The John E Jaqua Law Library is offering an exhibit about the history of marijuana. The free exhibit is open to all UO students, staff, faculty and community members.

The exhibit was put together by law reference librarians Kelly Reynolds, Jaye Barlous and others in the second part to a series about information destruction, manipulation and control.

The exhibit, titled “Reefer Madness: the Legal History of the Loco Weed,” takes a look at marijuana, its history and how the information about the drug has been manipulated throughout history.

It takes an in-depth look at marijuana and how information about the easily accessible drug has been manipulated to control individuals’ views on the topic.

Barlous said marijuana is a unique topic that branches out to various subjects.

“I think the history of marijuana presents a fascinating subject that crosses over all studies, from history to science to law to sociology and back again — it’s all there,” Barlous said.

The next exhibit in the series will look at information access and how it can be controlled. Through examples we can see that countries cut off access to information by shutting down the Internet so that outside sources cannot inquire information about current events happening within that given state. It will also look at how easily this happens in the U.S.

Reynolds, the pioneer of this exhibit, hopes that students will gain a great deal of knowledge through the exhibit.

“The message I’m trying to get across to students is that the way you counter that is through the critical thinking skills which you get no matter what your subject is in school,” Reynolds said. “You learn how to criticize, how to think, how to research, and law school is one of those areas that takes it one step further and teaches you how to challenge these problems and how to bring about change to the system.”

Diane Haas, the metadata services technician at the law library took part in the creation of this exhibit. She expresses her thoughts on the display and how the historical factors add to the disputed subject.

“Our thought for the display was to look at this current and often controversial topic, but provide a historical context for today’s legal battles over marijuana,” Haas said.

The exhibit will be running through December and is open to the public.

Students from across the globe gather together every Monday evening from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Mills International Center to broaden their horizons with language and culture.

Alexander Diaz, a recent graduate from University of Oregon and current guest teacher at the 4J Eugene School District, created the language circles in 2009. As a native Colombian, Diaz wished there was a place for him to express his culture while learning about others.

Along side members of the International Cultural Service Program, Diaz was able to create the language circles.

It began first with three to four groups and later progressed. Diaz noticed the noise issues that began to arise, but saw it as a positive aspect. He thought of it as a huge motivator.

“Since the groups were meeting at the same time at the Mills International Center, we were worried about noise interference,” Diaz said. “However, this background noise of many languages spoken at the same time turned out to be an inviting atmosphere to the language learner.”

In 2009, they began with three different language circles: Spanish, Arabic and Russian. Swahili and French were later added as demand increased.

As time progressed, Diaz passed the baton to the current language circles coordinator Rafal La. La, currently a senior studying business administration, participated in the circles in 2011. Through his participation, he was able to develop a relationship with Diaz because they both spoke Spanish and were from bordering countries.

As La’s new role began, he and others started to market the language circles to increase participation. They wanted to focus more on the cultural aspect of it rather then just the languages.

The circles’ goal is to give students the opportunity to learn about a new culture while also learning a new language.

La gave the program more structure by creating responsility guideline documents for language leaders to look over. He also did so by creating excel sheets that showed the amount of students who participated in each group during every week.

“I decided to created a lot of different documents and give the program structure,” La said.

He was able to bring to life what Diaz had envisioned for the program.

Currently the Mills offers eight consistent language circles including Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin, Arabic, German, Russian and two separate English circles at intermediate and beginner levels.

At the moment German is the most popular language circle.

Sonja Rasmussen, the Mills International Center’s coordinator sees the language circles as a positive part of the center. She believes that learning a language is great for all students and allows you to look at the world in a new way.

“Learning a new language opens your eyes to new ways of looking at the world,” Rasmussen said. “And a lot more people to talk to.”

All students, staff, and faculty are invited to join in on the fun.

For students who have biked down 13th Avenue, reached Circle K and realized the bike lane ends, LiveMove, the university transportation and livability student group, may just solve your problem.

Students who are a part of LiveMove will receive an award for their plan to redevelop 13th Avenue on May 30 from the Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association.

The lack of bike lanes in the city, especially on campus, makes traveling safely difficult for students who use biking as their main form of transportation.

