Note: This article is the final in a series that examines University of Oregon’s trends on admittance, application rates and demographics. You can read part one here and part two here. 

When UO student Yawei Zhang was still living in China about six years ago, he was given a list of eight universities to choose from in the U.S. These were the top picks for the education agency in China that matched him to ideal candidates for studying in America.

Zhang, president of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, said students in his home country face fierce competition for getting acceptance at Chinese universities. As a result they turn to U.S. schools.

International students are flocking to Oregon’s flagship university in record-high numbers – now comprising 12 percent of UO’s student body.

“It’s been the plan for a while,” Univeristy of Oregon Director of International Affairs Abe Schafermeyer said.

When he started at the UO in 2002, international students comprised only 7 percent of the UO.

“Ten percent was a goal then, and it seemed a pretty lofty goal that I wasn’t sure we were going to attain,” Schafermeyer said.

In fact, the UO has begun to see enough applicants from overseas that the university will look to tighten its admission criteria.

“We’ve met our goal. We’re not scrambling for nonresident tuition the way other small schools are,” Schafermeyer said.

The increase in applicants from international students has resulted in requiring international students to make deposits as a commitment to the university. The deposit went into effect fall 2013, Schafermeyer said

International students are coming to colleges across the U.S. in droves.

“My mom said, ‘America has best education in the world and here it’s more freedom,’” Rita Wang, CSSA vice president, said.

While this trend is not unique to Eugene, a variety of factors may make the UO popular among the global community.

For international students, Schafermeyer says the UO is typically sought as an undergrad liberal arts institution. But the governmental scholarship that allows so many Saudis to study in the U.S. is shifting away from undergrads and focusing on grads.

Zhang added many things about the UO are attractive to the international student, including the environment and weather, no sales tax and the school’s ranking on US News.

But the UO is also known for its famous alumni. Zhang says many Chinese students know UO as the alma mater of the wildly popular actor Daniel Wu and Peggy Yu, a co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant DangDang. Even the history of Nike plays a role.

“People ask, ‘what’s UO?’ The first thing I say is Daniel Wu graduate here, and Nike was born here,” Zhang said.

The increase in international students at the UO — now at the highest percentage in school history — are changing the campus community. Schafermeyer said he gets calls regularly from staff and faculty who now notice that half of their classes are from abroad.

“(This) changes how they deliver curriculum, measure outcomes, and give tests,” Schafermeyer said

In addition to changes to the UO, the influx of international students has also changed the workforce of Eugene. Schafermeyer’s seen an increase in international students seeking professional experience and internships.

“They want to become professionals in the working world,” Schafermeyer said. “Our international students, like our domestic students, are searching for opportunities.”

Note: This article is the second in a series that will examine UO’s trends on admittance, application rates and demographics. Part three will examine the increased international attention on the UO and run in print on Monday. You can read part one here. 

It’s no secret that the University of Oregon has steadily gained more and more national attention over the last few years.

Out of state applications have risen steadily at the UO for the last decade, according to data from Jonathan Jacobs, UO director of enrollment management research. 47 percent of the current student body is nonresident.

While Oregon students’ acceptance rate has seen little change during this rush to become a Duck, the nonresident acceptance rate has dropped substantially – the chances of getting accepted if you’re not an Oregonian have been declining consistently. But out-of-state students continue to apply in droves.

Freshman Mo Kaufer is in many ways an emblematic UO student. The California native is an avid sports fan and volleyball player with strong academics. She applied to 11 schools last year, ten of which were out-of-state.

“I knew that more people applied to California schools each year,” Kaufer said. “I knew people who had been devastated by not getting in when they totally expected to get in. You have to apply to all those schools because honestly it’s a hit or miss.” Her tactic was to avoid the stiff competition in her home state.

While Oregonians have been admitted at a consistent rate over the last 7 years, nonresident acceptance has declined and then plateaued in recent years as application numbers have gone up. Data collected from Jonathan Jacobs, UO director of enrollment management research.

