Four members of the Ethiopian track and field team have gone missing from the IAAF World Track and Field Championships over the weekend, according to the University of Oregon.

University spokeswoman Julie Brown said the four members of Ethiopia’s junior team were not in their assigned rooms at the residence halls Saturday morning and were declared missing shortly afterward. Their names have not been released, but the sole male in the group is under 18, while the three females are all adults.

The University of Oregon Police Department is currently leading the search for the athletes.

“They’re trying to locate them and make sure they’re safe,” Brown said of the investigation. “We’ve heard indirectly that they are with family or friends in other areas of the state, but we haven’t been able to confirm.”

The investigation has proceeded under the assumption, but not yet verified, that the students are seeking asylum.

“I’m hoping that we’ll be able to make contact with them and confirm that they’re safe and make sure that they’re no longer missing persons,” said Brown.

Members of the the UO’s own ambassador program — students selected to be concierges to the international athletes — were taught during their preparation classes of the possibility that an athlete could try and remain in the United States after the tournament and were told to relay the information to UOPD who would then get ahold of the State Department.

“We talked about it, it was covered just one of the class days,” UO ambassador Negina Pirzad said in a phone interview. “They were told that they should prepare for it in case it does happen because it is an international event and we are hosting people from developing countries and places with war.”

TrackTown USA spokesman Curtis Anderson said the organization could not comment on the story.

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There’s a maroon flag hanging from a third-story window at the Walton-Clark residence hall. The slinking fabric is the only indication Nagina Pirzad needs to locate her assignment: the Moroccan junior national track and field team. She, alongside two other women are one of 116 ambassadors from the University of Oregon who will guide the far-flung athletes around the campus and the city in the days leading up to the World Junior track and field championships.

The athletes began descending on the Pacific Northwest last week. One look around campus over the weekend harkens somewhat to Copacabana Beach in Brazil last month, with flags, representing the 176 countries participating that are draped over Oregon Hall or waving next to the Hayward Field track. Campus has been covered in camera-equipped people speaking a variety of languages while posing in front of Hayward’s gates and athletes wheeling luggage from team buses to the residence halls.

Pirzad, a junior in journalism and international studies, finally catches the attention of Rhizlane Siba, an 18-year-old high jumper and the first to arrive from the Moroccan squad. Locked out of the residence hall, Pirzad beckons in French for her to come downstairs and get introduced to the ambassadors.

“It’s our job to know when our team athletes are competing and stuff. We’re supposed to be there for the team whenever they need anything,” Pirzad said later. “Not really an errand boy, not entirely an interpreter. We’re the middle men between them and TrackTown [USA] or them and the university.”

Pirzad and her partners, Judy Alrasheed, who just graduated with an economics degree, and Megan Kupres, a human physiology and chemistry major, offer themselves as what they call “attachés.” There will be more than 1,700 athletes making their way into town, all under the age of 20. The three of them have charge over athletes from Morocco, Tunisia and Djibouti.

Though the athlete-to-ambassador ratio can seem overwhelming, the women talk excitedly about the upcoming meet.

“I feel like this is a learning experience for everyone. For TrackTown, for the U of O, for everyone,” Pirzad said. “Even the global ambassador program was kind of made up through the Office of International Affairs because they said ‘Wait, we have a lot of students with international experience and speak a bunch of languages we should get them to work closely with these athletes.’”

The students are part of the first ambassador program for the World Juniors. Eugene is the first city in the United States to host the six-day meet, something TrackTown USA has been working toward for two years. For both the international athletes and the sport’s governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federation, Eugene needs to be a great experience.

“The idea was to develop the global ambassador program as the first of its kind to help bridge the linguistic and cultural barriers,” said Sheila Bong, program director of the global studies institute in the office of international affairs.

Eugene’s track pedigree has made it an ideal destination for the IAAF’s foray into the United States. Hayward Field, the birthplace of Nike and host to a couple Olympic track trials.

The city could complement the event itself as a prestigious showcase of up-and-coming talent. One example, Usain Bolt, before he became the face of track and field, blew up on the scene when he became the youngest person to win gold at the meet back in 2002.

Though the climate around the track remains, the World Juniors could be an audition for the city and the region. Eventually, they could host the World Outdoor Championships, according to TrackTown officials. The ambassadors themselves are a major component of that — to help ensure everything goes smoothly.

