3-31-21 Emerald Media - Week of Welcome

MAR. 31, 2021

Week of Welcome

Emerald Media

ASUO Senator Nick Keough is concerned over OSPIRG’s transparency.

Ospirg Off Ballot UO’s public interest advocacy group had its support put in limbo after ASUO voted against placing its student reaffirmation on the upcoming ballot, citing concerns over its lack of racial justice work.

NEWS

CAHOOTS GOES NATIONAL PG 5

OPINION

SPORTS

MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL MEDIA PG 7

QUARTERBACK OPTIONS PG 10

A&C

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NEWS

UO ADAPTS NEW MIDTERM AND END-OF-TERM REVIEW SYSTEM More effective feedback from students and professors will improve teaching and learning, professors said.

VOL. 122, ISSUE NO. 41

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ON THE COVER

Nick Keough, an ASUO Senator, photographed in March 2021.

(Maddie Stellingwerf/Emerald)

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BY JANE GLAZER • TWITTER @JANEGLAZER In spring 2017, a University of Oregon professor developed a group to reimagine student evaluations. Now, UO is putting it into action.

The midterm and end-of-term surveys have been updated with three important inputs in the evaluation: student feedback, instructor reflection, and peer review. The new program has goals to “ensure teaching evaluation is fair and transparent, is conducted against criteria aligned with the unit’s definition of teaching excellence, and include input from students, peers and the faculty themselves.”

Bill Harbaugh, a UO economics professor and long-time faculty senator, decided to develop the group to shift student evaluations, according to the Chronicle for Higher Education, based on consistent trends in previous course evaluations, such as women instructors receiving systemically lower course evaluations.

Harbaugh worked with two UO students to study the relationship between student evaluations and grade inflation.

“It replicates what many, many other people found,” Harbaugh said. “But to see it at my own university, I sort of felt like I had to do something about it.”

Beginning in the 2019-20 academic year, UO adopted new practices for student course evaluations. The Teaching Engagement Program and Office of the Provost have been key in developing the new Student Experience Surveys for midterm and end of term reviews, according to Jason Schreiner.

Schreiner, who is the associate director of the teaching engagement program at UO, said that before the student evaluation surveys had a series of about six open ended questions.

Students would then rate those questions on a five-point scale, which Schreiner said “doesn’t provide much meaning for anybody,” and then could add comments if they wanted to.

“What’s different about this is that the questions are very specific,” Schreiner said.

“It asks students very specific things, like how was the inclusivity of this course, how was the accessibility, how was the relevance. It provides students with a little bit of focus, and students can indicate that it was beneficial to their learning, neutral or wasn’t beneficial.”

Initial pilot programs of the new Student Evaluation Stories indicated higher response rates. However, after the university officially launched the program in fall 2019, response rates dropped significantly. Austin Hocker, the assistant director of research and assessment reported that several reasons might explain this drop, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Another reason might be that the registrar’s grade-hold policy was removed, so there was no longer a negative incentive for students to complete their surveys in order to access their grades earlier. Lastly, the availability of surveys decreased; historically, surveys were open from

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Wednesday of week 9 until 7 a.m. the Monday of finals week. Due to technology issues, the availability was reduced to Monday through Friday of finals week.

Regardless, Schreiner said that the number of student comments expressing bias or offensive attacks on faculty has decreased.

“We know from research over many years, student evaluations are notoriously biased against women and instructors of color,” Schreiner said. “That was a key thing driving the change.”

The new program also allows for instructors to complete a reflection survey, where they write their own comments about the course.

Instructors look at feedback from students, and they can provide their reflections about student’s comments and help clarify them.

“We know from research over many years, student evaluations are notoriously biased against women and instructors of color. That was a key thing driving the change.”

JASON SCHREINER

Associate director of the UO teaching engagement program

“The instructor can learn from what they hear from students and make changes and adjustments to future courses,” Schreiner said.

“And when it comes time to review instructors, they use both what students say and what instructors say as a way to determine, ‘Is there a need for improvement here? Should I renew this career faculty’s contract?’ things like that.”