Meanwhile, the application and acceptance rates among Oregonians have remained stagnant for several years.

The Office of Admissions accepts the Oregon residents first, the international applicants second and then fills in the rest of the freshman class with nonresidents, according to Jim Rawlins, director of admissions. So to keep the entering class at around 50 percent residents, admission for out-of-state and international students is in part determined by how many Oregonians the Office of Admissions believes will attend on a year-to-year basis.

This means that some nonresident applicants who would otherwise be ideal candidates may be turned away.

“As much as we love to accept out-of-state and international students, our first goal is to take in-state students. If that means it’s harder for an out-of-state student to get in, that’s what it means,” Rawlins said.

The strongest and weakest applicants are less affected by the increased interest at the UO — the average non-resident applicants are.

“If you think about the middle of our applicant pool, students who are in that average, those are the ones who are most likely to be impacted the most by (growth in out-of-state applicants),” Rawlins said.

Rawlins said that admissions criteria haven’t changed radically in recent years, to his knowledge. While the university doesn’t face this situation often, the admissions office could potentially need to use different criteria, or “cutoffs,” for resident versus nonresident applicants if the nonresident application rates continue to rise significantly.

UO applicants are separated into pools by residency. According to Rawlins, Oregon residents don’t have to worry about the increased applications from out-of-state and international students. But out-of-state students like Kaufer do.

Admissions officers are forced to make the cuts by making traditional criteria, such as test scores and GPA, “hyper-competitive,” as Rawlins puts it.  

“As much as we in the college admissions profession lament this, we’re all embarrassingly aware that we create (these criteria),” he said.

Californians make up 23 percent of the student body and are the largest population of non-Oregonians at the UO. But why are so many Californian graduates leaving their home state for the UO, as well as other schools?

“None of the others caught my interest,” Kaufer said. “And I knew that a lot of them had problems with budgets and financial aid, and I knew the California system was so impacted.”

A 2012 report by the Public Policy Institute of California found a decline in high school graduates from the state attending the state’s higher education facilities. “Enrollment rates to (University of California) and (California State University) have fallen by one-fifth, from about 22 percent to below 18 percent,” according to the report. It identified changes to infrastructure due to budget cuts in education across the state as a deterrent for high school grads.

Getting accepted into a university depends on how many high school grads are vying to get into their state schools, according to Rawlins.

California graduated 397,871 high school students in 2013. Oregon had 31,440 high school graduates in 2013 and the second lowest graduation rate in the country.

“It’s such a different state – massively different numbers. So we would never look at our admit rates for Oregon residents and compare them to University of California and say, ‘we’re more selective or less selective,’” Rawlins said.

Projections from the state of California predict high school graduate numbers to hold in the area of about 350,000 to 390,000 grads per year. Although interest in UC schools appears to have dropped, UCLA still received a record 105,800 freshman applications for Fall 2014.

By comparison, UO deals with far less applications. It received the most in 2011, with 23,010, according to data from Jacobs.

However, the application growth for the UO is still the biggest growth the campus has ever seen — but why is that growth happening?

“It’s not because (students) are seeing that many more places that could be great for them,” Rawlins said. “It’s out of desperation.”

Kaufer noted that the UO’s academic program and campus vibe were some of the most attractive qualities of the school, as was the athletic community that would allow her to not only participate in sports but join the legion of Duck fans in cheering on her team.

The highest jump in applications to the UO came from out-of-state students in 2011. There were 16,200 out of state applications that year: an increase of about 4,000 from 2010.

Incidentally, this was the year after the UO football team was ranked number one in the Associated Press poll for the first time in program history.

Rawlins acknowledged the success of the football team bringing publicity to the university. “Is it a reason to choose us? No. But if it opens up the doors for them to think about us and learn more, then great, we’ll take it”

The increased nonresident presence at the UO has also brought more tuition dollars to the university. From 2006 to 2013, tuition increased 63.2 percent, or about $12,000, for nonresidents. In the same time, tuition increased 60.47 percent, or around $3,500, for residents.

