UO E-clips, Oct. 23

Seeking justice for Jena (Oregon Daily Emerald): On a sunny, breezy Monday afternoon, hundreds of students formed a line outside the EMU to get football tickets for the highly anticipated USC game. Students sat on the sidewalk in clusters, discussing Oregon's new No. 5 ranking after Saturday's win against Washington. But little did they know, just around the corner, a protest against injustice and racial discrimination was making sparks. Approximately 150 students gathered in the EMU amphitheater Monday at noon to let their voices be heard. The protest, organized to speak out against the racial inequalities taking place in Jena, La., consisted of a rally with motivational speakers, including Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy. In December 2006, a group of six black students from Jena High School in Louisiana beat Justin Barker, a white teenager also from the school. The beating occurred after a black student asked a Jena High School official if he could sit under a tree known as "the white tree" in the schoolyard. The official replied that any student could sit wherever he or she likes. The next day, three white students hung nooses from that same tree.

Social networking sites like a virtual knock on the door (Register-Guard): When his parents were in college, campaigning meant getting outside to pound pavement and knock on doors. But University of Oregon sophomore Nick Schultz says he can create the same change without ever leaving his room. Armed with a laptop and a wireless signal, Schultz is part of a growing trend of pollsters who are abandoning lapel pins and lawn signs for online social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. … University of Oregon assistant political science professor Eric McGhee says the real question is whether online efforts are as effective as traditional techniques. “It’s probably not going to overcome any of that stuff anytime soon,” he says. “You’re not going to see print ads and television spots go away.”

Athletics and Education (Chronicle of Higher Education): (News article in its entirety) … Of the 40 fund raisers at the University of Oregon, nine work for the athletics department. But some faculty members sense that a recent increase in gifts to athletics is eating away at fund-raising priorities for academic programs. A series of articles in The Chronicle this week examines the growth of athletics fund raising at colleges and its impact on development priorities in higher education. The series includes input from major donors themselves about why they choose to give their donations to either sports programs or other areas of higher education. At Oregon, which has received a $100-million from the Nike co-founder Philip H. Knight and his wife, Penny, a “$160-million face lift has made ultramodern athletics facilities the envy of Oregon’s peers,” says the article. While the flow of private donations into the sports program has prompted faculty members to publicly challenge the university’s leaders, David B. Frohnmayer, the president, has said that “to argue that one must choose academic excellence or athletic excellence is an oversimplification.” Can both arms of college fund raising be successful at a single institution? How? What role do fund raisers play in ensuring that academic programs and athletics get equal play?