Update (7:45 p.m. on Jan. 17): The student’s condition is stabilizing.

Update (1:49 p.m. on Jan. 17): The student is unresponsive and in septic shock, health officials reported. If she does recover there is significant risk of neurological damage. Lane County Health has heard nothing about any other cases.

Friday afternoon, Lane County Public Health was notified of a student at the University of Oregon who was diagnosed yesterday with Neisseria meningococcemia, a bacterial infection responsible for meningitis.

The student went to the hospital after coming home from class when she was not feeling well, according to Jason Davis at Lane County Health Department. She has since been transferred to another hospital, where she remains under treatment. While the student has not been publicly identified, the school has notified and offered prophylaxis to approximately 800 people who may have experienced sufficient exposure to the individual to be at risk for infection. Meningitis can be spread through respiratory droplets and prolonged contact with an infected person. Davis said that could mean about four cumulative hours in a week. It is possible to be vaccinated against meningitis, however.

Davis said he did not know whether or not the patient had been immunized.

Neisseria meningococcemia is the bacteria responsible for meningitis, which spreads from the fluid in the spine and brain through the bloodstream, according to Davis. It can be life-threatening. Early symptoms include a stiff neck, fever or rashes. Anyone who reports such symptoms should see a doctor immediately.

Lane County Public Health will continue to release updates on the patient’s health.

Wednesday night’s Senate meeting regarded several special requests and the confirmation of Monica Nunan as Elections Coordinator.

Divisi presented the first of the special requests and received only partial funding in the amount of $1,440 for transportation to the Los Angeles A cappella Festival, which left them responsible for covering the cost of the tickets to attend the combined conference and competition.

Next came the PRSSA, requesting $7,000 to bring speaker Lauren Berger, or the “Intern Queen” as she is reportedly known, to campus to give a talk about internships. Senate debated on this request for over half an hour. Senators Andrew Lubash and Connor Lasken expressed reservations due to their feelings that the Career Center could offer a similar experience at no cost to students.

“I think we have a ton of services on campus that are underutilized. There are so many speakers that do what she does,” Lasken said.

After 45 minutes of debate, Senate passed a motion to table the request.

NAfME Collegiate also returned this week to present their reworked request from last week’s meeting. The request was to help cover the costs of sending people to three conferences in the next few months. Senate tabled the request and asked NAfME to reduce what expenses they could. The proposal tonight was for $5,433. Since the last meeting, NAfME has rearranged their budget so that all people who will be attending have agreed to cover their own costs of transportation.

“This really does show the determination of our members, the dedication we feel to going to these conferences,” NAfME Secretary Katrina Allen said.

Senate again was swayed by mixed opinions, but eventually moved to allocate the funds. Some senators were more enthusiastic about the request than others.

“It seems like our music education program is very good, but it’s not getting national attention commensurate with how good it is. I also think it’s admirable to see you all take on travel expenses,” Senator Will Iversen said.

Following special requests came the confirmation of Executive-selected Monica Nunan to the position of Elections Board Coordinator. The conversation soon turned into a discussion about the fairness of the hiring process, which was a topic of controversy with other positions earlier in the year.

Senator Emeritus Taylor Allison vocalized concern when Chief of Staff Lamar Wise let Senate know that Nunan was the only candidate that went through an interview process due to an extreme shortage of applications for the position.

“My understanding was that if you had a lack of interest in the position, you would have pushed back the deadline,” said Allison to Wise, who represented Exec during the confirmation. To Senate she went on to say, “This is one of the most important positions in terms of neutrality.”

Senators again debated on the potential issues of the hiring process before Senator Francisco Morales-O’Connor called to end the debate. Nunan was eventually confirmed as Elections Coordinator by a vote of nine ayes, four nays and one abstention.

Officer updates included details on budget hearings. The meeting was adjourned at 11:01.

For more information on the ASUO, visit their website.

Live coverage of Wednesday night’s ASUO Senate meeting

Agenda

On Dec. 15, the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost posted an update on the search for the Dean of the Graduate School: Three finalists have been selected for the position.

Under consideration are: Dr. Andy Berglund, Dr. Scott Pratt and Dr. Mia Tuan.

The finalists were chosen by a Dean of the Graduate School Search Committee, which includes faculty, a graduate teaching fellow and an administrative representative.

“We looked for people who represent different constituencies,” said Committee Chair Dr. Margaret Paris. The committee was formed during fall term.

Berglund is the current Interim Dean of the Grad School, a position he has held since July. Berglund is a professor in biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology, and has been with the University of Oregon since 2002. Prior to his current position, Berglund was the Associate Dean of the Graduate School.

In his letter of interest, Berglund cited his administrative involvement as testimonies to his capability to serve as the Dean. These include his work on the graduate admissions committee and within the biology department to connect academic pursuits at the university with internships.

