A woman riding her bike down East 13th Avenue on campus struck a pole and lost consciousness on Tuesday at about 3:19 p.m., according to multiple witness accounts.

Police, fire and EMS responded immediately while a crowd gathered around the woman.

The woman is being taken to the hospital. The extent of her injuries is unknown. It is unknown if she was wearing a helmet or not.

This story is developing and will be updated.

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The Board of Trustees voted on March 2 to increase overall tuition at the University of Oregon, support differential tuition for the Lindquist College of Business and reduce differential tuition for the Clarks Honors College.

Tuition will increase $6 per credit hour for in-state students and $18 per credit hour for out-of-state students.

The increase was recommended by the Tuition and Fees Advisory Board, supported by President Schill and passed unanimously by the Board of Trustees.

If that sounds confusing, the tuition changes are estimated to apply to a 16-credit course load for three terms.

So, if an in-state student took a full course load over the course of one year, they would be paying $270 more in tuition annually. If an out-of-state student took a full course load, they would be paying $810 more tuition annually.

The increase will go to fund tenure-track faculty, faculty and staff benefits, and $2 million in strategic investments going toward hiring faculty, according to UO spokesperson Tobin Klinger.

The estimated revenue from the increase is approximately $1.4 million annually. President Michael Schill wants to allocate 20 percent of that, or $280,000, towards need-based financial aid.

There will also be an increase of $7 for all students to fund improvements in the health and counseling center.

Differential tuition

At the Board of Trustees meeting, the board also voted, in a nearly unanimous vote, to support differential tuition for the business school and reduce the differential tuition for the Clarks Honors College. Differential tuition is tuition that is more than standard tuition at the university.

The business school tuition will increase by $20 per credit hour. Of the increased tuition, 20 percent will be allocated to financial aid within the school.

Differential tuition is common among Pac-12 schools and according to Schill, it allows UO to remain competitive.

The Clarks Honors College tuition will decrease 35.6 percent from $4,194 per year, to $2,700 per year.

The current honors college tuition is among the highest rates in the country, and reducing its tuition is aimed to make the CHC more accessible and competitive.

Budget shortfalls

According to Schill, the increase in tuition will not be enough to support the budget, creating a budget shortfall totaling 2.8 million.

The university needs renovations to classrooms, technology and lab upgrades and books for the library that will not be funded by the tuition increase.

These increases are causing upset among students. Following the vote’s passing, a student shouted “shame on you” to Schill, and left the meeting in a crowd of students chanting “fuck Michael Schill.”

Several students gave testimonials during the meeting on their personal experiences with tuition. One student, Caroline Crisp, said, “I feel robbed by the University of Oregon.”

But faculty members are upset about tuition as well.

“The university is not doing a good job in promoting economic diversity in its students,” Bill Harbaugh, professor of economics, said.

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The general education multicultural requirement is in the process of being changed to better educate students on multiculturalism in the United States and abroad.

These changes come two and a half years after the Black Student Task Force rallied for racial equality and presented a list of demands to the university that included updating the multicultural requirement.

The current requirement has students take two courses out of three possible categories: Identity and Pluralism, American Cultures and International Cultures. A student would have to take two classes total to satisfy the requirement, as long as the classes were from different categories. This requirement has not been updated since 1994.

“The current multicultural requirement allows a student to graduate without having taken a course on the US, and particularly not having studied anything in relation to the racial history of the US,” Dennis Galvan, vice provost for international affairs and interim vice president and dean of undergraduate studies said.

The forecasted changes to the requirement will discard the Identity Pluralism and Tolerance category from the general education multicultural requirements, leaving American Cultures and International Cultures as the two required categories.

With the proposed changes, students will have to take one class from the American Cultures category and one class from the International Cultures category.

This not only ensures that students will learn about America’s racial history but also will make registering for classes less confusing, according to Senate President Chris Sinclair. The Senate is working on changes to the general education requirements as well.

These updates are not finalized and the working group on intercultural and inclusive teaching encourages students to give feedback on the new requirement by emailing vpugs@uoregon.edu.

The proposed requirement, which was presented to the Senate Feb. 28 by the working group on intercultural and inclusive teaching, will be drafted into a motion in the coming weeks and voted on by the Senate.

Kassia Dellabough, professor of architecture and allied arts, said she found it really inspiring that students elicited the change in the first place.

The rally and list of demands that sparked this change in fall 2015 aimed to increase awareness and elicit change on the safety and presence of black students on campus.

