Following the GTFF strike? Check out the Daily Emerald’s coverage, this post will be updated with more social media reactions to the GTFF strike.

The Eugene Police Explosive Disposal Unit was at the east side of Matthew Knight Arena investigating a suspicious package, according to Kelly McIver, the University of Oregon Police public information officer.

According to McIver, the package turned out to be a loud noise but nothing more serious.

A UO alert went out to students at 2:31 p.m. warning students to avoid the area near Parking Lot 33, located east of campus graduate housing and Bean East, due to a suspicious package that had been reported by the east side of the Matthew Knight Arena.

At 3:03 p.m. another UO alert said that the incident was resolved.

“A UO staff member heard a loud “gunshot”-like sound from inside a dumpster after he placed some trash inside, behind the south building of the East Campus Graduate Village housing complex. He called the UO Police Department, which dispatched the Eugene Police explosives team to investigate,” McIver said. “A thorough search of the dumpster and surrounding area showed no signs of an explosion or any suspicious device.”

McIver also said that all campus community members are encouraged to report any suspicious conditions immediately to 9-1-1 or to UOPD at 541-346-2919.

“That’s why we’re here,” UOPD Sergeant Scott Cameron said at the scene.”Don’t ever hesitate to call.”

Helena Schlegel was sitting in the Buzz Café on Nov. 14 when she got a call from an unknown number. On the other end was Chuck Lillis, chair of the University of Oregon Board of Trustees, informing her that she was nominated to fill the student seat on the board.

Three days later, it was officially announced that Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber’s office nominated the third year Spanish and economics major to the UO Board of Trustees.

Schlegel expressed interest in the position last spring through an ASUO search. After interviews with students from different aspects of campus, the ASUO selected three candidates to send to the governor’s office.

Schlegel wants to address the stigma that students don’t care about their governing board.

“I want to make sure that the board and the community realize that students are listening to all these policies that affect their lives,” Schlegel said. “And that they care.”

Her nomination to the Board of Trustees is the latest of Schlegel’s heavy involvement at the university. Schlegel is a Wayne Morse scholar, a dispatcher for UO Safe Ride and a member of the UO Organization Against Sexual Assault. She has served as a senator in both the ASUO and the University Senate, through which she helped to draft the board of trustee governing documents.

While serving on the Committee of UO Board of Trustee Delegation of Authority Policy, Schlegel saw how much power the board has and wanted students to be incorporated into that power.

“My focus will be keeping the board accountable to the mission of the university, which really is that we are a public university that should be prioritizing students,” Schlegel said. “I want to be a part of the board that does that, that prioritizes student issues.”

Schlegel’s next step as a nominee includes standing in front of the Senate Rules Committee to deliver her case. The committee then reports to the Oregon Senate which will then vote on Schlegel as a nominee, all during finals week. If confirmed through the formal process, Schlegel could be a voting member of the board by its meeting on Dec. 11.

“Once confirmed, Helena will have full status as a voting member of the board,” Board of Trustees Secretary Angela Wilhelms said. “(She) will serve on the Academic and Student Affairs Committee representing the student body in matters before the board.”

Schlegel would replace ASUO President Beatriz Gutierrez. Since the last student board member Sam Dotters-Katz graduated this last spring, Gutierrez has been acting as an interim board member.

If confirmed, Schlegel would be one of 15 board members to vote on changes to the student conduct code, approving tuition and voting on UO’s next president.

“The governor values student perspective in governance and believes in creating intergenerational opportunities for leadership,” Melissa Navas, press secretary to the governor, said. “He wants to ensure the trustees he appoints reflect diverse characteristics that adequately represent the state, including that they demonstrate the ability to work with an array of stakeholders, understand the broad role of public higher education in Oregon and provide institutional accountability to our citizens. Helena stood out as the student representative who most embodied those traits.”

Schlegel encourages students to send her feedback at hschlege@uoregon.edu.

Board of Trustees chair Chuck Lillis thinks that the University of Oregon is good, but not great. How can the university make that transition? Everyone needs to play nice, Lillis said to the University of Oregon Senate on Nov. 19.

Lillis mentioned how the four independent search firms the university hired to find applicants for a new president all found a similar issue in the presidential search: Potential applicants perceived a dysfunctional relationship between the faculty and administration.

“The University of Oregon has a bad national reputation,” Lillis said. “Where the faculty and the administration don’t get along.”