The ambassadors will essentially be the eyes and ears for both the university and TrackTown USA, though there’s not a perfect job description for them yet.

“They’re already fielding questions and providing answers to random types of questions,” Bong said. “They’ll be acting as guides and cross-cultural interpreters. They can provide logistical aid and support throughout the university.”

In order to get a better grasp on the countries they will be working with the ambassadors who were in class for the spring and for one week in the summer. They’re volunteers, though they did receive class credit, Pirzad said the skills that the ambassadors learn is payment enough.

“I think there’s skills not just for sporting events. There’s conflict-resolution, you always need conflict-resolution,” she said. “And neutral observing so you don’t start fights with people and not assuming things about people. Especially if you’re involved in international affairs they’re good skills to have.”

Being around world-class athletes appeals to the women, but they said the chance to experience another country first-hand and watch the athletes do the same with the United States, is the best part.

“I’ll get to interact and experience something new with them,” says Alrasheed. “We’re from the same continent but a different environment, like [states] here in America.”

Vandals painted a cluster of swastikas on the mailboxes in front of Alpha Epsilon Pi, prompting the Jewish fraternity to file reports with Eugene Police on Monday evening.

The fraternity also has sent an email alerting the Dean of Students.

Eugene Police Department spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin told The Register-Guard that the people who committed the crime could be charged with second-degree criminal mischief and intimidation, both Class A misdemeanors.

Andy Gitelson, executive director of Oregon Hillel, which is an organization that serves as a “home away from home” for Jewish students, commented on the incident.

“I hope that whoever did this will see how hurtful, how ridiculous and how insensitive that it was,” Gitelson told The Emerald.

Due to a lack of camera coverage, Gitelson believes that the perpetrator may never be revealed. However, he feels that the event has brought the Jewish community together. Gitelson is especially grateful for all of the support that the fraternity has been offered from facilities on campus, including the dean of students and the office of fraternity council.

UPDATE (1:58 p.m., July 16) :

McLaughlin informed The Emerald that one of the four lieutenants checked in with the fraternity president Wednesday morning to discover that there is no new information or safety concerns regarding the case.

Wednesday afternoon around 1:30 p.m., two Von Klein representatives were seen removing the swastikas.

Attendance for this year’s Oregon Country Fair has once again surpassed the 45,000 mark, according to a memo released Monday afternoon.

The bohemian festival, a convention of the unconventional since 1969, tabulated a total of 45,215 people over its three days. Day one on Friday saw 15,685 flock to the Veneta thickets, and attendance crested on Saturday with 17,700 festival goers. Sunday showed a marked drop but still counted 11,830 people for a 45,215 total, around the same figure as last year.

“Those wandering the fairgrounds in the woods near Veneta had no shortage of entertainment this year,” said the memo, written by Pat Walsh of Vox PRPA and Charles Ruff of the Country Fair. “Around every turn, circus acts, wandering musicians and various parades greeted attendees and helped create a fun time for all.”

However, the festival was not without misfortunes. On Sunday, a 54-year-old woman died of an apparent drug overdose, according to the Lane County Sheriff’s office and first reported by the Register-Guard.

Known for its tie-dyed roots in counterculture, the Country Fair has been thrown every summer on a 446-acre plot for 45 years. The 46th annual Oregon Country Fair is slated for July 10-12, 2015.

A day of nationwide demonstration against the ban on homosexuals donating blood will have its own operation in downtown Eugene this Friday.

Lane Blood Center announced its support Tuesday morning of the National Gay Blood Drive. The day of demonstration opposes the lifetime ban on donating blood for gay and bisexual men. It will be the second year in a row Lane Blood Center joins the protest.

“Lane Blood Center, along with with America’s Blood Centers and the American Red Cross believe the current lifetime deferral of men who have had sex with other men should be modified,” Lane Blood Center said in a statement Tuesday morning. “The donor deferral criteria should be made consistent with criteria for other behaviors that pose an increased risk for transmission of transfusion-transmitted infections.”

Lane Blood Center will hold its blood drive at Lane Community College’s downtown campus from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Friday, July 11.

“The reality of it is is that only the FDA can change the rules, so we’re just joining in the national support to ask for that change,” Kristi McElhinney, marketing communications specialist for Lane Blood Center, said on Tuesday morning.

Since 1985, the Food and Drug Administration has classified gay and bisexual men — or, more distinctly: men who have sex with other men — in the highest-risk blood-donor category. Ticking the box in the donor survey admitting to sexual experiences with another male results in a lifetime blacklisting, alongside intravenous drug users.

