As the University of Oregon’s track season kicks off,  so does the annual “A Step in the Right Direction” shoe-recycling campaign led by masters’ students in the Lundquist College of Business. This year’s campaign hopes to collect a record number of shoes between March 16, the beginning of the UO’s track and field season, and the final day of the NCAA Track & Field Championships on June 8, in support of environmental awareness and sustainability.

Depending on their condition, shoes donated to the campaign are either recycled by the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program, where they are ground into athletic track and playground surface, or to Playing for Kickz, where they are distributed to children in need of athletic shoes. According to “A Step in the Right Direction,” last year’s campaign generated 1,409 pairs of shoes to be recycled or donated to charity.

Students and community members are encouraged to drop off their shoes — regardless of brand, condition or size — with representatives at any of the UO track meets occurring at Hayward Field between March 16 and June 8, at the Eugene Marathon on March 24 or at the Prefontaine Classic on the weekend of May 31. In addition, the campaign is in the process of installing shoe collection bins in athletic buildings and residence halls around the UO for student convenience.

Elizabeth Brock, coordinator of the initiative, encourages students to participate in the campaign as an easy way to give back to the community without much effort.

“Honestly, it’s easy,” she said. “Bins are on campus … and there’s no reason for students to throw shoes away when it means they’re going to a landfill. If they give their shoes to us, they’re going to be reused and be repurposed. It’s really easy, all you have to do is drop them off.”

Although the official campaign ends on June 8, coordinators encourage students and the community to continue to donate year-round by dropping used sneakers in the permanent shoe-collection box in the Student Recreation Center or at the Nike Store on Oakway Road.

University of Oregon students Jonathan Brunton, Mackensie Southard, Kris Kimberling and Cody Schmidt function as a unit. The four men are from different backgrounds, pursuing different academic paths, looking for different things out of their futures. Despite their diverse interests and upbringings, these men find themselves united by a bond stronger than ideological differences — they served in the U.S. military.

Gathered on the couches constituting their temporary meeting place in Suite 2 of the Erb Memorial Union — a space they share with the Men’s Center and the Designated Driver Shuttle — these men serve as representatives of the Veterans Family and Student Association, a campus organization dedicated to providing mentorship and academic assistance to student veterans and their family members.

One of the organization’s main goals is to aid veterans with the transition from the military back into academic life. According to Brunton, the change from rigid military discipline into a college lifestyle can be an unexpected shock. As co-directors of the VFSA, he and Southard have taken it upon themselves to create an environment in which established student veterans can help ease the transition for their less-experienced peers.

“For most of us, we got out of high school and went right into the military, so transitioning back into school is very difficult,” he said. “People like us who have been here for a year or two try to help the people who are just coming in.”

Another challenge veterans face is an inability to connect socially with those around them, Brunton said. Although they find support from members of the nontraditional student sector of the UO, members of the VFSA  prefer to be surrounded by people who understand their military experiences and can relate to the unique circumstances faced by veterans, finding comfort in one another’s familiar military mannerisms.

“The VFSA is so important to veterans on this campus because we have a place where we can go and share our concerns, and we can feel comfortable doing that and help mentor and help each other,” Kimberling, the assistant director of the VFSA said. “We don’t want to go to someone who doesn’t know what we’re talking about and doesn’t understand what our experiences are.”

In addition to creating an atmosphere in which student veterans can find academic and social support, VFSA aims to debunk some of the popular myths surrounding the veteran stereotype.

“One of the biggest things we’re trying to get out to everybody is that not every student veteran has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder … and not every student veteran is a heavy drinker,” Brunton said. “We’re just as positive as anybody else, and we also have a lot of experiences that we can talk to everybody about if we’re just approached the right way.”

The association also welcomes into its midst the spouses and children of those serving. They invite anyone dealing with the active deployment of a family member to seek counseling from a VFSA member who might be familiar with their situation.

In addition to social mentorship, the association is working on implementing academic initiatives to help the student veteran demographic. Projects in the works include “Textbooks for Veterans,” which would loan donated texts for use to veteran students, and “Veterans to Success,” a mentorship program that would connect upper-level veteran students with successful college graduates for the purposes of commercial networking and job-search advice.

