Update 1:26 p.m. Tuesday: Eugene Police have identified the man as 26-year-old John Namkyu Back, who is not a UO student. Police say he lunged at and grabbed an officer before being tasered. Back then struggled with the officer, attempting to bite him. More officers arrived, and Back was detained. He was taken to the hospital for treatment due to his apparent drug intoxication.

*****

A man in his 20s was tasered and arrested at 1863 Kincaid St. around 9:30 p.m. on Monday. Officers say the man, who they believe is a University of Oregon student, was hallucinating from mushrooms or LSD and fought the police.

Witness Cameron Buswell said he saw the man before his arrest. The man asked if Buswell and his roommate liked drugs, and then pushed his roommate. Buswell retreated to his residence and locked the door. Buswell said he later heard screaming and “a little pop that must have been the Taser.”

Witness Patrick Fajardo said the suspect was shirtless and was “running back and forth cursing for 20 minutes.”

Sgt. Bill Solesbee of EPD said the man has not been identified but is an Asian male in his 20s.

Officers arrived on the scene after a call from CAHOOTS, a free, mobile medical service. The man ran from the police. The man fought back once police caught him, according to Solesbee. Officers tasered the man and detained him.

Solesbee said the suspect has a minor cut on the bridge of his nose, and an officer sustained minor injuries of abrasions on knees and elbows.

Paramedics carried the man off on a stretcher at around 10:00 p.m.

Follow Will Campbell on Twitter @wtcampbell . 

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One of the victims of Friday’s plane crash in Linn County was a prospective University of Oregon Student, John Zitting, 17, according to AroundtheO and an OregonLive article. His mother, Karen, and father, John, died in the crash along with pilot Mark Gregory Aletky, 67.

The private plane crashed 10 miles north of Eugene during a windstorm. The cause of the crash in still unknown.

The father worked as president of TruNorthe, a construction company in California. The family lived in Thousand Oaks, California.

Zitting, 17, was a high school senior at Westlake high school in California. The family was on its way to visit the University of Oregon according to OregonLive.

The University of Oregon released this message Saturday: “It is with great sadness that we learned a private plane crash in Linn County resulted in death of prospective University of Oregon student John Zitting, his parents John and Karen Zitting, and pilot Mark Gregory Aletky. This young man was destined for a very bright future, and we are privileged he was considering the UO. The entire university community extends its deepest sympathy to all of those impacted by this tragedy.”

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Starting in April, walking your dog through downtown Eugene will be illegal, with some exceptions.

Eugene City council passed an ordinance today banning dogs — except service dogs, dogs of residences who live and work in the downtown area and police dogs — in downtown as part of the city council’s effort to make downtown a safer area.

The city council discussed the code as means to “displacing downtown loiterers, who are frequently accompanied by dogs,” according to a Register-Guard article today.

The ordinance document referenced an incident last summer when a dog attacked a Eugene public library employee and the employee’s dog. The victim’s dog died after the attack, and the victim sustained injuries.

The Register-Guard reported that the fine will be up to $250.

This ban is similar to a dog ban on 13th Ave. near the University of Oregon, which has been in effect since 1996, according to the Register-Guard.

The area of banned dogs is between Lincoln Street., W 8th ave., Pearl Street. and E 11th Ave.

Downtown core of Eugene where dogs are will be banned. (Courtesy of City of Eugene)

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Update: The suspect is still at large. After the robbery at 1:50 a.m., the suspect fled toward the northeast corner of the Hub apartment complex. Forensics determined at least one shot was fired at police at that time, according to Eugene Police Department spokesperson Melinda McLoughlin. Police did not return fire because of the surrounding apartment complex, she said. Police are compiling a better description of the suspect, but are not actively searching the area around the Hub apartment building.

At 1:50 a.m., an armed white male robbed the 7/11 on East Broadway and Patterson Street and fired a shot in the store, according to Eugene Police Department. The suspect is still at large and police are advising people to stay clear of the area. No injuries have been reported.

Police responded to the robbery and chased the suspect, around 5’6” and 40- or 50-years-old. The suspect fired more shots, but evaded police. He was last seen near the Hub apartment complex at 515 East Broadway.