Galvan said the protests were in response to national and campus trends that negatively affected the black student experience.

The rally occurred around the same time that similar protests at universities across the country were happening and the national “Black Lives Matter” campaign gained traction, according to Galvan.

Following the rally, the Black Student Task Force presented their list of demands to the university that included proposed changes to the multicultural requirement.

The university has been working to address the issues with the multicultural requirement since winter of 2016.

The working group on intercultural and inclusive teaching promoted two events to receive faculty and student input.

On March 1, faculty was invited to the EMU Miller room to discuss changes they wanted to see in the multicultural requirement.

On March 2, students were invited to attend a similar event specifically catered to students, Galvan said. The working group on intercultural and inclusive teaching reached out to various student groups via email that have expressed interest in this issue in the past, such as the Black Student Task Force, the Black Student Union and UO Black Women of Achievement.

No students attended the event, however, the working group on intercultural and inclusive teaching encourages students to send in any feedback.

“The idea that we could do more to help students to understand the US and multiculturalism within the US is a valuable goal,” Galvan said.

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The university is changing its general education requirements after warnings from the university accreditors and the passing of House Bill 2998. They aim to make the process less confusing for students.

Senate president Chris Sinclair presented updates to the new general education requirements to the University Senate at its meeting Wednesday evening.

Changes include defining learning outcomes to better align with the University of Oregon mission statement and streamlining group satisfying requirements. This is hoped to make choosing classes less confusing for students.

The current requirement for the arts and letters requirement, for example, requires students to take a specific number of classes in different subjects within that field. According to Sinclair, the current requirement is confusing for students.

“You have to pay attention when you’re registering for courses to ensure that when you are registering you actually satisfy that requirement,” Sinclair said.

The new requirement will require students to take classes within two different subjects instead, and ultimately be less confusing for students, according to Sinclair.

Sinclair initially presented proposed changes to general education to the Senate on Jan. 17 alongside Ron Bramhall, Professor and Associate Vice Provost for Academic Excellence. They outlined the plans for general education in the coming years, now called core education.

The Senate is working to create a core education committee to facilitate these changes and implement them by the end of the academic year. The soonest changes to be made include defining learning outcomes and streamlining certain group satisfying requirements.

At the next senate meeting on March 14, Sinclair will present a motion to the Senate on the learning outcomes that will be voted on later in the year.

Sinclair invited the Senate and members of the community to attend a “Living Ethically” event next Thursday, March 8. This event is intended to address a specific aspect of the university mission statement that aims to teach students to live ethically.

At the event, ethics professors will lead discussions about how to incorporate ethics into several disciplines across the UO curriculum and better define it in the learning outcomes.

The university accreditors have issued three warnings to the university to redesign the general education requirements to better align with the university mission statement.

Sinclair stated that the accreditors warnings were a small part of why the Senate took action to address these issues.

“The motivation for this is more for student success and student focus and less because the accreditors want us to check these boxes,” Sinclair said.

The state of Oregon passed House Bill 2998 in August of 2017 to expedite transfers between colleges and universities within the state. This requires the university to offer classes that work in conjunction with the other universities within the state of Oregon that are able to be transferred across institutions.

The university senate took this into consideration when updating the core education requirements, according to Sinclair.

The Senate will discuss further changes to core education after foundational changes, such as defining the learning outcomes, have been made.

Sinclair said after the accreditors are satisfied and the courses comply with House Bill 2998, the university can add innovative and unique aspects to the UO core education experience.

According to Sinclair, the Senate will discuss changes in the BA and BS requirements in the 2019 academic year, and later on, create themed clusters of classes similar to Freshman Interest Groups and Academic Residential Communities for students.

“We have an ambitious time frame for what we want to do, but we are hopeful we can do it,” Sinclair said.

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A new policy forbidding student-teacher relationships was created by the University Senate’s Committee on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence.

The new policy, approved on Feb. 1, states student-teacher relationships pose a “conflict of interest” and “abuse of power.” The policy is temporary and the committee is working on a permanent policy to be set in place.

According to Tobin Klinger, UO spokesman, the previous relationship policy was a state board of education policy that was last updated in 1997. When the university gained independent governance in 2014, the state policy was migrated over.

“There was a lot of ambiguous language that made it very difficult to understand the policy and take it seriously,” said Sonja Boos, member of the Committee on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence.

This temporary policy only stands for six months, leaving the committee until the summer to create a permanent policy, according to Boos.