In addition to the National Gay Blood Drive, there are currently more than 3,200 signatures on a WhiteHouse.gov petition to end the ban.

As of last Tuesday, the University of Oregon is now officially in the hands of the Board of Trustees. Though the 15 board members have been meeting since January, last Tuesday marked their first official day at the helm.

In the week leading up to the official hand-off, the UO made two new appointments to work in connection with the board. Angela Wilhelms, a former lawyer and political aide, will be the official secretary for the trustees, taking over record keeping duties from the outgoing Randy Geller. Meanwhile, Doug Park will assume Geller’s post as the general counsel to the UO in the interim.

Wilhelms has 12 years of experience in public affairs. She earned her undergraduate degree from Santa Clara University in 2000. She earned her MBA and law degree from Willamette University by 2013 and interspersed between jobs in political campaigns. She has since worked as a lawyer in Portland.

“It’s rare to find a position that pulls together all these types of responsibilities,” said Tobin Klinger, senior director of public affairs and communication for the university. “Her background as an attorney, as someone who has worked in government entities, public relations — that really tees this up for success long term.”

The secretary will be responsible for coordinating meetings for board members and will help with policies and procedures within the board itself.

Park’s appointment as interim general counsel doesn’t come as much of a  surprise. He’s been working alongside Geller since 2007. Park is a UO law school graduate who got his undergraduate degree in English literature from the University of Washington.

In the announcement memo sent out to faculty, President Michael Gottfredson said that Park brings valuable experience to the university. “Mr. Park has provided invaluable guidance and advice to every college at the UO and to university leadership,” said Gottfredson. “He played an instrumental role in the formation and transition of our new Board of Trustees, and is known for his expertise in a broad range of higher education issues. We are incredibly fortunate to benefit from his expertise as general counsel.”

Geller had been working at the UO since 2003. Park joined Geller at the office of the general counsel in 2007. It is also important to note that Randy Geller officially stepped down last week and finding a temporary successor was important.

“It’s important to have a succession plan. Randy Geller’s retirement was effective June 30,” Klinger said. “To have someone in place after his retirement was the driving force there.”

The board was enacted in 2013 to sever much of the financial reliance of Oregon, Oregon State and Portland State universities — the big three in the state — that each university had with the state government. The power of the board of trustees allows them to set their own tuition, issue bonds and be in complete charge of hiring or firing the university president.

The board of trustees does not meet again until September 11.

Eugene played host to the NCAA Track and Field Championships two weeks ago. This week, athletes from around the globe will descend on Eugene for the United States Junior Track and Field Championships. Then, at the tail end of July, Eugene will play host to the Junior World Championships.

With those events, fans and athletes from all over will likely hit the same wall that many newcomers to Eugene run smack into during the spring: allergies. The city and the Historic Hayward Field are planted at the tailpipe of leagues of grass farms. Those who haven’t driven through and seen the welcome signs may learn the hard way that the Willamette Valley is in fact, the grass seed capital of the world.

As a result, athletes and fans alike may find themselves taking their flushed faces and weepy eyes to the city’s various allergists, who tend to the oft-blindsided rookies of the antihistamine game.

“I get really bad conjunctivitis, I think, in my eyes. It’s awful,” said Craig Leon, an outreach coordinator for the Warsaw Sports Marketing Program at the University of Oregon. Leon is also a professional marathoner. “I hadn’t been to a doctor in 10 years prior to last spring and — of all things — I had to go see the doctor for grass pollen. Grass pollen brought me down.”

The 29-year-old faculty member placed 12th in the Boston Marathon last spring and 10th the year before. Hailing from Ohio, Leon may have been allergic to grass, but he never would have known how severe his allergies were until he came to Eugene.

“It’s an extreme inconvenience,” he said. “Eugene, and Oregon in general, is a great place to train. That’s why you have so many distance runners here. But for me, there’s about a month every year where it’s pretty bad. It totally impacts the way that I train.”

The vortex of allergens relegates Leon to the treadmill during peak allergy season, which falls around the last week of May and Memorial Day. This affects his entire performance, until the pollen count starts to wane.

“During those weeks, I have to slow my paces down and take longer breaks because I get all that crap built up in my lungs,” Leon said. “I told my coach I feel like I only have one lung, like I’m breathing through a giant straw. Or a chain smoker, or running at altitude.”

