When: Through April 8

Admission: $5

Hours: From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays

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University area: 'If I were not a college student ... I would avoid it'

EUGENE, Ore. - Dorm life is considered a part of the college experience, but for many students, there comes a time to move off campus.

But for the last three years, the University of Oregon has taken preventative measures to tackle a negative stereotype.

Many people associate off-campus living with parties, heavy drinking and even a history of riots, but with nearly 20,000 students residing off-campus, the University is trying to change that image.

Ask just about any college student, they'll tell you there are plenty of perks to moving out of the dorms and off campus.

"Living in the dorms has a lot of restrictions," said Oregon freshman Recel Dells Ruyes. "I just want a lot more freedom."

For freshman Melissa Thomas, one year in the dorms is enough.

"You already know what its like to live on-campus, so I don't really want to do that again," said Thomas looking ahead. "I don't want to be surrounded by freshman."

As for living off campus, "You can do what you want," said Thomas. "You can have friends over, a lot bigger space."

And bigger parties according to some concerned neighbors living near the university.

"If I were not a college student and were looking to live around here, I think I would avoid it," said Ruyes, who is actively moving forward with living off-campus next Fall. "I see the party experience around the neighborhood and it's a little loud."

With one of the largest enrollments in school history, off-campus services said one of their main priorities at Wednesday's 3rd annual Off-Campus Housing Fair is breaking the stereotype of living off campus.

"I think that there is a stigma with the university housing off-campus. people tend to think of partying and riots," said Molly Bennison with CommUniversity.

Bennison lives off campus, too, and is working with the school to repair negative images.

"How can we make students feel like they can have safe parties that don't get out of control?" said Bennison. "Or how can we make those students feel like they're having a good off campus living experience while neighbors feel respected?"

Off-campus housing staff say the key is talking to students about how to behave before students even make the move off school grounds.

"Often times its just a matter of making sure they say 'Hey, I'm coming into the neighborhood' and if there's ever going to be a party they're talking to their neighbors and they're letting them know," said Jennifer Summers a Director of Substance Abuse Prevention and Student Success. "I think that there are behaviors that we can absolutely push and promote."

Off-campus staff provided classes and guide books with tips like "How to be a Good Neighbor". Encouraging students to keep noise down, be responsible, and keep their property clean.

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Sexual assault on Oregon campuses: Despite progress with rape reports, challenges remain

A woman says she is raped, faces criticism and realizes that justice may never be done. This latest story of alleged sexual assault on an Oregon college campus is as distressingly familiar as it gets.

Yet beneath the old story are some newly encouraging signs of progress. Oregon still has a long way to go, but it's getting better at treating victims like real people -- and sexual assault like a true crime.

"People are trying," says Christine Herrman, executive director of the Oregon Sexual Assault Task Force. "Campuses really struggle with this."

Two women enrolled in the University of Oregon law school say they were sexually assaulted, and possibly drugged, in 2010 by a fellow male student, as The Oregonian's Maxine Bernstein reported Sunday. The allegations prompted a police investigation and a separate university disciplinary process that ultimately led the accused student to withdraw last spring from the school.

The lack of resolution is palpable. Due to insufficient evidence, no criminal charges were filed. The university hearings were abruptly canceled when the accused male student agreed to leave school, which left the women stunned and feeling cut out. The male student departed under a cloud, yet his record is clean.

No one can know with certainty (or even presume to know) what happened between this unnamed male student and each of the women involved. However, we do know how the women students say they were treated -- by the university, by law enforcement, by medical personnel and by their fellow students. The treatment suggests a growing sophistication around sexual assault allegations, with all of their real-world messiness and legal complexity.

In the University of Oregon cases, I see three noteworthy developments.

First is the fundamental decision of both women to come forward, despite the obvious incentive to stay quiet. Both had been drinking alcohol, which makes rape harder to prove and subjects victims to an additional layer of judgment. Yet the women filed complaints anyway, and one went public by name.

"I've taken on the mentality that I have nothing to hide," Ginger Kimler told The Oregonian's Bernstein. "I have nothing to be ashamed of. I don't want to be treated like a victim."

This outspokenness is welcome and unusual: The majority of rape victims never tell the authorities, and only 2 percent of victims who are incapacitated tell the police, according to the Department of Justice.

Second is the university's more professional handling of the allegations. Campus officials didn't discourage the women from telling police, and they apparently didn't try to minimize the alleged crimes by treating them as teachable moments. They also made clear that the university's disciplinary actions are separate from a criminal prosecution, which is something many college students don't understand.

In fact, one of the women said the university laid out her options and urged her to tell police first. This is good news: Many colleges in Oregon (including the University of Oregon, at times) have a long history of trying to keep reports of campus assaults under wraps, whether to protect victims from a traumatic criminal investigation or to protect their own institutional reputations.

