The cost of tuition is a challenge for many students. That challenge becomes greater for students whose “personal expenses” include childcare.

According to a recent study by Child Care Aware of American, Oregon’s childcare was the least affordable for two-parent families in the United State for 2012.

For single mom and UO senior, Stephanie Greenwood, the  Family Co-op Center provides an affordable option for her and her 2-year-old daughter. ASUO, University Housing, USDA and parent tuition help to fund this nonprofit organization.

Parents can work at the co-op in exchange for a reduction on their monthly tuition rate. Some students, like Greenwood, also receive a program subsidy funded by ASUO. For 2013-2014, ASUO allocated about $384,298 towards the program subsidy.

“It’s still a little bit of a financial crush but it could be a lot worse without both things,” Greenwood said. Being a full-time mom and student is the maximum of level of stress Greenwood says she can handle right now. She relies on student loans, grants, and her savings that she earned while working all throughout her pregnancy to pay the bills.

It costs UO students $211 per week for full-time infant care at the Co-op Center, which decreases as the child gets older. Moss Street Children Center, another childcare institution that provides assistance to UO families, charges a similar rate of $201 a week for the same service.

Greenwood pays about $400 dollars each month in toddler care which includes the subsidy and co-opting.

“The Co-op center has been a lot more affordable, especially for what you get, so it’s definitely the number one choice for me,” Greenwood said.

The Co-op started with Amazon Family Housing residents, busy with work and school, helping to care of each other’s children free of charge. In 1986, the Co-op partnered with UO to serve university families and in 2001, it became the only childcare organization contracted with the UO (getting reviewed every five years). It is stationed inside an off-campus University housing complex, Spencer View Apartments, and currently has 80 families enrolled in at least one its services.

“It’s our philosophy to create this as a home away from home,” said Co-op’s Executive Director Alisa Stull. “This is not a place to drop off your child. We have lots of opportunity for parents to be involved.”

The school is inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophy that focuses on creating a child-centered system that aims to develop a child’s own process of communication, investigation and collaboration. The teachers are more like guides and facilitators that help children construct their own curriculum that follow their curiosities.

Safety, however, is an on-going concern for the Co-op Center. Although it is partly funded by the University, is on university property and serves university students, it is not considered a university program which creates some gray area in regards to safety liability. According to Stull, the co-op is not on anyone’s radar and because of that is not able to work with UOPD to come up with an emergency plan.

Still, Stull has appreciated being an independent organization that has allowed a large amount of flexibility for families like Greenwood.

“It’s just been her and I,” Greenwood said. “We’ve been a team from the start, so all the financial, emotional — everything has been just us.”

Every day the University Dining Services feeds 3,940 mouths. According to the director of Food Services, Tom Driscoll, the real challenge is providing a variety of local and organic food options for students.

In the past five years Driscoll has seen a push for more local, sustainable food options at the University of Oregon. Students have become much more interested in where their food comes from and what exactly they’re eating. This trend is also evident on a national scale.

The price and efficiency, however, pose a problem for the UO when buying local.

“You always have to weigh quality, cost and availability. It’s like a matrix you put together,” Driscoll said. “It doesn’t always spell out local, but a lot of times it does.”

On average, the UO spends about $7 million on food products each year. Most of that revenue comes from room and board, as well as UO catering income. About $1 million of that budget goes toward purchasing locally grown and produced food items that amount to about 20 percent of the total food purchased. The UO often pays a higher price for these products in comparison to what they could through other avenues.

The percentage of local foods fluctuates based on what is readily available for our location. Snack foods, and some produce like bananas, may never be purchased locally due to a lack of supply.

Distribution is a key challenge for many local farmers. Many don’t have an efficient method to deliver large amounts of product. According to Driscoll, it would be a lot more efficient to go through only one or two suppliers.

According to the University Housing website, the UO partners with over 20 local farmers and producers. Some consist of exclusive partnership where they specially produce a certain product for the school. For example, the pinto beans served at Big Mouth Burrito (one of the nine dining venues on campus) are specifically produced for UO by a local company in the Willamette Valley.

“Once you have a relationship with farmers, it leads to other opportunities,” Driscoll said.