The rate at which both group’s tuition has increased has actually been the same, as the graph below illustrates. This has changed a bit as tuition freezes come for OUS schools and the UO lowers tuition for resident students in the coming year.

Although nonresident tuition increased by $12,000 in the same time it took resident tuition to increase by $3,500, they have both increased at the same rate. Tuition has gone up at parallel rates except for the most recent year as changes to tuition happen across the Oregon University System. Data determined from existing tuition numbers.

Liao Ma, a Chinese student at the University of Oregon, has agreed to donate $25,000 to the EMU renovation, according to Associate Vice President for International Advancement John Manotti.

This donation follows not six weeks after Xuewei “Rita” Wang made a similar $25,000 donation to the EMU Renovation, earning herself a room to be named in her honor in the new building.

Manotti secured this donation with the help of Yawei Zhang, President of Chinese Students and Scholars Association and Vice President of CSSA Rita Wang.

Kesey Enterprises announced Tuesday that the 2014 Eugene Celebration would be cancelled.

A press release for Kesey Enterprises, Inc. gave two main reasons for the cancellation — the predicted size of the 2014 event, based on last year’s “unprecedented” attendance, and the revitalization of the downtown area that has limited the space required to host so many attendees.

The Eugene Celebration began in 1983, started by the City of Eugene as a three-day celebration of music and festivities to unite the community. Currently, Kesey Enterprises manages the event’s production. Kit Kesey, president of Kesey Enterprises, explained the reasons for cancellation in a press release

“Downtown’s growth gained more momentum during this past year than most of us could have imagined. This resurgence requires us to modify key features of Eugene Celebration,” Kesey said. “We simply have run out of space to produce the Eugene Celebration at the size it has become, in the space that is now available.”

According to the press release, Kesey examined various possibilities for making this year’s event work. “Every scenario we imagined should include community input, serious planning and accurate implementation,” he said.

“Although this will take time, our singular goal for 2015 will remain clear: we’ll take Eugene Celebration to the next level, without compromising the aspirations of volunteers, downtown businesses, sponsors, and everyone else who makes the Celebration a great event for the entire community.”

Note: This article is the first in a series that will examine UO’s trends on admittance, application rates, and demographics. Parts two and three will examine the influx of nonresident and international students, respectively, and run on Friday and print Monday. 

UO’s popularity has skyrocketed in the last decade, and the desire to be a Duck is not coming from Oregon’s own.

This trend is reflected in the current student body. Spring term of 2004, the UO had 71 percent Oregon residents, according to the Office of the Registrar.

According to Director of Admissions Jim Rawlins, this spring the UO’s student body is only about 53 percent Oregonians – close to a 20 percent drop in ten years.

But what does this drop mean for Oregonians?

Since 2007, the number of students who apply to UO has grown considerably, but the vast majority of growth comes from out-of-state and international students, as an Emerald article from November 2012 explained. A recent NYT article addressed how college admission competition has caused some students to cast wider nets when applying, driving the application numbers up, and the acceptance rate down.

“We’ve had rapid growth in applications, mostly from out-of-state and international applicants,” Rawlins said.

While resident applications have stayed stable, international and out of state applications have increased considerably in the last decade. Data from Jonathan Jacobs, UO director of enrollment management research.

Applicant numbers reflect how the university’s demographic is changing — numbers from Jonathan Jacobs, UO Director of Enrollment Management Research, show that only 4,594, or 20.9 percent, of the fall 2013 applicants were Oregonians. Roughly 80 percent of applicants are not Oregon’s own graduating high school seniors.

Over the last decade, the popularity of the university has grown. Rawlins explained that the growth has recently leveled off.

“Each of the last four years, we’ve had over 20,000 applications for freshman admission,” Rawlins said. “The size of our freshman class hasn’t changed much, though.”

But the breakdown of students has. Give or take a fluctuation of a few hundred students, the Oregonian population of the UO has hovered around 13,000 for the last 7 years, according to the Office of the Registrar.