“The 13th project we did was a concept plan to help improve the traffic and safety for 13th Avenue,” Alex Page, vice president of LiveMove, said. “It came about because we noticed lots of cyclists traveling the wrong way on 13th, many of them on the sidewalk.”

This issue was not being addressed by the city of Eugene or by the university. LiveMove took it into their own hands to develop a proposal to fix this problem.

The proposal contained research LiveMove conducted during the 2012-13 academic year.

LiveMove actively collected data regarding traffic on 13th Avenue, such as the quantity of cars that drove along 13th, how many parking spots were frequently used and how often students rode their bikes along 13th Avenue, in both directions.

In the end, LiveMove concluded that roughly 40 percent of students continued to bike westbound on 13th Avenue, regardless of the fact that the bike lane ended.

This concluded that bikers were either peddling down the wrong bike lane, or they were biking on the sidewalk.

After presenting their proposed redevelopment of 13th Avenue to the Eugene community, Susan and John Minor, parents of David Minor, a grad student who was involved in a fatal biking accident in 2008, wrote a letter to the mayor regarding this issue.

The Minors pledged $150,000 to support the project.

Page was excited about the project because he felt as though it would implement safer streets, and he was encouraged by the support he received from the community.

“The purpose was to give ourselves an applied project and put an idea out there for people to think about,” Page said. “The reception we received when we unveiled the proposal was very warm. Since then, it has gained a lot of traction with the community and city staff.”

Marc Schlossberg, the faculty advisor for LiveMove, was proud of all the hard work that went into this proposal.

Schlossberg was particularly vocal about students involved in this project that will be moving from Eugene in the upcoming year and will not have the opportunity to see the success of the project.

“They don’t have the same political agenda,” Schlossberg said. “Most of the students who worked on this won’t be living here when it’s designed, they are going to graduate and will be moving on. So, they are really giving something back to our larger community without having an extra vested interest.”

Schlossberg went on to speak about the long-term benefits of a project such as this.

“This project represents a long-term opportunity for the community and one that will receive considerable positive national attention for its design and the way the project came about,” Schlossberg said.

Briana Orr, bike program coordinator, expresses how impressed she is with the LiveMove members.

Orr is impressed that LiveMove members took time our of their own schedule to seek out the opportunity to correct problems they saw within the Eugene community.

“This OCAPA Award represents two years of hard work from LiveMove students and several key student leaders who ensured the 13th Ave conceptual design completion,” Orr said. “Not many students seek out their own opportunity to creatively correct the problems they see in the world and are so successful at doing so; they certainly deserve this recognition!”

The third public meeting with the community will be June 24 at the Knight Library at 5:30 p.m.

Showcase Oregon will offer workshops and other discussions to discuss practices that enhance diversity, inclusion and equity at the University of Oregon. This event is hosted by the the Office of the Vice President for Equity and Inclusion at the Ford Alumni Center on Thursday, May 22 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

The event, titled “Showcase Oregon: Incorporating Best Practices in Equity, Inclusion and Diversity,” will discuss the best practices in diversity, inclusion and equity for higher education of students and staff.

Experts from the UO and around the country will join the university community to discuss the best practices that are out there.

Various workshops, panel discussions and poster sessions will be available to the public for viewing. The showcase looks at what has been done in the past, the present and what needs to be done for the future.

After each workshop, poster presentation and panel discussion students, staff, and faculty will be asked to fill out evaluations. These evaluations will be looked over and addressed at the encore event happening in the fall. It will follow up on the themes of this years showcase.

W. Andrew Marcus, the interim dean at the college of arts and sciences, will present posters during one of the sessions.

“Our intent is to better understand who we are as a college in terms of the multiplicity of people who make up our college, where they come from, and where they end up in terms of majors and departments,” Marcus said.

Director of Sexual Violence Prevention and Education Abigail Leeder will lead a workshop with Rehearsals for Life. This group of graduate students come together to discuss real life situations that they have all experienced. They compile together stories of personal experiences where cultural clashes have occurred. They interact with audience members by asking them to participate within each scenario to see how they would react and resolve those said issues.

