IMPACT, or the Intercultural Mentoring Program Advancing Community Ties, is a program on campus aimed at promoting the success of and use of resources for underclassmen by connecting them with upperclassman, or mentors. They’re biggest goal is to introduce new students to the plethora of resources they have lurking just under the surface of campus.

“Each week we have a fun activity where we build community and get to know each other,” Phillip Pham, one of the organizations outreach coordinators, explained. “Then the next week we have resources on campus come and talk about what they offer and have the opportunity for students to just ask questions on the spot.”

The program does most of its recruiting in the fall, after tabling at events like IntroDucktion. Once they’ve mass-recruited, they’re able to pair their applicants up into mentee and mentor.

Ariana Donaville, a junior and mentor in the program, describes how this works: “You rank what’s most important to you, and it could be anything from diversity, like I just want somebody who looks like me, or somebody who’s going to help me with my academics.” People can join the organization later in the year, also.

Freshman mentee Yomaira Tarula believes that IMPACT has really positively altered her college experience. “For me it’s been like a supporting group. It’s nice having someone that I know I can go to for anything,” Tarula said. She said that she and her mentor have grown closer as the year has gone on. Though they didn’t know each other well when they were first paired up, their relationship has exceeded what Tarula originally expected it to.

IMPACT also looks to expose students to other cultural experiences waiting on campus. “It’s a good way to learn about all the cultures and whatnot. You get student leaders from all the other clubs, like the Native American Student Union and the Asian Pacific American Student Union,” Pham said, “so all of these student leaders becoming mentors and showing people the way, for the mentees is crucial to people’s transition to becoming leaders.”

They have doubled the number of coordinator positions this year, and attendance for the organization has made a huge leap. They’re currently attracting about 50 students per meeting where they used to attract only 20 to 30.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” quote has returned to the EMU. The quote’s removal was the subject of considerable national debate in January, but a university official says it was always going to return. The university points to miscommunication and a lack of fact checking for the media firestorm.

Earlier this term, the Emerald released an article about the EMU Board briefly addressing whether the MLK quote should be replaced with another quote that included more diverse representation. The idea that this quote wasn’t sufficiently diverse spread like wildfire, with over a dozen national media outlets picking it up.

Laura McGinnis is a UO communications specialist. When media outlets started contacting the university, she worked with Laurie Woodward, the EMU director, and a source cited in the original MLK article published by the Emerald; however, it wasn’t until a few pieces had already been published that any outside media attempted to contact the university.

“We saw it being picked up by so many news outlets and we never received a phone call,” McGinnis said. “Nobody from the university received a phone call until Jesse Watter’s team contacted Laurie. And that was several days in after they had already written their own piece, not calling anybody.” Watters is a journalist for Fox News.

McGinnis said the university’s number one priority throughout all of this was maintaining the safety of the student population, specifically the one student who was cited in the story and received the majority of the criticism online.

Before taking her position at the UO, McGinnis worked in suicide prevention. She helped social media sites like Twitter and Facebook keep their privacy policies tight and in a condition that could combat cyber bullying.

“I absolutely saw [bullying] as a risk that could happen to this student. It would not take much for this individual to be the victim of hate and vitriol,” said McGinnis. She stressed that the university was absolutely there and willing to provide any resources for the student receiving hate as well as for any writers that experienced backlash.

University employees said the strangest part was that these attacks seemed to come out of left field. The original conversation within the board hadn’t even begun as a discussion to change the MLK quote.

“It was a discussion that the board had. The quote went back up and everyone was happy about the quote going back up,” Woodward said. “I showed them two different displays, and it was about a choice between the two different displays, and the conversation broadened.”

The board felt the issue was resolved before media outlets focused on the discussion, ignoring the decision to keep the quote up in the EMU.

McGinnis blamed a lack of fact checking for the whole situation.

“There’s a reason that we care about ethics. There’s a reason that we care about investigation, that we study what we do and we want to make it right. From a journalistic perspective, integrity means a lot and it’s only as good as what you’re putting out,” said McGinnis. “It was a little discomforting from that perspective, but especially when you looked at what outlets were choosing to highlight – and that was a quote attributed to a student that had simply expressed an opinion.”