The suspect had “a thin build and gaunt appearance. His face has pock marks and he was last seen wearing a dark rain jacket and dark pants,” according to the alert.

Police are actively searching for the suspect. If you have any information, call 541-682-5111.

Check here for updates.

Shots fired during 7-Eleven robbery at Broadway/Patterson https://t.co/gnKeuJmkdQ

— Eugene Police Dept. (@EugenePolice) March 6, 2017

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The University of Oregon’s budget issues are causing President Michael Schill to overhaul the university’s faculty funding system, and in the process, will likely cut some non-tenure faculty positions.

Schill introduced the loose plans of three budget-cutting projects that affect non-tenured faculty members’ job security on March 1, at the UO Faculty Senate meeting at 3 p.m. in the EMU.

This statement comes as a timely response to a Register-Guard article on Feb. 28 that suggested 75 UO faculty members would be laid off. Schill responded to the faculty senate with confusion over the numbers, saying that they were “extraordinarily speculative.”

Schill’s first project empowers deans of in-debt schools and colleges at UO to make their own individual 2.5-year plan to bring their budgets in balance. That could mean faculty cuts, adding masters programs, cutting smaller classes or eliminating programs of their choice, according to Schill. Schill said the deans are required to submit the plans by the end of the March.

The second project will centralize funding for tenure and non-tenure faculty, reducing the influence of each department’s dean. Deans will no longer be able to replace the line — or position of a tenured faculty member — within their schools. Instead, the provost will take control of it and reassign it to a school that he desires.

Schill said the current budgeting system creates strong incentives for deans to maximize revenue by “increasing the desirability of course offerings,” Schill said. Humanities and social sciences departments have suffered the most from this model because students tend to leave them for more popular departments. But the problem, Schill says, is that faculty stay in their positions, leaving a lop-sided department. It will be implemented in 2019, he said.

Another part of the plan, that started yesterday according to Schill, moves the hiring of tenured faculty to the new provost, Jayanth Banavar — a swing in power from the former system that gave deans that ability.

Choosing tenured faculty “is where the ability to steer the university comes from,” Schill said, and stated that centralizing that hiring will strengthen the university.

Adding up these three plans with the recently announced 10.6 percent in-state tuition raise, a 3 percent out-of-state tuition increase and a $50 student technology fee per quarter, UO’s budget is still $8.8 million in the red.

Schill plans to present his plans to the UO Board of Trustees on March 2 and 3.

He said he hopes to end the school year with a balanced budget.

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In 1980, an average student at the University of Oregon earned a 2.6 GPA. Last year, the average student received a 3.13.

UO Students are receiving better grades without evidence that they are performing at a higher level, a phenomenon in higher education termed grade inflation. For the past six years, the university Faculty Senate has not addressed this because faculty and administrators can’t agree that it is a problem.

The newest swing at the issue comes from the president of the Oregon Association of Scholars, Bruce Gilley, who is a PSU political science professor. He sees the dangers of grade inflation and is attempting to bring the issue to light for all Oregon universities in a new report detailing grade inflation statistics.

According to a report by OAS, released on Feb. 20, all Oregon public universities, except for Oregon State University, have a higher average GPA than the national average.

“The average college student in Oregon today is receiving a B+ grade, which means that there is little meaningful distinction between excellent and average students … This compression of grades prevents employers, parents, graduate schools, and public agencies from acquiring meaningful information on a student’s attainments in college,” Gilley commented in an OAS press release.

To combat grade inflation, Gilley recommended in the press release to include the class’ average grade on every student’s transcript. This was a change that Ian McNeely, the associate dean of UO’s College of Arts and Sciences, proposed in 2011.

In 2009, when McNeely became chair of the Undergraduate Council, the university-wide body that oversees undergraduate education, he became familiar with grade inflation.

He decided to look into the grading culture at UO. He talked to at least five committees around campus, met with deans and the UO president, held town hall meetings and eventually published a blog in May 2010 to create a wider conversation for UO faculty about grading trends.

McNeely used a UO report from 2006 of the university’s grade statistics as evidence for grade inflation. The report found that between 1992 and 2004, the percentage of A’s awarded went up by about 10 percentage points — 31.3 percent to 41.6 percent— and the percentage of A’s and B’s together went up by seven points — from 65.6 percent to 72.6 percent.