“Through personal performance and experiential activities we will explore the use of theater as a tool for addressing the complex challenges that face students, faculty and staff across disciplines,” Leeder said. “This workshop will provide an opportunity to witness the power of personal theater and provide opportunities for audience members to intervene in everyday situations of bias and oppression.”

Aria Seligmann, the director of strategic communications in the Office of Equity and Inclusion, emphasizes that students are not required to stay for the whole event.

“You don’t have to register for the whole day. You just need to register for the things that you know you will be at so I know what classrooms in the Ford Alumni Center and the Law School to put the workshops in,” Seligmann said. “That will be based on how many people registered.”

The event is free and open to the public with registration completed prior to the event.

Program information can also be found at http://emrld.co/1jcsbq5.

Earlier this year in March, University of Oregon professor Jennifer Freyd was invited to the White House to discuss the research on sexual violence she had been doing for two decades.

“The current momentum in the White House and other parts of the federal government on the issue of campus sexual assault is remarkable,” Freyd said. “I have been researching sexual violence for 22 years and I have not seen anything even remotely like what I am seeing happen at the White House now. It is gives me great hope that some fundamental change for good will be upon us soon.”

While at the White House, Freyd took part in new guidelines that look at battling sexual violence on college campuses. Freyd was able to discuss her expertise and research on the topic related to the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault.

Freyd, with graduate students Marina Rosenthal and Carly Smith, has been working to look at institutional betrayal and betrayal blindness.

Institutional betrayal looks at how someone may feel some sort of “betrayal” committed by a school that they are dependent on. This can include not receiving the attention they need after an individual harms them.

Betrayal blindness looks at how a person will be unaware of the existing betrayal in order to “preserve” the relationships they may have with the institution or perpetrator that betrayed them.

Freyd first introduced the topic of betrayal blindness in 1990 and later expanded on the topic in 1996.

In 2013, Freyd along side UO instructor Pamela Birrell released a book titled Blind to Betrayal. It looks at the reader and studies their questions on betrayal and betrayal blindness.

Rosenthal is currently looking at employee knowledge and their role as reporters under Title IX, or mandatory sexual assault reporting.

All professors, GTFs and staff members are required to do mandatory training on how to handle situations where students disclose information to them about sexual assaults.

Within college campuses it is very common for staff members to get information disclosed to them by students about their experiences with sexual violence.

Rosenthal is looking at how equipped staff members are with sexual assault and how they can report to the right people while also getting the correct resources to the student.

“Do employees know that they are mandatory reporters, because they are, and what does that entail?” Rosenthal said. “Do they know what to do if a student should disclose sexual assault to them?”

Rosenthal’s research is showing that the mandatory training is not having the intended effect that it should be having on staff.

Rosenthal’s research is still within its preliminary stages and has yet to be published.

Smith is looking at the crime alert emails that students get from University of Oregon Police Department. She has had conversations with the UOPD to discuss crime alerts and whether we should be getting emails about students who are being sexually assaulted by someone that they know.

Smith said by looking at institutional betrayal students feel the greatest betrayal when they seek comfort in the university, but do not receive any support back.

“Students trust the university to keep them safe and when it fails, it hurts everyone,” Smith said.

Earlier this year, ASUO senate, with the student group QuackPac, which stated a need to recognize that Israel does have a right to exist as a country, and that the University of Oregon acknowledges all of the contributions that Israel has placed into the “modern world.”

The resolution titled “The University of Oregon’s Commitment To Israel’s Right To Exist And Thrive,” passed at senate with a vote of 13-5-1.

The QuackPac is a bipartisan group of students who aim to better the ties of Israel with the United States. This organization cares about Israel and its alliance with the United States. These students are involved in an array of activities on campus and are of Jewish and non-Jewish decent.

Doctoral student Evan Shenkin and senior Diana Salazar are among a group of students on campus who oppose the Israel resolution. There is no official name for their group, but many of the students fighting the resolution come from Students Against Empire and Imperialism.

These students are sending a letter to UO President Michael Gottfredson voicing their concerns with the resolution.

The letter speaks on Shenkin, Salazar and other students’ defense.

