“Congratulations on your admission to the University of Oregon! I am a part of the Flight Crew which is a group of current students that are here to help you transition to the University of Oregon. I’m here to answer any questions you might have.”

This year thousands of students received this message after they were admitted to the University of Oregon.

The university implemented a new recruitment strategy to remove barriers between admitted students and administration called the Flight Crew that send texts to the new Ducks.

Keith Frazee, the assistant director for Student Orientation Programs, said this strategy is aimed to connect admitted students with current students to help them transition to life at UO.

“We’re not just using the same old tools we’ve always used, we’re being more agile and more accessible,” Frazee said.

The Flight Crew is comprised of 18 current students that range from freshmen to graduating seniors. Each member was assigned anywhere from 700 to 1,200 admitted students to text.

The texts are sent through a platform called Mongoose, that costs $38,000 annually according to Tobin Klinger, UO spokesman.

Members of the Flight Crew had an app on their phone that they would text the students from and did not use their personal phone number. They could also text students from Mongoose’s online platform.

According to Frazee, one of the main concerns of creating the Flight Crew was bothering the students with excessive messages.

Frazee said he wanted to avoid being “spam-y,” and instead focus on student-to-student connection.

“We didn’t want to spam them,” Frazee said. “If they don’t reply, we don’t try again.”

The response rate from students was approximately 15 percent, which according to Frazee, is “around what I was hoping for.”

Mat Wilson, a junior at UO and member of the Flight Crew, said it helps incoming students have a more personal connection with the university.

Wilson said one of the students he texted said they hadn’t told their parents they applied and he had to help them navigate a difficult conversation with them.

He said during training, he was prepared to answer “typical” questions like ‘how do I accept my admission here?’ and ‘how do I register for Introducktion?’

When it came to helping the student, he said, “you have to stay on your toes on how to respond to them.”

Admitted students were paired with a Flight Crew member based on where they were from.

“An admitted student from Portland was likely to be paired with a Flight Crew member from Portland,” Frazee said.

Frazee said the name, Flight Crew, is an “homage to the Ducks,” and helping students “take flight and get in the air.”

Frazee worked to create the Flight Crew last November and began hiring students last December.

The Flight Crew is a part of the student jobs associated with university ambassadors and the Student Orientation Staff. Frazee said they recruited students from the university ambassador program, SOSers and the and the School of Journalism and Communication to become a part of the flight crew.

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A previous version of this story stated that Director of Sustainability, Steve Mital, would be meeting with President Schill to give recommendations on how to reduce the University’s carbon emissions.

The Climate Justice League has been working with Mital to give recommendations to President Schill. Mital was scheduled to give these to Schill before the end of the year, according to the Climate Justice League.

Mital said in an email that no meeting was scheduled, but recommendations should be ready to share with UO leadership soon. Mital did not give a deadline for these recommendations.

The Climate Justice League lead a protest outside Johnson Hall Thursday afternoon to motivate President Schill to reduce the university’s carbon emissions.

The students stood outside Johnson Hall holding a bright red banner that read “Off Fossil Fuels” and handed out flyers to students that walked by as a part of its “CAP the Carbon” campaign.

The University of Oregon signed a climate action plan in 2010 that aimed to make the University carbon neutral by 2050.

Matt Stephens, a senior at UO and member of the Climate Justice League, said the university is not following through with its climate plan.

“What this protest is is a part of an ongoing campaign to keep the university accountable to those policies it made in the climate action plan,” Stephens said.

Some students are sitting inside of Johnson Hall as well, according to Stephens.

The group has been outside Johnson hall since 11:30 a.m. and will stay outside until 3:30 p.m.

The Climate Justice League also held a protest last February calling on the university to commit to their promises for emissions.

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The University Senate unanimously elected Elizabeth Skowron as its new vice president and awarded faculty, staff and students for serving the university community at its last meeting of the academic year.

Skowron is new VP

Elizabeth Skowron, a professor in the College of Education, ran unopposed for vice president of the University Senate.

Skowron addressed the Senate before the vote, outlining her goals to improve the structure of the Senate and university committees. She said she hopes to work to find efficiencies between the Senate and administration as well.

Elizabeth Skowron delivering a speech at the University Senate meeting in the Redwood Auditorium on June 6th, 2018. She ran for Vice President unopposed. (Dana Sparks/Emerald)

“Those who know me know that I tend to speak frankly and I will continue to do so in my dealings with the administration,” Skowron said.