Lillis listed the top structural issues facing the university. Those issues include:

1. The university is financially weak, especially compared with other schools in the AAU. Lillis said that UO is outspent two to one by other schools in the AAU, meaning that other universities spend significantly less than other schools do to “deliver its educational message.”

2. Tenure track faculty is under-sized. The capital campaign plans to grow tenure track faculty by 130 to 150 positions.

3. Student quality has increased, but not as much as AAU peers. Lillis wants to increase the discount rate offered to students, also known as the average rate discounted from tuition, to recruit the best students.

4. Oregonians don’t know much about the university.

5. A lengthy process associated with approving new programs. “My estimate is that for every one person who proposes change, about 100 people feel the need to review it.”

6. The university’s endowment should reach $2 billion in order to be competitive with other schools. The capital campaign is a start, but won’t bring the endowment up to $2 billion, according to Lillis.

7. “We’ve had a disastrous churn at the presidential level.” Lillis said.

8. The university needs more science labs.

9. The university needs to improve IT and improve infrastructure for big data.

Lillis’ address was 45 minutes long and took the place of many other items on the agenda.

Andrew Bonamici introduced Canvas, a new replacement for Blackboard.

The Senate also passed a motion opposing the university’s plans for handling a potential GTFF strike. Scott Greenstone has the story here.

The other eight items on the agenda were pushed to the Dec. 3 meeting. The normal speaking time allotted was extended for Lillis’ address.

University of Oregon’s governing board should start making a new name tag. According to Board of Trustees secretary Angela Wilhelms the Governor’s Office nominated a UO student to the board.

“We just learned that the Governor’s Office has nominated Helena Schlegel to the UO Board of Trustees,” Board chair Chuck Lillis said.

“We’re very pleased that he has made the nomination, and we look forward to the senate’s confirmation. I am reaching out to Helena today and we’ll start the process of getting her oriented and integrated onto the board.”

In the past Schlegel served as an ASUO senator and as a Ducks Like You campaign manager in last year’s ASUO election. Schlegel would replace ASUO Beatriz Gutierrez – who is currently on the Board of Trustees.

Gutierrez filled the student seat since former ASUO president Sam Dotters-Katz graduated from law school last spring.

“I was honored to hear about my nomination to serve on the Board of Trustees,” Schlegel said. “If confirmed, I look forward to representing the diverse student body here at the University of Oregon.”

According to Wilhelms the University of Oregon Senate will confirm Schlegel on the morning of Wednesday, December 10.

Schlegel will not be an official trustee until she is confirmed by the senate but will be able to participate in board activities in the meantime.

Follow Alexandra Wallachy on Twitter @wall2wallachy

The UO Division of Student Life is taking a unique approach to sexual assault prevention, launching the  Ducks Do Something Video Challenge to involve students in the national discussion.

In conjunction with the It’s On Us campaign’s national day of action Nov. 17,  the Division of Student Life challenges students to create 30 to 90 second videos about how students can stop sexual assault.

“We want the voices of students to be louder than the statistics,” Kerry Frazee said.

Frazee is the Director of Sexual Violence Prevention and Education at UO. Frazee and her colleagues at the Division of Student Life want the contest to be open to all students at UO, including independent students, and established groups, organizations such as residents halls, FSL and more can submit videos to the challenge.

“We’re making it so that all students can be involved,” Kerry Frazee said. “No matter what that looks like.”

There will be first, second and third place prizes for both independent and established groups as well as a prize for overall viewer’s choice. Prizes range from $500 to duck gear.

Registration starts November 17 and the registration deadline is January 23.

For more information about the video challenge check out the website or contact Kerry Frazee with questions.

Follow Alexandra Wallacy on Twitter @wall2wallachy

Connie and Steve Ballmer just gave the University of Oregon a $50 million gift as a part of the recent $2 billion capital campaign.

Connie is the head of the Presidential Search Committee and her husband, Steve Ballmer, is a former CEO of Microsoft and the current owner of the L.A. Clippers.

The Ballmers’ gift will go toward a $25 million endowment for Pathway Oregon students, adding new faculty to UO’s prevention science research program and telling the UO’s story through a new branding initiative.

“This gift will fundamentally change lives, creating a better future for countless Oregonians by providing access to educational opportunities at the UO,” Interim President Scott Coltrane said. “At the same time it will aid us in our fight against a health issue that plagues millions of children and adults. To say that we are grateful is an incredible understatement.”