Finally, the Eugene police appeared to take the women's allegations seriously. The police investigation didn't yield enough evidence to justify criminal charges, which is typical for rape allegations, but a detective interviewed both women promptly and tried to corroborate their claims. Respectful treatment is a big deal, considering how common it is for rape victims to describe their interactions with police as humiliating.

Not everything about the University of Oregon story points toward progress, of course. For example, one of the women may have been misinformed at a local hospital about the sexual assault exam. Under Oregon law and the hospital's own policy, doctors can do the exam and preserve evidence without getting the police involved.

Also, the growing prevalence of so-called "date-rape drugs" adds more risk and confusion. While alcohol remains the drug of choice for men who are willing to have sex with an incapacitated woman, other drugs have entered the scene: Rohypnol, ketamine, GHB, even Ambien. Some blot out memories, and some merely compound the effects of alcohol. Most disappear from the bloodstream within hours or days, making toxicology tests difficult.

The upshot? A college student who is incapacitated by drugs -- whether her own drinks, her own medication, a pill she popped at a party or a powder someone slipped into her drink -- is uniquely vulnerable to assault and uniquely compromised as a credible witness.

About 20 percent of women and 6 percent of men experience rape or attempted rape while in college, according to the National Institute of Justice. Last spring, the federal Office for Civil Rights called this crime rate "severely troubling" and formally urged colleges to adopt best practices around sexual assault, starting with treating rape on campus as an actual crime.

Most Oregon colleges are moving slowly in that direction, according to victim advocates. But the basic story persists -- one of elusive justice and shades of gray. No matter what colleges do, no matter how many students speak out, that challenge may be with us for good.

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Globetrotter appeal is timeless

When I heard the Harlem Globetrotters were coming to Eugene for a Friday night game against basketball's biggest losers -- the team's foil, the "Generals," have lost 22,500 games over the years -- I was surprised.

The Globetrotters? Didn't they sort of go the way of rotary phones, Afros and Marcia Brady?

I mean, they date back to 1926. The Generals were created a quarter-century later and named for "Ike" himself, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. And the Globetrotters' shtick is decidedly low-tech; goodness, they still do the bucket "splash" to the front-row folks.

As a kid in the early 1960s at Oregon State's Gill Coliseum, I remember loving the Globetrotters and their comical red-and-white striped pants. But since then, the entire basketball and technological landscape has changed more dramatically than Mount St. Helens.

Back then, it was pretty cool to see a guy stuff a basketball; it was illegal in the college game from 1967 to 1976, and with only a couple of NBA games on TV each week, how often would you get to see such a rare feat?

Now, you can watch dozens of the fanciest jams each night, thanks to Sports Center, TiVo and YouTube.

Today's kids cut their teeth on movie special effects that make anything look possible. Computer video games have brought the reality of sports, war and adventure into their bedrooms in crisp high definition. Hey, my 19-month-old grandson finds his way around an iPad pretty well.

Ah, but the story, I've come to find, isn't that the Globetrotters are no longer culturally relevant.

The story is that they are.

The team's 2010 tour drew more people than any other time in its history. Friday marks the third straight year they've come to Eugene.

Mike Duncan, an associate athletic director at the University of Oregon who books events for Matthew Knight Arena, expects perhaps 5,000 people -- not a sellout, but better than many Duck games have drawn this year.

"The Globetrotters wouldn't be stopping in Eugene and we wouldn't be booking them if there wasn't a good market for them," Duncan said.

At Eugene's Bertha Holt Elementary School on Wednesday, Kenny "The Blenda" Rodriguez -- "I make smoothies out of defenders" -- wowed some 500-plus kids from the minute he came in spinning a basketball on a single finger with a smile just as impressive.

"If you watch him, what you see is the joy he has for being with these kids," Holt Principal Kevin Boling said. "You can tell he genuinely likes kids."

Perhaps that's why the Globetrotters are surviving with a decidedly low-tech act in a high-tech world.

"Authenticity," Boling said. "What the Globetrotters are about is a relationship with the people who come to see them. Video games aren't about relationships at all."

And the relationship factor plays out in other ways. "There's also something about your dad having taken you to the Globetrotters as a kid and now you taking your kids," Duncan said. "That's special."

In other words, the key to the Globetrotters' connection with the public might not be only about tricks, but also about other old-fashioned stuff. Eye-to-eye contact. A skin-on-skin high five instead of a virtual "Like" on Facebook.

"It was cool because he was actually here," fifth-grader Christian Noll said. "Not many people get to see them in person."

"It's fun, it's exciting, it's live," said Claire Greatwood, another fifth-grader.

I wonder if kids have become so accustomed to virtual connections that there's an increasing fascination in the real thing.