“Our letter calls on President Gottfredson to make clear that the resolution does not speak for many undergraduates and graduate students on campus,” Shenkin said.

Both Shenkin and Salazar stressed that they are not trying to speak for the Palestinians — rather they want to raise awareness for the issues that are occurring.

“I’d like to stress that I am coming from a place of solidarity and privilege and do not intend on ‘speaking’ for Palestinians, nor do I argue that I am fully aware of the struggle for Palestinian liberation as movements are journeys, not destinations,” Salazar said. “My solidarity comes from a place of shared struggles and life-long commitment to social justice.”

Shenkin and Salazar believe that the resolution does not speak for the Palestinians. It focuses on Israel and their right to exist, but excludes Palestinians and their rights as citizens.

“We find the language of the resolution deeply problematic,” Shenkin said. “Antithetical to the ethical mission of our university and actually stifling productive dialogue around the Israel-Palestine conflict. The language of the Israel resolution claims to speak for the university as a whole. It does not.”

The letters asks President Gottfredson to release a statement clarifying that he does not welcome the position proposed in the resolution or its process.

The letter states, “We demand that, as the President of this university, you release a clarifying statement that you do not embrace this position, nor the process used to reach it. You need to underline the fact that many of us do not feel that the resolution represents our views in any way.”

The letter also states that with the passing of the resolution, students are unable to have a proper discussion about the Israel-Palestine issue since it suggests that all students possess the same views. An unfriendly environment has now been created on campus. So, by acting on this issue, students will be able to express their views on the conflict.

Shenkin, Salazar and the other students hope for a future meeting with President Gottfredson to further discuss the issue.

Through the Office of Sustainability, University of Oregon has created an Energy Flowchart Info Graphic that summarizes the schools emission data, energy sources and consumption rates. The flowchart has become a key component to translating the schools emissions data.

By using the Clean Air-Cool Planet’s (CA-CP) Campus Carbon Calculator, the Office of Sustainability was able to create this info graphic.

The office began gathering the university’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2009. This has allowed them to take into record the schools GHG emissions and has allowed them to make decisions related to emissions reduction.

Within the energy flowchart info graphic it measures activities such as building heat, air travel, lighting and plug loads around campus. It displays the schools energy inputs through these activities. Looking at the 2011 info graphic, the flowchart showed that air travel had the most greenhouse gas emissions.

“In 2011 60 percent of the University’s greenhouse gas emissions came from air travel. Very few members of the UO community understand this,” said Andrew Louw, the sustainability affairs graduate fellow at UO.

Air travel includes athletic groups traveling to various tournaments around the country, study abroad and faculty and staff traveling to conferences. Air travel and building heat still remain the highest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the most recent flowchart.

“The EnergyFlow project is just one effort to communicate the UO’s progress towards meeting the sustainability goals set forth in the Climate Action Plan, Louw said. “As you can see in the EnergyFlow diagram, our greatest challenge remains emissions from air travel and heating our buildings. We must take action on this and that action should come from the top and the bottom.”

In 2013, Louw, attended the Oregon Sustainability and Higher Education conference in Portland. At the conference Louw and his fellow co-workers presented the flowchart to other institutions. Many schools took interest in the info graphic and were more than willing to pay them a small fee so that UO could create a flowchart for their university.

At the moment, the Office of Sustainability is in contract with three other schools. These schools include Willamette University, Oregon State University and Linfield College.

By having contracts with these schools, the office has been able to create revenue for themselves.

Oregon State University’s Sustainability Coordinator, Brandon Trelstad was pleased to have a graphically friendly way to display OSU’s greenhouse gas emissions. UO has produced a great way to display this by sharing the info graphic.

“We are pleased to be able to display OSU’s greenhouse gas emissions in a graphically friendly way,” Trelstad said. “The visual that UO’s Office of Sustainability has produced is helpful in communicating complex flows to a diverse audience.”

“GHG emission reports can run 20 pages and be filled with complex jargon. Our infographic reduces it to a single page and makes it intuitive, interesting, and accessible,” said Steve Mital, the UO sustainability coordinator. “I think every university in the nation will soon follow our lead. Already a few are paying us to produce energy flow diagrams for them.”