McNeely published a report the next month with three proposals to take action against inflation.

The report states that McNeely proposed each department develop specific grading standards, or “collaborate and decide on their own general description on an A, B, C grade, and so on,” he said.

He and the undergraduate council also wanted each department to evaluate the grading habits of its professors. That way department leaders would be able to safeguard against inflation.

McNeely’s third proposal suggested that students’ transcripts show what percentage of the class received the same grade. “So that would almost be an incentive for professors not to inflate grades because then it might look bad on a student’s transcript,” he said.

The first proposal passed in the senate, but McNeely said that not every department complied. The other two proposals failed on the senate floor.

Currently, McNeely is unaware of any administrative initiatives to combat grade inflation, he wrote in an email to the Emerald.

Data provided by the National Association of Scholars (Kelly Kondo/Emerald)

McNeely referred to his undertaking from 2011 as “the hill I died on,”  in an interview with the Emerald. He said grade inflation has not been discussed in the Faculty Senate since.

McNeely said the discussions following the proposals, although they failed to change policy, spurred conversation about grades among faculty.

Alison Schmitke, in the Department of Education Studies at UO, now holds McNeely’s former position as undergraduate council chair. She said the council has not held much conversation about grade inflation since McNeely, but it’s not off any of the faculty’s radar.

Schmitke is more interested in the path to the grade, rather than the actual mark. She teaches two education classes at UO. In those classes, she has students revise their work, which is more work for everyone, she said, but allows students to earn an A if they must.

“I don’t think people learn from [grades] anyway. I think they learn from revision. I think they learn from feedback,” she said. “But then there are some classes that have 500 students; how do you do that?”

A factor in national grade inflation is whether an institution or professor should be able to give an A+, which can boost a student’s GPA above a 4.0.

Schmitke used to give A+ grades to some students, but stopped when she realized that they didn’t ask because they wanted to perform better or learn, but rather to influence their GPAs.

“I felt like I was feeding the beast in terms of this need to get an A+,” she said. “It feels competitive that [students] need to have the best possible grades.”

Madison Moskowitz, a junior political science major holding a 4.0 GPA, said a competitive GPA will improve her chances of being accepted to a graduate program. Moskowitz hopes to attend an Ivy League school after her time at UO.

(Stacy Yurishcheva/Emerald)

“I think it’s kind of crazy that the political science department gives A+s, but other departments don’t. And there are entire universities that don’t give A+s,” she said, “so my GPA is inflated compared to theirs, but I still want my GPA to have some gravity behind it.”

McNeely is looking to help students like Moskowitz whose GPAs may seem undervalued compared to their peers’ inflated marks. Despite his concern, it has been difficult for him to make any substantial impact on grading at UO.

McNeely said that grade inflation is like Halley’s Comet — it pops up for discussion in the UO Faculty Senate, and then it disappears for a long time.

“We don’t want students to take classes specifically because they’re easy classes,” McNeely said. “We want them to take classes that are going to be academically rewarding and help them on the path of success.”

The Emerald has compiled the last three years of grading distributions into a search engine, called the Emerald Grade Tracker, which displays grading habits of professors and classes. Find out what grades your professors are giving here.

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U.S. Senator Ron Wyden holds an unofficial credo: speak up, push back and look for a smart alternative. He refutes President Donald Trump’s nearly every move, harnessing the president’s own weapon, Twitter, for his cause. And according to Wyden, a University of Oregon alumnus, his next challenge may be a new immigration policy by Trump within a week.

Wyden frequents the congressional podium in Washington D.C. to demand government transparency and equal rights. He came to Eugene in the midst of a tour around the state, during which he has held more town hall meetings than any other senator, he said. On Sunday night, he spoke to a crowd of about 1,500 at Lane Community College in Eugene.

Wyden has been a prominent voice in the push for outspoken citizenship. During the town hall, he asked the crowd to raise a hand if it was their first time at such an event — and nearly every individual did.

On Monday morning, Wyden sat down with the Emerald for a Q&A.