Tuan, a professor in the education studies department, is another finalist for the position. Tuan served as the Interim Dean of the College of Education from 2013-2014, and when Berglund was appointed Interim Dean of the Graduate School, she filled his position as Associate Dean.

She is the author of three books, which focus on race and politics. Tuan asserted her experience in terms of relationships within the university and discussed her sociological background and perspective on minority-related issues in her letter of interest.

Pratt is the third finalist named by the committee. He has taught in the philosophy department at UO since 1995. He served for three years as Associate Dean for Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences at the UO and was also the Head of the Department of Philosophy for seven years.

In his letter of interest, Pratt prioritized and proposed collaborative efforts between departments such as the Vice President for Research to grow graduate programs.

“I am happy to say that each of our finalist candidates has extensive administrative experience at the level of dean, as well as impressive experience as researchers and teachers, all working with grad students, all of which factored in our thinking about finalists for the position. Each has a vision of the Graduate School’s role in serving students and improving the quality of graduate studies here at UO – those visions are also distinct, which made them compelling finalists,” said committee member Lara Bovilsky of the English department regarding the candidates.

Now that the finalists have been named, the next steps will engage the campus community.

The Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost’s update on the search mentioned public presentations to occur this week.

“As the university moves forward with strategic planning, the Dean will be integral to expanding, promoting and enhancing graduate education. This position will elevate research, scholarship, learning/teaching and the creative profile of the university and its students and faculty. I look forward to the interviews and encourage students and colleagues to participate in the sessions and share feedback,” Acting Vice President and Provost Frances Bronet said.

Check the Provost’s website for upcoming updates.

Special requests including a $9,545 request from the ASUO Office for the purchase of six new computers and money for food for an event put on by the Young Americans for Liberty were hot topics at the first ASUO senate of 2015.

Members of Senate were concerned that provision for this kind of maintenance has not been included in the ASUO Office budget and administration doesn’t provide funding for it. The request passed and the ASUO Office hopes to account for the cost of equipment in a line item in the future.

The UO NAfME Collegiate, which is the UO chapter of the National Association for Music Educators were among attendance. NAfME requested nearly $10,000 to send students to three music conferences. Two of the conferences are national and one is regional. The representatives who came to speak before Senate cited conferences as networking opportunities and also, chances to spread word about the music programs at the UO.

Senator Sami Tayeh was in favor of granting the entire request and said that without attending conferences such as these, “No one’s going to know us.”

Senators like Andrew Lubash and Miles Sisk were concerned with fundraising efforts, however.

Because the group’s request was for conference expenses, according to Senate rules, the ASUO could only fund half, and the rest of the cost should be covered by fundraising. This can only be overruled by a two-thirds majority vote.

The group then proposed cutting some of the money from the request and paying for items like travel costs themselves. Senators also discussed the possibility of splitting up the requests to account for each individual conference. However, those changes coupled with cutting the transportation costs and dividing up the fundraised money among the three conferences required a great deal of recalculation and, after a half hour of debate, Senate passed a motion to table to the request until next week.

Following that debate, the Citizens United Resolution was next on the agenda. In 2013, Oregon became the 16th state to adopt a resolution requesting Congress to nullify the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. The resolution presented to the Senate was more of a symbolic gesture of support for the movement opposed to Citizens United. Senate voted to pass the resolution.

At the end of the meeting, Ombudsperson Samantha Cohen reminded senators to be present for all of their ASUO commitments as possible.

“I want to remind folks that you have an obligation, self care, family emergencies, academic and ASUO comes second, but everything else comes third…Grievances are public and they’re not fun, so do your job,” Cohen said.

In the treasurer update, Senator Iversen reported that 68.7 percent of surplus remains.

Fore more information on the ASUO, visit their website.

Live coverage of Wednesday night’s ASUO Senate meeting

Agenda

The movement to include more gender-inclusive bathrooms at the University of Oregon continues, but the movement has a diverse set of goals.

On Oct. 29, representatives from Theta Pi Sigma, the ASUO Executive branch, the Women’s Center and the LGBTESSP appeared before the ASUO Senate to ask for support for their efforts to increase the presence of gender-inclusive bathrooms on campus.

Elle Mallon, the ASUO’s Gender and Sexuality Diversity advocate, was among the speakers. She outlined some of the issues that arose within the transgender community due to the lack of gender-inclusive bathrooms, including purposeful dehydration and other health complications, in addition to high-risk of assault or bodily harm.

The resolution is known as the “Resolution to Create and Make Accessible More Gender-Inclusive Restrooms on the University of Oregon Campus.”

The gender inclusive bathrooms are catching the attention of the campus community as of late, but are by no means a new project. The ASUO has been called to involvement recently, but the LGBTESSP has been working to advance this cause for about a year.