The Oregonian population of the UO hasn’t changed, but many nonresidents have been added to the Duck pond.

Among the admitted student body, the UO accepts a lower percentage of in-state residents than many other schools. Numbers from Jacobs show that the admitted student body for fall 2013 was only 24.9 percent Oregonians, flanked by 66.7 percent out-of-state and 8.4 percent international students.

By comparison, other similar universities tend to admit higher percentages of in-state residents out of all admitted students.

The Office of Institutional Research uses peer institutions for comparison based on similarities in benchmarks like faculty salary and instruction. Two of UO’s peer institutions, UC Berkeley and CU Boulder, had roughly 65 and 35 percent residents comprising their accepted students, respectively, according to their websites — a difference of up to 40 percentage points compared to UO.

Rawlins explained that applicants compete in like pools — resident, out-of-state, and international students are placed for consideration in their own groups. Those applying to Oregon are not competing against the whole swath of 20,000 students – they’re competing against others in their group.

In recent years, Rawlins said, the office has aimed to attain a ratio of 50 percent resident, 40 percent nonresident and 10 percent international students for the freshman class.

“We are a public institution for this state and think that an important target as we serve the state,” Rawlins said.

The office seeks to attain at least 50 percent residents comprising their freshman class — a goal of the university on “philosophical grounds.”

The Office of Admission also tries to limit the freshman international component to no more than 10 percent. Maintaining this international ratio, Rawlins said, is “in an effort to make sure that this segment of our population doesn’t grow any faster than our ability to welcome and support them well.”

After the residents and international students are accounted for, the admissions office fills the remaining freshman spots with nonresidents.

So in order to achieve a 50-40-10 split, the university may accept more people than they believe intend to actually enroll. The Office of Admissions decides who to offer admission by predicting the likelihood of each applicant to accept the admissions offer and enroll. Rawlins said about 50 percent of admitted Oregonians enroll, while only about 20 percent of admitted nonresidents enroll.

While applicants and demographics show that the UO’s popularity is surging among non-Oregonians, the acceptance rate for Oregonians has barely budged. The resident acceptance rate has been around 85 percent for the last several years, based on statistics from Jacobs.

It’s not that Oregonians have a harder time getting accepted because of the increased interest from beyond the state — it’s that compared to nonresidents, there’s not that many Oregonians applying.

Note: This story was edited on June 4 for errors found in the story and infographic.

Much like fraternity or sorority “bigs,” senior Paris Hart is best friends with a freshman. She meets up with her “little” daily — most often, covered in dirt and working on tackles.

The University of Oregon women’s rugby team matches each veteran player with a rookie — a big and a little, very similar to the structure of fraternities or sororities.

“Because our team is so close and so tight, I can see how it’d be intimidating for new people to come in,” Hart said, adding that the big-little relationship makes the team more welcoming and encourages new players to stick with it. “They’re not just ‘the rookies’ — they’re our rookies, and they’re with us.”

Freshman Helen Woodbury, Hart’s little, appreciates the close bond they’ve established.

“It’s made a really big difference,” Woodbury said. “My first term, I broke my ankle, and my big was there to help me do my laundry and took me to her house and cooked food for me.”

It is in this sense of community that Hart, a fourth-year rugby player on the team, distinguishes rugby from other team sports she’s played.

The UO team attracts athletes of all kind to its unique community. The melting pot of rugby players represents individuals from all walks of life, with many of UO’s players being athletes from other sports who, like Hart, tried rugby and got hooked.

“A lot of these girls don’t know anything about rugby when they get to college,” Assistant Coach Nikki Steele said.

Steele, who played for the Ducks for years, has stuck with coaching since 2011, enjoying the experience of watching such new players grow.

Rugby is not as popular in the United States as many other sports — it didn’t even make it into the Harris Poll survey of favorite sports in America. And as the UO’s team has yet to be officially recognized as a D1 varsity sport, increasing the game’s popularity is a priority for the team.