Emerald: How is social media helping connect students to politics?

Ron Wyden: I think it’s an enormous opportunity for students, and the fact is younger people are already so digitally savvy; this is a natural sense of that. They use it in their personal lives, so it’s fairly easy to make the leap to news or politics. I think it plays to the strength of a lot of students. Students don’t have a lot of money. They can’t hire big political action committees and lobbyists and lawyers. But social media can drive an idea. It can drive a policy. And you go viral. And it’s a perfect fit for busy students who are the most digitally literate people in the country, so it’s tailor-made for them.

E: You’ve been actively speaking out on Twitter against the Trump administration. In early January, you created a Twitter poll requesting Trump’s tax returns to be released, and after the women’s march, you promoted a petition requesting the release. How did social media help you?

RW: The Trump administration and the president himself have constantly been looking for ways to offer up this judgment that the American people don’t care about his taxes. But the reality is, as I said [at the town hall meeting], that tax returns for 40 years have been the lowest ethical bar, and it’s particularly relevant right now because of all these news stories about … investment projects that involve Russia. In the campaign, he said, “We’ll make my returns available when the audit is completed,” which is, again, not required by law. The IRS has pointed that out. It’s part of the strategy to try to find a way to duck this 40-year commitment. So, the day after the big march in Washington D.C., on Meet the Press, Kellyanne Conway went on television and said, “The president has no intention of releasing his returns. That issue was litigated in the campaign and the American people don’t care about his tax returns.” I just listened to that, I said, “That’s nonsense.” The American people didn’t say, “If you win the election, we’ll let you out from the pledge to release your returns.” So I spent all afternoon [on the day after the march] working with grassroots groups. By the middle of the day on Monday, Kellyanne Conway made up another whopper; she said, “Oh, we didn’t change our mind, we didn’t make any news.” But we were able to [push back] in a day because of social media.

Retweet if you care about @realDonaldTrump‘s tax returns

— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) January 11, 2017

E: Do you plan on using social media more?

RW: No question about it, if you’re going to reach people. We’ve got a long way to go to get these returns. As I said, I’m not going to stop until we get these returns released. I do believe this is the lowest ethical bar. What was interesting about this little chapter in the fight is there’s no question in my mind that the Trump administration on that busy news day, after the march, had been able to sneak that in under the radar. They would have tried to build on it.

What I’ve told you is kind of an example — a concrete example a few weeks ago — of the power of social media, the power of grassroots involvement, and the ability that would never have been possible decades ago. We wouldn’t have been able to move on a Sunday afternoon with speed and that kind of velocity. We wouldn’t have been able to do it.

Audience members listen to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden speak during a town hall event at Lane Community College in Eugene, Ore. on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017. (Ramsey Sullivan/Emerald)

E: Many students say that voting for a Democratic president in a blue state won’t help, but how can students engage besides voting?

RW: Students just gave a textbook case of how their generation can make a difference. When I came out for [support of] gay marriage in 1995 as the first senator, I said, “If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get one.” At that time, that was considered a really radical idea. Also, Democrats were against gay marriage, and I had people in the gay community ask me to take back my position because they were afraid that I had been so outspoken that I might dilute the election. If you look at what we always refer to as the arc of history, gay marriage, and gay marriage equality, really came about in the last five or six years for one reason; and that is students and young people said, “Hey, you political folks, we got a lot of real issues we care about. We care about the fact that we’re getting buried in debt for college; It’s going to hang on our backs like a boulder for decades. We’re concerned about where we’re going to get high-skilled, high-waged jobs. We care about whether we’re going to be able to breathe the air. We’re concerned about the cost of healthcare. And you people in politics are talking about how the big issue is whether gay folks are going to marry each other?”

Students took this on over the last decade, and they’re the reason there’s justice now for gay folks and marriage equality. Make no mistake about it. That is why it happened. It is a tribute to what young people can do by mobilizing, driving a message to elected officials. That is why there’s marriage equality today.

YES! Marriage equality has come to Oregon. Everyone should be free to marry the person they love – plain & simple. #gaymarriageOR

— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) May 19, 2014

E: Considering many students are immigrants, how can students cope with the changing landscape of immigration? How can colleges help?

