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.

On April 3, Interim President Scott Coltrane announced the University of Oregon’s plan to fight sexual assault. The plan includes the hiring of a new assistant vice president, whose responsibilities will include the coordination of the university’s responses to Title IX inquiries and complaints, as well as leading the university’s efforts to reduce sexual violence on campus.

Currently, these responsibilities fall upon Penny Daugherty, the university’s Title IX officer and director of the Office of Affirmative Action & Equal Opportunity. According to Daugherty, this position will not replace her own, but instead will focus exclusively on Title IX, which will ensure that there is someone who can devote ongoing attention to all areas related to Title IX.

Daugherty’s title will change to deputy Title IX coordinator with a focus on investigations. She will remain director of the AAEO.

“So with that person taking on that coordinating role, I’m actually going to be able to focus specifically on the investigations, where this person then can be working on looking at all of the other pieces that go along with Title IX compliance,” Daugherty said.

The Office of the Dean of Students did not respond to interview requests, but according to communications specialist Jen McCulley, the President’s Review Panel and the Senate Task Force recommended that a high level administrator be hired to coordinate all aspects of sexual violence prevention and response at the administrative level.

“Because the vast majority of programmatic efforts around sexual violence fall within Student Life, having a dual line of reporting to the president and the VP for Student Life was deemed appropriate,” McCulley said via email.

“Addressing sexual violence on campus is a key priority for the university. Coordinating efforts between departments and programs across campus will enable the UO to move the president’s plan of action forward more effectively and efficiently,” McCulley said.

The ASUO Women’s Center’s sexual violence prevention and education coordinator, Michele Prism, is excited for the new position and hopes the right person is selected for the job. Prism’s ideal candidate would be someone who has all of the required qualifications and uses “survivor-centered” language and behavior.

“It’s still possible to have all these required qualifications and not have someone that is absolutely educated in what being survivor-centered is,” Prism said. According to Prism, this survivor-centered language would prevent “victim-blaming” and ensure that students facing sexual harassment and assault will feel supported and validated.

“You can have the intention to be survivor-centered and not really be the model for that in your language and your actions,” Prism said.

According to Daugherty, ensuring a safe and respectful environment for students is important to the university. Since different UO offices began being very intentional in thinking through their protocol, Daugherty said that there has been an increase in the number of reports of sexual misconduct each year.

“My interpretation of that is not that we are seeing significant increase in activity, but we have more people coming forward to report that activity,” Daugherty said.

“It tells me that there’s greater awareness, at least on the part of victims, and we’re building some trust with those victims,” Daugherty said, “that they’re coming forward.”

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As spring term continues, two labor unions on campus are bargaining for raises in their next contract at the University of Oregon.

United Academics, the UO faculty union, is proposing a 7 percent raise for the 2015-2016 academic year and a 6.5 percent raise for 2017-2018.

UO is offering no raise for 2015-2016 and a 1 percent raise for 2016-2017.

United Academics President Michael Dreiling considers the lack of a raise “insulting” and sees it as a pay cut considering the increase in the cost of living.

Dreiling said the UA’s proposals will prevent faculty from being “poached” from other universities and retaining faculty.

Senior Director of Employee and Labor Relations Bill Brady said that the university is working with a tight budget and has unknown insurance costs for many employees next year.

The total compensation for all faculty continues to rise, according to Brady, as the university continues to cover increases in health insurance and retirement benefits.

Dreiling acknowledged the cost of the union’s proposals and suggested using the university’s budget reserves to cover that cost; but according to Brady, that is not possible as they are not continually replenished.

“Salary increases represent a continuing increase to the total amount the institution pays each year in salaries,” Brady said. “This increase would be a continuing cost to the university without a continuing revenue source to cover it.”

Dreiling also criticized the university’s proposal for 20 percent of the 2016-2017 merit raise to be distributed at the sole discretion of the dean of any given school, as some faculty may not get a raise the second year of the contract. According to Brady, this is an effort to remedy an issue from the last contract.

