UO E-clips, Feb. 7-9

Another loss can’t spoil a perfect day (Register-Guard): Phil Knight tossed up the basketball, and Tajuan Porter tapped it to himself. The crowd loved it, and Jordan Hill just chuckled, then headed back to his bench, content to play the (very large) straight man. Never mind that a moment later, matched against someone his own size, Arizona’s big man won the tip. Or that the Wildcats won the game. Hill’s participation was a nice gesture, and the ceremonial center jump was a nice touch, an appropriate addition to the Ducks’ earlier observance. A couple of hours before, a few blocks away, they’d gripped golden shovels and grinned for an endless succession of photographs to denote the official groundbreaking for Oregon’s new basketball arena.

Groundbreaking held for new arena (Associated Press): University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer, athletics director Pat Kilkenny, and Nike co-founder Phil Knight planted commemorative shovels in the ground Saturday to officially mark the start of construction of the Matthew Knight Arena. Work to move approximately 351,000 cubic yards of dirt began a week ago. However, crews stopped to celebrate the road from Mac Court to Matt Court, the latter nickname bestowed on the new 12,500-seat arena named after Phil and Penny Knight's late son, Matthew.

Oregon's Knight Arena groundbreaking draws stars (The Oregonian): The golden shovels finally hit the ground Saturday morning, officially launching construction of the University of Oregon's long-sought, $200 million basketball arena. Sure, there was already a huge hole in the ground next to a white tent erected for Matthew Knight Arena's ceremonial kickoff. Preliminary work began on the arena project weeks ago. But this was the symbolic start of the replacement for 82-year-old McArthur Court.

Kilkenny gives gift at arena ceremony (Register-Guard): Shovels hit the dirt Saturday as the University of Oregon officially broke ground on its new basketball arena, but the man who dug deepest was Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny. UO President Dave Frohnmayer announced that Kilkenny is making a $5 million gift to the new pavilion on behalf of his family, a donation that led the university to announce it is naming the arena’s playing floor Kilkenny Court. The news brought even more cheer to a crowd already jazzed by the long-awaited start of what will be the biggest public works project in university and Lane County history.

What marketers say about greenwashing may help you not get fooled (The Oregonian, column by Shelby Wood): So I spent Friday at a "Greenwashing Forum" sponsored by the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. I was a bit out of my element -- the only reporter among many marketing, advertising and consulting types. I learned more than I had expected to, both about what marketers mean when they talk about greenwashing (turns out, good marketers don't like being greenwashed, either), as well as the need for consumers to be more on guard than ever for false and misleading claims. When asked what his biggest "take-away" was from the forum, Jon Coifman, a former national media director for the National Resources Defense Council who is now vice president for environment practice at global public relations firm Waggener Edstrom, had two words: "Buyer beware." … What is greenwashing: As defined by UO advertising professors Deborah Morrison and Kim Sheehan, greenwashing is "when a company or organization spends more time and money claiming to be "green" through advertising and marketing than actually implementing business practices that minimize environmental impact."

Consumers buying green despite battered economy - survey (Sustainable Business, New York): Four out of five people say they are still buying green products and services today -- which sometimes cost more -- even in the midst of a U.S. recession, according to a new survey. … The Greenwashing Index was launched in January 2008 by EnviroMedia and the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.

Inclined to speak in native tongue (Register-Guard): When his foreign language instructor says something, University of Oregon freshman Carson Viles knows it’s important to pay attention. “I might never get a chance to hear that phrase again,” he said. It’s true. Viles is taking Yakama Sahaptin, one of a family of American Indian languages spoken along the Columbia River and offered for the first time this year at the UO. The class, taught by native speaker and Yakama elder Virginia Beavert, is not a typical foreign language class. There are no textbooks, no study-abroad programs, no dubbed TV shows, and the instructor is one of only 200 people who can converse in the target language. … Now 87, Beavert grew up speaking a variety of American Indian languages, and said she didn’t realize they were imperiled.

The toxic paradox (New York Times): There is nothing like the suggestion of a cancer risk to freak out a parent, especially one of the hypereducated, ecoconscious ilk. So you can imagine the reaction when a recent USA Today investigation of air quality around the nation’s schools singled out those in the smugly green hamlet of Berkeley, Calif., as being among the worst in the country. … Paul Slovic, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon, calls that skewed response “intuitive toxicology.” When the potential impact of a chemical is catastrophic -- cancer or birth defects -- we tend to act from the gut, ignoring the actual probability of harm. I wouldn’t expect parents to have the same risk tolerance as experts.

New economics (Register-Guard): When the organizers of the GreenLane Sustainable Business Network sent out announcements for their launch party, they were hoping maybe 20 people would show up. Instead, they got about 200, said Allen Perkins, one of the founders of the county’s newest eco-focused organization for businesses, individuals and nonprofit organizations. “We were really excited.” … Steve Mital, who was hired as the University of Oregon’s first director of sustainability in 2007, defines sustainability as “the challenge to live off the interest of the world’s natural resources without depleting its principal.”

U of O raises some GPA admission standards (OPB News): Automatic admission guarantees a spot to qualified students. Members of the state Board of Higher Education say they approved the new admission standards to provide more flexibility for students. Board member Joe Holliday is also an assistant vice chancellor in the Oregon University System. … Freshman enrollment at the U of O is at record levels and officials hope the higher admission standards will give the school more control over those numbers.