Elections for members of the University of Oregon Senate, its standing committees and officers of administration council is on hold due to technical errors. An email sent to UO staff and faculty by Interim President Scott Coltrane and Senate President Robert Kyr said that a technical issue could compromise the election results.

The election began May 8 and is now rescheduled to take place between May 25 and June 8 on Duckweb.

“The university values its elected representative bodies,” Kyr and Coltrane’s statement said. “This representation and the election process is a crucial element of effective shared governance. We are taking this step to ensure the integrity of the election process and will publish full results when voting is concluded.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”

This election is for the University Senate not the ASUO senate, which is made up of students. The University Senate is made up of faculty, officers of administration, students, classified staff and research officers.

Wait, it’s Friday? What even happened this week?

Maybe it was something in the air, maybe the light sun or maybe it was the ASUO street fair. Whatever it was that distracted you from Twitter, don’t fret, here’s the CliffsNotes version.

President Obama visits Oregon

If you were wondering why everyone was complaining about Portland traffic, it’s because the POTUS arrived Thursday afternoon. Obama is visiting a Democratic National Committee fundraiser.

#pdxobama in Portland live updates: Traffic updates #obamajam, sightings, full coverage: http://t.co/CwzftVf0sT pic.twitter.com/8FMAG59X1v

— The Oregonian (@Oregonian) May 8, 2015

Fox canceled the Mindy Project

After three seasons, Fox cancelled Mindy Kaling’s sitcom. There’s still some hope though, there’s an online campaign for Hulu to pick the show up for a forth season. What about the baby?!

The jury is in on ‘Deflategate’

Wednesday afternoon, the NFL released its investigation on whether or not the New England Patriots intentionally deflated balls in a game against the Colts. Through text messages between employees, ball measurements from halftime and more, the report found that it is more probable than not that the Patriots employees, “participated in a deliberate plan to circumvent the rules by releasing air from Patriots game balls after the examination of the footballs by NFL game officials at the AFC Championship Game.”  

The physics behind #DeflateGate: How adjusting football pressure can give an advantage: http://t.co/hFSjAbcWhV pic.twitter.com/WsWZh7O9Jt

— ABC News (@ABC) January 22, 2015

Also in the report, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was, “at least generally aware of the inappropriate activities.”

QB Tom Brady declines to discuss his thoughts about the findings in the NFL’s “Deflategate” report: http://t.co/xrNugIocE4

— The Associated Press (@AP) May 8, 2015

This story is one part of a series of articles on sexual assault awareness at the University of Oregon. Read Emerald editor Sami Edge’s letter to find out why we’ve dedicated today’s edition of Emerald Monday to the topic.

Dealing with sexual violence within a university is complex. Here’s a breakdown of  the process and what it means for University of Oregon students to report a sexual assault:

Office of Affirmative Action & Equal Opportunity

Cases first go through the Office of Affirmative Action & Equal Opportunity, which oversees Title IX compliance.

“When that report comes forward we really are working on having a victim-centered and sensitive response,” Penny Daugherty, director of the AAEO, said in an email.

The Office of the Dean of Students will be the first contact with the accuser. It provides information on resources and services.

The AAEO then invites the student to learn about the process for holding the accused accountable. After that, the AAEO asks the student if they want to engage in the process.

The Title IX investigator will meet with the accuser the accused and any witnesses or those who may have additional information. The investigator will review any documentary evidence, like emails and text messages and will follow up  if need be.

The Title IX investigator creates a report outlining evidence in the case, analysis and the investigator’s conclusion of whether the evidence establishes a university policy violation. All AAEO investigations involving alleged sexual misconduct goes to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards.

Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards

The OSCCS has the power to levy sanctions against the respondent. Student conduct staff members like Sandy Weintraub, the director of Student Conduct and Community Standards, meet with accused students in what’s called an administrative conference.

“Usually it’s the opportunity for them to be heard,” Weintraub said. “Often they will explain their side of whatever incident may have happened.”