Kalie Solomon, program assistant with the LGBTESSP, was in charge of mapping out the locations of all single-occupancy bathrooms on campus last year. The map helped specify where all gender-inclusive bathrooms on campus were and the number of bathrooms.

Following the mapping, LGBTESSP Director Chicora Martin and Assistant Director Maure Smith-Benanti reached out to department heads to discuss increasing the presence of gender-inclusive bathrooms in their respective buildings.

According to Solomon, around 15-17 new gender-inclusive restrooms will be in place around campus, through conversion of signs for traditionally gendered bathrooms.

Casey Edwards was the ASUO State Affairs Commissioner until his resignation in the fall. Throughout the summer, however, he was involved in working with the LGBTESSP on the efforts regarding mapping out gender-inclusive bathrooms. Now, Mallon and Senate VP Miles Sisk are among the members of the ASUO currently coordinating with the LGBTESSP.

Mapping the bathrooms and gaining approval from the department heads has led to where the project currently stands, which is examining the costs of removing the current, traditionally gendered signs, and the purchase and installation of signs, which indicate a gender-inclusive facility. Funding to cover these costs may come from the departments, or additional fundraising efforts may be needed.

Solomon will soon be resurveying all the buildings to establish the most current report of bathrooms because the status has changed since the beginning of the school year.

Mallon’s work has been somewhat more aligned with an administrative route. In addition to involvement with the department head negotiations, she is currently preparing a resolution to present to the University Senate mandating at least one gender-inclusive bathroom in every building on campus. She said that Exec support, specifically support from President Beatriz Gutierrez, will be critical at that stage.

The movement is taking shape by means of several efforts, but all parties agree on the motivation: to create safe spaces for all members of campus.

“For people who might not feel comfortable identifying within a binary at all, it’s definitely important,” said Solomon.

The ASUO has a full schedule as it looks toward the next three months. Here’s an overview of what your student government will be up to:

The ASUO Executive branch will be launching into its campaign for cultural competency. Cultural competency refers to awareness and effective interaction between people with varying cultural, socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.

“The goal is to create the safest place possible in a classroom or in a workplace, so that people can do their jobs correctly and learn as much as possible,” said Chief of Staff Lamar Wise.

The campaign to encourage cultural competency will take shape in several ways. ASUO Multicultural Advocate Perla Alvarez is leading the efforts to connect with and improve cultural competency within the faculty.

“It’s very important that our faculty and staff know how to deal with students of color, do not make assumptions. A lot of the ways in which our faculty are not properly making decisions in connection to students of color or with disabilities is because they need to be trained that they treat students as individuals and not as a whole,” Alvarez said.

Alvarez is working with the Division for Equity and Inclusion towards institutionalizing a training for faculty in cultural competency, and also toward an increased awareness of cultural competency in other areas of the college experience, such as the residence halls.

The ASUO also hopes to introduce a workshop similar to those performed by the Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team at IntroDucktion to help socialize incoming students to the concept of cultural competency on campus.

However, cultural competency is only one of several issues the ASUO will be involved in tackling at the Oregon Student Association rally in February. The rally takes place in Salem every two years and is an opportunity for students from higher education institutions all over the state to discuss the agreed-upon objectives and lobby in their favor in the Oregon legislature. This year’s issues include tuition affordability, sexual assault prevention and cultural competency.

Last time the rally happened, there were nearly 500 total students in attendance. The ASUO is hoping to send around 75 people this year to Salem, and one of Exec’s priorities is to recruit students from all parts of the university to attend. State Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Ramos and Alvarez are both involved in recruiting efforts. Ramos has been sending emails and will be reaching out by phone to students who expressed interest in rallying and lobbying when they registered to vote through the ASUO.

“We definitely want a diverse group of students to go,” said Ramos.

According to Alvarez, one of the other goals of recruiting is story collections. The ASUO is looking for stories from different students about why cultural competency is important to them, an instance where they felt a teacher may have not been trained enough in cultural competency.

Senate, meanwhile, is approaching budget season, where it will review and approve the amount of money allocated to ASUO-funded groups. In addition, regular Wednesday night meetings and all committees and working groups will continue as usual.

For more information on the ASUO, visit their website.

The ASUO kicked off the term with a number of empty seats to fill. Candace Joyner and Casey Edwards left their positions on the executive branch, and two additional resignations on senate brought the total number of open senate seats to six.

The hiring process turned out to be a bit more controversial than expected with the testimonies of several interviewees who claimed that they were treated unfairly and unprofessionally by the hiring committee. Exec and Senate Seat 20 and Academic Chair Abel Cerros later defended the process, saying it was conducted with the proper integrity. Inconsistencies between the two sides remained, but the confirmation process continued undeterred.

