Rumors are swirling among members of the University of Oregon community about criminal activity that transpired last weekend. Some speculated that several students were mugged, stabbed with a knife or punched on Friday and Saturday night.

According to information provided by the Eugene Police Department, a report by the University of Oregon Police Department and testimony from a victim, several fraternity members were assaulted by at least two men in at least two connected incidents around 2:15 a.m. Saturday morning.

Brennan Huus, an eye witness to one of the incidents, speculated that the assaults may have been retaliation by the two suspects in response to being denied entry into a Halloween party. According to Huus, no personal property was taken by the suspects. The UOPD report said the only confirmed assaults happened on this evening.

According to EPD, the first suspect is a white male, 6’2” tall, with a medium build who was wearing a black beanie and black sweatshirt. The second suspect is described as a black male, 6’2” tall, with “dreads” who was wearing a powder blue jersey.

In a summary provided to the Emerald, EPD said that suspect one punched a 19-year-old pledge of the fraternity in the face on E. 14th Avenue and Ferry Street and a friend of the victim went to confront the suspects. Upon arrival at the scene, one suspect pushed the friend to the ground, according to EPD.

The second incident occurred shortly after the suspect punched the pledge. Huus said the suspects were seen walking around the house where the party had been held that evening. Huus said that about 10 fraternity brothers went outside to confront the suspects and who quickly became hostile. Huus said one was wielding a knife.

“We had two brothers knocked unconscious,” Huus said, “one had his teeth knocked out.”

Huus said one of the suspects grabbed a metal folding chair that had been sitting on the lawn in front of his house and threw it at him, significantly scratching up his nose.

Within minutes of the attack, Huus said a member of the fraternity called 911 to report the incidents. Despite being told an officer was on the way, Huus said police did not arrive at the house until 2:45 a.m. when the group got the attention of a officer driving by who they thought was assigned to their case. Huus said the officer informed them that he was not aware of any officer that had been dispatched to their case.

“I’m glad we found him because we might have not gotten any police assistance,” Huus said.

Huus said that they filed a police report with EPD, but EPD spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin told the Emerald that the report could not be released due to an on-going investigation.

The incidents also sparked controversy for the lack of a “UO Alert.” According to UOPD’s post, the department was not made immediately aware of the incidents. Kelly McIver, communications director for UOPD, said that these incidents would not be grounds for an alert broadcast as UO Alerts are only sent out when an “imminent threat to campus or on campus exists.”

Such a threat occured on Sept. 25 when students received an alert telling them to avoid the blocks between 14th and 15 Ave. between Mill and High streets due to police activity related to a dangerous subject in the area.

McIver said that the alert was a decision made by the UOPD ranking administrator because of possible gun violence and because EPD was issuing their own alerts to people in the area. He said if a similar incident as the one in September occurred again, a UO alert might not be sent out this time.

“Students live all over the city, and the UO can’t control all those off campus areas, nor get timely and accurate information from those areas consistently and reliably,” McIver said via text message.

The Emerald will continue to report on this story as it develops.

Follow Franklin Lewis on Twitter (@flewis_1)

The post EPD searching for suspects in Halloweekend assaults appeared first on Emerald Media.

What’s a poem to a scientist? A fairy tale to a physicist? A riddle to an engineer? A novel to a biologist? Is it even important for seemingly rational, literal-minded scientists to engage with and understand these types of works? Senior News Reporter Franklin Lewis discusses this and more with literature professor Barbara Mossberg, along with whether aspiring scientists should study the liberal arts; the geniuses of the scientific world who have simultaneously been poets, musicians and philosophers; and the relationship between our scientific understanding of the world and our ability to empathize with the others around us.

This is episode two of season three of Spotlight on Science, a series from the Emerald Podcast Network designed to spark conversations across disciplines with scientists, researchers and intellectuals at the University of Oregon to discuss their work in a way that is understandable to everyone.

The music in this podcast is “Zombie Disco” by Six Umbrellas. This episode was produced and edited by Ryan Nguyen.

The post Spotlight on Science: Poetry for Scientists with Barbara Mossberg appeared first on Emerald Media.