Campus Thursday nights: With classes still a prevalent factor the next morning, and the weekend looming but not quite making contact yet, students may feel a viable, but maybe not always practical, urge to go out. For those who want to stay on campus, Ducks After Dark has been providing activities for student’s Thursday nights since 2012.

Ducks After Dark is a student organization that plays movies in PLC 180 every Thursday night. Its mission states that the goal is “to provide the University of Oregon student body with activities on campus during late night and weekend hours, creating a healthy, vibrant and rich environment for University of Oregon students.” Ducks After Dark provides that environment with activities starting at 8 p.m., and the movie starting at 9 p.m.

The event is currently held in PLC 180, but when the renovations come to a close, they will be moving the festivities to the new EMU Redwood Auditorium.

UO freshman Alyssa Kelley thinks this is a great opportunity for students who are new to campus to get involved in a circle of friends they might not meet otherwise.

“When you’re a freshman, like that first semester, you don’t really know what happens. You want to take advantage of every opportunity,” Kelley said.

She’s been going since her first week here on campus, and it’s helped her meet more people than her usual dorm crowd. She and her roommate, Erin, even follow the themes.

“On pajama night, she wore footie pajamas and I wore my bathrobe,” Kelley said. “Not a ton of people dressed up, but we didn’t care. It was so much fun.”

Since it’s arrival in 2012, Ducks After Dark has improved in attendance and exposure immensely. Adviser Mandy Chong attributes it to the research they did regarding movie selection. Recently they’ve focused on newer films.

“The team came up with the film line up and put classic films in it,” Chong said. “Then we looked at the data from a couple of years and, consistently, we had lower turnout when showing older films.”

This led to a reallocation in the budget to get licensing for the newest films possible. Ducks After Dark now plays modern features, such as Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur. Of course, there are a couple exceptions to the new-is-better rule.

“We have two reoccurring older films that are exceptions: The Rocky Horror Picture Show and National Lampoon’s Animal House,” Chong said.

Darks After Dark is looking to continue it’s expansion. It is hoping to add more activities in the coming years, possibly even comedians.

A week ago, UOPD police chief, Carolyn McDermed, abruptly left her position just days before a federal judge was to reconfirm a $755,000 jury award against her and her department. The case stated that the jury believed she unlawfully retaliated against a complaint from an employee about her leadership. About $1.5 million in damages and attorney fees is prepared to be paid on this case.

There were four months left in McDermed’s contract when she stepped down. According to the Oregonian, the University of Oregon paid her $46,000 to leave her position. This includes her salary for the remaining for months with two weeks of accrued vacation, though spokesman Tobin Klinger declined to say why they wanted her gone so badly that they were willing to pay that.

The departure is still being characterized as a retirement.

Rumors have been spreading for a few days now that Justin Bieber is in Eugene and using Matthew Knight Arena as a rehearsal space for his tour through the Pacific Northwest, which includes a concert at the Moda Center in Portland on March 13. Bieber’s presence in Eugene hasn’t been completely confirmed by anyone.

On Monday, an employee of the arena was only able to confirm with the Emerald that there was a “private event” taking place.

That didn’t stop the crowd outside Matthew Knight yesterday from stirring every time a black car drove around the corner — Bieber’s rumored vehicle.

So how did people even find out about Bieber’s presence? While some people say it was through the Snapchat account @UOSnaps, Abigail Vinson said she heard the news from employees at Inn at the 5th, a hotel in downtown Eugene. Another fan,  a mother named Trisha Heffelfinger, claimed that she heard through employees at the Hilton.

Heffelfinger claims she spent an hour in the Hilton’s parking garage with her daughter last night and tried to check into a room for the night in order to have access to the hotel’s elevator. Unfortunately, both the Hilton and Inn at the 5th were completely booked.

