UO E-clips, Feb. 16-18

UO shows support in aftermath of shooting (Oregon Daily Emerald): The Feb. 14 shooting at Northern Illinois University, which evoked memories of last April's Virginia Tech shootings for some, inspired University students and administration to show their support in the aftermath. On Thursday afternoon on the NIU campus, former student Steven Kazmierczak shot and killed five students, injured 16 others, and committed suicide in a lecture hall during a class. On behalf of the student body, the ASUO will send a letter of condolence to NIU this week. ASUO also set up a banner outside the EMU office where passersby wrote their own condolences and messages of support. The banner will be available for students to sign until Monday, and will be sent with the letter on Tuesday.

Fan behavior is a major issue ... if not a unique one (Daily Emerald): With the state of college sports fan behavior being more heavily scrutinized across the nation, University of Oregon officials are drawing up plans to preempt unruly fan behavior. And that includes all fans, not just the student sections which have been targeted as the source to blame recently. I bring this is up because I took part in a meeting last week with University officials that included Laura Blake Jones, the interim dean of students, and Neal Zoumboukos, special assistant to the athletic director, as well as a variety of student leaders, including the president of the Pit Crew, Daniel Cogan.

Whitewater warriors go green -- The Register-Guard (The Epicocity Project, a video production company founded by University of Oregon graduate Trip Jennings, is really going places -- to some of the wildest, remotest places on Earth. He and two other UO grads, all in their 20s, are living their dream, paddling their kayaks through the world's uncharted waters and plunging down 55-foot waterfalls, with cameras running. In the past couple of years, they've moved beyond simply filming their death-defying feats -- a genre they dismiss as "kayak porn" -- and now produce narratives with environmental themes.)

Divisi wins quarterfinal prize in a cappella (Register-Guard): The University of Oregon women's a cappella group, Divisi, beat out last year's national title holder Saturday night at the Hult Center to become a West Coast quarterfinal winner in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. Both Divisi and the first runner-up, Noteworthy, from Brigham Young University, earned the chance to compete in a semifinal contest March 15 at the Marin Center for Performing Arts in San Rafael, Calif. "They project a sassy, in-your-face, I'm-so-proud-to-be-a-woman, hear-me-roar attitude," Ariel Glassman, one of three judges, said of Divisi. "You can tell they put a lot of energy into it."

UO professor previews the Pakistan election (Oregonian): Pakistan's parliamentary elections, postponed following the Dec. 27 assassination of opposition candidate Benazir Bhutto, are scheduled to take place Monday, Feb. 18. Anita M. Weiss, a professor of international studies at the University of Oregon and author of several books on Pakistan, visited the country in November, just before President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in what Newsweek magazine has called the world's most dangerous nation." The Oregonian followed with an unedited transcript.

School shootings: quest for answers (Los Angeles Times): I cried a long time on my hotel bed that night, thinking about their faces. So many children -- 14, 15, 16 years old -- drawn tight with grief and exhaustion. It was Tuesday, April 20, 1999, and two boys had just killed 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School here in this Denver suburb. ... "You want to look for a pattern, but the deeper you look, the less specific it gets," said Jeffrey Sprague, co-director of the Institute on Violence and Destructive Behavior at the University of Oregon. Some of it may be today's culture, what Sprague called "mean-world syndrome."

Best education requires parental participation (MedHeadlines.com): Many parents send their children off to school, firmly committed to the idea that the education process is the sole responsibility of the school system. Besides, after spending the day juggling jobs, family, social commitments, and worrying about paying the bills, there's often little, if any, energy left to help the kids with the homework. The results of an intervention program conducted by researchers at the University of Oregon's (UO) Brain Development Lab, have produced visible evidence on brain scans that confirm children learn better when they have their parents' support. (Also on Saturday, the Washington Times, WebMD and the Scotsman of the UK also reported stories on this research by Helen Neville’s lab – see links on UO in the News)