A previous version of this article stated the athletic department was only partially self-sustained. The athletic department doesn’t receive any direct institutional support. The article also stated Phil Knight had given $50 million to PathwayOregon. This was not correct.

Student athletes have special tutors in the $41 million Jaqua Center. The rest of the student body is tutored in the basement of Prince Lucien Campbell Hall.

Student athletes can study in chairs made of Ferrari leather on floors made of Brazilian Ipe wood in the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex. The rest of the student body studies wherever Wi-Fi is good.

And soon, student athletes will be able to catch a nap in rest pods, work out in a boxing ring and improve their form with 3D image-capturing technology in the $19.2 million Marcus Mariota Sports Performance Center.

With the construction of this new athletes-only performance facility breaking ground this month, critics are raising questions about the University of Oregon’s priorities and whether athletes are put on a pedestal above the rest of the student body.

To build this center, UO went around the world gathering ideas — even going to NASA. The focus is mostly recovery: There will be therapy available for athletes and big areas for stretching and foam-rolling.

UO isn’t actually putting up the money to build the complex. The initial construction costs are $19.2 million, according to a building permit the university filed in November, and the complex is funded by Nike co-founder and chairman Phil Knight. The center is expected to be 29,000 square feet when completed, according to materials from the Board of Trustees.

That doesn’t mean UO isn’t investing in this complex. Power, maintenance and paying two full-time staff members will come out of athletics’ budget, but it’s not clear yet how much that’s going to be, according to Craig Pintens, a spokesperson for athletics. The Jaqua Center has $2.2 million in academic and operational expenses per academic year, according to Steve Stolp, executive director of services for student athletes. (The athletic department doesn’t receive any direct institutional support, according to Pintens.)

These lavish facilities have drawn lots of criticism from the university’s faculty and students. Dana Rognlie, a doctorate student in philosophy who has been a vocal critic of the university for years, calls Knight’s contribution “a private donation to a public university for private use.”

This question came up back when Jaqua was being constructed in 2010. At the time, some faculty told the Emerald that Jaqua was “a symbol of the university’s wrong priorities.”

Carol Stabile, a women’s and gender studies professor and another outspoken critic of the university, points to older buildings on campus with “terrible technological infrastructure” like outdated Wi-Fi. IT has compared the university’s Wi-Fi to “one of the older buildings on campus” and says it needs an upgrade. Stabile points to other buildings that are full and “bursting at the seams,” like Allen Hall. Many faculty members have been moved out of Allen and into Franklin Hall; they often have to walk 10 minutes to their classrooms.

“Where are the beautiful buildings for the academic side?” Stabile said. “What message does that send?”

Stabile ties sports into a detrimental “party culture” at the university. She calls the culture one of her biggest impediments as a teacher.

“I need to give my students the education they deserve,” Stabile said. “I feel like that disproportionate emphasis [on sports and partying] compromises my ability to do that … on this campus.”

But Phil Knight has also given donations to the academic side. He and his wife have created 27 endowed professorships and chairs across campus, were the lead donors to the School of Law’s Knight Law Center, and supported the expansion and renovation of Knight Library.

And Devon Allen, a wide receiver for UO football and track and field champion, believes he and other athletes need the Mariota Center.

“There’s a lot more stuff that just helps with recovery and helps student athletes perform better,” Allen said.

Critics also wonder what this focus is doing to athletes’ psyches. Stabile says athletes are really segregated from other students: They live, work out, study and get tutoring in separate buildings, and they’re “celebrities” on campus.

Rognlie and Stabile, along with other feminists and sexual assault awareness advocates, believe putting athletes on a pedestal like that could even be connected to past behavioral problems.

At a press conference in May 2014, Rognlie asked UO men’s basketball coach Dana Altman what sexual assault training his basketball players went through. Three of Altman’s players had just been accused of sexually assaulting a UO student.

“The athletic department has a number of programs that we put our student athletes through at the beginning of each year,” Altman said to her. “One, specifically, for this type of activity, was not done this year.”