The Committee on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence is reaching out to students for input through town hall meetings in the coming months.

The committee itself has been talking about changing the policy for years, according to Boos.

President Schill requested the policy be replaced last Fall, which expedited the process.

Missy Matella, assistant general counsel, worked to create the temporary policy that the Committee on Sexual and Gender-Based Violence later approved.

“I think that we are in this national debate, in this moment of reckoning, where the culture is really changing,” Boos said, “The university needs to be in line with other institutions.”

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Documented cases of the flu at both the University of Oregon and in Lane County have decreased substantially over the past year, contrary to national trends.

The flu has claimed the lives of 37 children in the United States this flu season, which is more than the death toll of the swine flu epidemic of 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, at the University of Oregon and in Lane County, the flu is not nearly as severe.

According to University Health Center doctor Richard Brunader, there were a reported 73 cases of the flu at UO last year. This flu season there have only been a reported 20 cases. But health officials at the University Health Center are still urging students to get flu shots.

The flu is a contagious respiratory illness caused by the influenza virus, according to Brunader. Symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, aches and fatigue and can cause students to miss several days of classes.

The University Health Center offered five mass vaccinations last fall to keep students healthy and are thinking of expanding the building and its services to better serve students.

“I think it was a lot worse last year even though that’s not what the national statistics are showing,” Brunader said of the decrease in reported cases.

This trend is present in Lane County as a whole as well. According to Jason Davis, Lane County Health and Human Services public information officer, the number of flu-related deaths in Lane County has decreased from 17 deaths last season to two deaths this season.

The decrease in flu victims may be a result of the number of vaccinated residents in Lane County going up significantly from last season. According to Davis, approximately 35 percent of Lane County was vaccinated last year while over 40 percent was vaccinated this year.

Though the flu has had a substantial national impact, the University Health Center has not been any busier than a normal flu season, according to Brunader.

However, some national services available to students have been negatively impacted by the high volumes of flu patients.

For example, the health center’s after-hours nurse advice line has fallen victim to mass call volumes caused by the flu.

The health center warns students of high call volume when students call in, and it takes several hours for the nurses to respond with advice and help.

Brunader said it is common around this time of year for the health center to be overbooked with appointments and that they are working to address the overflow issues through possible expansions, like an “acute care” center that can address health center overflow.

The health center is proposing expansions at the Board of Trustees meeting on March 1 and 2.

“The concept is to have an area that can [act like an] accordion and can run somewhat independent from the clinic,”  Brunader said, meaning that it would become available as needed and shut down during slower periods.

The health center is also increasing its student health center service fee by $7 under the university’s proposed tuition increases in order to fund more health and counseling services.

In the meantime, the health center has been working to educate students on the potential dangers of contracting the flu and urging them to get vaccinated.

The health center has been advertising “Duck the flu” since 2005 to inform students to get their flu shots and stay healthy through flu season.

Angela Long, director of health prevention services, said it is imperative for students to get their flu shot.

“The more students and staff who have flu shots, the better protection there is,” Long said.

According to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2010 to 2014, the flu vaccination reduced the risk of flu-associated death by nearly 65 percent in children with no underlying health conditions.

If you think you have the flu, it is important to get plenty of rest and avoid contact with others, according to Brunader. If you experience difficulty breathing, dizziness, confusion or severe vomiting you should seek medical care urgently, Brunader said.

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The number of international students enrolled at the University of Oregon decreased for the second year in a row, despite the increased outreach and retention efforts of the university.

In 2015, the international student enrollment sat at 13.6 percent in 2015, but it’s dropped to 11.8 percent in 2017, according to recent UO enrollment reports.

However, the decrease in international student enrollment has not had a substantial financial impact on the university, according to the international affairs office at UO. The university’s biggest concern lies in the loss of diversity on campus and the unique perspective it provides to students.

Lower international enrollment is a national trend due to the current political state of the United States, according to Chakris Kussalanant, director of marketing and communication for the office of international affairs.

“We have unfortunately given the impression to a lot of people around the world that the United States is not a welcoming country,”Kussalanant said.

To combat the lower numbers, the university has employed various new programs to reach out to international students before they are admitted, as well as provided students with several resources to ensure they are successful students at the university.

“If we in fact believe that the diversity of people ultimately helps inspire diversity of mind across our campus, losing our international students should be a loss to the spirit and values of our institution,” said Kussalanant.