There used to be an option to choose between administrative conferences and panel hearings, where the respondent and complainant are in the same room. The board of trustees removed the option for a panel hearing in September.

After reviewing the Title IX report, talking with the accused, hearing a statement from them if they wish to make one, asking questions, etc. the OSCCS issues a sanction.

“It’s always a case by case decision,” Weintraub said. “It’s important to understand that the facts that are present in every case are very different in every case.”

Sexual misconduct sanctions could result in suspension, expulsion or a permanent separation from the university depending on the case.

“Obviously we need to consider both the safety of the campus community but also the effect that it has on someone’s academic career moving forward in both cases. So it can be a difficult decision.”

Do students report to UOPD or EPD?

Some survivors report to the police, but do students report to the EPD or the UOPD?

That differs on a case-by-case basis, according to UOPD spokesperson Kelly McIver. McIver said that both agencies work with one another and the district attorney’s office to respond.

“There may be incidents that would occur on university property that we could refer to EPD because they could have more resources,” McIver said in an email. “The reverse might happen for an off-campus incident that involves a university-affiliated person. UOPD’s preference is to handle any incident on university property, as long as we have the capacity to provide the best service to the survivor.”

An hour before the event began the EMU amphitheater was busy with people waiting for Take Back the Night to begin.

TBTN is an international event aimed at ending all forms of sexual violence. In Eugene, the event is comprised of a rally, speakers, poetry and a march. The march leads to a “speak out,” a “speak out” is a quieter event where survivors of sexual violence can share their experiences.

This was Sophie Albanis’ first year attending TBTN. As an employee of the ASUO Women’s Center and the editor in chief of the Siren, Albanis was required to attend the event, but she would be there even if it wasn’t a part of her job.

“I think Take Back The Night is really important because it’s really powerful for a group of survivors, and especially women, to reclaim the space that has been taken away from us,” Albanis said. “Or at least made very unsafe for us.”

Lily Huston, freshman linguistics major, also attended the event for the first time.

“I have lots of friends that are sexual assault survivors,” Huston said. “It’s really important for me to support my friends that have been assaulted and advocate for better spaces.”

Interim president Scott Coltrane, his wife Wendy Wheeler-Coltrane and a small white dog sat on the steps of the amphitheater throughout the various speakers.

Speakers came from the Women’s Center, Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team, Sexual Assault Support Services, fraternity and sorority life and more.

Zach Lusby, a member of the Delta Tau Delta house and the FSL task force to address sexual violence, addressed the many Greek letters in the crowd. Lusby talked about his own experience as a survivor of sexual violence and the support he felt from his fraternity brothers, but also said that sexual assault is still an issue in the FSL community.

This comes after a highly contested ASUO resolution to halt the expansion of new Greek chapters on campus due to the increased rate of sexual violence within FSL.

“Take tonight and make it every night,” Lusby said.

Garrett Wright and Genevieve Gallagher are two members of the FSL community in attendance.

“This is a huge subject in Greek life,” Wright said. “And I want to come out and support sexual assault (prevention) because I don’t want to see it on our campus.”

Wright said that his fraternity, Kappa Sigma was required to attend. Gallagher said that her sorority, Chi Omega, had been talking about the importance of sexual violence issues for the last few weeks.

Several speakers publically identified as survivors of sexual. One, who introduced herself as Miranda, said that this was the first Take Back the Night she had attended since 1998. That event wasn’t nearly as well attended as Thursday night’s rally. She said that back in 1998, some people threw bottles at the participants, which certainly wasn’t the case this year. After the rally the crowd picked up signs and megaphones, singing together chants like:

“However we dress,wherever we go, yes means yes and no means no.”

Congrats, you’ve made it half way through the term.

Here’s what you may have missed in the midterm haze.

Nepal earthquake

A 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Nepal Saturday, April 20. The death-toll is currently at 5,800, according to Time that number could rise to 15,000.

There are several organizations donating to relief efforts in Nepal, here’s a list compiled by the New York Times.

