Jayanth Banavar wants to do everything he can to improve the lives of students as the new provost and senior vice president of the University of Oregon.

Starting in July, Banavar will be taking over the spot of Scott Coltrane as the provost of UO. Banavar is currently the Dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland.

“I am deeply committed to give all I have to not let the people at the University of Oregon down because they have put their trust in me,” he said.

New provost Jayanth Banavar will begin in July. (Courtesy of University of Oregon provost office)

The UO provost and senior vice president is the chief academic officer of the university. The provost supervises the programs, research, and budget planning at the university, and has a leadership role in faculty selection and promotions.

Coltrane began serving as interim provost in July 2013 and was named the official senior vice president and provost in February 2014. The search for a new provost began last June, when Coltrane announced his retirement.

According to the UO senate’s website, there was a search committee of 17 people, containing students, professors, and deans. The search was private in order to protect the candidates from putting their current jobs in jeopardy.

Banavar believes that the faculty and staff at a university are what makes students’ experiences outstanding, and he hopes to create an atmosphere where everyone feels encouraged to be the best they can be.

“What I would like to accomplish is to make sure that students come first because we can never ever forget that we are a university and we are all about students,” he said.

Banavar got his bachelor of science and master of science in physics from Bangalore University and his Ph.D. in physics from University of Pittsburgh. Before working at the University of Maryland, Banavar worked at the Department of Physics at Pennsylvania State University for 12 years.

Banavar lived in India for the first 20 years of his life, where he lived with his family and had a sheltered life. At the age of 15, he decided to pursue physics.

“I enjoyed the notion that I could understand the universe and all that is around us,” he said.

Banavar believes that science is important for improving the quality of people’s lives. He is looking forward to the new Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact and thinks such a large gift specified for science is astonishing.

Although Banavar loves science, he also believes that art and culture are what makes life worth living and hopes to encourage students to engage in both science and humanities.

“As a provost, I could really encourage interdisciplinary studies because often the ideas that matter come at the interface between disciplines,” he said.

Banavar is married and has two grown children, as well as family back in India who he tries to visit when he can. He loves to travel and feels very fortunate to be able to meet people from around the world.

In his spare time, Banavar likes to sleep because he feels that it is good for his brain. He also enjoys eating good food, watching movies, reading, and taking walks.

Banavar is looking forward to his future as the provost at UO. His goal is to give his new job his best shot. He said that he is a fast learner, and wants to work together with and learn from students, faculty, and staff.

“I feel exceedingly fortunate that I have been given this opportunity to be trusted by the people of Oregon,” he said. “I want to give back and I need everyone’s help when I get there.”

Follow Emma Henderson on Twitter @henderemma . 

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In a cost-cutting move last week, the College of Education notified professor Kevin Alltucker that his hours were being reduced, making him decide to leave his job at the University of Oregon.

Alltucker was technically not laid off, he said. He has been part-time for the past 13 years but has taught classes in several departments on campus – Family and Human Services, Planning, Public Policy and Management, and the Clark Honors College – in order to have enough hours to get benefits.

When the College of Education told him they were cutting his Family and Human Services hours down to the point where he would no longer get benefits, he decided to leave. Alltucker will teach for the rest of the term but won’t return after that.

This cut is part of the initiative the university is taking to cut costs and increase the ratio of students to tenure-track faculty, but Alltucker said he is concerned that students’ needs will not be met with that plan.

“I believe in students and that’s why I’ve taught for the past 13 years,” he said. “I believe in the wisdom of students to go out and make the world a better place.”

On May 1, Alltucker tweeted the news that he would no longer be teaching classes.

The UO College of Ed is cutting my job, and I won't be returning next year. It's been an honor/privilege to have worked with students!

— Kevin Alltucker (@kalltuck) May 1, 2017

Dozens of current and former students have responded to the tweet, voicing how upset they are to see him leave and noting the difference he made in their college and professional careers.

One student, Hannah Contreras, said the news of his departure is devastating and an unfortunate decision.

“Kevin reminded his students every day that we could change the world, and he fostered our self-confidence both inside and outside of the classroom to go out and be agents of change,” she said.