The University connects with farmers through an annual meeting hosted by Lane Community College that brings farmers, ranchers, fishermen and the potential buyers together, as well as through the Willamette Farm and Food Coalition.

Most of the locally grown food products the UO has offered in the past have predominately been fruit and vegetable produce. Now, an increasing amount of beef and dairy products are starting to travel from a shorter distance as more quantity is readily available.

Still, despite the challenges, students are the main policy driver for local food.

In 2009, the Office of Sustainability’s co-curricular programs coordinator Shelley Bowerman (then a senior) helped to cultivate Project Tomato, a student orientation group that seeks to bring more local food items to campus.

“With dining services it’s important for students to advocate for what they want to see on their plate because the institution responds and cares about that demand,” Bowerman said.

The program is designed to provide students with the opportunity to become more involved in the food system. It is housed under the Office of Sustainability and partners with the Urban Farm and Dining Services.

After being a vegetarian for five years, freshman Kiara Kashuba became curious about where her food comes from. Through Project Tomato, she was able witness the life cycle of a tomato, from farm to table.

Before the start of fall classes, she, along with other Project Tomato students, bicycled to local Eugene farms, harvested organic tomatoes and worked with dining services to process them into pizza sauce.

“We take our food for granted and don’t take into consideration all the implications,” Kashuba said. “It’s a vital part of life and something we overlook.”

Before his dream of receiving a degree in business law from a U.S. university comes true, Abdulaziz (Aziz) Alghamdi, 23, must learn English first. He is currently studying English through the UO’s American English Institute where Saudi Arabians students currently account for more than half of the total learners.

Over the last six years AEI’s Intensive English Program, under the linguistics departments, has grown 255 percent, according to the 2013 AEI Profile Report with 749 enrolled students in 2007-2008 to 2,661 in 2012-2013. Although numbers fluctuate term-by-term, students from Saudi Arabia and China make up the largest portion of students learning English at the UO.

According to Amy Harter, the Director for AEI’s students services, Saudi Arabian students typically score lower on the Test of English as a Foreign Language iBT (TOEFL iBT), and as a result stay in AEI for a longer period of time, steadily increasing their demographic over time.

In January, Aziz made his way to Eugene from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He had already graduated with an undergraduate law degree from his country, free of charge, and decided continue his education abroad, also free of charge.

Aziz is one of 462 Saudi Arabian students (including spouses) learning English at UO, according to the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission (SACM), an organization that works between the U.S. educational institutions and the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia and their Ministry of Higher Education. About 34 percent are at a graduate level.

“Although we have very good universities in Saudi Arabia, our country is interested to send us to learn new things. Not just studying in universities but also (to learn) about culture, how people live and know about different things in the world,” Aziz said.

IEP costs $3,295 for tuition. This number does not include additional costs, such as the university fee, international student fee, mandatory health insurance and living expenses.

Though Aziz’s government covers the cost of his tuition and personal expenses through the King Abdullah scholarship, of which he receives a monthly stipend of $1,847 and a plane ticket home every nine months, this is not the case for all Saudi Arabian students. The scholarship application is open for three weeks of the year. During this time all students apply, but to be awarded the funds, these students must have a high test score.

Like most accredited universities, UO requires international students to be proficient in English before pursuing a degree. Students must take the TOEFL iBT, comprised of four sections. Each section is 30 points, worth 120 points total.

Required scores vary by institution. The UO requires a score of 61 with having earned at least 15 points on each section. Ivy league schools like Harvard and Columbia require scores of at least 100.

UO has one of the larger populations of English Second Language (ESL) students, with 878 enrolled this term. UO also has among the highest percentage of Saudi Arabian students out of the 709 universities that the SACM approves for Saudi Arabian student to attend, according to the SACM website.

Childhood friends and aspiring civil engineers Abdulhamid Aldubaykhi, 17, and Ahmed Alghamdi, 18, learned English in high school but did not achieve high enough scores to receive the scholarship. Their parents are currently footing the bill until they can achieve high enough scores to receive the scholarship. They have only been here for a month and study in classes with other international students from 26 countries around the world.