“It was a common occurrence that in very small departments, top performers were never able to get more than the average because if everyone in the department was rated highly, they would all get the same amount,” Brady said. “By holding money back at the dean’s level, deans are able to augment merit increases for highly meritorious faculty. ”

The Service Employees International Union faces a similar struggle as members of UO’s classified staff bargain for a new contract alongside all the seven public universities of Oregon. According to Johnny Earl, the local SEIU’s chief bargaining delegate, the union wants a 2 percent increase over the two years of the contract. They are being offered 0.5 percent every six months.

According to Brady, no decision has been made in regard to salary increases for administrators, though he said increases in the past have been similar to what the faculty were given. The decision will be made by the new UO President Mike Schill.

Talk of staff and faculty salary increases follows the hiring of Schill, who will earn a salary of $660,000 annually plus benefits. This is a $116,000 salary increase from former president Michael Gottfredson’s salary of $544,000.

“I’m hoping that the extra investment in the new president pays off because we need a great leader,” Dreiling said. In Dreiling’s eyes, the path to academic success and great faculty is through investment.

“The University of Oregon cannot be sustained as a major university unless we invest whole-heartedly into the academic core functions of the university,” Dreiling said. “Right now, that means about 2,000 faculty across campus, the departments and the staff, they need to be the focus.”

“Not a big zero.”

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Authorities responded to a fire alarm set off at the Living Learning Center on campus at 2:11 p.m. Sunday afternoon.

According to Housing Service Center assistant Autumn Storholt, LLC North was completely evacuated. Students and staff were able to reenter the building within 10 to 15 minutes.

The cause of the fire alarm is unknown, but staff at Dux Bistro confirmed there was no fire in the dining hall.

“We were told it wasn’t a planned fire drill, and we just went outside,” Josh Evens said, a student worker at Dux Bistro.

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Tonight Interim President Scott Coltrane will be presenting the 2015 Outstanding Classified Employee Recognition Award and the Outstanding Officer of Administration Recognition Award during a reception held in Gerlinger Hall.

This is an annual event, and these awards “acknowledge excellence in officers of administration and classified employees.”

Here are the 2015 recipients:

Officers of Administration

Lara Fernandez, College of Arts and Sciences
Bryan Haunert, Physical Education & Recreation
Karen Stokes and Jennifer Morlok, University Counseling & Testing Center

Classified Employees

Dylan Blanks, University Health Center
Bonnie Gutierrez, Office of the Registrar

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As the presidential search narrows down to the final four, the salary of University of Oregon’s next president has yet to be decided. In a December 2014 meeting, Connie Ballmer, chair of the presidential search committee and trustee, suggested increasing the presidential salary. Today, she stands by that suggestion.

“We determined a range, so we don’t have a number right now that we’ve identified because it depends on the candidate that comes to us,” Ballmer said.

The range, according to Ballmer, is around $600,000, but the exact salary will depend upon where the candidate is coming from and what his or her salary was at a previous position. In comparison, Interim President Scott Coltrane earns $400,004.

In determining this range, Ballmer said that the presidential factors committee worked with a consulting firm to evaluate the UO’s peer institutions and their presidential salaries to determine the market rate for a public university president.

On the other hand, student activists such as Dana Rognlie, a GTF in the philosophy department, feel that administrators like the president are overpaid. According to Rognlie, this is partly due to the president’s role as a chief fundraiser for the university.

“Because the president is supposed to go get donors, they have to operate in circles of very wealthy people,” Rognlie said. “There’s the material part of this class issue, so now you have to make sure you have someone that can operate in those circles.”

Ballmer said that the increase in salary is to ensure that the next president is compensated fairly, but that presidents of public universities are not doing the job for the salary.

“The people that take the position of being the president of a public university are not in it for the money,” Ballmer said. “They want to be compensated fairly so they know that their value is respected, but these people are doing it because of their love and passion for public education.”

Undergraduate Brennan Heller is a member of the presidential search advisory board, and hopes to see a president who is invested in the UO community.

“I hope that those that are teaching or those that are involved in the UO really do share this common spirit of sharing and contributing to something larger than themselves,” Heller said. “I have the utmost confidence that we have the faculty like that and during this search, we’re going to have a president that is just as involved in this community spirit.”

This week the board of trustees will begin conversations about the remaining four candidates in the search. Ballmer said the most difficult thing about the search process is the range of expectations for the next president.

“We want to bring a strong leader forward,” Ballmer said. “We know we can’t make everybody happy because there are so many different expectations and that’s really difficult.”