“This year the girls have really taken it upon themselves to grow the game,” Steele said. She adds that many players encourage each other to spread the sport to women who might have never heard of it, saying “give her the game.”

Steele says that each season, the unique crop of women on the team decide what the year’s focus will be. Some years the goal is to be more competitive and others to be more social.

The Dirty Ducks play outside their own age group with local adult teams such as Eugene Rain to connect players of all ages and keep playing through the off-season. Recently, members of the Ducks joined with Eugene Stag, the men’s counterpart, to host a youth rugby camp. Steele says that unlike most women’s sports, women’s rugby follows the same regulations, official sizing and rules as the men’s counterpart, so players are less limited by gender to reach out to others.

This epitomizes the community Hart has come to love. One thing she, Steele, and several other players all had to say about rugby: it’s not just a sport, it’s a culture.

For Hart, rugby is a social sphere, connecting her with people from all walks of life. The unique demand on rugby players to support each other, as well as the partner dynamic, creates a bond that is best, if not only, understood by other players.

“If I go anywhere, people say, ‘Oh you play rugby?’ and we’re instantly friends,” Hart said. “I know people from all over the country, all over the world, just because they play rugby.”

She explains that the relatively small community in the U.S. makes rugby players eager to connect with one another. This summer, Hart will use her rugby connections to hitchhike around the U.S., staying just with other “ruggers.”

But while other sports may have similar friendships and connection, the rugby camaraderie carries over even to competition days.

After games, the home cooks the away team dinner, hosting the players at their homes. They sing traditional rugby songs, enjoy a meal together and network for the sake of the sport.

“You fight a battle, it’s literally a war,” Hart said. “But at the end of the game, your enemies are not your enemies — they’re your friends. And you celebrate with them.”

Rugby has won the allegiance of many athletes like Hart and Woodbury, who have left other sports behind to devote themselves to the game and its unparalleled community.

“Playing rugby has made me the person I am today,” Hart said. “It’s taught me so much about life – being a hard worker, being diligent and being supportive.”

Leudy De Los Santos goes by “D.” The University of Oregon sophomore has also been called a slew of other descriptors, pertaining to her ethnicity, sexuality, style of dress, and her gender. But one thing people might never expect De Los Santos to be is a rugby player – and one so dedicated.

De Los Santos tends to wear baggy jeans, t-shirts and button-downs, and backwards hats. Her dark skin and thin black dreadlocks are sometimes the basis of assumptions about her race and ethnicity. De Los Santos says most people are surprised to learn she’s Dominican, born in the Virgin Islands to a Christian family and speaks Spanish and some Creole.

Adding to the assumptions, many people, including her own parents, also questioned De Los Santos’s passion for sports because she wasn’t straight. She played sports most of her life — basketball, volleyball and soccer in high school. But she says playing for the UO Women’s Rugby team is the first time she’s felt like she truly belonged.

“People assume[d], ‘because she’s gay, she plays sports. When I came here, that wasn’t questioned — it didn’t matter.” Coming from Florida, she often faced discrimination for being a lesbian, which is how she identifies in society. She doesn’t like to categorize her sexuality — instead saying, “I’m just D.”

De Los Santos started playing for the rugby team in her freshman year, after one of the team members stopped her after class and encouraged her to join the team.

De Los Santos would reflect on that day some 20 months later after receiving the news that she had been honored a spot on the Pacific Mountain North Conference team for women’s rugby. When she found out, she cried, she said. “I never had an opportunity like this before… I never had the chance to be appreciated or demonstrate what I’m good at,” she said.

“Because of my sexuality, [my parents] didn’t want me to do sports and stuff,” De Los Santos said. But after learning their daughter won this honor, she said, her parents were really proud of her and her achievements. “My mom was really excited [for me] for the first time in her life. She’s really happy about how far I’ve come in life…opening up opportunities and working hard to better myself.”

De Los Santos has worked hard to get to where she is. Teammates have seen her game improve significantly over the last year, in everything from her fitness to her leadership. She decided in winter term, according to teammate Audrey Howell, that she wanted to improve her physical ability for the sake of her sport, and has been following through on her goals every day since.