Former President Chris Sinclair and current Vice President Bill Harbaugh endorsed Skowron last week.

“She has a good sense of the faculty viewpoint, she is sympathetic of the reason the university exists: for our students,” Sinclair said. “She’s smart and thoughtful, she’s an excellent leader.”

In the University Senate, the vice president serves for one academic year and then becomes the Senate president the following year.

Last academic year, Harbaugh was elected to be the vice president of the Senate. This coming academic year he will be replacing current president Sinclair as the Senate president.

Awards for serving the community

The Senate awarded faculty, staff and community members for serving the university community.

Francis White, a professor of anthropology, won the Wayne T. Westling Award for “exemplary service” to the university through serving on various committees or advisory bodies.

White is a member of the Senate Executive Committee and co-chair of the academic council.

Jimmy Murray, a technology specialist and student coordinator for the Knight Library, won the Classified Staff Leadership Award for leadership, accountability and transparency.

Murray is also a member of the Senate Executive Committee and member of the Board of Trustees.

Teri Lynn Rowe, the Manager of Finance and Administration of the Departments of Economics and Sociology, won the Leadership and Service Award for Officers of Administration for serving the university community on various committees. Rowe serves on the Senate Executive Committee as well.

Three people were awarded the Shared Governance, Transparency, and Trust award: Monique Rodrigues, an associate professor for the Clark Honors College and senator, Britt Johnson, an academic director at the American English Institute, and Kenny Jacoby,a reporter for the Palm Beach Post and former Daily Emerald reporter.

This award was created by Harbaugh and “represents the Senate’s interest in encouraging the proliferation of trust, transparency, and shared governance with University administration,” according to the Senate website.

Of the six award recipients, four serve on the Senate. Sinclair said it is not unusual to have the award recipients come from the Senate itself.

“University service can mean a lot of things, but working on the Senate and some of the committees that the Senate serves obviously falls into that category,” Sinclair said.

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The University of Oregon is planning to increase its student body by 3,000 students over the course of eight years in order to increase tuition revenue to cover a $16.7 million deficit in the university budget.

According to Jamie Moffitt, the UO vice president for finance and chief financial officer, these budget increases come from a reduction in state funding and increases in fees for PERS, the state retirement fund.

The growth plan is hoped to help the university cover these increases without having to resort to “tremendously high tuition increases” or job cuts, Moffitt said.

“We try to keep tuition increases as low as we possibly can, but we’re not going to sacrifice the excellence of the University of Oregon,” said Roger Thompson, vice president for Student Services and Enrollment Management.

The projected budget for 2019 has gone up by 3.2 percent and is likely to continue increasing.

Each year for the next eight years, the student body will increase by 50 to 400 students, according to the growth plan. The slow addition of students will allow for the university to create more classrooms and hire more faculty to accommodate this increase.

In January, the university launched new programs to attract more students to UO. For example, a new program called “flight crew” sent texts to admitted students welcoming them to the university.

A new recruitment tool, “UO 360,” used virtual reality technology to allow admitted students and their families to experience campus without having to travel to Eugene, Thompson said.

Increases in tuition

The Board of Trustees approved a three percent increase in resident tuition and a 2.5 percent increase in nonresident tuition at its meeting last March after the university presented budget shortfalls.

The presentation also stated that if the university increases resident tuition by five percent and nonresident tuition by three percent, the overall tuition revenue would increase to $11.4 million and would reduce the budget shortfalls.

This would mean an annual increase of $475 for residents and $976 for nonresidents.

However, if the increase occurs, the university will still have a gap of $3 million to cover budget increases.

“You’re still only generating $11.4 million, nowhere near the $16.7 million,” Moffitt said.

The university plans to cover leftover costs through lobbying for more state funding and making more budget cuts.

Lack of state funding

UO has one of the lowest amounts of state funding in the country. Between 2011 and 2012, the state appropriation budget decreased from $65 million to $45 million, according to Moffitt.

UO students, administration and staff lobbied in Salem in May 2017 to increase state funding in order to reduce the university’s tuition increases.

Moffitt said she encourages students to join the conversation and work to increase state funding.

“The PERS Problem”

The other major contributor to the increase in university fees is the state-mandated retirement plan that UO must pay into — the Public Employees Retirement System, or PERS.