RW: It’s extraordinarily important that students organize on campuses. I’ve been in support of efforts to get rid of the travel ban. I guess we’re going to have a new version in a week. And it’s going to be more of the same with a little side order of salad dressing. It is a thinly veiled religious test; that’s what we have to keep driving home. And for a country of immigrants, I’m very much committed to this fight. I’m a first generation Jewish kid. If this issue isn’t resolved soon, [students] won’t be able to predict and have some certainty about making their plans. There’s enough uncertainty in a student’s world now — heap this on top everything else.

So they can play an integral role in this. I think that they can play a role that will, once again like gay marriage, allow their generation to be seen as being out in front. It is a different issue, and I want that understood, but they can have a big voice in this.

E: How could the new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos affect college students?

RW: Obviously, she doesn’t really see much of a federal role in public education. I guess she said yesterday, she really wants to work herself out of a job. We have big issues coming around now: year-round Pell grants. Because that’s going to be really important for students, particularly as we have a more diverse set of students, we have older students, and … at a minimum, we ought to insist that the secretary of education is not a champion of alternative facts. Betsey Devos claimed, in some of the schools she invested in, that the graduation rate is almost twice as high as it actually was. No; as Oregonians, we’re really proud of a lot of things, but we’re not proud of our high school graduation rate. We’ve got to turn that around, but we’re not going to turn that around by having people pedal stuff that’s not true.

I was able to get a bipartisan amendment in the Leave No Child Behind replacement where there are actual facts backing it up about mentors, about companies coming into high schools, and then agreeing to employ high school students later on. So Betsy Devos can have a big role in what happens in terms of higher ed and K-12. And this is an area where congress needs to step up. She still would need congressional support for an extreme agenda — I’ll do everything I can to deny it.

I will vote no on Betsy #DeVos for Education Secretary. Extremely concerned on a number of levels: pic.twitter.com/LvHCLNdInu

— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) January 18, 2017

E: Many students at the University of Oregon are journalism students, and they see and hear of President Trump’s “war on media.” What does the growing mistrust in journalism suggest for the future? What do you think journalists should do?

RW: First of all, as the son of a journalist — my father worked in newspapers and magazines, wrote historical non-fiction — I’ve seen the benefit of good, objective, fact-driven journalism. One of my dad’s favorite books is called “The Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story,” and there’s a picture of Fidel Castro and my dad on the back of the book. And Castro said, “Peter Wyden knows more about it than we do.” And so, I’m sort of a poster guy for the importance of a free and independent press. I think my colleague Lindsey Graham, a Republican, is in the news today, talking about how free press and an independent judiciary is really something worth fighting for. So put me down as agreeing with Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina, about the importance of a free press and an independent judiciary. And I’d also say … that there is an issue — not just of formal censorship — of which I think people are concerned and they’re watching how the Trump Administration is trying to morph leaks into a kind of censorship program. I think the toll this takes is by way of self-censorship where papers and journalists say, “You know, I’d like to write that story but I have a feeling they’ll tie me up in lawsuits and litigation for the next gazillion years. I’m not writing this.”

Oregon Senator Ron Wyden speaks during a town hall event at Lane Community College in Eugene, Ore. on Sunday, Feb. 19, 2017. (Ramsey Sullivan/Emerald)

E: Last year, you told UO law school graduates, “There are going to be times when you are going to become frustrated because life always has an unexpected setback … and a sense that your voice really does not matter. But my message is simply this: the power of one voice to make change is extraordinary.” The country has changed greatly since you said this. How would you put this into context for the present day?

RW: [I believe] in a historical debate about Winston Churchill [saying this] and, whether he said it or not, I like it. He said, “The Americans always get it right after they try everything else.” And I think the enormous crowds that are turning out and all these people who have never come to a town meeting is an extraordinary statement about the faith of our institutions. What it says is that there are a lot of ways to make a difference. Coming to a town meeting is a start. But for all the people who want change and appreciate a free press and an independent judiciary and recognition that security and liberty are not exclusive. People are stepping up. People are pushing back, they’re speaking out. What I tried to do yesterday [during the town hall], it’s a big part of what I call “the Oregon way.” It’s saying, “Let’s offer smart alternatives. Donald Trump said millions of people are voting illegally? A) He’s wrong; B) If you happen to believe that wrong statement, support Oregon’s vote-by-mail system.” So speak out; push back; look for smart alternatives. That’s kind of my credo.