On the professor-review website ratemyprofessors.com, Alltucker has glowing reviews. He has a 4.8/5 overall rating, based on 58 student responses.

Someone started a closed Facebook group called “Save FHS – Keep Kevin Alltucker,” that currently has 188 members as of May 3.

Alltucker grew up, went to school and has strong ties in Eugene and plans to stay in the city to pursue a new interest. He does not have any definite plans for the future but is not worried, he said.

“To hear from past students and current students and how much they value the FHS program, that’s fantastic,” he said. “But it shouldn’t be about me — it should be about how this university is going to serve the needs of students.”

Follow Emma Henderson on Twitter @henderemma . 

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Beginning next year, the University of Oregon will require students to declare a major by spring term of their sophomore year, the UO Faculty Senate decided Wednesday.

Students can currently declare a major at any point in their college career – including their senior year. Now, full-time students will be expected to declare a major at the end of their second year at UO, or more specifically, during the fourth week of their sixth term of enrollment. The new policy will begin in fall 2017. Transfer students must declare a major by their fourth week of their third term at UO.

“It is geared very much to identify students who are struggling,” said anthropology professor Frances White. “It is very much to help students who have not picked a major yet.”

Students who fail to declare a major by the end of their second year will be blocked from registration and required to see an advisor, who will either help them choose a major or give them an exception. Advisors will give these students a PIN allowing them to register. Advisors who have gone through advisor training will have access to the PIN, White said.

The vote was almost unanimous, but Jarred Umenhofer, a student, voted against the policy. Umenhofer said his choice to vote against the new policy was because of his worry that the new policy would coerce students to pursue a major before they are ready.

The senate also voted to get rid of the “Y” grade, a grade that was to be given when a student did not turn in any work and had never attended any class. There has been confusion and misuse of the “Y” grade, so the senate voted to eliminate it. All “Y” grades that have been given to students will go through the process to become F’s, said Senate President Bill Harbaugh.

At the meeting there were several reports from faculty members to update the senate on campus issues, including a report from business professor Ron Bramhall on the current accreditation process. The UO is undergoing re-accreditation this year from the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, something that happens every several years.

The senate meeting ended before Harbaugh could give a report on Diversity Plans and journalism professor Chris Chavez could update the senate on the BERT task force, which Harbaugh said have both been moved to next meeting’s agenda.

Follow Emma Henderson on Twitter @henderemma .

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Beginning July 1, the School of Architecture and Allied Arts will be renamed as the College of Design.

The College of Design is being organized into three schools and one separate department: School of Architecture and Environment; School of Planning, Public Policy, and Management; School of Art and Design; and the History of Art and Architecture department.

The discussion about whether to change the name and reorganize the School of AAA has been going on for several years, said AAA Dean Christoph Lindner, but the process didn’t begin until he became dean this year. According to him, most of the AAA community is excited about this change.

“We want to continue to be a highly creative, highly innovative community and what that means is a willingness to adapt change and evolve over time and so what we experience with the College of Design is sort of the latest moment of the evolution of our community,” he said.

Read more about new AAA Dean Christoph Lindner here.

Each school will be run by a new position at UO, a Head of School, Lindner said. He has already taken nominations from faculty for this position at each school.

Lindner said he offered the separate history department to be under a school, but the faculty requested to be independent because they are connected with all the schools and did not want to distance themselves from any of them.

AAA Dean Christoph Lindner

The School of Architecture and Environment will include architecture, interior architecture, landscape architecture, and historic preservation. The new structure will help the new school have more collaboration between the different programs in architecture as well as between both undergraduate and graduate levels, said Architecture Department Head Judith Sheine.

“The new School will be able to build on the Department of Architecture’s reputation as a national leader in sustainable design and expand its breadth to new, closely related areas,” she said.

Kelly Schoenborn, a sophomore architecture major and interior architecture minor, is glad that there will be more separation between the various programs in AAA.

“I think for architecture majors, it’s not a huge change for us because before it was Architecture and Allied Arts and so I think we had a really big part in the school, but I think it’s a good change for all of the other majors that are part of the school,” she said.