Beginning this Friday, Taylor’s Bar and Grill will enforce a $20 cover charge for non-students on Fridays and Saturdays from 11 p.m. until close, according to Ramzy Hattar, the bar’s owner. Non-students who are visiting the bar with a current student will be charged $5 to enter.

Hattar implemented other changes to the bar, such as installing floodlights, following the Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s recommendation that the bar’s liquor license not be renewed due to a history of serious incidents including flights, DUIIs and potential druggings. Eric Clarke, the bar’s general manager, said the cover charge is not a response to any order or recommendation from the OLCC.

To avoid the cover charge, students must show their student ID at the door. The ID can be from any college or university  — not just the University of Oregon. Clarke said visitors of Taylor’s should expect a student and a non-student line at the door; however, patrons have the option of paying an additional $10 at the door or through the website LineLeap to skip waiting outside.

Clarke said the bar implemented a $5 cover charge last weekend as the bar experienced larger than normal attendance due to the UO-Washington football game.

Clarke said the weekend cover charge will continue for the foreseeable future. He added the change was implemented in a effort to give the bar a more “college vibe,” a request he said he heard from patrons over the first couple of weeks of school.

Read more of the Emerald’s ongoing coverage of Taylor’s Bar:

An uncertain future for a campus staple: What’s next for Taylor’s Bar and Grill?

Taylor’s owner requests hearing that may determine the future of bar

Taylor’s: Is this the end?

The post Breaking: Taylor’s to impose $20 cover charge for non-students on Fridays and Saturdays appeared first on Emerald Media.

Thirteenth avenue between classes is as congested for pedestrians as I-5 is for cars after a Ducks home game. Pedestrians have to weave through bicycles, random facility vehicles and delivery trucks humming down the street in order to survive. Personal vehicles are not allowed from Kincaid Street to University Street, but anyone can drive past Matthew Knight Arena to the Erb Memorial Union, which can confuse drivers and pedestrians alike.

But a new campus planning project has the potential to alleviate the chaos that is 13th Avenue.

The university hired Walker Macy Architects and Gehl Architects to create a conceptual redesign of the street based on feedback from the UO community. Aaron Olsen, landscape planning associate for UO Campus Planning, said the designs will be finalized in late January, 2019. If funding is secured for the project, these conceptual plans could become reality.

“One of the things that this project wants to do is look at the entire [corridor] and really create a vision for the whole [corridor] so it can feel more unified,” Olsen said. “And so some of the positive things that are happening on the western part of the street can translate through campus as a whole.”

The conceptual redesign of 13th Avenue will span from Franklin Blvd to Kincaid street. (Courtesy of UO Campus Planning)

The “positive things” Olsen references are primarily restrictions in place to limit vehicle access on 13th Avenue from the EMU to Condon Hall. As of today, only emergency vehicles and golf carts are allowed to use the western corridor of the street. East of 13th Avenue feels more like a typical city street: Personal vehicles are allowed, stop signs are present and yellow lines are painted in the concrete.

Olsen said this project will attempt to create cohesion not only between the east and west sides of 13th Avenue but also cohesion between 13th Avenue and the rest of campus. In the past, Olsen said, projects would be built along the street without much thought as to how they contributed to the avenue and to the campus as a whole.

“[A project] would inform and work with all the things that are happening but there wasn’t really a driving vision that it could tie into,” Olsen said.

Cars cross 13th and Agate on University of Oregon Campus. (Ben Green/Emerald)

In order to create this vision, campus planning, in conjunction with the hired architectural firms, will conduct various studies in order understand how each part of the street is currently used. According to Olsen, the first of such surveys will take place on Oct. 18.

Students standing on 13th Avenue with clipboards will observe how various passersby are using the 13th Avenue corridor. An identical survey will be conducted Oct. 20 as well.

The data collected from the study will be used by Gehl to compare how people use 13th Avenue to other similar spaces across the world. Olsen said the architects will then use the findings to create the conceptual designs for the street.

“The intent would be in early January to have the design team bring three concepts to get feedback from the students,” Olsen said. “There will be an open house in conjunction with that as well.” Olsen added that Gehl will present its findings in a public lecture.

