Chegg, an academic company specializing in textbook rentals, together with nonprofit group Pencils of Promise, an organization that builds schools and provides educational opportunities in the developing world, are planning to offer a new internship to eight lucky students.

The internship gives students the opportunity to travel to Guatemala and help build a new school for students. The internship will take place this summer and will begin with five days in PoP’s New York City office. Students wil then be taken to a rural Guatemalan village for four days to help a community by building a new school for children.

Students interested will first take part in a photo competition. Applicants must submit a photo of themselves doing good deeds for others in their community. Anyone will be able to vote on the pictures and 50 finalists will then submit a 90-second video.

In the video students will show why they believe they have the qualities to excel in an internship such as this one. Upon review of the video, Chegg and Pencils of Promise will select eight winners.

Photos can be submitted directly through the Pencils of Promise website, and the deadline to submit is by Feb. 17.

You can follow Chegg and Pencils of Promise to see the good deeds they are doing around the world by using the hash tag #givebackandgo.

Chegg, an academic company specializing in textbook rentals, together with nonprofit group Pencils of Promise, an organization that builds schools and provides educational opportunities in the developing world, are planning to offer a new internship to eight lucky students.

The internship gives students the opportunity to travel to Guatemala and help build a new school for students. The internship will take place this summer and will begin with five days in PoP’s New York City office. Students wil then be taken to a rural Guatemalan village for four days to help a community by building a new school for children.

Students interested will first take part in a photo competition. Applicants must submit a photo of themselves doing good deeds for others in their community. Anyone will be able to vote on the pictures and 50 finalists will then submit a 90-second video.

In the video students will show why they believe they have the qualities to excel in an internship such as this one. Upon review of the video, Chegg and Pencils of Promise will select eight winners.

Photos can be submitted directly through the Pencils of Promise website, and the deadline to submit is by Feb. 17.

You can follow Chegg and Pencils of Promise to see the good deeds they are doing around the world by using the hash tag #givebackandgo.

Every day, silver coins are dropped into the parking meters alongside several different avenues of campus. Students park their cars, quickly feed the meter and then bustle off to class.

But rarely do students stop to ask: Where is all this money going? Who collects all the money that is dumped into this meter?

“The money goes into parking and transportation revenue and funds the [parking] department,” said Gwen Bolden, the University of Oregon’s director of parking and transportation. “[The department of parking and transportation] does not get any general fees from the general university money.” The money for the department comes solely from permits, citations, meter collection and special event parking.

The department of transportation was created as recently as 2013, the first year for which there was a line item for it in the annual UO budget report. Previously, the department was a part of the UOPD.

According to Paula Ellison, office manager of the department of transportation, a “fairly large expenditure” for the department is paying the UOPD for support services involving accounting, budgeting and human resources.

For the fiscal year of 2013, the department of transportation collected $1.8 million, down from the $2.7 million that was collected in 2012.

The coin-only meters on University Street and in sporadic lots near Franklin Boulevard are the only metered spots that fund the UO department of transportation. Also the pay-to-park lots, such as the ones connected to the EMU and Straub Hall, collect revenue for the university. Epark meters, probably best known to students as the ones you can use bank cards with, are controlled by the city of Eugene. Despite their locations inside and around campus, revenue from those does not go the UO.

The Columbia garage, which opened in May 2011, also collects money for the department, although it is also one of the departments continuing expenditures, according to Ellison.

Staff salaries for the department, any new buildings for parking, and transportation buildings are funded through these avenues.

There are several lots and spaces around campus available to those with a UO parking permit. For students, that’s $125 a term. For a full year, the price is $300. Faculty pay more, with a $150 price tag for a term of parking on campus, and $384 a year, according to the UO parking website. Faculty may choose to have this fee immediately deducted from their salary.

According to the UO campus planning and real estate department, 84 percent of students, faculty and staff do not have a parking permit. According to the same survey, which collected responses from 1,240 people, 12 percent of students and 45 percent of staff and faculty drive to campus alone.

Emma Hoover, junior at the UO parks her car on campus often. She lives further off campus than is walkable. Hoover typically parks her car in the two-hour slots around campus, which are monitored by the city of Eugene. She mostly finds herself using meters for quick trips to campus.

Last term however, Hoover received several parking citations, and her car was booted for lack of repayment of citations. Hoover says it was because of an “assimilation of tickets that I didn’t know about,” and Hoover had to attend court to resolve the issue.

Hoover says that she feels as though the parking on campus is “pretty inconvenient.” Hoover notes that she had a parking permit in previous years, but and the expense of a permit can be a major deterrent for students.

Some would just like to see some type of change to make things easier. Ellison thinks the next step is to bring the UO’s parking into the technology age.