Since signing on as co-directors of the organization, Brunton and Southard have been lobbying the UO for a private gathering space designed to suit specific veteran purposes. Recently, the pair saw their actions pay off when they were designated space in the EMU previously occupied by the U.S. Post Office. The ribbon cutting will take place on April 20.

The veterans hope a new space will allow them to reach out to more of their own on campus, helping them expand their company dynamic to veterans struggling for a place to fit in.

“By being in the military, it doesn’t matter what generation you’re in, you all share that same camaraderie,” Brunton said. “It  doesn’t matter which branch you were in, you will relate with each other and understand that story.”

Campus organizations collaborated over the weekend to host a Wikipedia-editing seminar geared toward supporting womens’ roles in web technology. The purpose of the seminar, presented in honor of Women’s History Month, was to encourage women at the University of Oregon and in the Eugene community to become Wikipedia contributors and editors, teaching them the skills necessary to create a credible entry.

The two-day seminar — which was hosted by the ASUO Women’s Center, UO Center for the Study of Women in Society, UO Libraries and the UO School of Journalism and Communication — included a Wikipedia editor’s workshop lead by Wikimedia fellow Sarah Stierch on Fri., March 8, and a mass editing session in Allen Hall on Saturday March 9.

According to Stierch, who trained as a fellow at Wikimedia — the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia.org — as low as nine percent of its editors are women. In addition, Wikimedia reports the average contributor is a single, white, child-free male between the ages of 20 and 30 years old. In her opinion, this statistic raises questions regarding availability and bias of Wikipedia articles relating to women and women’s issues.

“It’s critical for everybody to contribute their knowledge,” she said. “When a very specific demographic of people have been writing that knowledge, as they have been writing textbooks … it’s really critical that we start to change that.”

Throughout Saturday’s editing session, students and community members created and contributed to articles regarding historically significant women and women’s issues, doing their part to reduce the Wikipedia-gender skew. According to the Wikipedia page designed for the group, the day’s final project resulted in nine new articles about historical females.

“In the year 2013, we’re still having to deal with this challenge of women having their history, even their voices heard,” she said. ”It’s depressing, and we’re trying to change that.”

Tim Gleason’s proudest accomplishment as dean of the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication repeats itself every spring.

“Every June, there’s nothing quite like shaking the hands of … students who walked across the stage at commencement,” he said. “That’s the moment that you really realize why we’re here.”

After 16 years, this year’s graduation ceremony will be his last as the leader of the UO’s journalism school, as he is stepping down to take a sabbatical. Gleason has also been a member of the Emerald’s board of directors during part of this tenure.

Throughout these years, he has actualized dramatic changes within the SOJC, including the overhaul of the undergraduate curriculum to be increasingly digitized, the establishment of a program in which UO seniors can participate in a professional journalism experience in Portland and the recent revamp of Allen Hall.

“Deans create space where talented faculty and students do great work,” he said. “This is an amazing time in journalism. To be responsible for figuring out how to best train young students who want to be journalists is a daunting task at the moment. But at the same time, what I truly believe … is that two students sitting in the corner of Allen Hall are going to change the future of journalism.”

Although his original intent was to step down on June 30, he anticipates his time as dean might be extended a few months further due to a delay in the process of hiring a suitable replacement. In January, two candidates were entertained as finalists. However, according to Gleason, neither replacement was offered a position as the new dean, resulting in an extended search period. He is hopeful a replacement selection will be made by the end of spring term, a time frame that would allow SOJC faculty to participate in the interview process before they disperse for summer break.

He is not directly involved in the search for his replacement, but he hopes that the selection committee will decide on a candidate who will embrace the promise of the SOJC’s future.

“I just hope to see (the SOJC) continue to move forward,” he said. “I think the school’s in a really good position, and we’ll continue to grow and become stronger. I’m hoping for someone who’s going to come in and lead the school — and take it in good directions.”

Gleason plans on returning to the SOJC either in an administrative position or as professor specializing in communication law and ethics. Regardless of the details of his future employment, he can’t see himself working anywhere but the UO.