While the number of international students has recently declined, according to the admissions data on the UO website, the number of students identifying as ethnic minorities has increased steadily over the years.

Kussalanant said many of these changes the university has no control over.

Impoverished economies around the world who cannot afford to send their children to the United States for college contribute to this trend, as well as the efforts other European countries have made to make themselves more accessible, according to Kussalanant.

For example, Germany launched a “Land of Ideas” campaign that aims to increase their international presence as a hub of ideas and innovation. Kussalanant said campaigns like these attract more international students to other institutions.

The financial impact on the university is not substantial, according to Abe Schafermeyer, director of international student and scholar services. International students pay the same as out of state students.

“Nonresident tuition is nonresident tuition whether you’re from California or Beijing,” Schafermeyer said.

Jim Rawlins, director of the office of admissions, said the university has increased its efforts to make UO accessible to international students. The office of admissions travels to approximately 15 countries each year to promote UO.

UO recruits students from around the world, and most of the international students come from Southeast Asia.

The university also has employed a liaison for international students to interact with before coming to the University. Last fall, the UO employed Shel Yang, a native of China to serve as an international admissions counselor.

This year, UO began accepting the common application for the incoming classes, making it the first public institution on the west coast to accept the common application, according to Rawlins.

The international student and scholar services department at the university works to provide international students with several resources to be successful at UO after they’ve been admitted.

These programs are funded by the international student fees paid at the time of their tuition.

The department offers peer mentorship programs for international first year students, academic resources such as tutoring and advising, as well as career preparation through workshops and networking events.

Following the travel ban last year, the university offered town hall meetings for international students to become informed and understand what was happening in the world.

“We want to make sure students feel like this is a place where they can live and learn comfortably and feel safe” Schafermeyer said.

The university department of international studies also partners with a Eugene nonprofit called The Friendship Foundation to connect international students with the Eugene community by offering various services for the international students.

Schafermeyer said the families involved with the Friendship Foundation will pick up students from the airport and let them stay in their homes until they move into residence halls.

This program is not limited to international students, and includes international faculty as well. The friendship foundation welcomed UO Provost Jaynath Banavar to the university when he joined last July.

The university also has helpful programs such as ExplOregon, aimed at integrating international students with Oregon students.

“We want the UO to be a diverse learning environment where people from around the world contribute their perspective to the overall learning that happens,” Schafermeyer said.

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Last Thursday, University of Oregon administrator Justine Carpenter sat in an empty boardroom waiting for students to arrive to her scheduled office hours. No students came.  

The UO administration is now offering office hours in an effort to improve communication with students through discussions this term. Every Wednesday and Thursday from 4 to 5 p.m., one administrator will lead a topic-driven discussion with UO students in the EMU.

“People can talk about anything. The topic is just an entry point,” said Kris Winter, associate vice president and dean of students.

Past topics have included self care, general education requirements and promoting yourself on social media.

The new administration office hours are intended to connect students and administrators to build lasting relationships and foster productive communication.

The idea came from Winter after she went on a “listening tour” of various student groups last fall.

Winter sat in on nine different student groups, including Oregon Hillel and the Muslim Student Association, to hear what students were saying about their experiences at UO.

“I think that we can always improve communications between students and administration,” Winter said.

According to Winter, the majority of the feedback she received centered around the fact that students did not feel like they knew their administrators.

“This came up fall term. I wanted to be responsive to a tangible ‘ask’ that I heard from some students. That’s why I chose to put it into action this term,” Winter said.

Winter sent out emails to UO administrators to see if they would be interested in hosting office hours for students. She received several positive responses from administrators that wanted to participate.

Carpenter, director of multicultural and identity-based support services, held office hours on Feb. 1 on the topic of “having difficult conversations.”

“I think that having difficult conversations is something that all of us may have to do at one time or another,” Carpenter said.

No students attended these office hours.

According to Winter, these office hours have had low student attendance. She hopes to engage more students and invites them to come to the coming hours.

One way to improve attendance, according to Carpenter, is to offer more incentives to the students, such as free snacks or topics they can connect with.

Carpenter said that either “students aren’t identifying with the topics or they just don’t know that these topics are being discussed.”

Winter has reached out to students through advertising in Quick Quack emails that all students receive. She is open to student suggestions and input for topic selection and increased student involvement.

“I think it’s important for students to know that administrators care about their UO experience,” Winter said.

