UO E-clips, Oct. 13-15

Frohnmayer right about state funding to a point (Daily Emerald): The worst kept secret among students and staff alike at the University goes something like this: The amount of funding allotted to the University by the state is wholly inadequate. This fact served as the backdrop for President Dave Frohnmayer's ultimatum to the Oregon State Board of Higher Education earlier this month. If the board doesn't work with the state to bring more funding the University's way, he and University officials will ask for a greater level of autonomy in working with what funding it has. Frohnmayer has a point: Statistics indicate that, indeed, the University should be receiving public funds at a rate far greater than what it currently does.

Come in, sit down, meet the world here (Daily Emerald): It has been 10 years in the making. A facility created specifically to embody diversity and community and to be a central meeting spot for all University students. Welcome to the new Mills International Center. More than 300 people from the University community and beyond -- many visiting from overseas -- came to Friday evening's grand opening. Some University alumni came all the way from Japan to show their support. "Oh my goodness, people have been fundraising for this for years," said Sonja Rasmussen, coordinator of the Mills International Center. Rasmussen and her colleagues worked to raise $1.3 million from 185 donors from all over the world. "None of this is state funds," she said.

Giving Makes You Rich (Conde Nast Portfolio): In John Bunyan’s 1684 classic The Pilgrim’s Progress, the character Old Honest poses this riddle to the innkeeper Gaius: “A man there was, tho’ some did count him mad, / The more he cast away, the more he had.” Gaius solves the riddle thus: “He that bestows his Goods upon the Poor / Shall have as much again, and ten times more.” Less poetically, the idea is this: Giving makes you rich. A lovely sentiment, to be sure, but quite backward-sounding to an economist. You obviously have to have money before you can give it away, right? Or in the pithy words of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions—he had money too.” Well, it turns out that Gaius was right, and new economic research backs him up. … For example, new research from the University of Oregon (Ulrich Mayer and Bill Harbaugh, who weren't mentioned by name, on their study published in Science) finds that charity stimulates parts of the brain called the caudate nucleus and the nucleus accumbens, which are associated with meeting basic needs such as food and shelter -- suggesting to the researchers that our brains know that giving is good for us. Experiments have also found that people are elevated by others into positions of leadership after they are witnessed behaving charitably.

Recycling efforts increased at University of Oregon sports events (Associated Press): The University of Oregon hopes to boost recycling rates for trash at its athletic venues by the time the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials come to Eugene next year. Officials say recyclers captured 25 percent of the trash generated by fans at Autzen Stadium during the first two home games this season. But other events drawing large crowds in Lane County routinely achieve higher recycling rates, up to 90 percent. "This is Eugene for godsakes," said Susan Truax, a clothing printer who's been a volunteer recycler at the Eugene Celebration for 16 years. "We've got to step up to the plate," she said "This is really, really important." But Eugene is making major gains, officials say. The UO Athletic Department launched its new recycling drive this season in the wake of reports about the mountains of post-game garbage.)

Purdue, IU athletes gravitate to certain majors (Indianapolis Star) At Purdue University, the most popular academic major for football and men's basketball players is organizational leadership and supervision. At Indiana University, it's general studies. On both campuses, the proportion of athletes clustered in these majors is significantly higher than the proportion of the student body as a whole, according to an Indianapolis Star analysis. … University of Oregon neuroscience professor Nathan Tublitz, co-chairman of the Coalition on Intercollegiate Athletics, a national group of faculty senates, hears stories about athletes being steered away from tough majors and into whatever will allow them to slide by and concentrate on sports. "I want to emphasize those are just anecdotal stories," Tublitz said, "but one hears them enough to be concerned."