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 September 30
Early residents changed Eugene’s destiny by securing a public university
The Register-Guard: Inside the Lane County Historical Museum, with a rich background of covered wagons and artifacts, director Bob Hart is eager to tell the story. The birth of the University of Oregon, he says, is the stuff of legend, involving pigs, chickens and hoarded pennies from schoolchildren. Although it’s not as dramatic as Athena leaping from the head of Zeus, from deep within the university archives it’s clear that the truth contains every component of sweeping cinematic moments. The story begins when Eugene decided to build a new high school in 1872, which quickly turned into discussions about building a university. A state university.
UO Professor Deb Morrison on Nike’s brand and Oregon innovation
The Daily Emerald: The swoosh. On shoes, on shirts, on uniforms. On the big screen at Autzen Stadium and Matt Knight Arena, in plain view at Hayward Field as you stroll by. It lives on campus: big-hearted and generous, arrogant at times, but it never stops telling the story. The story: Oregon runner believes so in his mentor that he finds a way to live the dream. He builds an empire, headquartered here in Oregon. The empire fuels economies, careers and more dreams. We work, learn, walk and play where that story started. This is home, to us and to Nike.
The Register-Guard: Ask Ian Holmes what he did on his summer vacation, and he’s proud to fill you in. A University of Oregon senior, Holmes organized a road trip with seven of his fraternity brothers from Sigma Phi Epsilon, starting in Eugene and ending up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota where they spent nearly a week making life more bearable for some of the poorest people in the United States ... “I wanted to go on this trip because it was something different than what usually happens on college campuses, to go halfway across the country and do something to help other people,” said Robby Brown, a UO junior from El Dorado Hills, Calif., who also was part of the “Sig Ep” team ... “We actually want to make this trip an annual tradition for the fraternity.”
The Register-Guard: Leeanne Bale didn’t mince words when she heard Lane County was considering banning smoking outdoors on county-owned property. “That’s wrong,” she said, standing outside the Lane County Public Service Building near the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza, smoking a cigarette. “If you’re not going to make smoking illegal, don’t make it illegal to smoke,” she said ... Not surprisingly, nonsmokers see it differently ... “A big part of it is secondhand smoke exposure, and we just know that it has poor health effects on people who choose not to smoke,” said Marci Torres, director of the Healthy Campus Initiative at the University of Oregon, which instituted a tobacco ban this year.
San Joaquin River could spawn jobs, but how many?
The Fresno Bee: The $2 billion price of creating a living San Joaquin River will buy more than a beautiful view -- it will boost the economy of places like Fresno ... University of Oregon researcher who has studied restoration benefits says it's important to understand that a restoration probably won't generate as much money as the industry previously using the resources ... After studying Oregon's investments in restoration, she says the work creates a short-term stimulus. But industries adjusted and created long-term benefits. “You see construction businesses, for instance, that have transitioned to build driveways and make in-stream improvements in rivers,” she said. “You see commercial logging companies that are contracting to do forest thinning.”
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Media mentions for September 29
Macworld Australia: I feel privileged to have written this column for over 12 years... So what has 12 years of reflection on education and the place of technology within it, produced? ... Sir Ken Robinson tells us via TEDtalks and conference keynotes that we should give more emphasis to creative pursuits and recognise that we should search for the one thing in which a given individual excels ... While Sir Ken’s evidence is largely allegorical, there is more quantitative data from Yong Zhao, Presidential Chair and Associate Dean for Global Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon and Weinman Professor of Technology and Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy and Leadership ... Essentially, his research points to the meaningless nature of these test scores
Colleagues honor fallen UO music professor
KMTR: The University of Oregon's School of Music & Dance began a 3-day symposium today, honoring the life and work of Professor Anne Dhu McLucas. McLucas was tragically killed earlier this month, just as she was preparing for her final term of teaching. Her colleagues had been planning the symposium for a long time, to celebrate her retirement. After her death, they decided to go on, and change the focus to honor her life and career. Friends who worked alongside McLucas say it was a bittersweet occasion. She brought so much to the University and her students, who wished she was there to celebrate with them. The symposium will continue October 19th and 20th. On Saturday the 20th, the school will host a celebration of life. Anyone is welcome, it's scheduled for 4 p.m. in the Beall Concert Hall.
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Late mentions for September 28
The New York Times: We make all sorts of ostensibly conscious and seemingly rational choices when we are aware of a potential risk ... Along with many others, the cognitive psychologists Paul Slovic of the University of Oregon and Baruch Fischhoff of Carnegie Mellon University have identified several reasons something might feel more or less scary than mere reason might suppose ... Professor Slovic and Professor Fischhoff and others have found that a risk imposed upon a person, like mandatory vaccination programs (nearly all of which allow people to opt out), feels scarier than the same risk if taken voluntarily. Still, shouldn’t our wonderful powers of reason be able to overcome these instinctive impediments to clear thinking?