The university has to pay money to PERS to pay for state employees’ retirement funds, Moffitt said.

However, PERS has been raising their fees every two years in order to grant all the state employees the retirement funds they promised them due to lack of funds.

PERS increased its fees by $7.1 million in 2018 and is expected to increase by $9 million by 2020, totaling $15 million in retirement costs alone, Moffitt said.

“This is what’s really really impacting everything. This is an issue for all of Oregon. K-12 schools, state agencies, everybody is looking at these cost increases,” Moffitt said.

The university will make further budget cuts and lobby for more state funding to make up for this deficit.

Nationally, UO is average among peer institutions for resident tuition and slightly above average for nonresident tuition.

Raising tuition beyond the national average is concerning because it may turn prospective students away from UO, Moffitt said.

“I think the most important thing for people to know is we really are trying to look at every possible solution to this. It’s a very challenging situation,” Moffitt said.

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Imagine being able to schedule an appointment with an academic advisor, discover personalized events on campus that cater to your interests and sync your class schedule to your phone’s calendar – all through the tap of a button.

This is now a possibility for incoming students at the University of Oregon through the new app, “Guide.”

The University of Oregon Department of Undergraduate Studies is launching the app for incoming students that is supposed to help students from “orientation to graduation.”

Students will be able to schedule advising appointments, look up information on majors and minors, receive reminders to fill out their FAFSA, sync their class schedules to their phone
calendar and have a dynamic to do list that updates as students progress through the university.

“The key for us for Guide is really again another opportunity to help students be successful here on campus,” said Doneka Scott, the associate vice provost for student success.

Incoming students will download the app at Introducktion and it will guide them through orientation.

As the student progresses through UO, the app will evolve and contain more
items and features relevant to students.

“We will, in a phased approach, include each year’s content as we go. So this is the first phase of the implementation of Guide,” Scott said.

In the past, a similar app, “Be a Duck” was used for students going through orientation.

According to Scott, the “Be a Duck” app was created through the Orientation Services Department and is not affiliated with the Department of Undergraduate Studies.

However, the information from the “Be a Duck” app will be incorporated into the new app for the most part, Scott said.

Scott said she is excited about the new personalization features for students.

When a student first downloads the app, there is “inventory” they are required to complete to log their interests, desires and major. If they are undeclared, it will guide them to majors that are relevant to their interests, as well as campus events.

“Say there’s a speaker on campus that’s coming in to talk about the particular area of interest, it will let them know about it,” Scott said.

Current students can download the app but will find the resources are more geared toward first-year students, according to Scott.

“They have access to it, but there’s probably no content in it yet for them to use,” Scott said.

UO student Jaelyn Baisn said she wished current students had access to this new app.

“I would probably use it. If it’s going to remind me about FAFSA and stuff I think that would be pretty useful,” Baisn said.

Scott said that the Department of Undergraduate Studies is working to include all academic classes in the app.

“It just takes time,” Scott said. “We will get there.”

The Department of Undergraduate Studies started conversations last fall about launching the app and began taking action last winter and spring term.

The app comes from a national developer, EAB, previously known as the Education Advisory Board. The company supplies over 450 colleges and high schools across the country with the “Guide” app, including Georgia State University, Washington State University and Stony Brook University.

“It’s an exciting time, it’s a great app. Hopefully, it can help students navigate the institution in a more efficient and effective way,” Scott said.

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The University Senate voted to change course evaluations and create a task force for evaluating differential tuition at its meeting Wednesday.  

Course Evaluations:

The University Senate voted to change course evaluations to mitigate bias and better evaluate instructors at the university.

The changes came after a study that found the previous evaluations to be biased against women and minorities.

These changes include adding a midterm student review and making all course evaluations anonymous.

The initial proposal stated numerical ranking systems would be eliminated by fall 2018. The proposal was changed to instead keep the numerical ranking for now to allow the task force more time to create a stronger replacement for the ranking by winter 2019.

However, if the task force completes the replacement for the end of term evaluation by the middle of fall term, it will be voted on by the Senate and implemented by the end of fall term 2018.

You can read more about the changes at the Provost’s website.

The motion was sponsored by Bill Harbaugh, Senate vice president, and Sierra Dawson, Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs.