Rognlie told an Oregonian reporter at the time that she was “deeply disturbed” by that. Now, she wonders why the university is building athlete-only complexes when all athletes aren’t getting sexual assault training.

“I’m deeply concerned that the focus is more on the players’ well-being and the institution’s well-being rather than the survivor’s well-being,” Rognlie told Altman at the press conference.

Student athletes do go through the same training that every student goes through, a two-hour program called “Get Explicit” that talks about boundaries, consent and social norms. But that’s not enough, Stabile said. She and other members of Oregon’s Sexual Assault Task Force have been asking since November 2014 for more staff and money devoted to fighting sexual assault, and the university has responded, but not in all the ways they asked for.

To them, it’s about where the university is focusing — and they don’t think it should be focusing on complexes exclusive to athletes.
“How does this enhance the real mission of the university?” Stabile said. “You just have to question the priorities of the institution.”

A gas leak detected earlier this morning posed a very real threat on a street just west of the University of Oregon campus.

According to KVAL, the gas leak closed East 13th Avenue and some of Hilyard Street.

A man was walking past Miso Sushi and Teriyaki Restaurant when he detected the leak and proceeded to call 911. Eugene-Springfield Fire responded to the call and entered the restaurant. They then found high levels of natural gas before resolving the problem.

Battalion Chief Lance Lighty told KVAL that the cause of the gas leak was a stove burner, which was turned on but not ignited. “They never did find the ignition source, but it could’ve blew up the building very easily and caused some serious damage,” he said.

The University of Oregon housing department is currently planning a new residence hall expected to open in the fall of 2017.

The new hall is a response to the new university policy which requires freshman to live in residence halls on campus.

Construction of the new hall will begin in April, 2016 and continue until July, 2017 to coincide with the introduction of the new policy in fall of 2017.

Amanda Schmidt-MacKenzie, director of residence life and educational initiatives, said the hall will have the capacity to house roughly 531 students and will stand five stories tall. The residence hall will also offer a number of innovative new amenities, some the result of student suggestion.

Students gave feedback regarding what they would like to see included in the new hall. As the result of student recommendations, each floor will have its own social lounge and separate study lounge.

“That was really important feedback that students had given us in the planning process,” Schmidt-MacKenzie said. “A social lounge and a study lounge needed to be separate and defined spaces.”

Each floor will include rooms with individual bathrooms, 37 to 40 rooms per floor and washing machines on each floor. The first floor of the residence hall will also contain a theatre that can seat up to 100 people and nine smaller spaces designated for faculty offices. There will also be a communal kitchen and study spaces located on the first floor. The plans include a miscellaneous space designed for creativity.

“It’s sort of designed to be an innovation space for people to come up with creative ideas and then actually make them,” Schmidt-MacKenzie said.

David Opp-Beckman, capital projects manager, said housing will also strive to accommodate students with disabilities and give them access to almost all rooms in the residence hall.

“We try to practice universal access,” Opp-Beckman said.

Another feature of the residence hall is a ground floor faculty apartment as well as an RLC apartment. According to Schmidt-MacKenzie, this is because housing hopes to expand it’s number of academic residential communities.

They also hope to involve faculty living in the hall with the academic residential communities in order to create a better learning environment.

“That’s something which we’ve been able to do in this building, which is really gonna create some magical interactions between faculty and students,” said Michael Griffel, director of university housing.

The new residence hall is funded entirely by the University of Oregon. The total project is expected to cost $41 million. Direct construction of the hall is expected to cost $31 million.

Remodels of Bean, Hamilton and Walton halls have also been proposed. If these remodels are approved by the university administration and the Board of Trustees, Bean East will be the first hall to undergo renovation, following the construction of the new residence hall.

“From a purely functional standpoint, we need to build this new residence hall so that then we can start to renovate some of our older inventory,” Opp-Beckman said.

ASUO held a joint hearing Tuesday afternoon to discuss the potential merger between Emerald Media Group and Ethos Magazine. ASUO Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee chair Andrew Dunn and Program Finance Committee chair Quinn Haaga called the hearing.