Baltimore

Baltimore, Maryland has been in the news after the funeral of Freddie Gray. Gray was killed after suffering a spinal injury in police custody. The latest death in a series of police brutality related deaths in Baltimore prompted riots in the streets and criticism of the media’s coverage.

Baltimore is no stranger to police brutality. An investigation by the Baltimore Sun revealed that in the last four years the city of Baltimore paid $5.7 million in police brutality lawsuits.

Here’s a clip of the president addressing Baltimore.

Watch President Obama speak on the situation in Baltimore. http://t.co/T3t6ptxmaZ

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 28, 2015

Bernie Sanders The Vermont senator announced his presidential candidacy early Thursday. The independent is the only big name liberal running against Hilary Clinton at this point. “People should not underestimate me,” Sanders said to the Associated Press. “I’ve run outside of the two-party system, defeating Democrats and Republicans, taking on big-money candidates and, you know, I think the message that has resonated in Vermont is a message that can resonate all over this country.”  

Every candidate for president must answer the following questions: pic.twitter.com/hYrqQwocyV

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 29, 2015

Meet the president

Michael Schill is new to the University of Oregon, but he may look familiar to some students. Before his official debut press conference on April 14 with cameras, lights and media, UO’s newest president took a much more incognito tour of campus.

Before he was even named a finalist for the position, Schill took an informal trip to Eugene and spent some time walking through the campus and talking with some of the students.

This impressed the only student to interview the final four presidential candidates.

“When I asked him a question about students, he already had a good idea of a lot of the issues on campus that students care about and are passionate about…” Helena Schlegel, student on the board of trustees and ASUO president-elect, said.

Schill, who got his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his law degree from Yale, is currently dean of the University of Chicago’s law school, was also a dean at UCLA’s law school from 2004-2009 and taught at the University of Pennsylvania and New York University.

The search for a new president began with the resignation of Michael Gottfredson in July 2014. Gottfredson resigned shortly after the university instituted an independent governing board, the UO board of trustees.

Schill describes his upbringing as blue collar. He’s from a small city and his parents didn’t go to college.

“A great education gave me the opportunity to become the president of the University of Oregon,” Schill said. “I would love to see every student who comes to Oregon have those same types of opportunities.”

For trustee chair Chuck Lillis, Schill’s academic record stood out when the search committee was whittling down its list of candidates. Under Schill, both law schools rose in the national rankings. Schill’s fundraising abilities also stood out, Lillis said, as did his personality. Schill was engaging, humorous and an effective communicator.

“When he was on campus that one day he just stopped and talked with groups of students on a number of occasions,” Lillis said. “He’s very interested in having open dialogue with the students on their issues.”

What’s the plan?

Schill will take over the presidency during a busy time for the administration – amongst other things, the university is in the midst of a $2 billion fundraising campaign and contract negotiations with the faculty union.

The UO made headlines in the last year for its handling of sexual violence after the alleged sexual assault between three members of the UO basketball team and a female student, a lawsuit from that student and controversy over confidentiality at the Counseling and Testing Center.

Schill said that he is aware of the issue of sexual assault issues but is not an expert.

“If you care about higher education, you should care about issues of sexual violence,” Schill said. “Every student on the Oregon campus needs to feel safe, needs to feel that their administration will protect them and needs to feel that if, God forbid, something were to happen, that the processes would be fair and we would be ones that they would have faith in.”

Moving the school forward was a major theme in the presidential search. A set of frequently asked questions distributed at the presidential press conference twice mentioned Schill’s ability to move the university forward. Where will forward take the university? Don’t expect him to answer right away.

“New President 101 is that you don’t come into a place that you don’t know and start suggesting everything that the school should be doing,” Schill said.

Schill plans to meet with different campus stakeholders before committing to any specific course of action.

“I think it’d be a mistake to come into the institution and have already a set of plans, probably because I don’t know enough so those plans would, in all likelihood, be faulty,” Schill said. “But also it does not demonstrate respect for the faculty or students, alumni and staff for someone from the outside to come in.”