Differential Tuition:

The University Senate voted unanimously to create a task force to evaluate the guidelines for creating differential tuition.  

The task force is aimed to review how the university grants differential tuition because there are currently no formal guidelines in place for determining differential tuition.

Faculty, students and administrators will serve on the task force and will guide conversations around the purpose of differential tuition and the “moral questions” surrounding it, according to Amy Schenk, the sponsor of the resolution and ASUO President.

The resolution also requests schools within the university to hold all proposals for differential tuition until the guidelines are in place.

This task force will create a report and recommendations for University President Michael Schill by Nov. 15.

The Board of Trustees passed differential tuition for the Lundquist School of Business last March.

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A Candlelight vigil to remember University of Oregon student Dylan Pietrs will be held on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. in the EMU amphitheater.

Pietrs, a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity on campus, was found dead last Saturday morning at the annual “Shasta Weekend” trip.

Fraternity and Sorority Life director Caitlin Roberts said all members of the UO community are welcome to attend the vigil and remember Pietrs.

“We will give Dylan’s friends the opportunity to say a few words, or share memories,” Roberts said.

Students are also invited to sign a banner hanging outside Columbia Hall for Pietrs family as well. The banner will be up for students to sign for the next two days.

The vigil is being put on by FSL and the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity on campus.

If any students need emotional assistance or counseling they are encouraged to contact the counseling center at 541-346-3227

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The Teaching Evaluation Task Force presented official changes to course evaluations at the Senate meeting last Wednesday after a series of town halls and meetings with various student groups on campus.

Changes to come include ending numerical ratings, asking more relevant questions, implementing a midterm student review and a faculty reflection each term.

These changes are scheduled to be voted on at the University Senate meeting this coming Wednesday.

If passed, they will be in effect in fall 2018.

According to Sierra Dawson, co-chair of the task force and Associate Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, updates to the changes are posted regularly to the Provost web page.

Last May, the Senate created the teaching evaluation task force to redesign evaluations after a study came out citing them to be biased against race and gender and not effective in evaluating instructors.  

“We want to make sure that we give faculty and instructors useful feedback about how to improve their teaching, and we are concerned that the existing evaluations don’t actually do that,” said Bill Harbaugh the Senate VP and Teaching Evaluation Task Force co-chairman.

The task force took feedback from students at the town halls and adjusted some of the language and wording of the changes.

For example, they changed the wording in the proposal to include online courses as well and not just in-person classes.

According to Dawson, they also visited 11 student groups over last fall and winter term, including the Women of Color Coalition, the Sexual Wellness Student Advocacy Team and the Graduate Student Board.

After hearing their feedback, the Teaching Evaluation Task Force created a midterm student evaluation for students to anonymously provide feedback while they are still in the class.   

“If you’re in a class and there are some things that need improvement, it might be nice to be able to communicate that early,” Dawson said.

The task force piloted some of the new evaluation tools, such as the midterm review, over last winter term. They will continue a series of pilots through spring and summer terms as well before they are officially launched this fall.

Another change is the wording of the questions themselves, according to Dawson.

“I don’t think we’ve been asking students the right questions. It’s hard to give good feedback when you are not being prompted with especially excellent questions,” Dawson said.

Samples of the questions are listed on the provost webpage.

“The goal is for it to be as transparent as possible,” Dawson said.

These changes are in line with national discussions about course evaluations. Other universities across the country are interested in these changes, including UCLA which Dawson will be meeting with to share insights about the university’s changes.

“We’re kind of on the cutting edge here for doing work and being ahead of the game and making the changes rather than waiting and watching what others are doing,” Dawson said.

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For the past week, the EMU green has been crowded with construction workers, cranes and large rocks in order to install the newest addition to the EMU — an art piece titled “Aggregation.”

The art piece comes from Portland-based artist Adam Kuby as a part in his series of “disintegrated” art, in which he takes an object and breaks it down into several smaller pieces.

According to Oregon state legislature, one percent of the budget of a public building has to be set aside for public art.

When the EMU was renovated, one percent of the budget was set aside for public art like the piece designed by Kuby.

“Aggregation” is represented through six sites surrounding the EMU green, each containing a four-by-four granite block that was quarried in Eastern Oregon. As one moves around the circle, the blocks break down into smaller pieces from one solid cube to a cluster of 32 broken pieces.