The Department Head for PPPM, Rich Margerum, is looking forward to the department becoming a school. Margerum hopes to focus on expanding research and graduate education, specifically by adding a PPPM doctorate program.

“This is something that we’ve been advocating for [for] a long time, so we’re all very positive about this change, and we’re looking forward to it,” he said.

Margerum thinks that the new structure will fit and brand PPPM better because he does not feel that the field PPPM fell under the title of allied arts well.

Lindner is looking forward to how the College of Design will be branded with the new name but knows that a positive reputation for a college is more than the title.

“Value and meaning are not going to come from a bunch of trendy slogans and cool logos – though we do hope to have those things,” Lindner said. “It is going to come from the quality of the work that we do, the quality of our program.”

Follow Emma Henderson on Twitter @henderemma . 

**A previous version of this story had misspelled the name of Christoph Lindner. The story has been updated with the correct spelling.

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Students are protesting at Johnson Hall today about positions in LGBT Education and Support Services programs being cut.

About 30 protesters started at the Health Center and marched down 13th Avenue, carrying signs that said things like “The UO exploits LGBTQ/POC labor” and “support queer services,” while chanting “President Schill you’re rich and rude. We don’t like your attitude.” The protest funneled into Johnson Hall where students began a sit-in in the lobby that is scheduled until 5 p.m. today.

Max Jensen, who led the protest, said they are sitting in Johnson Hall because of a loss of professional staff for LGBTQ services. Right now there are two staff members, but Jensen said that there will no longer be any professionals running the LGBT programs for the next six to eight months. When a staff member returns they will have a downgraded position with less pay. LGBTQ support services are also losing a GTF staff member.

Tobin Klinger, a UO spokesman, said the position will be changed from a director and an assistant director to a “program coordinator.” The new coordinator position will handle more of the day-to-day services of the program and less of the administrative duties.

“The commitment is that there won’t actually be a cut in services for the group,” Klinger said.

ASUO made the final decision to not hire a second staff member after the position change, and the graduate school made the final decision not to fund the GTF position, according to Klinger.

Jensen said that the protests are meant to put pressure on administration and to let them know they want the Dean to Students office to help them.

“Most of our students come to this campus because they think they are going to be going to a queer friendly, trans friendly school, but when they get here they are disillusioned to find that shit like this happens,” Jensen said.

Max Jensen and other protesters sat in the lobby of Johnson Hall in protests. (Will Campbell/Emerald)

The protestors were not able to tape or tie their balloons to the columns in front of Johnson Hall, and they could not stand in front of the entrance, but they were allowed to chant in the lobby and upstairs. Protesters got as loud as 92 decibels, which is as loud as a train whistle from 500 feet away.

Helen Richardson, another protestor, believes that the sit-in will help them get back the services that are being cut.

“I do think it’s going help because we’re not just doing a rally, we also gave same suggestions of services that we need currently,” Richardson said.

LGBTQ protest inside Johnson Hall @dailyemerald https://t.co/94ZB5zsOSk

— Will Campbell (@wtcampbell) April 21, 2017

Noah McGraw contributed reporting to this article.

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The Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact is displacing businesses and could affect programs at the University of Oregon.

After signing a lease for five more years and remodeling her restaurant, Usha Shaik was shocked when she got a phone call in October telling her she was going to have to move Evergreen Indian Restaurant from its location on Franklin Boulevard after 10 years.

“They didn’t give us any time, otherwise we wouldn’t have done all the remodeling,” she said.

Evergreen Indian Restaurant isn’t the only business on Franklin Boulevard being moved; the new Knight Campus is also displacing the Lucky Duck Espresso and Domino’s Pizza, Michael Harwood with campus planning facilities and management said.

Shaik needs to move her and her husband’s Indian restaurant to a new space by the end of the year. She said UO is helping her relocate and is covering some of the cost, but she is still worried about how her business will be affected.

“We’ve been looking so hard to find a location, but still we haven’t come to a point because a lot of places don’t have parking,” she said.

Shaik is not sure if she is going to find a new location in time and wants more help from UO. She is also worried she is going to lose the business she gets from university employees who often come to her restaurant for lunch. She wants to open a smaller version of her restaurant in the EMU after she moves to keep her customers from UO.