The Service Employees International Union took students on a tour of the classified workers’ side of campus last Wednesday, Feb. 18. SEIU has been attempting to increase awareness of its union since a near-strike this summer.

An Ethnic Studies 199 class attended the tour. The instructor, Associate Professor Daniel HoSang, hoped his class could learn about classified unions on campus and how they affect employees of different rankings and positions.

The short tour met with multiple employees — including Morgan Blake, a cook in the Carson Dining Hall; Theodora Thompson, an admissions evaluator and the president of the University of Oregon’s SEIU branch; and Paul Keats, who works for the American English Institute on campus.

Morgan Blake previously worked at Rosboro Lumber with her husband, and found the importance in having a union during her first pregnancy.

“When I got pregnant the first time, they tried to lay me off,” Blake said. “If I hadn’t had my union there supporting me and saying, ‘Hey, you can’t do that,’ I wouldn’t have had a job.”

Blake was the only woman working at the sawmill. Blake became pregnant again, and the sawmill tried to fire her a second time. The mill filed for bankruptcy and shut down in 2008. Morgan the earned a culinary degree from Lane Community College and eventually found her way the Carson Dining Hall on the UO campus.

Theodora Thompson is the campus union’s president. An immigrant, Thompson said she saw the importance in unions because they protected rights that she wasn’t fully aware of and prevented employers from taking advantage of her.

“When I came to this country, I didn’t know about rights,” Thompson said,”and once you give something away, it’s hard to take it back.”

As the president of the union, Thompson’s priority is to make sure employees are working a healthy amount. She believes that being overworked and not having time for your loved ones is unhealthy both physically and mentally.

Paul Keats said he finds value in unions based on the salary balances they allow. Keats sees a problem with the disconnect between the wages that classified staffs are paid and the wages that senior administrators are paid.

“Classified staff are the people working on the front lines to help you get what you need out of this university, and yet they’re paid the lowest,” Keats said. “The senior administrators really are the 1 percent here.”

Keats said that if it wasn’t for the union representing him and his colleagues, the wage gap on campus would be even larger.

Throughout the tour, the students showed passion and curiosity in their questions, and they seemed to leave with more knowledge and enthusiasm on the topic of unions.

The University of Oregon’s Career Center’s Feb. 11 career fair had higher student attendance than usual. The center and attending employers said this points to its increasing success and impact on students’ lives.

Makaya Moore graduated from UO in 2015. Moore worked for the Career Center while she was a student, after attaining an internship through one of their career fairs.

“Sophomore year, I went to the career fair unaware of what I was looking for, but I brought my resume just in case,” Moore said. “I saw StoveTeam International’s table and was interested in their organization. They said they were looking for an intern and it was okay that I didn’t have experience.”

That’s something employers at the career center want to stress: experience is not required in attaining an internship. Employers don’t always expect students to have job experience.

E. & J. Gallo Winery attended the career fair this year, meeting six students they invited back for a second round of interviews.

“We go in with the understanding that students may not have an extensive amount of work experience because they’ve been dedicating their time to getting involved on campus,” Laurence Kuhlmann, an item sales manager for E. & J. Gallo Winery, said. “We want people that have made an impact during their time on campus.”

Kulhman has been coming to the career fairs with E. & J. Gallo Winery for six years now.

“I’m always so impressed by the level of maturity these students possess,” Kuhlman said. He said he has noticed quite an improvement throughout the years he attended as a recruiter –students come more prepared and professional every year, constantly raising the bar.

Student attendance has increased as well. This last fair brought in about 1,000 students. The average number is closer to 700-800 students per fair, said Colleen Lewis, employer relations manager and event coordinator for the Career Center. Lewis brings it back to the idea of an internship.

“Academics are so important, and you never want to let those go,” she said. “But these days, a student really needs to spend these four years, through experiential learning, building up that resume, so that by the time they leave campus they really have a foundation of experience that shows their value to an employer.”

It has been a few weeks since Chipotle opened in the EMU, and it doesn’t look like the line has slowed down since the gate lowered to reveal the rusty red menus. The vendor sat behind a grate as the grand opening dates were postponed time and time again. Dan Geiger, the EMU renovation manager, said that he received countless emails from people prodding him for the opening date and reasons for the multiple pushbacks.