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A 25-year-old man survived an attempted carjacking at gunpoint on Feb 14. at 14th Avenue and Mill Street. The suspect, a Hispanic male, 5’10” and about 35 years old, is still at large, according to the Eugene Police Department.

At 4:36 p.m., the suspect opened the victim’s passenger car door and showed a handgun. The victim “hit the gas and accelerated away,” after which the suspect fell down and fled.

Police arrived to the scene and failed to locate the suspect after a search.

The suspect was wearing a maroon shirt, a white undershirt and blue jeans. He has a medium build, ear-length hair and “possibly a goatee,” according to a press release.

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The University of Oregon announced today its new provost, Jayanth Banavar, after nearly a year-long confidential search.

New provost Jayanth Banavar will begin in July. (Courtesy of University of Oregon provost office)

Banavar formerly worked at the University of Maryland as the dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences, according to the announcement by UO President Michael Schill.

The search began after the current provost, Scott Coltrane, announced his retirement last June. Since then, Schill tasked a 17 person search committee with vetting a pool of candidates.   

The last open forum discussing the provost’s desired skills and abilities met in October 2016. The Provost search committee held the forum, during which public members expressed their desire for the provost to have experience in diversity, budget expertise and problem-solving skills.

The provost is in charge of day-to-day operations of the school and is second-in-charge to president Schill. The provost deals with research, budgets, curriculum, faculty tenure promotions and admissions.

The school set up a website for additional information and comments.

Banavar’s biography from the University of Maryland is here.

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“Race is the child of racism; not the father,” author Ta-Nehisi Coates said to 5,548 people during his speech at the Matthew Knight Arena on Friday night.

“We [Americans] have gone through the process of making Black people into a race,” he said. Coates argues that race is the byproduct of pigeonholing a group of people to take advantage of them — a shade of slavery or scapegoatism.

He sees similarities in President Trump’s recent “Muslim-ban.” Coates said that as an African American who carries the burden of history, watching policy being passed to segregate groups of people hurts, and it’s surprising how quickly it’s normalized.

“I’m with you,” he told the Muslim community. “It would be contrary to history to not be with you.”

Coates writes for The Atlantic magazine and has authored two books about racial issues in America. He also writes the Black Panther comic books for Marvel.  The University of Oregon gifted every first-year student a copy of Coates’ book Between the World and Me as part of the Common Reading Program.. Every year, the program gives out a free book addressing relevant issues to first-year students.

Coates delivers a powerful perspective in his book, which is written as a letter to his son. The book focuses on the institution of racism and his experiences with it in America, something reflected in his speech.

Knight Arena is where Coates’ held his fifth talk in five days, he said.

He also directly addressed UO and the wealth it gains from its sports programs. “University systems should spend time thinking about wealth they’ve accumulated that was drawn from black bodies,” he said. “Make sure you’re giving back as much as you’re taking.”

According to the UO Athletic Department website, the department drew $103.4 million in revenue in 2016.

In the speech, Coates explored the growth of America since its birth in 1776. Slave labor was then the most valuable asset. He said there’s a difference between the general belief that slavery was America’s only flaw and the historical reality.

“Slavery isn’t a bump in the road; slavery is the road,” he said. “You can’t make America without slaves.”

He also referenced the Articles of Confederation — the document that acted as the first constitution of the United States of America — and its view on African Americans as the only “fit” people to work slave labor.

Coates made clear the importance of voting, but said voting doesn’t always mean you get to vote for whom you want. Coates told students in the crowd that making a choice anyway is part of growing up.

“Your vote matters,” he said.

Coates was born in 1975 in Baltimore, Maryland. He earned his undergraduate degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C., and soon after he became a reporter for three different newspapers. But according to a feature in Observer, shortly after each reporting stint he was “released,” for unknown reasons.

Coates now works for The Atlantic, and lives in New York with his wife, Kenyatta, and his son.

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