The Office of Sustainability has different programs around campus that helps move towards the progress of a more sustainable campus. These programs include the Green Office Certification Program, the Surplus Exchange Program, WeCar and many more.

It’s out with the old and in with the new for the University of Oregon’s mission statement.

Scott Coltrane, chief academic officer and vice president, and Brad Shelton, a UO mathematics professor, led a forum on May 2 to discuss efforts in changing the current mission statement. Current and past UO faculty members were present.

Coltrane saw a need to make changes within the statement such as eliminating the section that discusses the Oregon University System, seeing that it no longer exists. He also saw a need for cleanup within the statement so that there was a better flow. 

“People are often dubious of the value of a mission statement, but a good mission statement will be very helpful in accurately representing the institution to the state and the larger world,” Shelton said.

Vice Provost of Academic Affairs Barbara Altmann said that by changing the statement this university is allowing a historical moment to occur in UO’s history by emphasizing who we, the university, truly are as a school.

“This is a pivotal moment in the history of the university, so it’s a great time to state more clearly who we are, what we do, and the values that define us,” Altmann said.

Because the UO is building a new governing structure alongside of other Oregon universities, it is vital to compose a mission statement that reflects this change.

The new board of trustees will approve or deny the new statement.

In the past, the Higher Board of Education would have approved the statement, but seeing that a change in legislation is in the works, the board of trustees is currently stepping in.

The current statement was drafted in 1995, later reaffirmed in 2005 and again in 2008, when the new academic plan was outlined.

Coltrane noticed the UO’s statement is three times longer than comparable universities around the country. The UO’s mission statement is three times longer than necessary, suggesting that much of it states information that is unnecessary. A shorter statement allows universities to effectively get the point across of who they are.

It is common for statements to be about a half page in length.

By drafting a new statement, Coltrane will focus on three aspects: vision, mission, and value.

Coltrane emphasizes that it is vital that all students, staff, and community members can see themselves within the new statement.

“Its important that everyone who is a part of the university community can see themselves in the mission, from the people who are groundskeepers to cooks, everyone should be able to feel like they are a part of the mission because they are,” Coltrane said.

Coltrane and Shelton will be holding one more forum to discuss the revision of the mission statement on May 20 in the Knight Library Browsing room from 10 to 11 a.m.

The Academic Student Affairs Committee will meet on May 29, and again June 12, along side the board of trustees to discuss adopting the new statement.

The new statement will then be sent the Higher Education Coordinating Commission, who will meet in September to approve or deny the statement.

Students and staff interested in submitting comments for the revision of the statement can contribute to this online portal. https://oregon.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_3mI69Nic5W11uvP 

For the care and wellness of students and faculty, Paula Staight has been working with Shannon Mulligan, Marci Torres and Lauri Woodward to bring the new Health Wellness Center to students and faculty.

The Health Wellness Center is a part of the plans for the new EMU, which will be a collaborative space where multiple groups and organizations can come and provide resources for students.

These resources include offering meditation classes, yoga, ways to relieve stress, group acupuncture, a travel clinic that can offer flu shots during flu season, academic advising and a new central location for student peer health advisors.

Changes may occur, but these are some of the ideas that Staight has come up with.

The Health Wellness Center is an independently run hub that pulls away from the UO Health Center. The Health Center focuses more on providing health and medical care services for students, where as the wellness center will focus on the well-being of students and staff.

The name for the Health Wellness Center is still under consideration.

Staight sees the space as a great option to bring health and wellness away from the regular setting of a health clinic.

“It’s a way of bringing health outside of the clinic setting,” Staight said.

Staight worked with Shannon Millington, a physical trainer manager for sports medicine, and Marci Torres, who was the director for the Healthy Campus Initiative — who is now working at Montana State University. All of them collaborated to create a proposal for the center.

Staight will use the American College Health Association National College Health Assessment to influence the activities the university will offer students and staff. The assessment is a survey distributed to over 5,000 random students on campus to see what issues affect students such as stress, study skills, wellness, well-being and so on.

By doing this, Staight is getting a general idea of what issues affect students. She will then be able to implement supplies to students that will help resolve those issues.