The UO awarded 1.3 million dollars in financial aid to international students who have financial need and show academic merit. IEP students are not eligible to receive these funds. They are considered conditionally admitted until they achieve English proficiency and can choose to matriculate to the UO. Last year, AEI was able to award $66,000 in scholarships to its students by partnering with national and international, private and government organizations.

“It’s difficult to come from a developing country without significant scholarship help,” Director of International Student and School Services, Abraham Schafermeyer said. “So the countries you see represented in large numbers typically have population where it is economic feasibly to study at non-resident tuition rates … It’s economics, it’s supply and demand and it’s geo-political realities.”

Aziz is looking forward to spring 2014 when, if all goes to plan, he will have completed the program and will be a step closer to completing his goal: returning to Saudi Arabia with his degree in business law.

As an anxious college freshmen who traveled over 6,000 miles from China to come to the United States, Xueyang “Kevin” Ma, never would have imagined becoming the voice for over 2,500 international students enrolled at the University of Oregon.

Ma left his hometown of Ya’an, China to study business at the UO. Despite fighting off jet lag and missing his family on his first day of school, Ma was grateful for having the opportunity to study in the states. In his four years at the university, Ma has held a part-time job, studied abroad in Europe and held different leadership positions including serving as the ASUO International Student Advocate. He’s also a newly acclaimed Duck football fan.

“UO is an amazing university. The people here are so nice,” Ma said. “I made a lot of friends here … from different cultures and (who) speak different languages.”

Despite all these experiences, Ma still feels a cultural separation on campus.

Even though international students make up 10 percent of the student body and come from 95 different countries, Ma believes there is lack of communication and relationship between international and domestic students.

As the new Editor in Chief of HuaFeng Magazine, a Chinese cultural student publication, Ma is on a mission to change this.

“What I am doing is encouraging international students to go out, speak out and introduce our culture to other people,” Ma said. “And to go to other people’s events and learn their cultures … and not be shy or embarrassed to do so.”

HuaFeng Magazine was founded in the spring of 2009 by Chinese and other international students. Now in its fifth year of publication, the magazine continues to blend Chinese and local culture together by focusing its content on college life, Chinese culture and literature.

They publish three times a year, and with funding assistance from ASUO, they circulate around 550 copies each term. Its original staff has more than quadrupled from 7 to 33 students who are working to expand the magazine’s appeal to both American and other international students.

“We do have a gap between international students and American students,” said Iris Tian, HuaFeng’s public relations representative. “We want to shorten the distance as much as we can and also build a bridge to connect them together.”

HuaFeng’s Editing Director, Sijia Chen, sees the publication not only as a magazine but also as a guidebook to help international students understand the basics of the university, such as how to register for classes, the programs to call for a ride home, and who their university leaders are.

Although HuaFeng’s early issues are targeted mainly to Chinese students in an effort to better establish their culture on campus, the magazine today strives to be multi-functional. They have chosen to write most of their cultural stories in English, while the campus-focused articles are mainly in Chinese.

Ultimately, the magazine seeks to erase misconceptions each group has of each other. Ma also hopes that students will realize that different cultural groups are intended to be inclusive, not exclusive on campus.

“It is not just ‘oh I’m Chinese, so I can only be involved in Chinese organizations,’” Ma said. “That’s not true because you can be accepted into other cultures and backgrounds, and know other peoples’ stories.”

The low enrollment in UO’s domestic health insurance plan has contributed to higher premium rates for students to get insured. In an effort to keep their plan alive, the Health Center hopes to make their voluntary health insurance policy more attractive for domestic students, though they are also considering mandatory student participation in UO’s insurance plan or in a different health plan with equivalent coverage.

“We are teetering on that edge right now,” Executive Director for the Health Center Mike Eyster said. “Our voluntary policy may not continue to be viable because we have so few subscribers, so few policyholders.”

Many colleges in the nation, like Northeastern University, already require their students to have health coverage. While the UO requires this for international students, it is currently voluntary for domestic students. Only 150 out 24,000 students have enrolled in UO’s domestic student insurance plan.

The annual rate for UO’s health insurance plan offered to domestic students continues to increase. From 2008 to 2010, Aetna, the insurance provider at the UO, increased its rates from $1,047 to $2,421, and is now priced at $3,264 per year, or about $1,089 per term, excluding summer — over doubling the price in the last six years.