Another goal of this project is to redesign 13th Avenue in a way that better accommodates large, one-off events like the street fair or the graduation procession.

“In order for the project to be successful, it needs to accommodate these events,” Olsen said. “So at the end of the day if we were to come up with a plan that doesn’t accommodate these, then I would think that’s not successful.”

Students walk on 13th Avenue outside of Lillis Hall on University of Oregon Campus. (Ben Green/Emerald)

Olsen emphasized that these plans are purely conceptual — to put any part of these designs into action, campus planning would first need to find funding. Then, another round of public engagement would take place before construction would commence. However, as a part of the conceptual plans, each aspect of the redesign will include a cost estimate so they know how much each portion of the project would cost, should they get the green light.

“The end result of this is not something that is necessarily going to be built next year or any time we know of,” Olsen said. “It’s a conceptual design to inform future decision making.”

Students interested in participating in the survey should contact Aaron Olsen via email at aaolsen@uoregon.edu.

The post Potential redesign of 13th Avenue in the works appeared first on Emerald Media.

Many animals possess the ability to regenerate entire limbs, but our human bodies have limited regenerative properties. We can heal our broken bones, and we could regenerate the tip of our finger if cut off, but what if we could go beyond? What if we could regenerate our fingers, our ears, or our arms and legs, much like a newt or a starfish?

In this first episode of Spotlight on Science’s third season, former arts and culture writer and now senior news reporter Franklin Lewis talks with bioengineer Robert Guldberg, the Executive Director of the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact, about the future of regenerative medicine, his career prior to his new position and his goals for Knight Campus.

Spotlight on Science is a series from the Emerald Podcast Network designed to spark conversations across disciplines with researchers at the University of Oregon, bringing in researchers to discuss their work in a way that is understandable to everyone.

This episode was produced by Franklin Lewis and edited by Ryan Nguyen.

The post Podcast: Spotlight on Science: Regenerative Medicine and the Knight Campus appeared first on Emerald Media.

In the nearly 100 years since Taylor’s Bar and Grill opened its doors, it has been known for rambunctious energy. One owner drove a motorcycle through the bar. Another fought off a man who bit his thumb.

But recently, Taylor’s has come under fire for allegations of more serious offenses than general debauchery: sexual assault, drugging drinks and overcharging patrons. The Oregon Liquor Control Commission cited Taylor’s for 29 offenses in 14 months, and has recommended along with the city of Eugene that Taylor’s be stripped of its license to serve alcohol.

Taylor’s current owner Ramzy Hattar recently requested a hearing to make the case for why the bar should keep its license. A judge will then decide whether Taylor’s license will be renewed, restricted or revoked entirely.

If the bar loses its licence, the most popular off campus party destination would never be the same. Taylor’s has a storied past, and its legacy is at stake.

A ‘65 Honda motorcycle, a blackjack club and an FBI raid

Father and son duo Fred and Herschel Taylor built Taylor’s in 1922 after hiring a lawyer to break Eugene’s former building moratorium. The bar was originally called, “Ye Campa Shoppe” before the name was changed to Taylor’s soon after Prohibition ended in 1933.

“In Fred’s autobiography, he wrote, ‘Had I known the Great Depression was around the corner, I’d have never bought the place,” said Herschel’s grandson Todd.

The ownership moved from Fred, to Herschel, to Herschel’s son Rod after he returned from service in World War II.

Booths outline the inside of Taylor’s Bar and Grill, where customers tend to partake in bar food and drinks. When Todd Taylor ran Taylor’s, the atmosphere was a far cry from the nightclub-like environment that exists today. (Maddie Knight/Emerald)

Todd still remembers the wackiness his father brought to the place. He said Rod once drove ‘65 Honda motorcycle through Taylor’s.

“He opened the door, and shot through just, ‘Beep beep! Beep beep!’ Just because he could.”

At the time, Taylor’s was not allowed to serve alcohol because the OLCC had imposed a 1,000-foot “dry zone” around the UO campus. This was to limit students’ access to alcohol — particularly those returning from war, according to Todd. With the bar’s primary income source stripped away from the family, Rod had to come up with different ways to pay the bills.

