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 July 22
Public institutional boards are the next step for Oregon's universities
Oregonian, OpEd by Interim President Robert Berdahl: My time as interim president of the University of Oregon ends next month, when Michael Gottfredson assumes the presidency. It has been a privilege to return to UO after being away 25 years and to maintain the university's positive trajectory during this time of transition ... Our entire University of Oregon community -- students, faculty, alumni and donors -- is united in its commitment to achieving Oregon's educational goals. However, additional governance reform and new financial tools are essential if Oregon's public universities are to realize their full potential in contributing to the ambitious 40-40-20 goal.
UO makes progress in greenhouse gas goal
Register-Guard: Two years after the University of Oregon adopted a plan to curtail greenhouse gases, the university is making headway toward its goal of zero greenhouse gas emissions on campus by 2050, the UO's sustainability director, Steve Mital, said last week ... "Despite tough financial conditions, our people continue to respond with creative approaches to energy efficiency and develop new curriculum to prepare future leaders for the world they'll inherit," Mital said.
Backstage pass: Unsung heroes make sure "Breath of Spring" looks effortless
Register-Guard: John Elliott, a longtime set builder and fight choreographer at the University of Oregon as well as VLT, credits actor Boris Karloff for his decision to make theater a career. "I was in Alaska in the 1950s, in Anchorage -- I was a teenage stage manager at the time -- and the theater was doing 'Arsenic and Old Lace,'" Elliott recalled. "Someone said we should get Boris Karloff to play Jonathan Brewster," which Karloff had originated on Broadway. "Someone wrote to him, and he wrote back and said he'd love to do it -- he'd never been to Alaska. And he came."
Lieberman: $68 million football facility only a symptom of larger institutional woes
Daily Emerald: When it comes to collegiate athletic facilities, there is luxurious, there is five-star and then there is the University of Oregon ... Yet last week, Oregon's rapid development reached lavish new heights when the Register-Guard broke details of plans for new $68 million football facility slated to open in fall 2013 ... Oregon's spending spree has sparked multiple debates on campus about financial support for educational programs. And while I sympathize with some of the professors and students dealing with subpar facilites, I believe the athletic's department's lavish surroundings simply exemplify a problem plaguing entire public institutions across the country.
Homeowners digging deep into past of residences
Toledo Blade via The Associated Press: The construction of Julian Sellers' bungalow in St. Paul was started in 1926 and finished in early 1927. The builder was a Swedish immigrant. The family who first lived there included a married couple, their 6-year-old daughter, and the wife's mother ... This research "feeds into the notion of pride of place," said Kingston Heath, professor and director of the graduate Historic Preservation Program at the University of Oregon. The history of a house and its people can also cast light on larger historical changes. "A house is like an artifact," Heath said. "It represents these collective human values, and cultural and technological change."
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Media mentions for July 21
Bill would give state universities greater autonomy
Corvallis Gazette-Times via The Associated Press: The first draft of a bill to give some universities more independence from the statewide university system would prohibit them from raising in-state undergraduate tuition more than 5 percent a year. The legislation, which is in a very early stage, has been drafted in response to demands by some universities for more autonomy over their own operations. The debate was intensified when former University of Oregon President Richard Lariviere was fired in part for charting his own course in conflict with the statewide board.
Contest seeks South Florida's best block
Miami Herald: Pick a city block in a great American urban neighborhood. What comes to mind? Soho, Times Square or Park Slope in New York, perhaps? Or Chicago's Magnificent Mile and Wicker Park? Maybe San Francisco's North Beach, or Georgetown and Adams Morgan in D.C.? Very different places all. But what do they have in common? ... "A great block is a microcosm of a great city,'' said Howard Davis, a professor of architecture at the University of Oregon and author of Living Over the Store, a definitive history of buildings that mix living and working, which many urbanists believe to be the basic building blocks of cities.