As the price of the plan goes up, there is a tendency for primary users to only be the people who are managing an expensive chronic illness. This leads the insurance company to raise rates again the following year. Eventually the plan is priced out of the market, and since few insurance companies will compete for the business of a person with a pre-existing medical condition, those who critically need the coverage, are left without it.

“Voluntary insurance plans can enter a death spiral and it appears that this is what is occurring with ours,” Eyster said.

The rate for the insurance policy offered to international students is $388 per term. While some international students have insurance through a different provider, a significant amount are enrolled in the university’s plan. Having a larger pool of subscribers helps to keep premium costs low.

At least 20 percent of UO students are uninsured or under-insured. Eyster has seen many students endure a serious medical problem and be unable to pay for both school and their healthcare, eventually having to choose between the two. Their goal is to figure out a way that every student will have access to medical care and therefore, not run the risk of dropping out of school because of the cost of a medical problem.

“When you think of college you mainly think about academics,” Kelli Shelton said. “But it’s also important for students to go to the doctor and seek medical attention so they can be healthy to attend class.”

According to Shelton, the Health Center is in the beginning stages of examining the possible policy change. They are hoping to gain more insight in the spring when they sit-down with the insurance provider.

“Well part of what is making this complicated is that we don’t know exactly what all the provisions of the Affordable Care Act are just yet,” Eyster said. “So as those become more evident we will try to integrate whatever plan we with the [ACA] so that it would provide maximum value to students.”

Since the Affordable Care Act was signed in 2010, its major provisions will come into effect in less than three months. Through this act individuals will now have guaranteed health coverage despite any pre-existing conditions. It will also end lifetime limits, let children stay on their parents’ plan up until they are 26 years old, and require insurers to use at least 80 cents per dollar on health services instead of administrative costs.

“It used to be that the plan didn’t have the same benefits so it was hard to really compare how you would get the best bang for your buck,” Cover Oregon Governance Committee member Chris Wig said. “Now it’s an apples to apples comparison.”

Earlier this month, individuals could start shopping and comparing plans and prices on the online Health Insurance Marketplace known as Cover Oregon, which is set up for the state. People can now browse through the offered plans, as well as apply for financial assistance. There are four factors that will determine price of insurance: age, family contribution, your geographic location and whether or not you smoke.

Wig advises students to look at a plan’s provider network when choosing their health plan. For students with a lack of transportation, finding doctors nearby is essential.

“It’s really kind of a game change in the insurance industry. It gives young people a lot of options,” Wig said.

The numeric codes scribbled on the yellow aged pages contain names, fingerprints and photographs of victims. They are Guatemala’s National Police Archive, and the subtle symbols of the country’s genocide.

During a 2011 trip to Guatemala, Stephanie Wood, a UO research assistant, was invited to see the archives. Overwhelmed by the content of the archives that documented thousands of human injustices from a 36-year-long genocide, Wood and Steve Huter, Director of the Network Startup Resource Center, sought the help of UO journalism professor, Gabriela Martinez and history professor, Carlos Aguirre. Together they created a documentary in an effort to increase the awareness of the archive’s existence.

“I think it is important to tell the story of what this archive signifies for the tragic history of Guatemala,” Martinez said. “And for the present time as the nation and the state is trying to make amends with their past.”

Both Martinez and Wood hope this documentary can shed some light on human rights abuses.

From 1960 to 1996, the Mayan indigenous population in Guatemala endured a reign of genocide. Many of them largely backed the leftist guerrilla groups in favor of socialistic change against the government and the elite.

About 200,000 lives were lost during the war, but the majority of deaths was between 1975 through 1985. An estimated 45,000 more disappeared.

Nine years after the genocide ended in 2005, 80 million police archives were found in a warehouse, containing about a century’s worth of history. Guatemala’s National Police Historical Archives are inside the skyscraper stacks of documents that chronicle human abuses and murders the government once denied having ever occurred during the nation’s internal war.

“(The Archive is) crucial for the history of Guatemala not only for issues of justice but also for their rebuilding of (Guatemala’s) historical memory,” Martinez said.