“Rod became,” Todd said, between chuckles, “the biggest bookie between San Francisco and Portland.”

Todd said Rod took bets from several high profile Eugene community members, including the former district attorney. The FBI ended up busting Rod, but not before the DA secretly called ahead to warn Rod the cops were on their way to his home.

“He got a little phone call that said, ‘Hey get rid of everything. You’re going to have a knock on the door in a while.’ And sure enough they did,” Todd said. “Well, [Rod] forgot to take something out of his car that showed like a betting line, odds, stuff out of Vegas. And so they popped him.”

Rod eventually gave control of the bar to Jon LaBranch — the current owner of Rennie’s — in 1977. The bar regained its liquor license during LaBranch’s tenure, but only served beer and wine. After LaBranch’s lease was up, Todd took over the bar from 1980 to 1983.

During that time, the atmosphere was a far cry from the nightclub-like environment that exists today. Todd hired live bands playing blues music. The bar was half the size it is today; nevertheless, wild stuff still occurred.

“One time I got attacked at Taylor’s when I was running it,” Todd said. “A drunk guy came in, and he was all jacked up on something.”

Marcus Mariota’s original locker is tucked away in a corner just passed the bar at Taylor’s. (Maddie Knight/Emerald)

Todd said he noticed the guy bumping people on the dance floor. He tapped the man on the shoulder and asked what he was doing. The man sprung on him, grabbed Todd’s neck with two hands and threw Todd to the ground.

“I go for his eyes is what I do. I try to thumb him in the eye,” Todd said. “He’s all jacked up — so quick it was like a cat, and he just went ‘Arrgh!’ and he bit my thumb.”

Todd said the doorman came over to drag the guy out, but Todd’s thumb was still hooked into this guy’s mouth and Todd was dragged along. The thumb-biter wriggled away from the doorman and ran down the street, but Todd was right behind with vengeance.

“I was going to even the score. He had my blood now,” Todd said. “I have a lead-weighted blackjack and I go [demonstrates an overhand swing of his club] and I was just going to take his collarbone out.”

The guy turned around as Todd was on his downswing, so instead of breaking bone, the club struck the man in the chest and knocked him down. It was enough to scare him off, and the police later caught the phantom thumb-biter in the nearby hospital.

“The worst part of the story — the guy had syphilis,” Todd said. “So I couldn’t touch my wife for like a month. That was the worst part of the deal.”

But after that, Todd had had enough of the day-to-day operations of Taylor’s.

“It’s a lot easier being a landlord than it is being the actual guy on the front lines,” Todd said.

From smoky blues bar to the modern Taylor’s

From 1983 to 1999, Taylor’s was passed from owner to owner until then 22-year-old Chuck Hare took the reins. But back then, he said it was a small, scary place. Women were reluctant to visit the bar.

“It was a smoky little blues bar,” Hare said.

He set out to turn Taylor’s into a place where college students wanted to go, rather than Eugene locals. Hare hired a younger staff and more workers from Greek life, revamped the menu and promoted the bar to college students. Eugene’s older crowd drifted to other establishments.

Behind the bar at Taylor’s is a collection of liquor bottles. After citing 29 violations in 14 months, the OLCC proposed a license cancelation. (Maddie Knight/Emerald)

Hare took over three next-door businesses to expand the bar in 2001. The acquired space was able to accommodate a growing UO student population. According to data from the UO Office of the Registrar, the UO student population increased by 37 percent during Hare’s time running Taylor’s.

“As the student population grew, we became one of the big bars on campus,” Hare said. “Business got better.”

Hare even installed a bed in his basement office to sleep at Taylor’s so he would be up on time to prepare the bar in the morning after working until 2 a.m.

UO students of that era echo the rising stature of Taylor’s in the early 2000s. Jen Humphrey, a UO student from 1997 to 2001, said Taylor’s was a huge fixture in her and her friends’ lives.

“It became the go-to meeting spot,” Humphrey said. “Whether it was in between classes and you had some lunch out on the patio, or you went there before or after a game to celebrate a victory.”

Bronson Oahu played football at UO from 2011 to 2015. During his junior and senior years, Oahu said he frequented Taylor’s, where he met several of his closest friends to this day.