"These kids see magic on TV, but they never know whether it's been messed with by special effects," said Ashley Reich, a Holt fourth-grade teacher. "Here it's magic before their very eyes. That's better."

Reich saw how the Globetrotters connected with kids last year when they visited Eugene, so between e-mails, faxes and phone calls she convinced them to send an ambassador to Holt this year.

Rodriguez was a hit. He involved more than a dozen kids. Got into the audience. And exuded none of that "I'm-here-because-I-have-to-be" demeanor.

"We're happy, and we smile," he told me. "We bring families together. Yeah, we still do the water bucket trick, and it still works. Every single time."

He amazed kids for nearly an hour, blending a few "make good choices" messages with basketball magic.

I confess, before arriving I was wondering if it wasn't going to be a bit like a typewriter salesman trying to wow folks at a MacBook convention.

Instead, what I learned is that in a world of Skype, tweeting and movie magic, the new "special effect" is the old way people connected.

Not Facebook to Facebook. Just face to face.

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Late mentions for February 22

Off-Campus Housing Fair Draws Hundreds Of UO Students  

EUGENE, Ore. -- Hundreds of students looking for a place to live next fall chatted with about a dozen property management representatives at a housing fair at the University of Oregon Wednesday.

The EMU Ballroom had a carnival-like atmosphere, decorated with yellow and green balloons everywhere. Agencies competed for tenants, offering prizes such as candy bars, Frisbees or a free month of rent.

"I'm Amanda Tuski with Bell Real Estate. The big thing they're looking for is houses, which there is not that many left. And then the next thing, they're actually looking for places that allow pets. Very difficult – not a lot of places allow pets."

One property manager said there will be a line around the block Thursday morning when they start taking applications, especially for some of the newer units.

Zack Duffy runs a financial literacy program for UO students, helping them understand they don't have to break the bank to be near campus.

"Students think they have to spend $600 to $700 just to live in the vicinity, but our data shows that it's about $500 or less if it's a 2-bedroom apartment."

19-year-old environmental studies major Cameron Church of Portland plans to move out of the dorms for his sophomore year.

"Near campus, reasonably cheap. I want to live with roommates; I have some friends that I want to live with."

The supply and demand of student housing has still not equalized in the Eugene area. Despite the recent construction of hundreds of units, higher enrollment means students have to be at the front of the line to snag a coveted apartment or house near the state's flagship university.

Copyright 2012 KLCC.

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Corporate tax cut: Good idea, but won't stimulate economy

(MoneyWatch) The White House is proposing to cut corporate income taxes from 35 percent to 28 percent. President Obama also recommends that manufacturers get a further cut, to 25 percent, and he wants to impose a minimum rate on foreign earnings to discourage the use of tax shelters. There would other less substantive changes as well under his plan.

The cut in the statutory tax rate, however, may not have as large an effect on the corporate sector as many anticipate. The reason is that this is intended as a revenue neutral change in taxes. To accomplish revenue neutrality, the cut in the tax rate will be accompanied be closing loopholes, i.e. a broadening of the base. Thus, every company receiving a tax break will be matched somewhere else by companies experiencing a tax increase. Thus, while some firms will benefit, others will get hit harder by these taxes and the net effect overall should be roughly a wash.

Another way you think about this, as noted by Jared Bernstein, is to consider the difference between the statutory tax rate -- the rate on the books -- and the effective tax rate, the rate after all deductions, loopholes, etc. have been exploited. The US has a relatively high statutory tax rate of 35 percent, but the effective tax rate is quite competitive with other country's rates (according to this estimate, it is 26 percent, about average for developed countries), The administration's plan would decrease the statutory tax rate, while at the same time increasing the effective rate for many firms by eliminating deductions and closing loopholes that allow firms to reduce their effective rates so far below the rate on the books. As Bernstein points out, these include "accelerated depreciation, interest deductibility, the ability to pass corporate capital gains over to the individual side of the code (where it gets favorable treatment), and a bunch of international loopholes, like deferral -- the ability to avoid U.S. taxation by holding multinational profits overseas."

Making the corporate tax system more equitable and more efficient is important, and this proposal takes steps in this direction, particularly on the equity front. Under current rules there is too much variation in the rates paid by companies that are very similar. However, since the proposal is revenue neutral, and is thus mainly a redistribution of the corporate tax burden rather than a cut in taxes, we shouldn't expect too much in terms of its ability to stimulate the corporate sector and the overall economy.

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

    Mark Thoma

    Mark Thoma is a macroeconomist and time-series econometrician at the University of Oregon. His research focuses on how monetary policy affects the economy, and he has also worked on political business cycle models and models of transportation dynamics. Mark blogs daily at Economist's View. Follow him on Twitter at @MarkThoma.