These detailed documents are being used as evidence to try police officers and officials involved in the heinous acts.

“It’s so huge for the families to bring closure to what was a really bad situation where someone would just be plucked off the streets of Guatemala city — a labor leader, student or teacher — and disappear,” Wood said.

Many of the police officers and officials involved in the conflict in the late 20th century are still active in their line of work today. For this reason, the workers of the Archivo Historico de la Policia Nacional (AHPN) are working quickly to digitize the content and store the digital records safely outside of the country as there is always the fear and potential that the archives will be shut down by those implicated.

“I interviewed people who were seven, eight years old and they witnessed their parent’s being shot,” Martinez said. “How do you survive and become a decent human being after that — and they are very decent.”

Her documentary connects the stories of Guatemala’s National Police Historical Archive and the individuals who experienced human rights abuses during Guatemala’s civil wars between 1960 through 1996 and its impact on contemporary Guatemala.

Martinez will premiere the documentary, “Keep Your Eyes on Guatemala”, on Thursday Oct. 24 at 6 p.m. in 221 Allen Hall.

“We shouldn’t forget or ignore it’s part of history,” Martinez said. “It’s part of Guatemala’s history and it’s part of human history.”

Bryn Dennehy says that it’s tough to come out of the closet as a conservative on the University of Oregon campus. The school’s reputation as a liberal haven and the abundance of left-minded groups on campus paints a negative stereotype of right-wing individuals.

That’s why Dennehy is heading up one of two new student political groups on campus that aim to give students with conservative views a forum for discussion. Both Young Americans for Liberty and College Libertarians are hoping to give students an alternative  outside the two-party system.

“We believe that the size and scope of the government should be reduced,” said Dennehy, president of Young Americans for Liberty. “So it only serves its most basic functions, which is to protect people’s life, liberty and property.”

A recent Gallup poll showed that 60 percent of Americans support a need for a third political party with 26 percent believing the government is doing an adequate job at representing their views. Over the years, the Libertarian Party has seen an increase in party registration — still, they are far behind the 40 million plus registered in either of the two major political parties.

Dennehy is hoping to inform more people about Libertarian ideals through Young Americans for Liberty. He was raised in a conservative household. But frustration over former President George W. Bush’s involvement with Iraq led Dennehy to explore the other side.

The Eugene native took an interest in then-presidential hopeful Barack Obama and read his book, “The Audacity of Hope.” Ultimately, Dennehy described himself as becoming disillusioned by President Obama’s time in office.

“I kind of went through this phase where I thought that maybe the Democrats had it right,” Dennehy said. “Then the more I started to think … I realized that Democrats and Republicans, when it comes to really crucial issues, are actually kind of like the same party.”

He recalls hearing presidential candidate Ron Paul’s anti-war message during the 2008 Republican presidential debate as a defining moment that helped establish his current political views. Although Paul ran under the Republican ticket, his beliefs most line up with Libertarian principles.

“Everybody on stage kind of laughed at him and he was ridiculed,” Dennehy said. However, he became a firm supporter of Paul. In 2012, Dennehy became involved in Paul’s third try for presidency by joining Students for Ron Paul, which would later transform itself to Young Americans for Liberty.

“There’s a lot of people in both parties that really aren’t liberals or really aren’t conservative,” said Marshall Kosloff, organizational relations coordinator for the UO College Democrats. “They’re libertarians.”

Like Dennehy, Kosloff has explored both major political parties to see which side he most identifies with.

“I was a registered Republican in the past,” Kosloff said. “But today … when it comes to basic fundamental issues, I agree with the Democratic Party more than the Republican Party.”

Former College Republicans member Alex Titus also saw the need to add another political perspective on campus. Titus is currently in the process of forming College Libertarians.

Similar to Young Americans for Liberty, this group fully supports the notion of liberty. Titus hopes College Libertarians can work on different issues that affect his peers like gay marriage, drug legalization and the National Security Agency.

“It’s great that we have that flow of communication and exchange of ideas going on at the University of Oregon,” said Caleb Huegel, chairman for College Republicans.