The capital campaign raised $750 million in commitments so far, the Ballmers’ gift is considered the first significant gift of the capital campaign.

Sexual assault at University of Oregon

In December of 2012, Carol Stabile remembers warning colleagues that if the University of Oregon didn’t address its handling of sexual assault, the situation would erupt. Two years later, UO is in the national spotlight for its handling of alleged sexual assault. Last May, three members of the UO men’s basketball team left the UO in the wake of sexual assault allegations and this fall a survey found a higher than expected rate of assault on campus.

“I think that the May case was a catalyst,” Stabile said. “Long before that case happened, there were many, many other cases and there were many other instances of really problematic behaviors.”

Stabile is now the co-chair of the Senate Task Force to Address Sexual Violence and Survivor Support. The task force presented its final report, 20 Students Per Week, at a University Faculty Senate meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 5. Its report aims to change the culture that perpetuates sexual assault at UO through a series of recommendations and deadlines.

One in five women are sexually assaulted in college, according to the White House and Center for Disease Control. That statistic, along with the UO Campus Climate Survey by Jennifer Freyd and the White House’s Not Alone report, were used to craft the recommendations of the task force.

A matter of time

Sexual assault at universities is nothing new, but new efforts are underway to correct it at the UO.

To do so, UO administrators must sift through numerous reports and recommendations to decide how to address the problem and how much money to spend correcting it. Right now, the administration is waiting on a report from the President’s Review Panel and a gap analysis from the Division of Student Life before making any major decision.

“One of the things that I’m concerned about is that all these proposals should have more discussion,” Interim President Scott Coltrane said in an interview with the Emerald. “Particularly with students.”

While both Coltrane and Stabile encourage continued discussion of sexual violence issues, Stabile emphasizes the urgency of the situation while UO’s timeline is more rooted in continued research. Coltrane says the other reports and analysis aren’t available until December and he wants to compare those reports before rushing into action.

“Universities move very slowly and it’s one of the frustrations doing this work,” Stabile said. Stabile and her colleagues are working to make sure that the recommendations are implemented instead of just discussed. The task force did push back some of its deadlines to focus on continued discussion while editing its recommendations.

“There’s something that happens, especially around sexual assault, that the ideas don’t then get translated into practices,” Stabile said.

Coltrane promises that the recommendations won’t slip through the cracks.

“I can assure you that these won’t get lost,” Coltrane said. “These are very important. It really has come to the forefront nationally and we’re part of some of those national discussions as well.”

The cost of preventing sexual assault

The task force’s recommendations come with a hefty price tag and several unknown costs. The greatest unknown cost is associated with creating a new office to address sexual violence. Stabile and her team think a centralized location that consolidates resources spread over campus would make it easier for survivors to find help.

The cost would be sizable, but is currently undefined. Coltrane isn’t prepared to give specific figures without seeing the other reports and recommendations.

“We’ll probably make more investments,” Coltrane said. “I just don’t want to prefigure that before we have all the proposals in front of us and then talk about them as a community.”

Coltrane said that the university hopes to have reviewed all reports and cleared a path forward by the end of the 2014-2015 academic year.

“Some universities embarked on efforts, either assessments or programmatic changes, and then regretted it, Coltrane said. “We want to make sure we learn from other people’s mistakes and get a consensus. It’s too important to go forward too quickly.”

Since May, there has been increased funding for sexual assault resources at the UO. One example of this is $15,000 Coltrane allocated to an emergency fund for survivor support and prevention at the request of the task force in September.

Resources and prevention efforts outside the task force

The Division of Student Life facilitates resources for survivors of sexual assault at the UO. According to the department’s associate dean of students, Sheryl Eyster, the Division of Student Life has grown its staff and allocated more resources to helping address sexual assault. This includes increased partnership with Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team (SWAT), creating a 24-hour sexual violence hotline and more.

“We’ve been able to really strengthen what we’ve been able to provide to students over the last good year and a half,” Eyster said.

The UO Organization Against Sexual Assault launched in 2014, independent of the basketball case. The student group aims to prevent sexual assault on college campuses and spread education. OASA submitted its own response to the senate task force’s recommendations.

Recently Lauren Appell, OASA co-director, has seen a large jump in funding and support for sexual assault prevention “It started at the beginning of last year,” Appell said. “But the case in May really drastically increased it.”