“I’ve been at the University of Oregon for 25 years — I’m committed,” he said. “I have no particular desire to go anywhere else. There have been any number of opportunities over the years that I have not pursued, and I don’t see myself pursuing them now.”

At the end of the day, it’s the impact he has made in the lives of the roughly 400 students who shake his hand at every June commencement that he believes counts the most.

“It is truly transformational,” he said. “You’ve been able to help people achieve a goal and begin to realize their vision for what they’re going to do with their lives. That’s just extraordinary to have the opportunity to do that.”

The ASUO Departments Finance Committee wrapped up its deliberations on an issue that has been hotly contended within the ASUO on Tuesday night.

The issue on the table: funding the Oregon Athletic Bands for the 2013-2014 season. After meeting for less than half an hour, the DFC approved the full financing of the OAB, including a budget increase of nearly 6.5 percent — to $152,951.

According to ASUO Senator Lamar Wise, the committee’s decision on Tuesday was a “complete 180″ from their earlier stance. In early February, the DFC voted unanimously to decrease the OAB budget by 13.1 percent, hoping to replace that amount of ASUO funding with additional OAB funding from University of Oregon departments. When replacement funds within the UO system were not located after an initial two-week period, ASUO President Laura Hinman suggested that the DFC revisit their proposal for the coming year, urging them to fund the band completely.

The DFC’s final budget will face approval by the ASUO Senate in a meeting later in the week. If approved, the OAB’s funds will be payed out in three lump sums over the upcoming fiscal year.

Although funds have been approved for the coming budget cycle, talks between Hinman and UO departments concerning the possibility of institutionalizing the OAB’s budget in future terms are expected to continue in May.

Nicholas Hadley spells out his names with his fingers. He started doing it unconsciously in elementary school, when Hadley first learned American Sign Language to accommodate the needs of a deaf friend. Although the University of Oregon senior has since supplemented his language skills with fluent Spanish and French and passing German, there’s something about accompanying his verbal expressions with physical manifestations that he just can’t shake.

Perhaps, as his friend and co-director of the UO American Sign Language Club Csea Leonard suggests, it’s because the three-dimensional aspect of ASL creates a “show me, don’t tell me” form of communication.

It was a love for the language, the desire to promote ASL culture and a mutual sentiment of obligation to rally for the deaf and hard of hearing that united Hadley, Leonard and senior Nina Nolen as co-directors of the UO ASL Club in June 2012. According to Leonard, the club has wavered in and out of existence throughout its history at the UO, making its most recent comeback with a push for ASUO recognition last spring, an effort spearheaded by the current club directors.

“We want to provide … a place where new students can learn in a real-life context an awesome new language, and the awesome new culture behind it. And of course, (we want) to raise awareness of the deaf culture that already exists in our city and in the world at large,” Hadley said.

The club began its community outreach efforts in the fall by hosting pizza dinners, potlucks and participating in community events such as ASL screenings of “The Wizard of Oz” at the UO Pocket Playhouse and a visit by deaf storyteller Peter Cook last November. In addition, the club participates in the monthly Silent Coffee nights hosted by Eugene Coffee Company and holds bi-weekly meetings in The Buzz — a location that they hope will inspire club participation through visibility.

According to Jeff Larson, an accessible education adviser, UO students with hearing impairments have their specific educational needs provided for by the Accessible Education Center. Through the AEC, the UO can administer personal ASL interpreters, professor-student amplification devices and in-class lecture captioning free of charge for students who require hearing assistance. In addition, the AEC will provide ASL interpreters for UO events at the request of the hosting club or organization.

Despite the availability of such accommodations, Hadley and Leonard find themselves discontent with their real-world implementation. In their opinion, the deaf and hard of hearing are often overlooked by campus organizations as a minority group requiring special accommodation. As directors of the club, they hope to focus their efforts on calling attention to the inclusion of hearing impaired and lobbying for minor changes in UO events — the closed captioning of all public movie screenings and ASL interpreters at every public lecture, for example.

“Those types of things may seem really small, but they add up really fast,” Leonard said.

As a scholar of Romance Languages, Hadley understands the initial feelings of awkwardness and anxiety that often accompany the effort of learning a new language. However, he hopes that the atmosphere of acceptance that he has worked to establish within the ASL club will encourage newcomers to overcome their initial hesitation and jump in to a language that he believes is both useful and beautiful.