“I want it to be a collaborative space,” Staight said. “I want it to be where all of the departments are in student affairs, for example, have the opportunity to weigh-in on the development of the space and the opportunity to participate in keeping it vital.”

UO Health Center Operations Manager Shannon Millington states that students at UO reveal that stress is the leading barrier to being successful at school. Even though there is no concrete area on campus that helps with the decrease of this, having the wellness center will allow students to have that option and help with the reduction of stress.

“The creation of a wellness center in the EMU would allow the University Health center to work with campus partners to create such a space,” Millington said. “Our vision is to offer multi-modal services to the UO community that help with stress reduction and overall wellness.”

Health Promotions Specialist Renee Mulligan believes that with the wellness center, staff members will be able to reach out to students who only go to the UO Health Center for purposes relating to sickness. The wellness center will be able to provide amenities to students that not only relate to health, but their well-being.

In the United States, there are more than 80,000 inmates forced to live in a seven feet by 10 inch cell, smaller than your average parking space, with little to no natural light and no human contact, according to a 2011 paper by the Vera Institute of Justice.

The University of Oregon’s Criminal Justice Network is a new student organization focused on social justice and criminal justice. Created in fall 2013, the new student group focuses on shedding light on the issues that occur in the criminal justice system such as unfair treatment depending on your race, wrongful sentencing and the inability to practice their fourth Amendment right. Many of these issues are mainly targeted towards the poor and minority groups.

On May 21, the Criminal Justice Network will be hosting Voices from Solitary in the EMU amphitheater. This event is intended to create a voice and space for individuals living in solitary confinement. From noon to 5 p.m. the Network will be taking turns presenting poetry, art, letters and creative writing pieces that have been collected from individuals who are incarcerated.

The Network will also be having a large solitary confinement cell on display throughout the event. With this cell, the Network will be displaying the feeling of what it is like to live in the small confined space from having audio play to having a visual representation of thoughts that will be displayed all over the walls.

The Network hopes that the confinement cell will be transferrable from campus to campus.

Jackie Sumell, an activist and artist will be speaking at Voices from Solitary. She has worked with Herman Wallace, a Black Panther member and one of the Angelo Three. Sumell will also give a lecture later in the night in Columbia 150 at 6 p.m. She will be speaking on the power of creativity whether through art or imagination and how it helps you create your own sense of self. Sumell will be talking about this topic in the context of Wallace’s experience while also touching on her own experiences as an activist and an artist.

Junior Emory Babb, senior Althea Seloover and alumni Jordan Wilkie are the co-founders of this organization. Their shared passion for the criminal justice system allowed the creation of this group to be easy and merely coincidental.

Babb hopes that students will get a better appreciation of the criminal justice system and the array of problems that exist with it.

“Students will gain a better understanding of our criminal justice system and the problems with it today,” Babb said.

Babb, Wilkie and Seloover all participated in the Inside-Out program here at UO.

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is a program where students from college campuses go into juvenile corrections centers and together participate in class. Within the class students take part in an intellectual discussion about readings that were assigned. About half of the students are from university campuses, whereas the other half are from the prison campus.

The UO is known to be one of the strongest campuses that sustain the Inside-Out program.

Though they participated in the Inside-Out program, the UO Criminal Justice Network pulls in different ideas. The Network is more politically focused, whereas the Inside-Out program focuses on social justice issues.

“This is a very political and politically active group,” Wilkie said.

“We (the UO Criminal Justice Network) are looking both to hold meaningful events on campus, but also to do significant outreach to a very diverse array of communities, from the many student groups on campus to communities most affected by the criminal justice system,” Wilkie said. “This is a lofty goal, and we are just beginning.”

Seloover is highly passionate about the Network. Even though she came into the group with a different background it was their shared passions for the justice system and it’s fairness that led to the creation of the group.

“Jordan, Emory and I all came to the table with our own interests and our shared passion for justice and fairness – which really doesn’t exist in the criminal justice system,” Seloover said.

The ability for Seloover to experience Oregon’s correctional facilities inspired her to question, “What is it that does not work and what are we going to do to change things?”

Babb, Wilkie and Seloover were able to answer this with the creation of the Network.