However, the most exciting part of the process for Ballmer was the aspect of community building.

“Everybody had to come out together and talk together about it,” Ballmer said, “and I think we had some great conversations in the process.”

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Beth Ford always knew she wanted to go to law school. After getting her undergraduate degree in Missouri, she came to Eugene to work as a reporter and knew that the University of Oregon law program was a good fit.

In Ford’s time at the law school enrollment changed significantly. According to the Office of Institutional Research, enrollment in the law school’s J.D. program has dropped, from 532 in 2010-11 to 380 in 2014-15.

According to Michael Moffitt, dean of the law school, the biggest factors for students are the costs and debt burdens associated with a law degree as well as, “the slump in the market for newly minted lawyers in the kinds of traditional legal jobs that were once assumed to be the reason why people went to law school.”

The law school’s dean of students and Associate Dean for Student Affairs Jennifer Espinola believes that the strategic choice to decrease class size at the School of Law was a good one.

“Applications to law schools have decreased on a national-scale in a significant way,” Espinola said via email. “In response to that, Oregon Law decided to maintain the high standards and quality of students admitted to the law school, so that naturally means the class size is smaller.”

The law school’s ranking by US News has also fluctuated and UO’s law school has recently jumped from 100 to 82 after falling from 77 in 2o09. While rankings have risen and fallen, they are not necessarily an accurate reflection of the quality of the program for students like Ford.

“I don’t feel like that was accurately reflecting the quality of the school, the quality of the education,” Ford said. “My professors have been incredible. They’re incredible on paper – their accomplishments, their law school experience.”

“I just hope when people think about Oregon Law, they look beyond the number.”

According to Moffitt, now is an excellent time for students to consider law school, and UO’s law school is a great place to do so.

“This is the third law school at which I’ve had the opportunity to teach, and I can tell you that Oregon Law is different in how it feels,” Moffitt said via email. “I know that doesn’t sound academic or quantifiable.  I can just tell you that the community here manages to be both supportive and rigorous in a way that amazes and delights me.”

Espinola agrees, saying that the thing she is most proud might be the way the students treat each other.

“It’s commonly known that law schools are highly competitive environments,” Espinola said. “Our students describe that they feel the competition at Oregon Law is healthy and secondary to the way our students support each other. It’s a community we all love being part of.”

While rankings are important, Moffitt does not believe that decisions should be made “based on what moves the rankings needle.”

“We should be making decisions to attract the best and most diverse students we can, and then helping prepare them for professional success,” Moffitt said. “Happily, if we do those things well, the rankings ought to take care of themselves.”

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Deborah Frisch, a former instructor at the University of Oregon, was convicted on Monday of falsely accusing a Eugene police officer of sexually assaulting her.

Frisch was first arrested on stalking charges on Feb. 19, according to The Register-Guard. After her arrest, Frisch told authorities she was sexually assaulted by a supervisor of the Eugene Police Department. Frisch was sentenced to two years probation and must complete a mental health evaluation as a result of the false accusation.

Frisch was an adjunct professor in the department of psychology intermittently from 1986 to 2001. Frisch frequently sends emails containing vulgar language to government officials, which were collected by city officials.

The university administration did not have a comment regarding Frisch’s arrest.

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The University of Oregon welcomed its most racially and ethnically diverse class in fall of 2014. According to Vice President of Enrollment Management Roger Thompson, the most recent UO class is made up of 27 percent domestic minority students and 11 percent international students, representing almost 100 countries.

“In our Enrollment Management division, we work with great enthusiasm and passion to share all the positive aspects of the University of Oregon,” Thompson said via email. “One of those positives is the diversity of our student body.”

Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Yvette Alex-Assensoh works with the Division of Equity and Inclusion to increase diversity on campus.

“While there is more work to be done with respect to the continuing recruitment of Native and Black students, our campus has made significant strides or progress in terms of domestic students of color,” Alex-Assensoh said via email.

According to Alex-Assensoh, the UO hopes to increase the following: the number of faculty of color, the retention rate among all students to 90 percent within the next five years, the numbers of faculty, students and staff of color who are recognized above the university’s top honors and the number of administrators of color at all levels of the university.

