UO E-clips, May 10-12

Right call on arena bonds (Register-Guard, editorial): The state treasurer's office made the prudent and correct call to make taxable all of the state-backed bonds that will finance the University of Oregon’s new basketball arena. Yes, the decision will increase the annual cost of the arena by $2 million a year -- disconcerting news at a time the arena already is forecast to operate at a loss. But the decision should allow the university far greater flexibility in forging the marketing and sponsorship deals that can generate the revenue needed for bond payments. It also comes at a time when interest rates on tax-exempt bonds are at historic lows.

Minority program under investigation (Oregon Daily Emerald): Since August, the United States Department of Justice has been investigating whether the Underrepresented Minority Recruitment Program is in violation of Title Seven of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employers from discriminating against an individual on the basis of race. "The Department of Justice has information that the University of Oregon may be engaged in a pattern or practice of unlawful discrimination against newly hired non-minority faculty members with respect to the disbursement of salary and other employment benefits via its 'Underrepresented Minority Recruitment Program,'" according to a letter sent to University General Counsel Melinda Grier that is signed by David Palmer, chief of the employment litigation section of the U.S. Department of Justice.

UO chief's pay ranks high in 2 surveys (Register-Guard): As Dave Frohnmayer enters his final year as president of the University of Oregon, he could end up retiring from his 15-year run at the UO helm as one of the better-paid public university chief executives in the country. Last year, Frohnmayer was one of only 26 presidents in a survey of 182 public universities to top $500,000 in pay and benefits, receiving a total compensation package worth almost $540,000. That also put him sixth on a list of 19 university presidents in an Oregon University System study on presidential compensation, a list in which the UO ranked 12th in enrollment and 10th in annual spending. This year, Frohnmayer's package grew to an estimated $611,700.

Winning smile and words make real crowd pleaser (Register-Guard, similar stories about Obama's visit to the UO in numerous other publications): Siblings Leda and Karl Sugnet were up past their bedtime Friday night -- and had their grandmother, Clarice Bates of Eugene, to thank for it. Bates and her grandchildren were among an estimated 8,000 who gathered on the lawn at the University of Oregon to hear Barack Obama make his latest pitch on why Democrats should vote him into the White House. Bates, a lifelong Eugene resident, said she was 8 years old when her father took her to see presidential aspirant Dwight Eisenhower, whose campaign train made a Eugene whistle stop in 1952.