Libertarians and Republicans share a similar base of conservatism for fiscal policy but differ in opinion on different social issues. Still, Huegel doesn’t feel “threatened” by the formation of these two groups. He hopes the rise of more conservative parties on campus will create a stronger impact.

The University of Oregon’s forensics team faced off in a debate against the British National Team to discuss the government use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, commonly known as drones, in Allen Hall on Tuesday night.

This was the first time Oregon has hosted The British National Team of the English Speaking Union, which is regarded as the oldest and largest debating organization in the world. UO seniors Liz Fetherston and Megan Gaffney argued against their international opponents, Charlie Morris from the University of Sheffield and Neshay Aqueel from the University of Kent. Eugene is the first stop of a multi-city tour across the U.S. for the British team.

The topic of the night’s debate was whether or not the United States should ban drones, a controversial topic that has recently been in the political spotlight because of the technology’s prevalence in President Obama’s foreign policy, which has caused some friction in America’s foreign relations.

Drones are aircrafts without a pilot inside. They function either autonomously or through the control of a person in a remote location. The UAV can capture images of activity of the targeted location and are able to strike suspected militants.

Aqueel, a debater for the British team, is originally from Pakistan, a country that has been heavily afflicted by U.S. drone use since 2004. The U.K. educated debater hears traveling accounts of people impacted by the drone hits back home which has placed her in a unique position for this debate.

“If you’ve been debating for quite some time you find yourself defending certain things you wouldn’t want to defend, that doesn’t really reflect what you believe in,” Aqueel said.

Fetherston, a biology and spanish major, and her partner Gaffney, a philosophy major, argued against the use of drones by the United States government. The team asserted that the remote-controlled devices are an unnecessarily violent violation of international law that has only created anti-American sentiment across the world.

“Often it’s easy for us to ignore the impact of drones,” Morris said. “It’s purely a conflict that is done with machines, so I think that we forget the impact of it.”

The opposition team, however, emphasized the fallibility of human beings. They argued that soldiers, conflicted over killing, are unable to make fast and accurate decisions in highly stressful environments.

“What do Facebook, alcohol and Anthony Weiner have in common?” asked Morris in his opening argument. “They show that people make bad decisions.”

Though there was no clear winner from this “friendly” debate, the new director of Forensics, Trond Jacobsen, graciously awarded the visiting team with the victory.

“Hopefully it incited some form of political curiosity that causes them to research what they are passionate about and form their own opinions,” Fetherston said.

Fetherston and Gaffney intensively prepared for the debate by reading articles from major news outlets to gain insight on multiple perspectives of the topic. The debate partners read three to four hours of news each day to keep up with all current events that may be presented as a topic in future tournaments.

“Even though we are experienced debaters, public speaking is always a little bit nerve-wracking,” Gaffney said.

Three people were stuck in an elevator near the first floor of the PLC building on the University of Oregon campus Saturday, Sept. 28 at 5:06 p.m. The individuals waited approximately 15 to 20 minutes before the Eugene Fire Department resolved the issue.

UOPD Spokesman Kelly McIver believes the situation was caused by a mechanical issue but there will be closer examination of the problem on Monday. There will be workers on standby should another situation arise. All elevators have call boxes that passengers can use if any issues occur.

A stolen vehicle was recovered after a driver crashed into a tree on East 19th and Patterson streets at 11:35 p.m. on Sep. 24. No one at the scene was injured.

The black, 2003 Volkswagen Passat was reported stolen from the 1400 block on Hilyard Street at around 11:48 a.m. on Sep. 23.

The suspect is described as a 6-foot-2 inch white male in his 20s with medium facial hair. He was last seen running westbound on 19th Street. A Eugene Police Department K-9 unit came to the scene to search for the suspect but was unsuccessful.

University of Oregon student Emma Patrick was at the intersection shortly after the crash, where she heard a loud voice saying, “Dude, run!” Then she saw a male, with medium build walking “briskly” away from the area. Patrick saw two of the car doors open and beer cans scattered inside.

“The whole bumper was on the grass and the driver’s side was pinched shut. The airbags deployed, too,” said Patrick. “I’m surprised they didn’t side swept any cars coming down Patterson.“

“I was expecting to call 911 and pull someone from the car. It’s truly unreal there was no one in the car,” she said.