Some students agree that the diversity of the student body is important for the university, as well as increasing racial and cultural competency.

“I will say that it has to do with the initial first year. I do think that the school would benefit a lot, and honestly, schools around the nation would benefit a lot in changing their language requirement to a cultural requirement,” said David Colón, a senior from Puerto Rico.

Sophomore Bryce Keicher, a recipient of the Diversity Excellence Scholarship, agrees. Keicher, having participated in leadership trainings in which groups of students addressed aspects of race relations such as discrimination and micro-aggressions, thinks students could benefit from similar training.

“I absolutely think there should be a required training that everyone goes through freshman year with cultural competency and racial ethnicity competency,” Keicher said, “similar to AlcoholEdu that we have to do, but tack on sexual assault issues, racial and cultural issues.”

Thompson and Alex-Assensoh agree that diversity in the student body benefits the way students learn.

“Diversity from a race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status standpoint is important for our students because learning is enhanced,” Thompson said. “We learn in the classroom, outside the classroom and from each other.”

“Over a decade of research by economists, organizational scientists, psychologists and sociologists have pointed out that institutions which are rich in a diversity of racial, intellectual, class, gender and ethnic backgrounds are more innovative because diversity enhances creativity and the search for novel information, leading to better decision making and problem solving,” Alex-Assensoh said.

“Most encouraging, as we witness our increasingly diverse student body, are the research findings which transparently demonstrate that even being exposed to diversity can literally change the way we think for the better.”

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This fall the University of Oregon’s law school is launching its Portland Law Program, housed in the White Stag building in downtown Portland. Mohsen Manesh is the faculty director of Oregon Law’s Portland Law Program, and here’s what he had to say about the new opportunity.

What does the new Portland Program entail for students?

Law school is three years, and in most law schools, including at the University of Oregon, the first year of courses are all required courses. The second two years, with the exception of a few required courses, it really lets the students choose them all in their second and third year. The way the Portland program is set up is that it’s a full year program for third year law students. Students come to the law school in Eugene, do their first and second year of law school in Eugene and would do their third year in Portland.

How will this help the law school maintain competitive advantage?

Part of what we see as the unique appeal of the Portland program is that so many of our alumni end up in Portland, so many of our current students want to be in Portland, and what the Portland program does is provide that bridge from the academic experience in Eugene to the practical experience and the transition into practice for our students.

With both the rigorous traditional academic experience during the first two years and then the professional real-world experience in Portland, students can have the best of both worlds. I think this really distinguishes the experience our law school offers from other law schools.

Is the Portland Program addressing any challenges the law school is facing?

There’s a million and one things that having a permanent and robust Portland presence will do for the law school and for the university. We see it from starting with the admissions issues to alumni issues. Having a Portland option for students makes the University of Oregon a much more attractive place for them to get their JD degree than if we didn’t offer anything to them in Portland.

Likewise, a lot of our students are interested in meeting practitioners and meeting alumni that are working. So we think it will improve our student experience and the student’s employment prospects, especially for those students who are interested in practicing in the Portland area following graduation.

For example, one of the things we’re doing is having a mentorship program, where each one of our students will be paired with a local practitioner. The idea is to enable the student to build an immediate, one-on-one relationship with a person who shares professional interest or practices in the area of law that the student hopes to practice.

What has your favorite part been about this whole process?

It’s been so many things. If you come to Portland and just experience a day in the White Stag, around downtown Portland, you’ll fall in love. The opportunities here are tremendous and the experience will be something that is distinctly different, but complimentary to the experience in Eugene. It’s still Oregon, it’s still the same culture, it’s just the city version of it and it just really compliments the experience that undergrads and law students have in Eugene.

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Lillian Huebner’s experience at the University of Oregon has not gone exactly how they had planned. Huebner arrived on campus with two full suitcases. Unlike most UO freshmen, Huebner’s parents weren’t there to help them move in.

Huebner came to Eugene from Stockton, Missouri, a small town of fewer than 2,000 as of the 2010 census. Their parents are conservative farmers who did not attend college. Huebner’s parents stopped supporting them financially once Huebner moved to Oregon.

Huebner identifies as agender and asexual and said that they feel more accepted than ever in Eugene.

“I realized I hadn’t been angry in months,” Huebner said. “‘I just remember being back home in Missouri, every day I was angry about something.”