Sexual assault is a national issue 

While one incident brought the issue of sexual assault to the spotlight last May, the case is anything but isolated. At the beginning of this year, the White House created the Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault and has published several reports on the issue nationwide.

Recently, the White House started the  “It’s On Us” campaign, which UO signed on to as a partner. The White House is also piloting its own sexual assault climate survey with Rutgers University.

Stabile says it’s high time for a change.

“I don’t know how to change a culture,” Stabile said. “I don’t think anyone knows but that’s what we started here. It’s daunting and it’s exciting and it’s really, really important.”

Members of the Task Force to Address Sexual Violence and Survivor Support stood for applause at Wednesday’s University Senate meeting.

Since July, members of the task force worked on its recommendations to the university regarding sexual violence procedures. During the meeting, members of the University Senate and audience asked questions about the report 20 Students Per Week.

The report was introduced at the senate’s Oct. 22 meeting, but discussion was held until Wednesday’s meeting when the final recommendations were presented. Since the release of its report, the task solicited input from the community both online and through a campus forum, Monday night.

During the discussion, audience members raised questions about the cost of the recommendations.

Carol Stabile, task force co-chair, suggested UO’s capital campaign as a potential source of funding. Stabile also addressed comments made to the task force about administrative “bloat.”

During the meeting, Rita Radostitz asked about the cost of creating a centralized office for sexual violence resources. The cost of a centralized office is not listed in the task force’s recommendations.

The task force intentionally didn’t attach a cost to the recommendation. Stabile emphasized the importance of creating a central position to deal with sexual violence.

“Unless you make it someone’s job, it’s not going to get done,” Stabile said.

Interim President Coltrane thanked the task force for its recommendations during his address to the senate.

“The task force recommendations will inform this comprehensive plan and our community-wide effort to improve campus safety and respect,” Coltrane said.

Coltrane agreed with the task force’s recommendations to coordinate prevention efforts and establish confidential reporting, but not all recommendations.

“Others’ recommendations are helpful, but suggest a different organizational structure or reporting relationship than I had envisioned,” Coltrane said.

Coltrane said that many of the task force’s timelines and deadlines do not fit current university planning.

The University Senate will meet again on Nov. 12 in Lawrence 115.

When Randy Sullivan asked the audience to raise their hands if they were in Fraternity and Sorority Life, almost every hand in the room went up. The Senate Task Force to Address Sexual Violence and Survivor Support hosted a forum to discuss its report 20 Students Per Week last night and FSL had objections.

In the report, the task force recommended that the current plans to expand FSL be halted for a year until more research is done. This drew criticism and concern from an audience of FSL brothers and sisters in suits and skirts who gathered last tonight.

“Women first created sororities as a support system to create bonds in environments that were predominantly male-centric in numbers, as well as ideology,” said Rebecca Brennan, VP of Internal Management of the Panhellenic Council. “By limiting expansion on sororities, it denies women the opportunity to have such a support system in a critical period in the development of young adults. Denying the opportunity for an expansion is just continuing the oppression of women’s voices, which goes against our mission and the history of our values-based organizations.”

The recommendations of the task force addressed the high rate of sexual violence in FSL from the Campus Climate Survey and a report on the effects of rape prevention programs. The survey by UO professor Jennifer Freyd showed that sorority women are 3.4 times more likely to experience an attempted or completed rape than women outside of FSL.

Carol Stabile, co-chair of the task force says that it would be prudent to take a year to examine the problems in FSL and move on from there.

“We’re looking into really scary numbers,” Stabile said. “You’re arguing that we should allow for expansion of a program with no assurance that those numbers can go down that first year or with no assurance that our efforts working together can address that problem.”

FSL speakers said that they are committed to addressing the issue of sexual assault within their organizations and expressed a desire to work with the task force last night.

The arguments against halting the expansion of FSL were diverse. Points raised were that the report also singled out athletics, but did not halt its expansion; that Previous education efforts in FSL have been successful and that the expansion of FSL isn’t all up to UO; and that national chapters could still start colonies that would be independent of UO FSL.

Many members also said that FSL has the power to be an agent of change in the fight against sexual violence.

“Our FSL community that has shown up today is aggressively committed to changing the culture at the UO campus.” Chase Salazar, president of the Interfraternity Council, said. Salazar is one of many members of FSL that addressed the task force Monday night.

The task force will present its final recommendations to the University Senate on Wednesday in Lawrence 115.