Another teammate, Helen Woodbury, also mentioned De Los Santos’ efforts off the field.

“There are a couple people, and Leudy is in this group, who are always at practice, but also lift and do workouts and sprints in the off season, which is extra dedication that you need to have to win,” Woodbury said.

In the game, De Los Santos motivates her teammates with the energy she puts into her game. Though she’s not a team captain, teammates say she is a true leader.

“On the field, D is an insane tackler, it’s crazy,” Woodbury said. “….She’s always there for the tackle…She just goes into the the ruck and says, ‘let’s go, let’s go, we have to push!’”

“We have this thing called man of the match,” Woodbury said, which is an award that one team gives to a player on the opposing team to recognize an outstanding performance. “She gets them all the time.”

De Los Santos serves as inspiration for the team, putting in the effort to improve. “Everyone loves her and knows she works her butt off for rugby on and off the pitch,” Howell said. “She’s very motivating. Seeing her passion and her fire for the game inspires everyone, especially me.”

De Los Santos inspires her teammates even beyond the realm of rugby. Teammates says she makes a point to invite the rookies out to dinner with the veterans, and gives her teammates advice and support.

“D really tries to put it out there, this respect for everyone,” Woodbury said.

Howell says that as a person, she has talked about her struggles in her past, but doesn’t let it interfere with her passion for her sport.

“She holds herself pretty well… she doesn’t let things that don’t involve rugby get to her,” Howell said.

The sport has become not only a huge part of De Los Santos’ life, but is in many ways a metaphor for her life — getting attacked from all sides.  She says that, although she’s felt accepted on the rugby team and in the Eugene community, she expects that not everyone will be so accepting of her.

“I’m a woman, person of color, to society I’m a lesbian – there’s so many ways I could get attacked on that there’s no way I could escape it,” De Los Santos said.

But in playing rugby, De Los Santos has found her niche. Part of the reason she moved away from Florida was to escape the negativity in her life. On the team, she feels a sense of sisterhood that keeps her motivated to improve, not just for herself, but for her teammates.

“Rugby’s a sport that I wish I was born into,” De Los Santos said. “… Rugby has changed a lot of my mindset. The UO women’s rugby team, they mean everything to me. … You can feel their love, they don’t discriminate you.”

In one conversation with De Los Santos, Woodbury said she explained how her own personality changes when she’s with her friends, her family or her team. “D said, ‘why can’t you just be Helen? I just try to be D. This is who I am and I can’t change that. Why would I try to be anything different?’”

In everything from her extra workouts to her leadership and her compassion for other players, De Los Santos stays true to herself. She has come to accept herself, she said, and whatever assumptions and discrimination comes with being who she is. The adversity, she believes, is what has made her who she is today — “D.”

“I’m happy,” De Los Santos said. “As long as I’m happy with myself, it shouldn’t bother somebody else.”

The International Student Association hosts its annual International Night this Tuesday in the EMU Ballroom. This year’s event, which is the biggest of the International Week and Night, is called iParty: Celebrations Throughout the Nations, aiming to unite the unique aspects of the many cultural groups represented at the University of Oregon. Sponsors include 13th & Olive Apartments, University House, Campus Town Apartments, the American English Institute of UO, Yamada Language Center, and UO International Affairs.

The event begins at 6 p.m. with a 9-course catered dinner featuring cuisines from many different cultures including Greek, Spanish, Jamaican, Egyptian, Korean, Thai and American.

Starting at 7 p.m. there will be eight performances representing various cultures. Among the performances are slam poetry by UO’s Alex Dang, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Salsa, African, Hip Hop and Korean dance, an international fashion show and a rendition of “Let it Go” based on Disney’s Frozen sung in five different languages.

Tickets are $7 for UO students and $10 for community members. They go on sale today at 5 p.m. and can be purchased online, at the EMU ticket office (now located in Mac Court) or at the door at the time of the event.