“I am just in love with computers and apps and I’m addicted to my iPhone, and I think that a lot of students are the same way. I would love to have better apps for students to find better parking, whether it be in lots or meters,” Ellison said.

Ellison believes it would also be useful to have a way that students can pay parking through an app on their phone. “I think it’s easier when you can do things on your phone.” And it would be “easier to monitor how much you’re spending.”

Some students, such as Hoover, would like to see the money being fed into the meters “used for development for new parking areas.”

Bolden is responsible for maintenance and registration for vehicles and their lots, as well as tasks involving bicycles and pedestrians. She said this department is always working on ways that they can increase parking allocation for bicycles, and how to make campus more open and welcoming for pedestrians.

Blistering winds and avid snowfall surprised University of Oregon students not only with a white wonderland, but trailed behind with surprises in their monthly electric bills as well.

UO junior Marie Kempf’s electric bill increased by $30 for the month of December in her campus apartment, located on 19th Avenue and Harris Street.

“It didn’t put a burden on us financially, but it surprised us to see the bill increase so much,” Kempf said.

Joe Harwood, spokesman from Eugene Water and Electric Board said people’s bills are usually up to 30 percent higher in December. But, this year, specifically between dates of the Dec. 5 and 12, Eugene faced several days well below freezing, and below zero degree temperatures.

“(Eugene) saw some very unseasonable low temperatures and reached record-level freezing temperatures,” Harwood said. He used the example of Dec. 8, where Eugene reached a -10 degree temperature, the second lowest to ever be recorded in the city.

This demand for heat during the winter season translates into consumption among individuals, and Harwood noted that it was common this season to see an increase in electric bills between 30-40 percent of the regular monthly cost.

For students, according to Harwood, it was possible to have been able to sneak by maintaining a lower bill due to the fact that several students go home over the break. However, the freezing temperature Eugene encountered began in the midst of finals week.

Kempf said living in an apartment helped her and her roommates stay warmer over the month of December. Kempf had other apartments above, below and around her also using their heat and that helped generate a higher temperature in their apartment as well.

Gretchen Soderlund, assistant professor of media history, found herself dealing with several troubles due to the snowfall early December as well.

“We were just cold. It didn’t matter if our heaters were up,” she said. Soderlund also noted that in her new home in Eugene, as she came over recently from Virginia, the avid snowfall helped her and her husband realize that they did not have an adequate heating system for the winters in Oregon.

There are several ways to decrease costs to monthly electric bills. Harwood said, “In terms of trying to reduce your bill there are some steps you can take. Don’t increase your thermostat over 68 degrees. Every degree that you go down from 68 can actually reduce energy by 3 percent.” Also, turning your thermostat off when you aren’t home or before you go to bed will also help decrease costs due to lower usage of energy.

There are several other tips on the EWEB website for students to check out. The tab is located under “Energy tips.”

For students who are having trouble paying their increased bills, EWEB has assistance for times like these. EWEB is able to set up payment plans and are more than willing to work with students in the community, according to Harwood.

For several Oregonians, when the wintertime is underway it is time to bring out the snowboard or skis and hit the mountain. This year, however, has been a little different.

Due to a lack of snowfall, the Willamette Pass, Hoodoo and several other mountains and ski resorts have yet to open to the public for the ski season. Willamette is standing at six inches of snow atop the mountain, and needs at least two feet to open for public use.

Although Hoodoo has several areas for sledding and campsite usage, the lack of snowfall has drastically affected the mountain’s opening as well. Hoodoo is currently sitting at 7.8 inches of snow, needing 24 inches at the least to open to the public, as well.

Bachelor and Timberline are currently open for the snow season. However, the snow is not ideal for boarding or skiing, as University of Oregon junior and avid snowboarder Mike Morris said.

“The parks at the mountain are much smaller. There are no tree runs because most of the snow around the trees is all ice,” he said. “Groom runs and park runs are the only runs that you can go on right now.”

Morris misses being able to shred down the mountain on his favorite routes, as well as having days on the mountain with fresh powder.

Most mountains open mid-December and stay open until mid-March. Mountains like Hoodoo and Willamette are at a lower elevation than others, and have encountered a warmer climate this year in terms of temperature.

Mount Bachelor, located in Bend, is arguably Oregon’s best mountain to board or ski in the wintertime. And although Bachelor has received snow this year, it isn’t turning out to be the snow that boarders and skiers have been waiting for. Morris stated that he doesn’t want to drive three hours from Eugene to have to board a mountain that is covered in ice, so he has been waiting for blue skies and fresh powder to hit the mountain this year.

Willamette Pass is the closest mountain outside of Eugene, just shy of an hour away. Whereas Mount Bachelor and Timberline take about three or more hours to travel. The lack of snowfall is affecting boarders and skiers in Eugene more than ever this year due to travel.