Potential goals of the merger include an increase in Ethos’ budget and more access to professional advisers. Both publications would maintain editorial independence. Jonathan Bach, Editor in Chief of Ethos Magazine, said the staff members who receive stipends at the publication support the merger.

“Those at the top feel that this is in the best interest for Ethos,” Bach said.

One proposal, made by Dunn, would allow the School of Journalism and Communication to oversee Ethos.

“It seems though … that the j-school could retain the stability more than the professional staff could,” he said.

For Dunn’s proposal to be approved, it would need to go through the Department of Student Life. But Bach wants Ethos to maintain its editorial independence from the university, like Emerald Media Group. 

“It was a productive meeting … a lot of ground work has been set,” said Charlie Weaver, the president and publisher at Emerald Media Group. According to Weaver, the meeting was originally scheduled to take place last year when 2014-2015 Editor in Chief of Ethos, Gordon Friedman, approached Emerald Media group about a merger; there wasn’t enough time to propose changes.

Shawn Stevenson, finance director of ASUO Executive, said he didn’t support the merger because he is not comfortable with Emerald Media Group receiving a portion of Ethos’s ad sales revenue as a condition.

While the two committees did not reach a decision, conversations about the merger will continue for the next few weeks. Dunn asked Emerald Media Group to provide the dollar amount they would need for the merger. Ethos has already submitted its budget proposal to the ASUO in the event that the merger is denied.

Weaver said there is no official deadline for when the committees must make their decisions regarding the merger, but it is likely that a  final decision will be reached by the deadline for each committee’s proposal to senate. 

Grace McBarron’s decision to become a resident assistant was largely influenced by her own experiences during her freshman year at UO.

“My freshman year I had a fantastic RA,” McBarron said. “He helped me through probably one of the most difficult times in my life.

Now McBarron is a junior and second-year resident assistant in Living Learning Center North, thanks to her RA.

“That inspired me to want to be able to do the same thing for somebody else,” McBarron said.

According to Heather Kropf, associate director of residence life, the University of Oregon’s Resident assistant program is special not only because of its residential learning model, but also because of the program’s focus on one-on-one interaction. For UO’s resident assistants, one of the most important functions of an RA is providing support to students.

For McBarron, one of the best things about being a mentor resident assistant is being able to impact her resident’s lives.

“Sometimes they go through things that are really difficult, and being able to be the person that they come to and seek help from is a really rewarding feeling,” McBarron said.

Each resident assistant undergoes two to three weeks of training prior to the beginning of the school year, during which resident assistants learn about social justice, how to handle documentation and how to interact with the UO Police Department. However, RA Wyatt Waterbury said that many aspects of the job can only be learned from experience.

“As the year progresses different things come up and you learn different things about your residents, you learn different things about yourself and how you react” Waterbury said.

Waterbury is also a junior and a second-year mentor resident assistant in Walton South. Waterbury is majoring in marketing with a minor in Arabic, and after college he plans to join the Peace Corps.

“I think that the skills that you get from being an RA … directly correlate to what I’d be doing in the Peace Corps,” Waterbury said.

Each RA will typically be on-call one night a week and two weekends a term. During a resident assistant’s shift they are required to answer the designated on-call phone and to stay on campus. Typically, RAs will make two rounds on weeknights and three on weekends. During rounds, resident assistants check each floor of their assigned hall as well as the bathrooms and stairwells to ensure the safety of students.

“We’re trying to make sure that everybody’s safe,” sophomore Lauren Young said. “We’re like a safety blanket for everybody.”

Young is a first-year resident assistant from Mill Valley, California. For her, one of the most rewarding aspects of the job are the relationships she forms with her residents.

In addition to their on-call duties RAs offer support to their residents on a daily basis. Though they are only required to have two one-on-one sessions with residents per term, McBarron, Waterbury and Young all find time to meet with students regularly.

“It’s just a way for us to keep up-to-date with everything that’s going on in their lives,” McBarron said.

Since Hub on Campus, a luxury apartment complex located on 515 E. Broadway, opened its doors in September it has filled roughly 81-82 percent of its vacancies. The 12-story high-rise has a multitude of amenities including a roof-top pool, free gym, beach volleyball court and study room.