“I think it’s valuable to know sign language because it’s a new way to express yourself,” Hadley said. “It’s a whole new culture. It’s a whole new way of thinking, and it’s a very pretty way to communicate.”

When freshman Zachary Herrera was considering potential colleges, he looked for three things: a business program, a marching band and a speech team.

In the University of Oregon, Herrera thought that he had found the perfect combination of all three. However, after applying, enrolling and joining the University of Oregon Forensics Team (speech and debate), he found that the speech team that he had eagerly looked forward to joining was virtually nonexistent.

In the fall, Herrera was one of three students participating in the speech aspect of forensics. Currently, the team is down to two: Herrera and fellow freshman David Sylva.

“I guess the only way I can describe doing speech at Oregon is kind of like being the lone wolf from ‘The Hangover,’ or whatever,” Herrera said of his situation. “I came onto this team and the ratio of Debate to Individual Events students was just way out of skew.”

Traditionally, collegiate debate teams are accompanied by a speech team, which is comprised of people who compete in individual speaking events, ranging from poetry readings to humorous interpretations of literature.

According to Sarah Hamid, graduate teaching fellow in forensics and one of Herrera’s coaches, the UO Forensics Team has made a gradual shift over the last five years away from the traditional “full service” forensics approach to focus exclusively on the debate program. Although this has contributed to Oregon’s consistent success in debate, including national titles in 2009 and 2011, it has also resulted in the speech team’s current state of disrepair.

Herrera’s position as the underdog at the UO doesn’t phase him — he has been there before. During his year on the debate team at South San Francisco High School, his small team of approximately 20 students competed against high schools in their area with upwards of 300 students on their forensic teams. Despite tough competition, Herrera excelled in his signature event of dramatic interpretation, garnering acclaim as a speech champion in the state of California and qualifying for the National Speech and Debate Tournament hosted by the National Forensic League. At that point, he had only been competing in speech competitions for one year.

Despite the challenges faced by participating on a two-man team, Herrera strongly believes that he is qualified to become a nationally acclaimed speaker on a collegiate level and is determined to continue breaking ground in the forensic world. So far, Herrera has qualified for four events in the National Forensics Association’s annual intercollegiate debate tournament. He will be competing for a national title in the events of prose reading, poetry reading and dramatic interpretation as well as performing a duo dramatic interpretation with Sylva.

In addition to seeking personal success, Herrera and Sylva have taken it upon themselves to build the speech team at the UO from the ground up. Last weekend, during the Robert D. Clark High School Forensics Tournament that took place in the EMU, the pair began the expansion process, recruiting eight graduating high school seniors who they believed could be successful on the collegiate circuit. With proper practice and the insight of two co-captains who have both competed on a national level, Herrera is determined that next year’s speech team will have the resources it needs to qualify each participant for nationals, regardless of its relative youth.

“David and I take this really seriously, and were ‘in it to win it,’ I guess, for lack of anything that’s not cliché,” Herrera said. “We want to make a name for UO speech, we want to be just as acclaimed as UO debate nationally … We want to be a threat.”

A march organized by the Cascadia Forest Defenders took place on campus Sunday in an attempt to generate awareness in a campaign against industrial resource extraction.

Around 1 p.m., participants gathered in the Erb Memorial Union Amphitheater before marching into downtown Eugene, chanting verbal protests against resource extraction and the financing of environmentally destructive efforts. The parade route ran through downtown, stopping to allow the protest of financing of environmentally damaging practices at local branches of national banks, before returning to campus where it culminated with a call to action against harmful environmental destruction.

Sunday’s march, which coincided with the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference hosted by the University of Oregon School of Law was the second in a series of marches that began two weeks ago, at the end of the Social Justice Real Justice campaign at the UO.

According to event organizer Samantha Krop, this march was specifically aimed at calling attention to the funding of resource extraction by multinational banking corporations such as Wells Fargo, Chase Bank and Bank of America. After the first march two weeks ago, participants posted lists of demands on the doors of local companies that support environmentally degrading practices, Krop said. After receiving no response, Sunday’s march was scheduled as a follow up, to let industries know that activists had not backed down.