__________________________________________________________________________

Schedule for February’s office hours

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The university senate on Wednesday voted unanimously to support the student collective’s second resolution — to denounce white supremacy on campus and to create a task force to educate students on UO’s history. The task force will also propose modifications to white nationalist monuments on campus.

They did not state specific monuments that will be modified.

The resolution comes after a white nationalist group came to campus last April. The resolution aims to recognize that groups like these pose a threat to students.

“It’s nice to have it behind us and to have a very strong statement denouncing white supremacy,” Senate President Chris Sinclair said.

The proposed task force will be comprised of President Schil, Senate President Chris Sinclair and student leaders.

The resolution was presented to the Senate on Wednesday for the second time after being revised by the Senate Executive Committee. The Committee wrote a letter to the Senate with proposed changes following the feedback from the previous senate meeting.

This resolution came from a larger list of resolutions from the student collective, following the member’s student conduct charges for protesting president Schill’s “State of The University” speech on Oct. 6. The resolution was split into two separate resolutions on Nov. 29 on the floor of the Senate following a motion by Senator Keith Frazee.

The first resolution was passed at the Senate meeting on Nov. 29, declaring the Senate’s support of the student collective as they navigated their student conduct charges.

The second resolution was first brought to the Senate on Jan. 17 by graduate student Arian Mobasser and was sent to the Senate Executive Committee for revisions.

“The resolution is just the beginning,” Mobasser, a graduate student, said.

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“I was supposed to graduate early, but now I can’t,” Sydney Piantes said.

Piantes, a junior cinema studies major, thought she was going to graduate from the University of Oregon early at the end of her junior year; however, complicated general education requirements are keeping this from happening.

“I messed up my whole situation,” Piantes said. “I thought that I could do the Bachelor of Science requirement, but for my cinema studies degree, I have to do a Bachelor of Arts, not science.”

Piantes took math classes her freshman year that put her behind in pursuing her degree. This mistake is keeping her for an extra year at the UO.

The UO is redesigning its general education requirements to better align with the university’s mission statement — and to be less confusing for students — following three warnings from the university’s accreditor.

The university has been working since 2015 to improve general education and has changed the name of general education to core education. Senate President Chris Sinclair and Professor and Associate Vice Provost for Academic Excellence Ron Bramhall are facilitating this change. The UO Senate appointed a task force in May 2017 to help streamline the process.

Changes to come include simplified terminology for students, mission-specific learning outcomes and new multicultural requirements.

UO’s general education requirements are confusing, and many students have trouble determining which courses count towards their requirements, according to Bramhall.

The general education requirements have not been changed since the 1990s. The proposed goal is to make the requirements easier to understand and to create and track specific learning outcomes derived from the university’s mission statement.

“What the accreditors want is alignment between what we are offering and assessing with the university mission,” Sinclair said.

UO received its first warning to improve the general education requirements from the university accreditors in 2007, its second in 2009 and its third in 2013.

“Certainly accreditation is driving this, I wouldn’t say that it’s the only reason we’re doing it. We should do it because we can make it better for students,” Bramhall said.

The standards set by the university accreditors require the University of Oregon to have learning outcomes derived from the mission statement, as well as ways to assess those learning outcomes. The university is doing neither of those things, according to Bramhall.

Bramhall and Sinclair pulled learning outcomes, such as critical thinking, creative thinking, written communication and ethical reasoning, directly from the mission statement to be in the proposed changes.

From 2015 to 2017, researchers came to the University of Oregon campus to diagnose issues with the current general education system. Hundreds of students were interviewed, as well as faculty and administration members, according to Bramhall.

This will be an ongoing process and will be finalized over the next few years, according to Sinclair.

Bramhall and Sinclair presented the issue to the University Senate at their meeting on Jan. 17. They said this would be the first of many conversations about potential changes.

The senate created a task force to address this issue last May, and it will be creating a Core education committee in the coming weeks. The University Senate will be voting on legislation that determines the coming changes throughout the term. 

According to Chris Sinclair, one of the proposed solutions is to create major-specific tracks to streamline the process for incoming freshmen.

For example, if a student came to the university and wanted to major in business, they would take the business-specific track of study. There, they would take all prerequisites for business classes in conjunction with their general education requirements.

If a student was undeclared, they would take a more broad track of study to expose them to more potential majors while still completing their general education requirements.

Sinclair said there are several other changes to come within general education following the Core education requirements, such as the BA and BS classifications and the multicultural requirements.

“Streamlining the requirements should help students make better progress towards their degree,” Bramhall stated.

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