“Even when you have people from out of state coming to visit you for school,” Oahu said, “they all want to go to Taylor’s and have a good time. It’s an experience.”

These testimonies reflect a changed Taylor’s. A bar focused on college students above all else.

Hare said he looks back fondly on his years running Taylor’s. He said he learned more about business and life in the first month of running Taylor’s than he did spending five years at UO.

Todd Taylor said it is rumored that a horse dug out the basement. Today, it is decorated with old flyers from years past that attracted people to the bar. (Maddie Knight/Emerald)

He ultimately outgrew his own creation, selling the business in May 2017. While great for business, Hare said the DJs and “dance club” environment were never his personal scene.

Reflecting on a recent visit he had made to Taylor’s, Hare said, “I didn’t miss it.”

Taylor’s today, and beyond

The current owner, Ramzy Hattar, was drawn to Taylor’s for a variety of reasons, nostalgia being a primary one. Hattar is a UO alumnus with memories of his own at Taylor’s. He also runs other bars and restaurants around Oregon, such as the River Pig Saloon. Hattar said he anticipated certain challenges when he bought Taylor’s, but not the “bad” media coverage the bar has received over the past two years.

Previous reports by the Emerald and the Register Guard in 2016, while Hare was still managing, revealed Taylor’s was repeatedly accused of overcharging credit cards and accused of multiple drug-related incidents, including a bartender being accused of drugging patrons.

Hare said he did not condone any of the alleged incidents under his watch, and although he can’t be sure whether they happened, he rules out the possibility that anyone he hired was involved.

“But to say that that never happened — people come in off the streets,” Hare said. “And there’s creepy people in this world and there’s bad people in this world.”

The OLCC’s notice in August 2018 cited 29 incidents of poor compliance with liquor laws — not including the incidents above — and a history of “serious and persistent problems” that happened under Hattar’s ownership, including incidents of excessive intoxication, disorderly conduct, theft, assault and sexual assault.

Since the OLCC issued Taylor’s the notice on Aug. 22, the bar has seen at least two reported assaults and one dispute, according to Eugene and UO police logs.

Hattar has implemented several changes to try to address some of the issues raised by these various reports, including implementing a cover charge for non-UO students. But Eric Clarke, current general manager of Taylor’s, said they felt it was alienating alumni customers.

One change that has stuck is banning a beloved drink called “Fuck-it buckets” because the larger containers they are served in were at a higher risk of being drugged, according to Hattar.

“I cannot and I will not ever have that tied to anything I own,” Hattar said of the drugging allegations.

Hattar also noted the capacity and popularity of Taylor’s, saying that the volume of people is greater than most other bars, so the rate of incidents is inevitably greater.

Matthew VanSickle of OLCC said he recognizes that the capacity argument is easy to “lob out there,” but he argues that all bars should be held to the same standard.

“The commission’s position is you can’t hold one institution, one bar, above anybody else,” VanSickle said. “Everybody has to live up to the same standards of supporting public safety and community livability.”

Hattar said he questions if other campus bars are being held to the same standards as Taylor’s. He also said he is not worried about Taylor’s losing its license as long as he works with the appropriate authorities.

“I know what I expect my standard to be at my bar,” Hattar said. “I expect it to always be under control.”

Regardless of the liquor license controversy, the future of Taylor’s is up in the air. Todd Taylor and the Taylor family still ultimately own the property on which Taylor’s is built. And they have plans to fundamentally change the Taylor’s building.

Rendering of a possible future Taylor’s, envisioned by LorenBerry Architect. (Courtesy of Todd Taylor)

“Change is inevitable,” Todd said. “[The building] is not going to be there forever. It’s not a pyramid. It’s got an expiration date. We spend a lot of money each year just to keep that thing from falling down.”

Todd said his ultimate vision is to have a massive block party on 13th Avenue during Taylor’s 100th year of operation that is coming up in less than three years. After that, he wants to build a brand new building. Initial drawings for the building show at least three stories of growth, with a modern design (shown above). Todd wants to include a rooftop bar, student housing, and incorporate aspects of the current building such as the signature spire and the sign. He put the chances of this new redesign happening at 50-50.