The new art installation at the EMU is called “Aggregation”. (Hannah Kanik)

“The concept is that as one moves around the circle, the blocks have been broken into increasingly smaller pieces,” Kuby said.

Five of the blocks were etched with quotes from UO graduates, while one is etched with a quote from current student Pallavi Webb.

Kuby said he was inspired to include quotes in the piece after he spent six months at the American Institute in Rome in 2014.

The unbroken block of granite that sits on the side of the EMU is etched with a quote by Dr. Virginia Beaver who received her Ph.D. at UO. Beaver served as a liaison between the different Native American tribes in Oregon, according to Kuby.

“We all felt that her text should be in her native language and that it should go on the unbroken block,” Kuby said.

The quote reads, “we were given life to take care of everything on this earth,” in Beaver’s native language.

“The conceptual part of that, thinking about student life and our shared communal life, is that one event or one person or one action can disseminate out to many, but also the small voices of actions of multiple people can coalesce into one significant act or change or event,” Kuby said.

Kuby said the history of the EMU’s political and social activism played a role in his design. He said he encourages people to interact with the blocks.

“Part of the piece is to create a place for people to gather,” Kuby said.

The installation started last Saturday and is scheduled to finish this week.

In order to install the large blocks of granite, construction workers had to use a crane to move the blocks. Then they were placed on blocks of ice so that as the blocks melted, the granite would slowly be placed onto the ground.

“It’s a really cool process,” said Jessie Steward, associate director of the EMU.

The university assembled a committee comprised of students, architects and faculty from the art department to select the artist and work with them while they designed a piece for the EMU.

“It’s been about a year and a half in the works,” Steward said.

The EMU is set to install another art piece on the large white wall across from the ASUO offices. According to Steward, the piece is scheduled to be installed before homecoming week this fall.

“This piece is really about the students,” Kuby said. “It’s about voices of students who have been here and gone on to really keep growing and thinking.”

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“It was just like having allergies,” Leonie Way, who was diagnosed with whooping cough last week, said. “A little bit of runny nose, sneezing. And then I started coughing, and then I was coughing more.”

The University of Oregon Health Center reported two cases of Pertussis, or whooping cough, on campus last week.

Whooping cough is a “highly contagious” illness that is most dangerous to infants, according to Richard Brunader, medical director of the health center.

Symptoms include cold-like symptoms with an intense cough that can lead to vomiting, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Way said she doesn’t know how she contracted whooping cough.

According to Brunader, the first case of whooping cough was diagnosed last Wednesday and the second was diagnosed last Thursday. Way said she didn’t know the other patient.

The Health Center has tested six other people since the initial diagnoses and they all came back negative, Brunader said.

Whooping cough is diagnosed through a nose-swab that tests for the bacteria Bordetella Pertussis, which causes whooping cough. The UO health center is able to get results back that same day through the “rapid lab” service, Brunader said.

Infected patients are most contagious in the first few weeks of being infected, and the cough can persist past the time they are contagious.

“I stayed home and was bored out of my mind,” Way said. She was advised by the health center to limit the number of people she interacts with while she was contagious and stay in her apartment.

Antibiotics are prescribed to treat Pertussis and prevent the infection of individuals in close proximity to someone who is infected, Brunader said. However in some cases antibiotics are not prescribed due to the risk of reinfection or lack of effectiveness.

For example, once the whooping cough bacteria has been established in a community, a person who has had the illness could be reinfected by the bacteria after they complete antibiotic treatment.

Brunader also said that certain patients are not prescribed antibiotics if they are diagnosed two to three weeks after symptoms present themselves because after that time, the medication is not as effective.

“There’s a lot of grey in this. We don’t want to over-treat, we don’t want to under-treat. We want to do the right thing,” Brunader said.

Whooping cough is not common at the university, however there are cases that present themselves every few years, Brunader said.

The Health Center offers vaccines to prevent whooping cough as well.

Way had been vaccinated for whooping cough when she was younger, however, she still contracted it as an adult.

“The vaccine is good but it is not perfect,” Brunader said.

To avoid getting whooping cough, students should wash their hands often, not share drinks with others and stay away from people infected with whooping cough.

“If it is a cold or respiratory symptom that just seems different to you – we’ve all had colds, we’ve all had coughs, so we know what seems to be typical,” Brunader said. “If something feels different – call us.”

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