Some mountains have stated that they are able to stay open later than mid-March if the snow waves in, but the resorts have lost a lot of money this season due to the lack of snowfall and hope to make some of this up later in the season.

Waking up bundled in warm blankets, being able to prepare a meal for yourself, and having some place to use the restroom serves as a normality for a lot of people.

According to Jean Stacey, leader of the Safe Legally Entitled Emergency Places to Sleep campaign in Eugene, having a place to sleep at night and keep warm is all that some people want.

The movement is seen as an offshoot of the Occupy movement, although SLEEPS has shifted the focus to “safe protection for those that are unhoused” as Stacy says. It started in August and gained momentum after a very visible protest in the Wayne Morse Terrace (commonly known as the Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza) in downtown Eugene and was championed by many local activists.

“Around July [the city] decided to do a sweep all at the same time, and left people with no place to go,” Stacey said. “These people came into town, and some of them became so desperate and started camping, and more and more people joined them.”

This, according to Stacey, is how SLEEPS began.

According to Stacey, Eugene has lost 900 shelter beds in Lane County in the past six to seven years. The homeless have lost transitional housing, shelter care, and even the mission has cut back on beds that are open to the homeless every night.

Some local students have taken it on themselves to get involved. Alex Froehlich, recent graduate of the UO’s School of Architecture, has provided “the most exceptional help to SLEEPS.” To Froehlich, it is about representing SLEEPS in important city council meetings and helping support SLEEPS in any way that he can.

Froehlich is a part of Design Bridges, a group on campus that is currently working on a project called “The Common Good.” This project will “partner directly with houseless folks” according to Froehlich. He supports the SLEEPS campaign, and hopes to work more with Stacey in the future.

Lane Community College student John Price says Eugene has four facilities to provide shelter to the homeless, and it “isn’t enough to provide to the percentage of homeless folks who are not choosing to be homeless.”

“[The homeless] have been taken away from their homes, and being homeless is a hard thing for folks and a lot of people aren’t aware of it,” he said.

Price also says that “people are dealing with [it] as an out-of-sight-out-of-mind kind of issue, and it shouldn’t be like that.”

Members of the SLEEPS camp have said they mostly see students filming, shooting photos or generally collecting content for various class projects.

The Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group leadership board does everything it can among the community to help with hunger and homelessness in Eugene, although it has not been directly involved with SLEEPS.

Hannah Picknell, OSPIRG chair at the UO, says in regard to the SLEEPS campaign that while it is “important to find solutions for people to sleep,” OSPRIG focuses its resources on volunteer opportunities for students involving food needs in Lane County.

Since the movement began, several developments by the city have been rolled out, including installation of a 24-hour bathroom in Washington-Jefferson Park.

Others have been in progress for longer, such as Opportunity Village, which began last year when the Occupy movement got part of what they were looking for: a micro-housing village for homeless citizens in Eugene. Opportunity Village provides housing for 30-40 individuals at one time. The houses for this complex will be 60-100 sq. feet in size, and less than 8-feet wide. The houses include cooking facilities, living room areas, private space and restrooms.

Opportunity Village provides a sense of home for homeless citizens who are currently living on the streets, and the purpose of the village is to provide protection for those who are un-housed in Eugene. Basic rules are upheld in Opportunity Village, including restrictions on drug and alcohol use, stealing and violence. Before Opportunity Village the homeless would gather in the land of the Oregon Department of Transportation, the Bureau of Land Management, as well as Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza.

“Every city in America has a fear that if they are not abusive to the people that are un-housed, then their cities will become a magnet for homeless people,” Stacey said.

This stigma against the homeless, according to Stacey is precisely what needs to be fought through in order to find a solution to house the homeless in Eugene.

Yuliana Barrales and Jennifer Fleck contributed to this story.

If you’re interested in finding an internship, full-time or part-time job, or just looking to volunteer, the UO Career Fair is your place to gain experience.

This year, the career fair is located in the EMU Ballroom on Nov. 6 from 12 – 5 p.m.

There will be over 80 employers available to speak with students. According to a Nov .1 press release, there will be more employers represented than the university has had since the recession.

Fisher Investments will be sponsoring the Career Fair this year, and will also be in attendance. In addition to Fisher Investments, Apple, Buckle Inc., Microsoft, GEICO, Macy’s, and Fred Meyer will also be at the Career Fair.

Students are advised to dress appropriately for the Fair, and bringing a cover letter and resume would also be ideal. Students are also advised to research the companies they are interested in speaking with.

The day before the career fair, Nov. 5, 2013 at the Lillis Atrium from 6-8:30 p.m., some employers will be at the Business Connect event. This event is for students to make quick face-to-face connections with employers before the career fair.

More information can be found on the Career Center’s website.