“A march isn’t going to make them stop. This is basically to show that we’re united in the effort to make them stop,” Krop said.

Among the crowd were members of the general public who support the campaign against environmental destruction, students who represent on campus organizations fighting for the same principles and legal observers from the Civil Liberties Defense Center, a Eugene based organization focused on “defending and upholding civil liberties,” according to their website.

Paige Corich-Kleim, a UO student and member of the University of Oregon Survival Center believes the march was an important step toward maintaining the activist presence in Eugene.

“This march is to show that we’re serious about organizing,” Corich-Kleim said. “This is not something we’re going to let them get away with.”

Eugene Police arrested 23 year old Kevin Pieracci, the subject of a traffic violation induced police chase, outside of New Max’s Tavern on East 13th Avenue around 5:45 p.m. Friday night.

The subject was originally stopped by an officer for what appeared to be an expired license plate on his motorcycle, according to Eugene Police Lieutenant Scott Fellman. Pieracci then allegedly proceeded to flee police on foot and was chased by a police K-9 into the neighborhood surrounding New Max’s Tavern and through the bar where he was apprehended by police.

Witnesses told police that Pieracci appeared to be carrying a handgun, but upon apprehension officers did not find a weapon.

Pieracci was then taken to the Lane County Jail where he was held on several charges including failing to carry and present a valid drivers license, interfering with police, alluding by foot, resisting arrest and traffic citations.

Public reaction to the scene was ideal for a police chase in a public location, according to Fellman.

“From looking at the reports it looks like everybody did just exactly what we would like them to do … Nobody interfered and nobody did anything to create any additional danger situations,” Fellman said. “They stayed out of the way.”

Renter’s insurance is a no-brainer investment for students living in rental homes or apartments. For an average cost of less than one dollar per day, renter’s insurance protects the personal property of a renter, as well as offering liability coverage in case of injury lawsuit. For a financially destitute college student, this can mean the difference between having money for next week’s happy hour and breaking the bank by paying out-of-pocket for accidental, unavoidable calamities.

Most students living in the residence halls have insurance coverage as an extension of their parents’ homeowner’s policies. However, moving off-campus disqualifies students from hitching a free ride on their parents’ insurance plans and makes finding a renter’s insurance policy imperative for financial security and peace of mind.

According to local Farmers Insurance Agent Christine Dambach, basic renter’s insurance consists of two parts: liability coverage and personal property protection. Liability insurance protects tenants from legal fees emanating from lawsuits regarding accidental injury at the policyholder’s property and can extend to cover accidental damages that a policyholder causes in someone else’s home as well. Personal property protection covers the cost of replacing items stolen from the property, destroyed in a property accident (such as fire or natural disaster), stolen from a vehicle and even stolen luggage while on vacation.

While shopping for an insurance policy, it is important to note the difference between cash value coverage and replacement cost coverage. Cash value coverage pays out the current value of an object, factoring depreciating value with age. On the other hand, replacement cost coverage will reimburse the owner’s cost of replacing a stolen or damaged good, no matter how old, with a brand new one.

Depending on policy and insurance company, renter’s insurance can extend from covering basic domestic losses to providing payment for losses outside of the home. For example, Nationwide’s renter’s insurance will help cover medical costs for anyone injured on the tenant’s property, and Esurance offers coverage for personal goods stolen outside of the home and reimbursement for hotel costs in case of property destruction. Dambach claims that renter’s insurance can even extend to covering property damage caused by a policyholder’s children or pets.

Lea Polito, executive assistant at Property Management Concepts, a student housing resource in Eugene, recommends renter’s insurance to all of her clients. She believes that the properties of college students are particularly vulnerable to theft due to the estimated value of school supplies (laptop, textbooks, bike, etc.) and the predictability of student absence during school breaks.

Renter’s insurance rates vary from agency to agency and according to policy, but the general price usually falls somewhere in the vicinity of $150-200 a year. Considering the average values of laptops, textbooks and personal goods, both experts agree that is a small price to pay for security.

“It’s the price of a pizza per month, so it’s a really good deal,” Polito said. “Especially if you have a group of five people and you can split that cost between the five tenants.”