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 August 20
Yearlong teaching apprenticeships proposed
Register-Guard – Student teaching could become a full-fledged, yearlong apprenticeship program under an ambitious proposal being fleshed out at the Springfield School District. The district will partner with the University of Oregon and Pacific University to create an approach that embeds university students with mentor teachers in the classroom for the students' entire fifth year, the year they spend qualifying for a teaching license.
Red & Black Lesson: Students Must Balance Business Needs at College Papers
PBS Mediashift: There are no winners in the mess at the Red & Black. But there are lessons ... At the University of Oregon's Emerald, where I now work again, our student editors went on strike in 2009. Students walked out after a consultant to the board drafted an organizational chart in which the publisher would oversee the student editor. I advocated for and later chaired an Editorial Independence Committee to protect the newsroom's editorial independence ... I still believe that students must retain editorial control. However, I also see the need to ensure student editors run the newsroom in a way that fits with the company's long-term business goals. It's a delicate balance.
Eye on the world: Giant camera pulls architecture projects off the drawing board
Register-Guard– Imagine telling a group of architects, simply: Build something. It should be interesting and useful. It needs to sit out in the Oregon forest. You don't get to use power tools. You've got fewer than 10 days to complete the project. And, we're not going to tell you what it is. That was the group assignment 14 architecture students from around the world were given last week in a summer design workshop run by London's Architectural Association at the University of Oregon. With that open-ended charge, the students got to work conceiving, designing and building a 16-foot-tall camera obscura -- kind of a walk-in camera -- that now sits on a ridge overlooking the forest on a tree farm southwest of Eugene.
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Media mentions for August 19
U. of Oregon Courts Hard-Hitting Tactics in Persuading Students to Raise Fees for a Renovation
Chronicle of Higher Education– Lately, the University of Oregon has had a little trouble getting students to go along with its plan to renovate Erb Memorial Union ... The sticky part of that plan: getting students to vote to raise their fees to help pay for the $135-million renovation ... Students have learned that the university hired a Denver-based research-and-strategy firm, which specializes in political campaigns, to try to push the students to a yes vote in yet another referendum in October. That fact alone has irked some students who have been active in the student-union debate.
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Media mentions for August 18
Firm hired to craft UO campaign: A student vote to renovate the EMU would increase fees
Register-Guard– The University of Oregon has hired a sophisticated national political strategies firm to craft a campaign to get a yes vote out of the student body this fall on a $135 million renovation plan for the Erb Memorial Union ... The university signed a $25,000 contract with the Denver firm RBI Strategies & Research ... The RBI campaign plan for the UO student referendum -- tentatively scheduled for Oct. 18 -- calls for campaigners to play up the themes of pride, keeping the EMU up with other campus construction and the idea that the renovation project is student driven, according to an RBI memo to the UO.
Register-Guard – The complaints weren't frequent or particularly hostile, but from time to time in years past, University of Oregon planner Fred Tepfer would hear from visitors about the school's obscure main entry sign ... It's easy to miss. As Tepfer says he was sometimes told, "When you see the sign, it's too late. You had already passed it." With that in mind, the UO is asking the city for permission to move the sign 80 feet west of its current location while also making it double-sided and rotating it so that it faces east and west, clearly visible to anyone driving along Franklin. "We're trying to get twice the bang for the buck, from an advertising standpoint," Tepfer said.
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Late mentions for August 17
UO hires PR firm to convince students to vote 'yes' on EMU renovation
The Daily Emerald – A conference call between an Oregon University System committee, ASUO President Laura Hinman and the vice president of Student Affairs Robin Holmes came together to discuss potential EMU renovations ... The conference call ... brought up many questions about the potential hiring of a marketing firm that could help pass the measure come fall term elections. On Thursday, documents appeared on the UO Matters blog that provided evidence that RBI Strategies and Research, a marketing firm, had a budget of $20,000-$30,000 to use to help pass the EMU renovation ... "We are currently taking a look at that contract and are potentially rethinking if we will be using that service or not at this time," Holmes said.