“We need a new building,” Todd said. “That thing is 100 years old. It’s been patched together 100 times.”

Because of Taylor’s fascinating and complicated legacy, many people have vested interests in the future of the bar. It is a fixture as well-known to students as the university itself, and a campus without Taylor’s is difficult to imagine for many.

“Some people love it, some people hate it,” Chuck Hare said. “Taylor’s is what it is, it can’t be necessarily all things to all people. For a lot of people, it’s some place that’s really special.”

The post Taylor’s: Is this the end? appeared first on Emerald Media.

This article follows up on a previous Emerald cover story published in March 2018 about the University of Oregon’s plans for north campus area.

Members of the Eugene community have until 5 p.m. on Oct. 3 to comment on the University of Oregon’s permit application to develop the waterfront area near the Willamette River. After all the comments are read, response testimony to public comments can be submitted until Oct. 10. After that date, the UO will have a week to respond to all the submitted comments.

The Eugene hearings official will make their decision on Nov. 1 after all these comments and rebuttals have been collected and read.

Members of campus and the greater Eugene community have criticized the project since its conception. In a previous story by the Emerald, critics complained the athletic fields included in the permit application are an inappropriate use of the riverfront space, particularly if the UO uses artificial turf for the fields.

“Artificial turf has been shown to produce all kinds of toxins,” said Allen Hancock, Eugene resident and member of the Riverfront Restoration and Education Group.

On Aug. 1, 2017, the University of Oregon announced its “North Campus Conditional Use Permit Project,” setting guidelines for how the UO would utilize 77 acres of land adjacent to the Willamette River north of Franklin Boulevard for the next 30 years. Over a year later, at a public hearing on the evening of Sept. 12, 2018, a timeline was established for the decision on whether the permit will be approved by a Eugene hearings official.

Emily Eng, senior campus planner at the UO campus planning office, said her office is conducting a study this fall to evaluate possible locations for new athletic fields. If the permit is approved, the riverfront area will be included in that search.

“We already looked at options in the Framework Vision project,” Eng said. “But this study will explore in more detail what those options are on and off campus.”

Community members have also complained that the permit time frame of 30 years is too long and that the UO failed to give ample opportunity for the public to comment. Hancock said the duration of the proposed permit might be appropriate for the area south of the railroad tracks running through the riverfront property, but the area north of the tracks — which includes the riverfront — should require a separate permit.

“[The UO] is making their best guess about what they want to do,” Hancock said. “That is worrisome because it doesn’t provide any guarantee that the public will have any way of weighing in at some date in the future when [the UO] actually do[es] say, ‘Well this is what we want to do.’”

The UO is required to obtain this conditional use permit before any construction can begin on the university’s riverfront holdings. Even if the UO is granted the permit, Eng cannot guarantee any of the proposed redevelopment specified in the conditional use permit application will materialize. According to Eng, the purpose of the permit application is to demonstrate the maximum possible development in the future.

“Whether some of these projects happen or not, we don’t know,” Eng said. “But we anticipate that these are potential needs in the future. It is possible that some of what we are proposing will not happen.”

For those wishing to express their comments on the UO’s North Campus conditional use permit application, submit testimony to NGioello@eugene-or.gov.

The post Update: Riverfront Conundrum appeared first on Emerald Media.

Gabe Paquette said he has always resisted choosing between his various academic passions. A history professor by trade, the new dean of the Robert D. Clark Honors College has spent time studying philosophy, government, biology and multiple foreign languages. So when he heard the Honors College was looking for a new dean, he saw it as a way to return to a time before he made his academic choice.

“I found myself increasingly interested in the undergraduate experience as a whole,” he said of his time teaching history at Johns Hopkins University, his most recent job. “I became interested in the experience not just in the individual classroom but kind of their experience in all senses. How are all the different courses fitting together as a part of coherent curriculum? How were their experiences outside of the classroom fitting together with their areas of emphasises and their studies?”

Paquette is just three weeks into his new role at the honors college. His office is barely set up — three lonely books dwarfed by the large bookcase they are situated in are the only evidence someone occupies the office. But Paquette already has plans to fundamentally change the future of the honors college.