Judy Moran, a registered nurse at Oak Street Medical and research coordinator for its Allergy and Asthma Research Group, said allergy problems for athletes happen every year.

“We see athletes kind of get caught off guard and the patient or coach will call us for an emergency before their event,” Moran said. “It stands to reason that if it’s your first day in Willamette Valley and you spend all day outside, by the time you get home you’ll be miserable.”

The implications for track and field athletes is obvious. It’s especially problematic for distance runners. The Prefontaine Classic in early June saw runners training while wearing masks to block the particles. Once, Galen Rupp’s coach, Alberto Salazar, withdrew the ex-UO star from the Pre Classic in 2011 because of pollen spikes.

The Allergy and Asthma Research Group says that the cascade of pollen is a perennial miasma, returning with the dry season. The pollen collects until it’s windswept to neighboring towns on the valley floor. It is one of the reasons a lot of track and field athletes have checked into hotels on the coast and only come to town when necessary.

“Like last year, this was kind of an early season, starting at the last week of May,” Moran said. “Grass pollen is definitely the biggest problem. Memorial Day to the Fourth of July is definitely the biggest time too, but it can vary.”

Moran’s Allergy and Asthma Research Group regularly updates pollen counts on Oak Street’s website. The counts calculate pollen grains per cubic meter. Pollen levels have dropped since the Prefontaine Classic, when it was at its worst all year. Then, the count hovered around 460 — essentially off the charts, which is past a normal count of 200.

Recent downpours have also beat the pollen back into the dirt, stifling hay fever symptoms. However, Moran says the rain can cause bigger problems for those with allergic asthma. Microparticles shrink even more and bypass nasal filters and creep into the lungs.

“In other words, the rain breaks up the pollen particles so they get down into the airways and those reactions get more intense,” Moran says.

As for the upcoming events, the worst has likely passed. Moran is confident that the pollen will remain around normal levels and coaches know how to prepare. Still, it’s a factor to consider in Track Town if you’re susceptible.

“If you’re gearing up your whole season for the NCAA championships and you’re affected by the grass pollen, I really feel for that,” Leon said. “In Eugene, it’s so extreme that it just knocks you on your butt.”

Two weeks after announcing the annual Eugene Celebration would be too large for its usual home downtown, its organizers said that the public’s response and contributions made by Lane Community College and the city of Eugene have put the event back on the calendar for Saturday, August 23.

“After overwhelming public input and encouragement, Kesey Enterprises is pleased to announce that the 2014 Eugene Celebration Parade will take place on August 23 at 11:00 am,” Kesey Enterprises wrote in a statement on their website.

Ironically, Kit Kesey, the company’s president, initially announced the celebration’s hiatus was a casualty of successes. On June 3, Kesey Enterprises announced the Eugene Celebration had grown steadily since its first year in 1983 and — after last year’s “unprecedented” success — organizers expected an outsized attendance this year that would congest the already swelling downtown scene.

The company, which has been running the celebration independently for a year, also announced plans to host a $5 concert at the Cuthbert Amphitheater in Alton Baker Park, with performances from Hell’s Belle’s, Zepparella and Foreverland.

More details on the parade and Cuthbert concert will be available Monday, June 23 at www.eugenecelebration.com and www.cuthbert.com.

The University of Oregon athletic department earned more than $115 million in revenue for the 2012-13 fiscal year, according to USA Today Sports’ latest update to its college athletics spending database.

In fact, Oregon has outpaced just about everyone when it comes to spending and earning since the database was introduced in 2005. The database shows that Oregon is taking home 188 percent more in revenue than it has since the days of Mike Bellotti, Ernie Kent and a non-existent baseball program.

This year, The Ducks were the ninth-highest grossing program in college sports and the highest in the Pac-12 — though there is some plus-minus to consider since private schools like USC and Stanford aren’t required to release their financial information.

2013 marks a return to profitability for the Ducks, who have only broken even annually since the football program made it to the national championship in 2010-11 football season.

The top 10 grossing programs for 2013 are made up of the usual suspects: four SEC schools, three Big 12 schools, two Big Ten schools and Oregon.

Texas earned $165 million, its revenues and expenses rising 85 percent and 75 percent, respectively.

Of the top 10, Alabama is the only one approaching growth similar to Oregon’s since 2005, earning 130 percent more and doubling its spending.