The new campus could also affect the Urban Farm, a UO garden located directly behind the Millrace. The Urban Farm is a part of the landscape architecture department and has been on campus since the 1970s. The gardening class is popular — this term there are two sections that have 70 students in each — that filled up quickly after spring registration opened, said Harper Keeler, the director of the garden. Keeler said the university understands that the garden cannot be relocated.

“They understand that you can’t just move a garden, […] you can kill it and start something else, but you can’t move soil that’s been working for 40 years,” he said.

The Knight Campus will be in front of the garden and will not displace it; however, Keeler is concerned about the shadows the buildings will cast.

“It could limit us considerably and it could shorten our growing season considerably,” Keeler said, “it takes time for the ground to warm up and dry out and it won’t do that in the shade.”

Keeler said the university is planning on working with the garden to help figure out how to limit the impact from the shadows.

Harwood, from campus planning, said the the buildings are not likely going to be taller than the trees that are already in front of the garden.

“There are no plans, there is nothing we’re even remotely talking about that is going to displace the Urban Garden,” Harwood said.

The Knight campus is also affecting art studios near the Millrace. Currently there are about 25 studios scattered across four buildings. Some of these will be moved by the Knight Campus and some won’t, Harwood said. There is a long-term goal of having all the art studios in one location, but for now they are working on finding a temporary solution.

“It’s important to the university and to AAA to get a permanent solution,” Harwood said, “[one] that brings them all together and allows them to be successful in their creative endeavors.”

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Oregon Governor Kate Brown sent a letter to the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission last week, stating that the HECC should not approve any tuition increases over 5 percent for public colleges. This could affect the proposed 10.6 percent tuition increase that the University of Oregon Board of Trustees approved in March.

“We take very seriously Governor Brown’s message to our commission to reject any university tuition increases above five percent, unless clear, student-focused criteria are met,” Ben Cannon, the HECC Executive Director, wrote in a statement.

The HECC is a 14-member board in charge of higher education funding. In May, the board will be voting on UO’s proposed tuition increase of $945 for all students.

“The University of Oregon has been clear since the beginning of the budget development process that the only way to keep tuition increases at five percent is for lawmakers to increase funding for public higher education in this state by $100 million,” university spokesman Tobin Klinger wrote in a statement.

Governor Brown’s letter outlines the criteria that must be met for the HECC to approve an increase over 5 percent. For the tuition increase to pass, the commission must be provided with evidence that the university gave serious consideration to the budget increase, evidence that minority and low-income students will be supported and a plan for how the university is going to manage costs.

“In arriving at our tuition levels for next year, the UO engaged the campus in an exhaustive and transparent process over a period of months that analyzed a wide variety of scenarios,” Klinger said. “Through that process, it was clear that a blend of cuts and tuition increases would be necessary to balance the budget following years of disinvestment by the state.”

Students in ASUO have been working to combat the tuition increase by trying to increase funding from the state, including a visit to the capital in March with President Schill and a campaign called WTF (Where The Funds) to encourage students to call their state representative about higher education funding.

Natalie Fisher, the external vice president of ASUO who was a member of the Tuition and Fees Advisory board, is disheartened by Governor Brown’s letter. Fisher is worried that if tuition increases are capped at five percent, there will be even more than the $9 million in cuts that UO is already facing with the 10 percent increase.

“For her to come out and say ‘Oh, you made the wrong decision, keep it at 5 percent,’ is frustrating because there is no feeling of understanding of where universities are at with their current funding situation,” Fisher said.

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Many senators were elated with the new policy for sexual violence complaints that passed unanimously at the faculty senate meeting Wednesday.

The Student Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment and Violence Complaint and Response policy was created to improve how the university responds to sexual harassment and violence complaints. The policy was originally approved by the senate in November, but additional changes were made to it before it was voted on again and given high-praise by senate members on Wednesday.

“I think that this policy is the model for the United States,” said one senator.

The policy outlines what UO employees must do when a student tells them about an experience of sexual harassment or assault. Most faculty and staff are no longer required to report what students disclose to them about sexual violence experiences. There are still certain university employees that are designated reporters, such as athletic directors, deans and department heads, residential assistants, and UOPD officers.