The Senate confirmed Senator Aven-itza De Primavera for seat 19 (Journalism and History), Senator Quang Truong for seat 4 (EMU Board), Senator William Iversen for seat 11 (Business and Economics), Senator Lizeth Marin for seat 17 (Law and Social Sciences), and Senator Sami Tayeh for seat 15 (Psychology and Cultural Studies). In addition, Austin Palacios was confirmed as Associate Justice to the Constitution Court. Later, Hao Tan was confirmed as Freshman Representative.

With Charlie Pontrelli’s resignation in November, the ASUO will now have to fill Senate Seat 16 (Life Sciences). No update on that position has been given yet. Will Iversen was appointed to replace Pontrelli as Treasurer.

The ASUO also hit an unexpected rough patch with the revival of blogs ASUO Progressive Probs and ASUO Conservative Probs. The Emerald’s coverage of senate VP Miles Sisk’s endeavor to shut down the blogs with the help of the administration gained widespread attention. No action was taken against the websites, and they continue to run.

The ASUO has been working on several projects of note, including the collaborative efforts between executive members, senate and other student groups to forward provision of gender-inclusive bathrooms. The senate created a working group to help push for changed signs and increased mapping so that students are aware of the locations of gender-inclusive bathrooms on campus.

Senate also worked with the Student Mental Health Advocates in efforts to bring about changes to student ID cards so they would have emergency numbers printed on them, as a part of the SMHA’s #mysafetymatters campaign. Like the work on gender-inclusive bathrooms, these efforts will continue into winter term.

The ASUO also focused its efforts on supporting the GTFF prior to and throughout the striking period. It first ran a letter in the Emerald expressing support of the GTFF. Later, the ASUO joined forces with the Student Labor Action Project in a series of demonstrations, including visiting Interim President Scott Coltrane at his office hours in Lillis and holding a Solidarity Study-In in the lobby of Johnson Hall, even attempting to enter the office spaces the second day, though they were deterred from doing so.

An earlier version of this article did not clarify that the pay floor of $31,025 for Level I GTFs took tuition and fee waivers into account, and that GTF salaries are contingent both upon salary and FTE equivalency.

The article has been changed to better explain this.

It may be important to define what a Graduate Teaching Fellow is. GTFs are graduate students pursuing masters or doctoral degrees, also employed by the university as instructors, research assistants or administrative workers.

The GTFF 3544 serves as a representative union for GTFs at the University of Oregon, established in 1976. The GTFF website has more info on the history of the union.

Currently, there are about 1,500 GTFs employed by the university, most, but not all, of whom are unionized. They are employed at one of three pay levels. For example, entering masters students and those students who do not qualify to be at the second or third levels are employed at the GTF I level and fully enrolled doctoral students are employed at the GTF III level. As they progress through their degrees, students can move up through the levels.

GTFs qualify for a number of benefits, some of which vary depending on their level and some of which are consistent throughout the three levels.

The grad school website states that graduate students are employed on a range from .20 to .49 FTE, which means a percentage of a full-time equivalent employment. Essentially, the amount GTFs make is dependent both on their salary rate as well as their level of employment in terms of percentage of FTE. As of the last contract, GTFs making the minimum salary at the minimum FTE, combined with tuition and fee waivers, were receiving at least $31,025. On its website, the GTFF declares that GTFs making minimum salary at .49 FTE made less than what the University projects as the living costs for some graduate students, and this was one of the issues at hand associated with the strike.

As of the last GTFF contract, the pay floor for level I GTFs was $31,025. However, every salary is negotiated between GTFs and the department for which they work, usually resulting in a wage higher than the set floor. Acting Senior Vice President and Provost Frances Bronet explained in an interview with the Emerald that 68 percent of GTFs make above the floor.

The recent tentative agreement between the GTFF and UO administration includes a five percent retroactive increase to the minimum wages this year and a five percent increase for next year as well.

Health benefits are another part of the GTF package. Over the past few years, the GTFF has negotiated to reach a dental and vision plan of 95 percent coverage by the university. Now, with the new tentative agreement, a $150,000 Graduate Student Assistance Fund will also be in place to aid students in need of compensation for parental or medical leave.

Tuition is waived for up to 16 credit hours per term and all fees are covered by the university except the amount of $61 per term. The graduate school website also offers a comprehensive list of the salaries and benefits for GTFs.

Aside from the benefits, salary or tuition waivers, another significant motivator for grad students who choose to be GTFs: a genuine desire to teach. VP of Operations for the GTFF member Brianna Bertoglio, both a doctoral student and GTF in the education department, says she often has trouble setting boundaries as an instructor to provide for the time she needs as a student.

“I feel like I need to be available to people…I don’t want the one time I say ‘oh no, I can’t do that’ to be something that’s gonna really affect someone’s experience in college.”

More information on the appointment of GTFs can be found on the graduate school website.

Alexandria Cremer Contributed to this report

Follow Kaylee Tornay on Twitter @ka_tornay