“Every amenity we have … it’s beneficial to students to help them be successful as a student and as an individual,” leasing manager Lindy Magallanes said.

According to Magallanes, students from the University of Oregon, Lane Community College and Northwest Christian University all live at Hub on Campus.

“One thing I love the most is that there’s a wide selection of activities,” UO sophomore and Hub resident Kady Chen said.

Hub on Campus has a number of competitors vying for the business of college students, including 2125 Franklin, Uncommon, and 13th and Olive.

Hub on Campus apartments range from $748 to $1,225 per month. Tenants also have the options of receiving a $1,200 check upon signing a lease if they choose to live in four or five bedroom units.

Magallanes said tenants typically book a lease of twelve months. Hub on Campus offers studio apartments as well as units with up to four and five bedrooms, all with individual leases.

Core Spaces, the national company based out of Texas that owns the complex has buildings in Eugene, Mississippi, Texas and Wisconsin. According to Magallanes, every building is specifically designed to fit the city it is built in.

Gary Crum, a retired UO professor and regular contributor to Eugene Weekly, observed that with the construction of more housing complexes marketed to students, the landscape of downtown Eugene has changed.

“Downtown Eugene is becoming more a university business than a community,” Crum said.

According to Crum, Hub on Campus and other complexes have the potential to drive down rent costs due to increased competition within the same market.

“That’s [going to] be beneficial for students of more moderate means,” he said.

Leasing agent Caitlyn Craviotto stated that Hub on Campus is different from its competitors because it is more focused on creating a sense of community than other facilities. The complex even has plans to host a volleyball tournament with notable sponsors, like Red Bull, for its residents.

“I think that people meet each other a lot easier,” Craviotto said, “We’re trying to be very college and community-oriented.”

Today, an open house was held at the Mills International Center to honor the memory of recent University of Oregon graduate Olivia Smith, who passed away in September.

The event was organized by Smith’s close friend and roommate for two years, Kathleen Darby a UO student.

Among those in attendance were Macy Guico, Smith’s roommate for a year and Associate Dean of Students Sharyl Eyster. Smith was an English major with a minor in Spanish. According to those that knew her a talented writer.

“She was so witty and smart,” Darby said.

Smith grew up in Piedmont, Missouri before moving to North Bend, Oregon. She attended Marshfield High School before she became a student at UO. In high school, Smith played tennis and was a master baton twirler. She also took multiple dance classes at the university.

“I don’t think it should be silenced…it goes on a lot and people don’t know,” said Darby in regards to Smith’s cause of death. Smith took her own life on Sept. 3 in Seattle.

“She was quite the amazing individual, who [made] a lot of contributions to our campus,” Eyster said.

According to Eyster, the University Health Center offers resources for those grieving and also those struggling with suicidal thoughts or depression.

“[Olivia] was loved, very bright, funny…wise beyond her years…she was a good one,” said Amy Friedman.

Olivia Smith, recent graduate of the University of Oregon, passed away in Seattle on Sept. 3 at 22 years old.

Smith graduated from UO in June with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a minor in Spanish.

Kathleen Darby, a friend and UO student has organized an open house in Smith’s honor. The event will be held Saturday, Oct. 10 at the Mills International Center in the EMU from 12 p.m. to 5:15.

As the Gateway shopping center nears the end of its transformation from an indoor mall built in the 1990s to an open-air facility, new stores continue to open their doors. Rouse Properties, the company that owns the shopping complex, has also changed its name to The Shops at Gateway to coincide with its redesign. Panera Bread was the first new store to open up at Gateway on Aug. 25.

Since then Payless ShoeSource, Maurices and Ulta have all opened their doors.

“Since we opened our doors, the reaction has been great,” Jorge Gonzalez, general manager of Ulta Beauty, said in an e-mail.

According to Gonzalez, the new store gives local residents more options for beauty products.

“It gives Springfield [or] Eugene residents a new place to shop for all their beauty,” said Gonzalez.