This year, Huebner could not afford to register for classes in the fall and had to leave the dorms, making them homeless. Huebner faces about $15,600 of debt from student loans and cannot afford to return home to Missouri.

Huebner now lives out of the two suitcases they brought from Missouri and sleeps on a friend’s floor on a makeshift bed of blankets and couch cushions. They look forward to buying a mattress after saving up some money from their new job as a Safeway courtesy clerk.

Last week, the board of trustees voted to raise tuition by 3.8 percent for residents and 3.7 for nonresidents, making student bills even harder to pay. Throughout the decision-making process, students raised their voices in protest, but to no avail. Except for last year, tuition has been steadily rising.

Huebner isn’t the only UO student affected by debt. Fifty percent of the 2014 undergraduate class had borrowed student loans with an average loan debt of $24,508.

According to Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships Jim Brooks, it is a “hard conversation” when a student can no longer afford to continue their education. Brooks says that non-resident students like Huebner are the minority among those considered high-need.

“Our costs are high enough that high-need students from out of state don’t tend to come here,” Brooks said.

These costs, while ultimately decided by the university’s board of trustees, begin with the tuition and fees advisory board, a group of administrators, faculty and students who provide a recommendation to the president and provost.

The president’s office then passes the recommendation to the the board of trustees. The latest recommendation, which the board approved and goes into effect for the 2015-2016 academic year, is a tuition increase of 3.8 percent for resident students, 3.7 percent for non-residents and an increase of 3.2 percent for mandatory fees.

Tuition board co-chair Jamie Moffitt said accessibility was considered as the group prepared its recommendations.

“There was concern that we need to keep this absolutely as low as possible while still being fiscally responsible about the institution and making sure that there are enough resources to make payroll and continue forward next year,” Moffitt said.

The board has credited the tuition raise to factors such as continued disinvestment by the state as well as mandatory increases in healthcare and retirement costs for its employees.

ASUO President Beatriz Gutierrez was one of many students who were disappointed with the decision. She says the university should have either frozen tuition rates or approved a decrease.

“I’m really invested in increasing accessibility of higher education and making sure a tuition increase doesn’t happen is one of the ways we can make sure that higher education is accessible,” Gutierrez said.

James Kress, a graduate student on the tuition board, felt that the recommendations were necessary. He said that students who disagreed with the increase should try to work with the administration in lobbying the state instead of protesting and criticizing administrators.

“The adversarial position really isn’t helpful to this process,” Kress said. “The university and the students really need to work more together.”

According to Judith Leichner, a member of both the tuition board and League of Educators and Students Slashing Tuition, students have tried to do just that.

“We’re trying to find solutions and we want to work with them as good as we can, but the students need to be taken seriously,” Lechner said

The final decision to increase tuition fell to the board of trustees during a meeting on March 5. Members of LESS-T, the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation and the Student Labor Action Project brought signs with slogans such as, “Don’t make us keep beating the dead horse at Johnson Hall” and “Animal House is satire, the real UO is a nightmare.”

Huebner was one of many students who stepped up to the microphone during public comment.

“There are human beings that your decision will affect today,” Huebner said. “We’re not just numbers that you can plug so neatly into your budget calculator.”

ASUO State Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Ramos criticized the university’s values, saying the school is “kicking people out of an institution that is supposed to help people better themselves.”

“You are taking people like me, you’re taking our ideas, you’re taking our perceptions, you’re taking our knowledge and saying that’s not valued at this university,” Ramos said. “What’s valued is how much you can pay.”

Ultimately, the board passed the resolution to raise tuition, which was followed by a student protest that forced a recess.

“I just hope that people understand that none of these decisions were taken lightly,” Moffitt said.

Both the administration and the students agree that the focus now is Salem, where students can try to get more investment from the state to lower tuition.

“I want to continue working with students, encouraging them and empowering them to make their voices heard,” Lechner said. “I think that’s the most important thing that this campus needs.”

Huebner hopes to eventually finish their degree in anthropology, and has their sights set on graduate school. They recently found a job, are steadily building back their savings and try to stay optimistic.

“I don’t feel as desperate now because I have 300-something dollars in the bank,” they said.

For Huebner, that’s enough for now.

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