May 8, 2002

 

To:      UO Senate

From:   Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Responses to September 11

Re:       Report on Committee Activities

 

 

A.     The Committeeís Charge

The Committee was charged with coordinating and facilitating the University's responses in the form of campus events to help University members and the greater Eugene Springfield community during a period of national/international crisis. The Committee's brief included:

1.     Serving as a coordinating group for campus activities regarding the crisis;

2.     Facilitating the activities/events of campus groups involved in responding to the crisis;

3.     Working with various campus administrative units to provide support for students and staff and sponsoring events/workshops/forums etc that provide educational and/or emotional support for the campus and Eugene-Springfield communities; and,

4.     Providing support and assistance when appropriate to community organizations responding to this crisis.

B.  Membership

At the direction of the Senate President the Committee was composed of instructional faculty, students, and campus administrators.  In addition to members from Student Services and the Office of Student Life, the Director of the Department of Public Safety was also a member.  At-large students were joined on the Committee by representatives of the Muslim Students Association, the International Students Association, and the President of the ASUO.  In order to reflect the inclusive nature and mandate of the Committee, all notices issued under its name carried the following statement:

The University Senate Ad Hoc Committee serves to coordinate and facilitate informed discussion, from a variety of perspectives, on the events of September 11th and their aftermath.  The Committee does not take positions on issues of policy, politics, or ideology.  To ensure its neutrality, the Committee will provide clear identification of the specific sponsorship of campus activities by the groups that carry them out. In all cases, the content of remarks and materials relating to these issues are the responsibility of their sponsors, and do not reflect an official position of the Ad Hoc Committee or the University of Oregon.

 

C.  Activities

 

The effort of the Committee was channeled into two primary tasks.  First, to serve as an information coordinating body for campus-related activities related to September 11 in order to facilitate and publicize the activities of other groups and units.  To this end, a web page was created (http://www.uoregon.edu/~sept11/membership.shtml) with a calendar and information on various events (http://www.uoregon.edu/~sept11/calendar/), texts of published material written by UO faculty members, (http://www.uoregon.edu/ ~sept11/oped/), and a listing of other campus resources such as the counseling center (http://www.uoregon.edu/~sept11/resources/).  Second, in the Winter term the Committee coordinated a weekly seminar series presented by academic units in CAS and the professional schools, and throughout the year provided funding for off-campus speakers hosted by campus sponsors (see appended budget).

 

Beginning with the teach-in organized by the Concerned Faculty for Peace and Justice, through the weekly seminar hosted by the Political Science Department, and the Ad Hoc Committeeís own series, the Committee has joined with over 2,000 participants in learning about and discussing the events of September 11.  In October the Committee also circulated, under the signature of the Senate President, a request that the Universityís declaration on classroom conduct be read in every course offered at the UO.  In the intervening period there have been more than thirty opportunities for students, faculty, and community members to study the September 11 events and their broader contexts.  Furthermore, in that period, faculty members have formally participated in community events more than fifty times, ranging from teaching activities in 4J schools to local civic groups, and appearances in different mass-media forms and markets.  In this regard, the Committee has supported the leadership role offered by the UO in providing information, analysis, and a meeting place for discussion of these critical events.

 

 

D. Financial Accounting

 

The administration provided the committee with $5,000 to fund its activities.  As of May 1, 2002, the committee has expended $4,300 on activities associated with its mandate.  Funds were routed through the Office of the Associate VP for Student Affairs, and spent on staff support, advertising, facilities and services fees, and honoraria for outside speakers at co-sponsored campus events.

 

Submitted by David Frank and Shaul Cohen on behalf of the Committee: