In 1942, xenophobic U.S. officials enacted policies that resulted in the internment of over 100,000 Japanese American citizens. 42 Japanese American students at Oregon State University were forced to leave the university and sent to internment camps. Most did not ever return to OSU. On Sunday, June 15th, OSU awarded honorary degrees to every Japanese American student who was unable to complete their degree.

via the OSU Admissions Blog

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For your Sunday viewing, here’s a video timelapse featuring last Friday’s Battle of the Bands at Oregon State University. I uploaded this one to Vimeo. Their system retains more of the original video’s quality than uploads on YouTube. Rental 58 was one of the bands at this year’s event. Their lead singer, Matt, happens to be one of my favorite e.cafe baristos.

The Oregon State University Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures is expected to undergo significant budget cuts for Fall 2008. The OSU Foreign Language department courses are extremely popular and classes are usually filled each term. It’s probably easier to get a one-on-one meeting with President Ray than it is to get into a 100 level Spanish class!

Students will find it increasingly difficult to register for language classes, a situation which deeply upsets the whole faculty and staff of this department.

Furthermore, since most language classes are offered in sequence and only once a year, underfunding will make it even harder for students who need to complete foreign language requirements to graduate on time. It also means larger class sizes and less personal attention, factors that are especially detrimental to learning languages.

This situation is all the more absurd since the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures makes money for the university. Under a budgeting model where tuition dollars follow the students, we see that Foreign Languages’ finances are completely in order: We generate more money than we need to operate at current capacity. Instead of which, through the use of an unfair budget model, we find ourselves with a deficit of $250,000 and threatened with job losses.

via the Corvallis Gazette Times.

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It was 88° in the Oregon State University Memorial Union Quad last Thursday but we still had Snow in the Quad! Watch this timelapse video to see the entire day from the early morning to the end of the day. Note the gigantic pile of snow in the center of the quad!

A silent protest against the FDA policy that prohibits gay men from donating blood was held at Oregon State University this week. Several students and faculty members stood in silence in front of the Memorial Union.

It would be wonderful if OSU President Ed Ray would do what San José State University President Don W. Kassing did at the SJSU campus. President Kassing suspended all campus blood drives in protest of the FDA’s homophobic policy citing that the policy violates SJSU’s non-discrimination policy.

Oregon State University’s Institutional Policy on Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action states that OSU as “an institution of higher education and as a community of scholars, is committed to the elimination of discrimination and the provision of equal opportunity in education and employment.”

I hope that part of our institutional commitment to the elimination of discrimination would include prohibiting campus blood drives until the FDA removes their current policy.

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Wendy and I went to the OSU Hui-o-Hawaii Luau for the third time last night. Once again, it was amazing. The food was terrific and the show was spectacular. It was nice to see so many of my advisees performing on stage. I am very proud of their accomplishments.

The Hawaiian club at Oregon State University shares what their luau means to them.

Hui-o-Hawaii Luau Commercial

Oregon State University leaders have announced a new financial aid initiative that in its first school year, 2008-09, will enable a full 10 percent of the Oregonian students who attend OSU to do so free of charge.

The Bridge to Success Program will pool federal resources with funds from the Oregon Opportunity Grant, the Campaign for OSU and redirected institutional monies to cover all tuition and fee costs for 1,500 in-state students this fall. Additional funds will cover books and supplies for half of those students.

Awards will be based on financial need and students’ ability to show satisfactory progress toward completion of degrees, including taking 15 credits each term.

Several higher education websites have revamped their campus maps. The map-making-mashup technology of choice seems to be the Google Maps API.

Here are a few examples of university campus maps that utilize Google Maps:

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The campus newspaper at Oregon State University, the Daily Barometer, published a story on Friday about a recent drug bust that involved several OSU students.

After a month-long investigation, police from Albany, Corvallis and the Benton County Sheriff’s Office have arrested seven Corvallis residents in connection with a drug-trafficking ring.

Six of those connected, arrested on April 14 and 15, were OSU students.

The men were arrested on accusations of distributing cocaine, marijuana and Ecstasy in the area.

I had seen the story on another Oregon news site Friday morning, but was unable to find a copy of the Daily Barometer when I arrived to campus. I checked the Barometer’s website today to find an interesting announcement on the homepage:

This morning, many of the Barometer kiosks were found empty. Staff of the Barometer has confirmed that the paper was delivered.

It seems that a majority of the 7,000 copies had been removed from the kiosks and dumped in dumpsters and recycling bins.

If you have any information regarding the theft of The Daily Barometer on Friday, April 18, please contact Editor in Chief Lauren Dillard by e-mailing editor@dailybarometer.com or calling 737-3191.

I highly doubt that this is just a coincidence. This type of occurrence seems to happen quite frequently on college campuses. A negative event happens involving students, the campus newspaper prints a story (usually featured on the front page above the fold), and someone destroys or steals the majority of that particular edition of the paper.

A theme that I have come across lately is the idea of looking forward in order to move past an issue. I feel that looking forward or forward thinking is a good thing as long as the issue at hand has been addressed. Unfortunately, a lot of times, the concept of looking forward becomes PR speak for not actually addressing the issue but going back to the status quo.

The fall term at Oregon State University provides an example of this idea of doing nothing but saying that we are looking forward type of thinking. In the fall term, OSU’s community was focused on two separate racist incidents. A student wearing blackface was featured on the front of the campus newspaper (ensuing conversations, editorials, and Facebook groups underscored a campus climate that is not bereft of racism) and a noose was hung in the yard of an OSU fraternity. Both incidents received a lot of press and generated several meetings amongst campus community members. An official statement from President Ray was issued in November.

The first half of the statement focuses on the amount of media coverage that occurred in the fall term:

In recent weeks, The Oregonian and other media have carried coverage focusing on the campus climate at OSU regarding race, recent incidents regarding racial symbols and steps the university is taking to address these matters. We have long recognized the need to address such matters here at OSU.

The last paragraph of the statement really sums up my feelings on how the fall was addressed:

I do not want us to engage in a cyclical pattern of negative events, meaningful dialogues, and then business as usual. We have committed to look at the issues students raised and to make progress. The notion that nothing changes is simply not acceptable.

And then the fall term ended. People went on winter break and poof, the racist occurrences from the fall term seemed to have been swept under the rug at the front door of the capital campaign.

Near the end of winter term, an article titled, “A University Examines Underlying Problems After Racist Incidents” was featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education on March 11th (my apologies for the lack of speediness with my post). [Full text].

The concept of looking ahead to the future rather than focusing on racist incidents is brought forth in the article:

Administrators at Oregon State, unlike their peers at many colleges, have taken the view that it would be a mistake for them to focus their energy on responding to various racist incidents. To make lasting progress in diminishing racism, they say, campus leaders must focus on promoting diversity in a forward-looking manner, between the controversies that erupt.

In what I feel is another part of the cyclical pattern of how incidents are handled at OSU, another statement was issued from the president’s office the same day as the Chronicle article was published. Statement issuing seems to occur in conjunction only when significant media coverage is present. The statement speaks of action “through ongoing dialogue, surveys, and other means to assess where we stand and what we must do to make real progress.”

I do not feel that we can look forward without addressing incidents like the ones that happened in the fall term. “Looking forward” becomes code for waiting until people are quiet again and the media has moved on to another story.