This year has also been the most expensive for the Ducks. In total, the athletic department dropped a hair under $95 million on sports this year. Ballooning coaches salaries and scholarship costs account for much of the spike, spending $35 million on coaches alone in 2013, while the price tag for coaches in 2005 was $9 million — good for a 261 percent growth over nine seasons.

As for this year’s profit, the Ducks banked about $20 million after expenses. The biggest gains came from donor contributions — which shot up 44 percent from last year — to the tune of $46.6 million. That figure still takes a backseat to 2010 when the Ducks were able to net nearly $74 million in donations, good for a 312 percent jump from 2009.

Steadily climbing earnings from ticket sales and licensing fees have also helped. In that time, proceeds from ticket sales have doubled and licensing revenues have risen 230 percent.

Though those numbers may be jarring, the database also shows that only a relative sliver of those expenses this year came from outside sources. Oregon ranked near the bottom — 217 out of 230 schools — in the portion of an athletic department’s costs paid for with student fees or support from the state or university at large. Two percent of the Ducks’ budget was subsidized, the lowest portion in the Pac-12.

Costs of buildings have also been a big reason for the bill’s growth spurt. In 2010, buildings and grounds expenses hovered around $10 million, then spiked to $24.4 million in 2012 and $25 million last year.

Scholarship costs have doubled in the same window as well, from $5 million to $10 million.

For the second time in a week, the chance to discuss sexual assault on the University of Oregon campus drove a wide swath of people to Lawrence 115. This time, people packed the lecture hall to support a faculty senate resolution meant to create a task force to lead the school through the issue.

People from nearly every realm of the university spoke on a resolution titled “A Task Force to End Sexual Violence and Support Survivors.” Students, faculty and administrators approached the microphones with their respective two cents, and nearly all spoke to inevitable changes ahead. Proposed changes include mandatory classes for all freshmen focused on teaching sexual violence awareness and changes to the student conduct code.

Some speakers re-lived past frustrations. Carol Stabile, a professor of women’s and gender studies, recounted an instance when she arrived at the university and saw shirtless fraternity brothers roaming campus in the back of a flatbed truck with the words “tits” and “vag” painted on their chests. One student in Fraternity and Sorority Life said she was approached the same day by a non-student on campus and told the way she dressed was “asking to be raped.”

The senate resolution comes on the heels of last Wednesday’s university senate meeting where President Michael Gottfredson promised to make the UO a leader in quelling sexual assaults on campus.

Stabile, who is also the director of the Center for the Study of Women in Society, called Gottfredson’s statements to the faculty senate last week “over-rehearsed.” She also said the administration should not be the only party in charge of addressing sexual assault.

“We need an investigation that is fully independent of the influence of big sports or the Greek system,” Stabile said. “We need an investigation that asks the hard questions about system breakdowns in our policies, procedures and campus climate. And then we need to look the answer in the face, publicly and bravely. Anything less just isn’t going to cut it.”

Within the resolution is a proposal for a task force that would work closely with the UO Board of Trustees, the ASUO, the university president and the university senate to report and recommend policy changes.

The task force would consist of two elected members of the university senate, a person nominated by the UO Coalition to End Sexual Violence, two students and a member of the administration. The resolution is sponsored by sociology professor Michael Dreiling.

Still, speakers pleaded for more support. Though alleged actions of three members of the men’s basketball program in early March provided a lightning rod for the issue, many insist sexual assault has run amok at the UO and on campuses nationwide, and has been for some time.

Jennifer Freyd, a psychology professor who has helped spur demonstrations on the Johnson Hall lawn for the past month, read a letter from December 2012 portending a sexual assault problem at UO.

“Currently, the University of Oregon fails to comply with its obligations under Title IX regarding sexual harassment and its discriminatory impact on students,” Freyd said, reciting the letter. “We cannot wait until a Penn State-type incident occurs until we take these issues seriously.”

Carly Smith, a graduate student in psychology, spoke about the research she’s conducted alongside Freyd. Smith mentioned the statistics that one in five women will experience some form of sexual assault in college.

“I think about that statistic and I think about those who will not be walking across the stage in a few weeks because they left the university; because they fell behind in class and won’t be done in time to walk with their friends; because they don’t want to commemorate their time at UO,” Smith said. “Maybe they’d rather forget it entirely. These are all outcomes of sexual assault.”

The next senate meeting will pick up this discussion on May 28.