First on the to-do list for Paquette is implementing the new faculty model for the honors college that was conceived last year under interim dean Karen Ford. The new faculty model involves hiring faculty members from around the University of Oregon from departments underrepresented in the honors college, like the sciences, philosophy and law. The new professors will be Dare Baldwin, Michael Moffitt, Daphne Gallagher and Nicole Dudukovic.

“There have been some moves to integrate the sciences,” Paquette said. “But I think there was still a feeling that many of the students in the honors college were either in STEM disciplines or they felt as if their own academic interests were not entirely being met by the curriculum of the honors college.”

However, Paquette said he wants to make sure the faculty expansion doesn’t detract from the traditional emphasises of the honors college: history and literature.

“I think the easy thing to say is, ‘Well let’s just open it up and bring in everyone — everyone has a little piece of the pie.’ In Spanish they call that ‘cafe para todos,’ which means ‘coffee for all,’” he said. “We have to make sure that it doesn’t become so heterogeneous that there isn’t a coherent experience which is offered.”

In the past, students raised two major concerns about the honors college: differential tuition and ability to graduate in a timely fashion. The Emerald’s past reporting on the honors college found that 40 percent of students drop out by fall of their senior year. 15 percent of those students cited financial reasons for leaving. The Board of Trustees voted in March to reduce honors college differential tuition, from $4,194 to $2,700, a step Paquette thinks could help quell the financial concerns of students.

“I think ideally differential tuition would be reduced to zero,” he said. “And I know that is a long term goal. But I think this a really important step in the right direction.”

As for students’ ability to graduate on time, Paquette said that because academic planning happens within separate colleges at the UO, the credit and requirement structure is not always inharmony between the rest of UO and the honors college.

“I promise you that there was no deliberate neglect of student concerns,” he said. “I think one of the tasks which I have is to make sure the honors college is fully integrated into the rest of the university in such a way we can address those issues of making sure that requirements are not such that they cause tremendous hardship on students in all sorts of ways.”

While he does not plan on teaching until next school year, Paquette said he wants to be an active dean. Whether that manifests itself as open office hours or regular meetings is still up in the air. A email from Paquette to all honors college students is also expected to be sent out early next week.

“Sometimes you learn the most about what is happening in college from more informal interactions, the classroom rubbing of elbows, chance encounters,” Paquette said. “I want to make sure that I am committed to making sure that students aren’t just honors college students but they are actually helping to shape the future of the honors college.”

The post New dean wants more well-rounded honors college appeared first on Emerald Media.

A phishing scam is targeting University of Oregon email accounts, and the university’s information services department services is advising that students do not click on emails that state “unable to display this message.”

The emails appear to be sent by other UO students with a message that cannot be displayed unless the user clicks on the image.

Those who have clicked on the suspicious image said their account was used to send multiple identical messages to contacts with which they had recently corresponded.

An example of the phishing email UO community members have received. (Franklin Lewis/Emerald)

According to an email sent by UO Information Services, the phishing emails are an attempt to steal UO login passwords. Students who clicked the link and entered their login credentials should notify infosec@uoregon.edu then change their password and their security questions.

Leo Howell, chief information security officer at UO, said his department is still collecting information on the scam. He does not yet know how many students have been affected.

“We’re just all hands on deck right now,” he said.

Email scams can take on a number of forms. One email scam asked the student who received the email to send $400 in Bitcoin or embarrassing videos of the user would be posted on social media.

In early August, Emerald reporting revealed that a coordinated Iranian phishing scam stole the login credentials of 62 UO professors. The campaign targeted over 300 universities located in the United States and abroad in an attempt to steal intellectual property and academic data. In the UO’s case, the hackers were seeking access to online academic journals that faculty members have access to.

Follow Michael Tobin (@Tobin_Tweets) and Franklin Lewis (@flewis_1) on Twitter.

The post Phishing scam targets UO email addresses appeared first on Emerald Media.