On Feb. 8, every Chipotle restaurant will spend several hours closed to discuss all issues pertaining to the restaurant’s recent food safety crisis involving E. coli outbreaks. 

The process of finding vendors and designing the new EMU atmosphere started back in 2010, so Chipotle has had a secure spot in the fishbowl for quite some time, before the cases of E. coli started popping up nationwide. 

For Geiger, the EMU never wavered. “It didn’t shake us at all,” he said. “We knew that they were a responsible company and that they were going to get on top of it, and they assured us that they were and we believed them.”

The restaurant has made public steps toward regaining their reputation by employing new protocols that should decrease the chance of contamination.

“I think … they’d be extra safe because they could not survive another set of lawsuits,” said UO student Jeff Steinberger.

The opening of Chipotle is another move towards having a whole and enjoyable EMU once again. More vendors will open such as Townshend’s Tea and a fresh market.

Despite Chipotle’s E. coli scare, they are open and seeing long lines .

“We all recognize that they’ve been through a challenge these past few months and that they’re working to make sure that their health issues are cleaned up. And I think that they’ve made great progress in that,” Geiger said.

You didn’t have to set foot in the EMU ballroom to know how much of a success the Chinese Students and Scholars Association’s China Night was.

Under a red insignia on one of the cement pillars that stood by the staircase was a large white sign that read “China Night is SOLD OUT.” If that wasn’t enough, proof could be found in the line of guests stretched from the front of the staircase, past the information desk in the EMU’s lobby, all the way down that hallway and up another flight of stairs.

The CSSA hosts China Night annually as a celebration of the Chinese New Year. It provides an event for those Chinese students and citizens who cannot make it home for the celebration. The goal of the night is to replicate the Spring Festival Gala, which is traditionally observed with friends and family on this holiday. In the spirit of the gala, the EMU event held 18 performances.These ranged from the Oregon Wushu team, which, according to one of their members, Wing Ng, is “a club sport on campus that focuses on performance-based mixed martial arts,” to a Korean Pop dance team.

Quanjia Lin, a financial supporter of the CSSA, believes the event is a very important one to hold.

“The Chinese New Year is our big event of the year and we are away from our friends, family and country, so now we can be together and celebrate,” said Lin.

The ballroom was decorated with traditional red Chinese lanterns and circular tables filled the room, draped with red tablecloths. The guests were dressed in different fashions; some wore more traditional garb and formal clothing, while others wore simple, casual outfits for the occasion. The diversity in age was just as drastic.

Guests sat around the tables looking over their red menus, which offered the items in both English and Chinese. At the bottom of the menu sat the face of a monkey with “2016” printed above it, representing that this is the year of the monkey.

Businesses like the Hub and Oregon Life parked right outside the ballroom, receiving plenty of traffic from the plethora of students who poured through the ballroom lobby.

The attendance was so astounding that the event didn’t get started until about a half hour after its planned time.

This Saturday, Feb. 6, at 6:30pm, the CSSA-UO (Chinese Students and Scholars Association) is  holding an event called China Night in the EMU Ballroom.

The CSSA, according to their group’s description on their Facebook page , is the largest Chinese organization in Eugene. Their aim is to improve relationships with international partners and support the Chinese students and scholars here on campus. This event will be a night of musical performances and celebration of the Chinese New Year.

“The Chinese New Year is a traditional festival , people from all places in China will come home to stay with their family members, they will have a big meal and watch the CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala,” Xulu Luke, the organization’s propagandist, says.

However, overseas students don’t get the opportunity to celebrate this event at home, so China Night will be a replacement celebration for them.

“Our event will copy The Spring Festival Gala, of course, all actors will be overseas students. We will have a big meal that night and amazing shows. We also have many Chinese traditional elements just like New Year scrolls, food, etc,” Luke said.

Tickets can be purchased at the door of the EMU Ballroom.