Melissa Barnes, the graduate student member on the policy task force, is pleased with how the policy turned out, however; she is uncomfortable that UOPD officers have to be on the list of designated reporters, something that was non-negotiable, she said. President Schill now needs to approve the policy in order for it to be put in place.

“I do expect the senate and President Schill to sign off on this and put the institution on the right side of history on these issues,” Barnes said.

At the meeting, the senate also discussed the possibility of creating a major declaration policy. Right now, students can declare a major at any point in their academic careers, including their senior year. The policy, proposed by Chair of Undergraduate Council Alison Schmitke, would make it so that in the spring of students’ sophomore years they would be required to declare a major.

Schmitke noted that students would be given plenty of warning, guidance, and preparation for choosing a major before the spring of their sophomore year. Students coming in with college credits would be expected to declare a major after their second year at UO, not based on their credits. If the major declaration policy is put in place, it take effective in fall 2017.

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A windstorm ripped through Eugene earlier today, damaging trees and power lines and causing power outages throughout town.

A wind advisory is expected to continue until 5 p.m. today, according to the National Weather Service. There will be rainfall, as well as winds that are expected to be around 26 mph, with gusts as high as 44 mph.

Tonight the storm is expected to begin to subside, the National Weather Service said. Winds should lower to around 8 to 17 mph with gusts up to 30 mph. However, rain and wind is expected throughout the weekend.

There were various power lines down throughout Eugene due to the storm. There were 12,000 residents of Lane County that were without power and 16 roads that were blocked because of fallen trees and power lines, the Register Guard reported.

This morning, I-5 was blocked near Albany because of a power line that fell down across the interstate, said the Register Guard. The wind advisory continues throughout the Willamette Valley up to Portland and Southern Washington, the wind advisory warning said. Students driving up 1-5 this weekend should be careful of trees, power outages, and large vehicles.

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The name of the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts is on track to be changed to the College of Design.

At a university faculty senate meeting on Wednesday at 3 p.m. in the EMU, senators voted to support the proposal by the School of A&AA to reorganize the school and to change the name. During the meeting, the senate also discussed changing course evaluations for students who cheat, and senators voted on a proposal to reaffirm support for transgender students.

The senate was not planning on voting on the renaming of the school at the meeting, but decided to vote after much discussion and debate that went over time and frustrated some senators.

“Looking at the agenda, this is a discussion and I think it’s been a very interesting one,” said a senator, “I respectfully request that we move to the next discussion.”

The School of Architecture and Allied Arts has proposed to restructure the school in the College of Design to contain three schools and one department: the School of Architecture & Environment; the School of Art + Design, the School of Planning, Public Policy, and Management; and the Department of the History of Art and Architecture.

A&AA Dean Christoph Lindner said, “We are conscious of the environment of the limited resources we are working with, and so we tried to design this from the bottom up as a structure that we could implement with our existing budget.”

The School of A&AA currently employs 125 faculty members, 1,800 students and it offers almost 30 degrees. The school offers various programs that are currently grouped together under one school. If it’s reorganized, it will help clearly separate the different types of programs the school offers, according to the policy.

Cheating students won’t evaluate classes

The Senate also debated the possibility of stopping students who are caught cheating from filling out course evaluations. Robert Lipshitz, a UO math professor, has proposed this policy be put into place because of incidences in the math department where cheating students have given instructors poor reviews. Course evaluations affect job prospects for instructors, especially for graduate and post-doctoral students, Lipshitz said.

“Students who have cheated and have been reported for cheating can still fill out the course evaluations, so those students are understandably likely to be very unhappy and often are vindictive,” he said.

The Senate has created a course evaluations task force that will begin meeting next term to discuss the issue further.

At the meeting, the Senate also voted on a proposal to support transgender students. The unanimous vote for the proposal is confirmation that transgender students can have an education at UO with safety and dignity, and have the same protection and assistance as any other student.

The proposal also originally included a request for President Schill to send out a message reaffirming this support. The senate eventually decided to take this out of the proposal because the message was sent out during the meeting.

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