Interested in helping cancer patients through their life-changing journey? The American Cancer Society Cancer Resource Center is looking for volunteers to do just that.

Selected volunteers will be trained by professionals. The training will involve hospital time and plenty of hands on experience with cancer patients.

Volunteers will learn to support, reassure and encourage their patients. They will also learn information about specific treatment for their patients involving medical and non-medical needs.

The time commitment for volunteers can be as little as four hours a week and can potentially change a life in your community.

The ACS offers rides to treatment centers, support from those around you, makeup courses and additional benefits.

The American Cancer Society’s main goal is to help individuals diagnosed with cancer through prevention methods and early detection. The ACS actively supports and facilitates research and community involvement.

To get more involved call the ACS’s 24-hour phone number, which is 1-800-227-2345.

A volunteer training session will be held Thursday Oct. 24 at the American Cancer Society Eugene Office. Training will last from 9 a.m.- 1 p.m.

Internationally known speakers and panelists will arrive at the University of Oregon on Thursday, Oct. 24 to kick off “From Silence to Memory: Archives and Human Rights in Guatemala and Beyond.” This symposium is dedicated to ending human rights abuse in Guatemala.

Several human rights issues will be discussed, but the emphasis of the symposium is improving the future for Guatemalan citizens. There will be three different events around campus, including speakers, a book discussion and a documentary viewing.

The first of the three begins at 3 p.m. and will be located in the Knight Library Browsing Room. “From Silence to Memory: Revelations of the National Police Historical Archive” will be presented and then discussed by a panel shortly after. The panel consists of Stephanie Wood as chair of the panel from the UO, as well as representatives from Columbia University, the National Police Historical Archive in Guatemala and Austin Texas University.

The book describes the treatment of Guatemalan citizens and a report from the National Police Historical Archive in Guatemala. The book also discusses citizens acts to try and overcome human rights violations in their country. The panel will discuss how the book is correlated to the human rights movement.

At 4 p.m., also in the Knight Library Browsing Room, will be a lecture on “The Role of Archives in Strengthening Democracy and Promoting Human Rights” by Trudy Peterson. She has extended experience as an active archivist from the United States. This lecture will discuss the importance of documents and artifacts of archives and how they can help citizens and their communities deal with and overcome injustices.

The last of the three events will be located in 221 Allen Hall, at 6 p.m. The documentary “Keep Your Eyes on Guatemala” by Gabriela Martinez will be open for public viewing. Martinez is an associate professor at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication.

The film uses interviews from several citizens who have experienced human rights violations in Guatemala. The film will also display the role of human rights activists, archivists and several others who have played a role in expanding human rights in Guatemala.

The Museum of Natural and Cultural History will kick off their 20th annual Fall Archaeology Lecture Series this Friday, Oct. 11 at 5:30 p.m.

“Digging Into Oregon’s History,” the theme this year for the lecture series, focuses on historic archaeology and the use of archaeological methods to investigate cultures of the historic era in Oregon.

The Lecture Series will run for three weeks, and the lectures will be every Friday (Oct. 11, 18 and 25). There will be three separate speakers who will share their knowledge and passion for the history of archaeology and its relevance to Oregon.

The first of the three speakers, Mark Tveskov from Southern Oregon University, will speak about “The Archaeological Perspective on the Rouge River War.” His lecture will focus on the battles between the Native Americans of Southern Oregon and the U.S. Army and the findings on the sites where the battles took place. Tveskov will discuss a recent discovery from the site of the Battle of Hungry Hill in 1855.

The second speaker, Chelsea Rose, also from SOU, will speak about “A Portrait of the Past — Archaeological Views on the Life of Peter Britt.” In the mid 1800s, Britt played a major role in the foundation of the Rouge Valley. Rose will discuss some of the archaeological discoveries that contribute to Britt’s life from sites as personal as his household and how these discoveries affect the Rouge Valley today.

Kelly Strommer, communications and marketing specialist for the museum, is most excited for the third speaker, Scott Williams. Williams will discuss “Shipwrecks, Legends and Lost Treasures — Historical Archaeology on the Oregon Coast.” Williams’ speech is about underwater discovery in Oregon and the history of haunted shipwrecks. Williams is the cultural resources program manager for the Washington State Department of Transportation, but Williams has done much of his research in Oregon.

Strommer is enthusiastic about this year’s theme with tying in archaeology and history. Stommer says, “When we are looking at artifacts we get a window into these lives that you don’t get with written records.”

The Oregon Archaeology Celebration happens every October in Oregon, and the Fall Lecture Series is Oregon’s Historical and Cultural Museum’s way of contributing to the tradition and celebration of archaeology. These lectures are free and open to the public and are for any citizen who is interested in learning about the archaeological history of Oregon.