Sandra Benny, the director for International Week and Night, recommends buying tickets as soon as possible, as they are expecting a full sell out.

Members of the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation, the Service Employees International Union and others united in front of PLC across from the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art to protest labor issues for GTFs on Thursday.

The protestors turned heads as they marched east down E. 13th Avenue and onto the steps of Johnson Hall to get the administration’s attention.

The protestors’ main goals include securing increased wages, parental and medical leave, and better healthcare coverage for GTFs.

Currently, GTFs working at full hours make about $1200 a month, Matthew Hannah, GTFF’s Vice President of Organizing said. For some GTFs, this is not sufficient to cover living expenses and means that some need to take out loans. Hannah said GTFs teach one in three classes on average, and that their counterparts at Oregon State University make more.

Hannah said the GTFF union, one of at least four labor unions on campus, has been investigating the issues since September and approaching the UO administration with proposals since November.

The group chanted, “This is what democracy looks like,” among other things.

“You can see, a lot of people care about labor on campus, so that’s exciting,” Hannah said. “When you treat us badly, people have got to know about it.”

There are two bargaining sessions scheduled between the GTF union and administration this week, according to UO spokeswoman Julie Brown.

“We are hopeful that we can come to an agreement that will be in the best interest of everyone,” Brown said.

The purpose of the rally, which was in part to honor International Worker’s Day, was ”to demonstrate strength and our willingness to come out in numbers,” Brianna Bertoglio, a member of the GTF union, said. “No one wants to go on strike and we’re doing everything we can to prevent that.”

The University of Oregon ranks among the top institutions in the nation for being gay-friendly, boasting an array of LGBTQIA resources, such as discussion groups and on-campus support for coming out to the community.

These resources create a community for individuals to connect on common ground, but fail to also focus on graduate students, faculty and staff.

Graduate student Staci Tucker formed the LGBTQ networking group to give graduate students, staff and faculty the same opportunities. The group encourages participation from LGBTQIA individuals, allies, colleagues and those working on research in this field.

Tucker says graduate students in particular tend to have difficulty finding a community on campus.

“I don’t think there’s much out there for professional masters students,” Tucker said. “I think they’re the ones who get lost in the cracks. They’re not necessarily tapped into a community.”

Those who identify as LGBTQ may face additional challenges when trying to navigate the complex network of professional academia.

“Grad students are in a precarious position politically,” Tucker said. “We teach classes in addition to pursuing Ph.Ds, but we’re also subject to political relationships with faculty. It can get tricky.”

Sarah Ray Rondot, a graduate student, agrees that graduate students, faculty and staff do not have as many opportunities within the college as LGBTQIA students.

“I think the LGTBQ networking group for faculty and staff is a fantastic idea, and one that is very needed at UO,” Rondot said. “As is true of many universities, I have felt that the UO community is very divided by department — Sociology folks mingle with Sociologists, English folk with English instructors, etc.”

Maure Smith-Benanti, assistant director of LGBT Education and Support, guesses that Eugene may have a higher percentage of LGBTQ individuals than the national estimate of 10-15 percent of the population.

“I have a general sense that faculty and staff on this campus who identify as LGBT want more in the way of services and connection opportunities because, frankly, they see how great it is for the students,” Smith-Benanti said.

Smith-Benanti thinks the opportunity to build a stronger LGBTQIA community will have a positive outcome at the UO. Tenured faculty members will be able to advise grad students, and those working with LGBTQIA research will have networking opportunities and connections that they didn’t before.

“It’ll make it easier for the UO to retain LGBT faculty and staff so that once they arrive here, they’re happier because they know there are other folks out there,” Smith-Benanti said.

Tucker held a networking event to unite the faculty, staff and grads student of UO on April 18 at Agate Alley. The turnout represented a mix of each. This event was the first of its kind, and Tucker plans to continue organizing events for networking opportunities in the future.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in queer rights in the last decade, and (the) UO is better than many campuses in the country,” Tucker said. “But it’s good to know what your community looks like.”