The search

Schill’s selection came from a closed search; none of the candidates or finalists were announced. The UO search committee chose to make its search private in order, committee members said, to attract the best candidates and to help protect the job security of potential candidates.

Coincidentally, Schill had been a finalist in 2013 for the University of Wisconsin chancellor position, a search that had been conducted publicly.

“This was an extremely closed search,” Bill Harbaugh said, a tenured economics professor and an outspoken critic of the university who runs the blog UO Matters.

Lillis said that the closed search was necessary.

“I would say I am 100 percent certain that we would not have gotten nearly as good a set of candidates interested in a job as if we had an open search.”

The future

Schill will receive indefinite tenure, meaning that if he leaves the presidency he will remain a faculty member with an annualized $450,000 salary.

As president, Schill will earn a $660,000 yearly salary, a $25,000 stipend for academic research at the UO School of Law and a vehicle stipend.

The board of trustees has the power to hire and fire the president, as Schill is well aware. When asked if he would stay longer than previous university president UO has had five interims and presidents in the last six years he said he hoped to but it wasn’t all up to him.

“I serve at the pleasure of the board so I can’t guarantee you that,” Schill said. “But I think they’re excited about a long-term relationship and I think they’re excited about the idea of moving the school forward.”

Schill officially takes office July 1 and is excited for more face-time with students. In fact when his interview with the Emerald ended Schill’s next appointment was with a student.

“I’m really excited about the opportunity to get to meet them and be part of their lives,” Schill said. “I don’t want to be someone who is distant or someone who they’ve never met. I want them to see me on campus.”

He’s also excited for the food in Eugene.

“I need to find all of the good ethnic restaurants in town,” Schill said. “I hear there’s at least one good Chinese restaurant, which is actually a really important thing for me.”

In case you didn’t check Instagram, Wednesday was Earth Day. Besides all the selfies next to vistas and canyons, here’s what you may have missed on your newsfeed.

U.S. apologizes for drone casualties

President Obama apologized for the killing of two al-Qaida hostages in a drone strike. Thursday, Obama confirmed that one American and one Italian hostage were killed in Pakistan this January during U.S. drone-strikes.

“As president and as commander in chief I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations,” Obama said during a press conference. “I profoundly regret what happened. On behalf of the United States government, I offer our deepest apologies to their families.”

Marcus Mariota is a sandwich now?

In a disturbing chain of events, the famed Oregon quarterback posed with a statue of himself made entirely of lunchmeat and sandwich materials. First the Heisman trophy and now a sandwich replica.

FIRST LOOK: Subway makes Marcus Mariota out of sandwich materials pic.twitter.com/68gUtYl9Nh

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) April 22, 2015

Aziz Ansari gets a Netflix show

Got rejected to play a “Bobby Jindal” type on House of Cards, so I’m doing my own Netflix series. Filming in NYC now. http://t.co/u5cf3XlFBy — Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) April 22, 2015

What will Aziz Ansari do after Parks and Recreation? The answer is finally here. The comedian co-created a new 10 episode series for Netflix currently filming in New York.

Amy Schumer talks about Hollywood agism with Julia Louis-Dryfus, Tina Fey and Patricia Arquette.

“No more gas, no more oil. Leave that carbon in the soil.”

“Do we want a future on a clean planet?”

“I say fossil, you say free. Fossil–”

“Free!”

These chants and more filled the EMU amphitheater on Tuesday afternoon.

It’s Earth Week around the world, and at the University of Oregon students are protesting the UO Foundation’s investment in fossil fuels. Groups like the Climate Justice League and Divest UO held cardboard signs, a drum and at least one selfie stick at the rally.

Nicole Hendrix, a junior environmental studies major, is a member of the Climate Justice League–one of the groups organizing the rally.

“Divest is sometimes a confusing term but the simplest way put it is that it’s the opposite of investing,” Hendrix said. “So you want to take your money out of where you’re investing. So specifically for UO Divest we want the UO Foundation to divest from their money from fossil fuel industries.”