Picture this: in a midday munchies moment, you open the refrigerator to find last night’s leftovers in a bowl covered with plastic wrap. After taking the bowl out of the fridge, you remove the plastic wrap. Instead of throwing the plastic wrap away in the garbage, you turn on the faucet and run the plastic wrap under water until the wrap dissolves and washes harmlessly down the drain.

Such a scenario is closer to reality than you might think. AlgoteK, a start-up company founded by three recent University of Oregon alumni is developing a 100 percent biodegradable plastic product that can dissolve in water in under a minute.

According to company CEO and co-founder David Crinnion, their brown algae-based plastic is so environmentally safe that it is edible. To close pitch meetings, Crinnion will even take a bite out of the material to prove his point.

“It won’t hurt anything,” Crinnion said. “A tree could absorb it, a dog could eat it, a baby could eat it.”

AlgoteK’s material addresses a key problem with traditional plastic: rate of biodegradation. Traditional, fossil fuel-based plastic takes centuries to fully break apart into its primary molecular pieces. This has caused serious damage to ocean habitats, from fish ingesting microplastic particles to sea turtles becoming entangled in plastic netting. Because AlgoteK’s plastic is constructed from water soluble, brown algae polymers, their material can degrade rapidly.

A close-up look at AlgoteK’s algae-based plastic dissolving in a bowl of water. The material is 100% biodegradable and edible. (Sarah Northrop/Emerald)

According to Justin Lebuhn, chief sustainability officer and co-founder of AlgoteK, their material will reduce the need for fossil fuel-based plastics in the first place because their plastic is created using brown algae. Brown algae also removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which Lebuhn said would help counteract the effects of climate change.

“If the consumer cares about carbon emissions, their carbon footprint, fossil fuel consumption,” Lebuhn said, “the growth of our product is going to help reduce those impacts.”

The possible applications for AlgoteK’s material are vast, according to the company’s three members. Crinnion, Lebuhn and Tanner Stickling, design executive officer and co-founder, suggested their product could be used for anything from tampon applicators to packaging material. But because the company has not decided on a specific application yet, Crinnion said that marketing their plastic can be difficult.

“We’re at stage one,” Crinnion said. “[Investors] want us to be at stage five, but we need $75,000 just to get to stage three.”

AlgoteK is not the first to invent algae-based plastic either. Two Dutch product designers recently developed an algae-based plastic that can be used in 3D printers. Skipping Rocks Lab produces “water orbs” that are brown algae-based. But the members of AlgoteK said no one has been able to truly capitalize on the invention.

“You have to make [the investors] believe in it as much as you do,” Stickling said.

Company CEO and co-founder David Crinnion demonstrates the plastic’s texture and capability. Though the company has not currently decided what to specifically market its plastic for, the product could be used for anything from tampon applicators to packaging material. (Sarah Northrop/Emerald)

The three members of AlgoteK first met each other September 2017 at the Sustainable Invention Immersion Week, an event put on by the UO’s product design, chemistry, journalism and business departments. After taking second place in the InventOR competition in June 2018, the group entered into talks with a bioplastic manufacturer in Albany, Oregon about a contract to mass produce AlgoteK material. Crinnion said he wants the company to roll out a product line around the start of 2019.

“We’re trying to focus on what we know,” Crinnion said. “Assuming we get more money and time, then we’ll start researching on a different compound.”

Crinnion said the company also secured laboratory space at Portland State University’s Business Accelerator, and will move their base of operations from the Eugene Regional Accelerator and Business Network to Portland in the coming weeks.

Besides research and development of their plastic, Stickling said they need to market the company effectively in order for customers to trust their product over traditional plastic.

“If come out with a sustainable tampon or a sustainable tupperware cover,” she said, “it’s going to be a lot of branding and reaching out to customers and following through with surveys and seeing what their reactions are.”

In the future, Lebuhn said he hopes AlgoteK can expand beyond plastic and utilize algae in other fields, like fuel and livestock feed. But for now, the company is focused on getting their plastic mass produced.

“Within ten years, ridding plastics in general or single-use plastics would be a dream,” Lebuhn said.”

AlgoteK can be reached at algotekllc@gmail.com.

Follow Franklin Lewis on Twitter @flewis_1

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled David Crinnion’s last name. The article has been changed to reflect the proper spelling.

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