Together, the new tenants take up about 100,000 of prime retail space. The shopping center is also updating its outdoor facilities with bike paths, as well as adding refurbished and covered walkways to make public transportation more accessible. According to Skip Sandgren, general manager of The Shops at Gateway, the redevelopment was brought on after multiple big-box stores showed interest in moving in, but needed additional space to be accommodated.

“We decided that we were gonna do a complete uplift of the mall,” Sandgren said.

The Shops at Gateway are currently open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and from 12 p.m. to 6p.m. on Sundays. Other new and recently opened stores include GameStop, Hobby Lobby and Ross, which opened Oct. 10. The mall also has plans to add 40,000 square feet of outparcel building, which according to Sandgren, are slated to open sometime next year.

Many of the new and recently opened stores are looking to fill positions. Ulta has several jobs available, including merchandise and service coordinator, and beauty advisor. Additionally, the beauty retailer has already hired about 20 new employees.

“Our entire store team is from the local community…with half of the employees being college or beauty school students,” Gonzalez said. Hobby Lobby is also looking to fill positions such as co-manager, while Ross Dress for Less also has open positions.

In regards to the public’s reaction to the new stores and developments at Gateway, Sandgren stated that the changes have been well received.

“I’ve had a great deal of positive feedback,” Sandgren said.

Many new stores are still expected to open in the coming months including Subway, Random Shoes, Nails on Court, Harry Ritchie’s Jewelers and International fitness as well as others. Marshall’s is also expected to open in November, along with Rack Room Shoes and International Fitness.

“Everyone of the new stores has been very successful,” Sandgren said.

With the opening of 2125 Franklin and Hub on Campus this fall, there are more luxury apartment options available to students than ever before. As more complexes enter the market, students may see a drop in the cost of living in these new apartments.

There are four main luxury complexes near the University of Oregon campus, which include Uncommon Eugene, 13th and Olive, Hub on Campus and 2125 Franklin. Each of these apartments offer ample amenities to student tenants for a range of prices.

Hub on Campus currently charges $748 for four to five bedroom units, and is the most expensive option for students. 13th and Olive charges $599 for a unit of roughly the same size, making it the most affordable of Eugene’s luxury complexes.

Though 13th and Olive offers the lowest rates, UO junior Ryan Lund moved out of the complex this year.

“I moved out of 13th and Olive mostly because of the cost of living there,” Lund said. “That’s not to say that the cost is not justified though … they really do take care of their residents.”

According to Matt Gottlieb, leasing manager of Uncommon Eugene, competition between the complexes has caused an overall drop in the rent prices.

“The market is relatively saturated,” Gottlieb said.

According to Gottlieb, Uncommon Eugene maintains a friendly relationship with many of their competitors, such as Hub on Campus and 2125 Franklin. Despite the increased competition, Uncommon Eugene has been able to fill 98 percent of their vacancies, while 2125 Franklin is currently leasing at 75 percent.

Lund also feels that there are a growing number of options in the luxury apartment market, which makes it hard to chose the right complex.

“They are constantly adding more,” Lund said. “I actually felt a lot of pressure when choosing 13th and Olive last year.”

Gary Crum, a retired school teacher and regular contributor to EugeneWeekly agrees that rent prices will lower due to increased competition between the complexes.

“Now, [the complexes] are competing for fewer clients, so what you’ve gotta do is lower that rent a little,” Crum said.

For the cost, student tenants also have many additional services available to them. For example, 2125 Franklin offers a study lounge, free tanning, a recreation center and a fitness center in addition to other services. Uncommon Eugene provides free cable and internet, a 24-hour gym, furnished apartments and private hot tubs for tenant use.

“I had never heard about the luxury complex until after I signed a lease for 2125 Franklin in February,” UO freshman Cecelia Barjas said. “I like that there is a neat study room and game room.”

According to Lauren Gannon, regional manager of American Campus Communities, the main focus of 2125 Franklin is providing its tenants with an environment that supports their academic life.

“We want students to have a place they can call home, and focus on school. We try to provide that environment for them,” Gannon said.