UO E-clips, Dec. 4

University law professor's work earns an Oregon Book Award (Register-Guard): University of Oregon law professor Garrett Epps has captured an Oregon Book Award for “Democracy Reborn,” his suspenseful recounting of the fierce fight for passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. Epps received the honor Sunday night at an awards ceremony at the Portland Art Museum. New York author and teacher Robert Polito, who judged Epps’ nonfiction category, said “Democracy Reborn” ranked among the best “audacious works of historical reconstruction” by summoning the past to recast the present. “Smart, stylish, dramatic, probing, vivid, and moral,” he wrote. “This is history and this is also literature.”

Tell me the future (Guardian Unlimited): When we asked Vint Cerf, chief evangelist at Google, to guest edit MediaGuardian, we expected him to bring us some luminaries of the web who we don't often get to hear from. His choices transform an often-asked question ("what's the future?"), into an insight into the thinking of innovators and pioneers. It's no coincidence that three of them are founders of some of the biggest web names. … Developing world Steven Huter and Adiel Akplogan Research associate, University of Oregon Network Startup Resource Center; CEO, Regional Registry for Internet Number Resources for Africa. The first full internet connection to the African continent was established in Tunisia in October 1991. Over the next 15 years, the transition from store-and-forward email networks to full internet connectivity in capital cities all over Africa progressed steadily, with Eritrea being the last to join the global internet in November 2000.

Athletic aesthetic: billionaire spotted in English classes as Stanford -- (Chronicle of Higher Education, in it entirety): Students in English classes at Stanford University have taken note recently of a 69-year-old man named Phil, who has been spotted in creative-writing seminars, sometimes wearing a black blazer and white Nikes. Rumors that their classmate is Philip H. Knight, Nike’s founder and chairman, are true, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. Mr. Knight has periodically taken classes with Stanford undergraduates over the past three years. As an unregistered student, he has written essays and played host to after-class bar gatherings. Students told the newspaper that their “studious and intense” classmate was working on a novel. Stanford is probably happy to be host to Mr. Knight, who is worth an estimated $8-billion. In 2006 he gave $105-million to the university’s Graduate School of Business. He has also given large amounts to the University of Oregon, including a $100-million gift this year.