UO E-clips, June 25

For lucky few, Trials tickets within reach (Register-Guard): If you missed the chance to buy tickets to the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials that start on Friday, there’s still a way to attend. But it will take luck. The Eugene City Council will help kick off the Trials by giving away eight pairs of tickets, one pair for each of the days of competition at Hayward Field. The noon drawing will take place at the Track Town Plaza stage, in the Eugene 08 Festival area. Besides the giveaway, the Trials’ organizing committee and the city are providing nearly 500 tickets to low-income families and at-risk youth.

Locals pulling in big bucks for Olympic Trial housing (KVAL News 13): Wiley Wyss is the President of the University of Oregon's Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity. It's a three story house with 29 bedrooms and is located just across the street from Hayward Field - prime real estate for the Olympic Trials, and these guys know it. "We've done the math," says Wyss. "We could make almost $70,000." While members go home for the summer, they're renting this place out. Rooms go for $120 a night. They're also selling parking spots and could even make a killing off their front lawn.

Hayward Field ready for international spotlight (Daily Journal of Commerce): Bringing the 2008 U.S. Track and Field Olympic Trials to University of Oregon’s Hayward Field seemed like a natural choice. Eugene is known as Track Town, USA, and Hayward Field has been home to legendary UO runners such as Steve Prefontaine. As a 1977 UO graduate, architect Robert Thompson jumped at the chance to re-design Hayward Field for the Olympic trials, which begin Friday. Thompson, a principal with TVA Architects, said UO, the Oregon Track Club and Nike all wanted to “bring track and field back to its glory days and focus that around Hayward Field.”

Stamp out field burning The Oregonian: The arrival of company often forces us to finish housekeeping projects we've long neglected. In Oregon, one such cleanup -- decades overdue -- is a total ban on field burning. … Even though smoke obscured the length of Hayward Field, Steve Prefontaine didn't want to disappoint a thousand fans who'd shown up to watch him run a mile. He ran 3:58.3, his biographer and fellow runner, Kenny Moore, recalled last year, and "finished coughing blood." A year later, Prefontaine, Moore, two other runners and legendary University of Oregon coach Bill Bowerman told the Oregon Legislature it ought to ban field burning. But it didn't shut the practice down. The state kept issuing permits.

Active Learning project promotes science education around the world --Industrial Laser Solutions (Workshops for educators promoting an innovative method of teaching physics that uses optics and photonics as an experimental topic will be held in Zambia in September and Cameroon in December, organizers have announced. Proposals for 2009 have been received from Peru and Nepal, according to program specialist Minella Alarcon of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). … "Physics education research has demonstrated that students in traditional physics courses do not master concepts," said David Sokoloff, professor of physics at the University of Oregon.

Protesters see link to recent hate crimes (Register-Guard): More than 40 people attended a vigil at the University of Oregon Tuesday to protest local discussion group Pacifica Forum’s latest controversial speaker, Tomislav Sunic. Connecting a recent rash of unrelated hate crimes to Pacifica Forum’s slate of invited speakers, the protest brought together members of several peace activist groups and was organized by Community Alliance of Lane County. Sunic’s speech “Homo Americanus vs. Homo Sovieticus: Twin Brothers?” drew about 30 listeners. He promoted views put forth in his recent book, “Homo Americanus: Child of the Post-Modern Age.”

EPA awards education grants to UO, LCC on climate, sustainability (Register-Guard): A Climate Brigade Program at the University of Oregon and a Sustainability Infusion Project at Lane Community College have received educational grants from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The UO project, which received $24,281, will provide public outreach around climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and run two pilot outreach programs to Eugene businesses. Proposed by a Resource Innovations Group under the direction of Bob Doppelt, the program will train 50 to 100 “climate masters” during a 10-week “train-the-trainer” program modeled after the Master Recycler program. LCC’s project, directed by Jennifer Hayward, will receive $14,673. The project equips about 220 faculty members with ways to infuse concepts of sustainability into existing teaching curricula. The college will train 20 faculty members at two “train-the-trainer” workshops. The grants, announced Tuesday, are part of $188,969 awarded to environmental education programs in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.