Hendrix thinks that the foundation divesting from fossil fuels would send a good message.

“I think it would show not only that the university wants to lead the way in renewable energy…” Hendrix said. “But also that we’re trying to protect our environment and help those that are socially feeling the harm of fossil fuel investment, so what oil companies are doing to the world.”

The UO Foundation is a nonprofit corporation that exists to administer private gifts to the University of Oregon and is a separate entity from the university.

Earlier in the year, the University of Oregon Senate passed a non-binding resolution asking the foundation to divest from fossil fuels as well.

Hendrix said the environmental groups on campus have already had a few meetings with Jay Namyet, the foundation’s chief investment officer, about divesting. Hendrix described the latest meeting as not going well.

Besides talking to the UO Foundation, the groups have brought resolutions to the University Senate, started a petition and held several rallies like Tuesday’s.

“It’s cool just to see all these students come together on a school day to show their support for divesting.”

One student at the rally was Emily Huang, a freshman studying pre-business and Spanish. It was Huang’s first environmental rally, which she heard about through friends in OSPIRG. Huang thought it was really cool how many people off the street joined the rally.

Tuesday’s rally isn’t the end of the issue at UO.

Hendrix said that the group has more plans at UO and that the issue isn’t going anywhere.

“It’s growing. It’s growing world wide.”

What happened on the web this week? Some presidential announcements, the Kardashians are in Armenia and this 1991 Sizzler ad resurfaced. If you haven’t had time to work your way through the week’s news, here’s a crash course.

Ready for Hillary?

Hillary Clinton finally announced that she is indeed running for president in 2016, Sunday. Clinton is currently the only major democratic nominee. The much anticipated announcement came out in a video, unlike some republican nominees like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz who announced in front of crowds. Clinton’s campaign website translates into Spanish and the header photo is of Clinton talking to the elderly, two main voting forces in the last election.

Don’t forget Rubio…

Marco Rubio announced his presidential candidacy, Monday. The republican senator, famous for drinking water during press conferences, took aim at Clinton during his announcement.

“Just yesterday, a leader from yesterday began a campaign for President by promising to take us back to yesterday,” Rubio said. “But yesterday is over, and we are never going back.”

Marco Rubio takin’ a sip of water:

Joss Whedon facing copyright lawsuit

Joss Whedon, the nerd power house behind franchises like the Avengers and Buffy the Vampire slayer is currently being sued for copyright infringement. A $10 million lawsuit claims that Whedon and his writing partner Drew Goddard took the idea for the 2012 movie The Cabin in the Woods from a 2006 book called The Little White Trip: A Night In the Pines.

Winter is coming

Game of Thrones is back. I won’t spoil anything so I really can’t say anything else.

John Snow 4ever.

Remember James Fox? The former University of Oregon archivist was placed on paid leave after the release of records from UO’s presidential archive. Fox and his fellow archivist Kira Homo released 22,000 pages of records to UO Economics professor Bill Harbaugh earlier this year.

The Oregonian reported that more than 100 UO professors signed a letter in support of Fox dated April 3. The letter protests the firing of James Fox. UO spokesperson Tobin Klinger told the Oregonian on Friday that Fox is employed with the university until June 30 and that the university did not renew his contract.

“There has long been an astounding lack of clarity around the policies and processes governing presidential office archives; a failure of leadership at a high level to create a viable campus-wide records management program; and an all-too-clear paucity of resources allocated to the library for processing, handling, and providing such materials,” the letter said. “These failings are not those of James Fox.”

The letter outlines the work that Fox has done as the director of special collections at the UO. The letter said that Fox’s dismissal will cause a rupture with donors and will damage the trust of UO faculty and staff.

“We urgently request that this case be revisited immediately and that James Fox’s contract be renewed,” the letter said. “We request as well that the records management function beplaced in a more suitable and better-resourced unit on campus. Finally, we request a reply that engages in detail with the substance of our concerns.”

At the time of publication, representatives from the UO were not available for comment.