UO’s new system has become a national model for Student Evaluation Surveys and has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education and by the National Academies of Sciences.

Schreiner said that as the Teaching Engagement Program’s mission is to promote teaching excellence on campus, faculty should have an incentive to adopt research-based practices and better teaching practices.

“By having an actual teaching evaluation system that’s based on research, and that is aligned with the kind of practices we know work well in classrooms, then suddenly now they have an incentive to adopt more inclusive teaching practices,” Schreiner said. “Whereas before, faculty might be like, ‘Well that all sounds good, but I don’t have time for that, that’s not what I’m rewarded on.’”

Around OR REGIONAL AND STATE NEWS MINORU YASUI’S PRISON CELL: Minoru Yasio, the only Oregonian to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was put in solitary confinement for dissenting against Executive Order 9066 which authorized the incarceration of Japanese American citizens in concentration camps. His 8-by-8 prison cell has been relocated to the Japanese American Museum of Oregon. The museum is set to reopen for by-appointment viewings on May 7 with the jail cell included in an exhibit.

– SARAH-MAE McCULLOUGH CONTINUED EFFORT TO REMOVE DEBRIS FROM HOMES DESTROYED BY HOLIDAY FARM FIRE: The Wildfire Debris Management Task Force has cut down more than 7,340 trees in the Holiday Farm Fire zone along Highway 126 deemed dangerous.

But it is estimated that as many as 70,000 trees in the area may need to be removed. Task Force spokesman Yosef Yip said that these efforts have “ramped up since last week.”

– JANE GLAZER

(Maddie Knight/Emerald)

NO. 20 OREGON BASEBALL DROPS FIRST SERIES ON THE SEASON: After either winning or tying their first four series, the Oregon baseball team dropped their first series last weekend in Arizona, falling to the Wildcats in 2/3 games. Despite the series loss, Oregon baseball still finds themselves in the top 25, with a perfect opportunity to rebound when the 10-10 New Mexico State Aggies come to town for a four-game weekend series starting Thursday, April 1.

– DANIEL FRIIS

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NEWS

CAHOOTS ACT COULD HELP US CITIES CREATE

MOBILE CRISIS RESPONSE PROGRAMS After decades of serving the Eugene-Springfield area, the White Bird Clinic’s CAHOOTS program is being introduced at the national level.

BY ERYN McGUIRE• TWITTER @ERYNMCGUIRE_ (Makena Hervey/Emerald)

Eugene’s Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets program has caught the attention of city planners across the nation in recent years, and the model could be expanding nationwide soon.

Oregon’s U.S. senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkely are co-sponsoring a bill with seven other Democratic senators which would allocate funds to cities that want to start similar programs.

U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio introduced the CAHOOTS Act in August 2020, which Wyden reintroduced to Congress last week. It will provide around $1 billion in Medicaid funds through the recently passed American Rescue Plan to help other cities get started in implementing mobile crisis response teams. In the proposed bill, cities would have their budget matched by 95%.

The bill’s co-sponsors include Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Calif.; Bernie Sanders,Vt.; Sheldon Whitehouse, R.I.; Tina Smith, Minn. and Bob Casey, Pa. Eugene’s White Bird Clinic runs the CAHOOTS program, providing an alternative to the traditional method of dealing with non-criminal situations like mental health crisis, housing-related issues or substance abuse. They’re on call 24/7 in the EugeneSpringfield area.

“Each CAHOOTS team consists of a medic,

being either a nurse or an EMT and a crisis worker with several years experience in the mental health field,” Abbey Carlstrom, a consulting and outreach coordinator at White Bird, said.

The team can provide immediate medical care, psychological care and — in some cases — transportation to medical or treatment centers.

They’re dispatched through either the Eugene police-fire-ambulance number or Springfield nonemergency number, so when someone calls to report an applicable situation, CAHOOTS might arrive rather than police. This allows those who need help to avoid an encounter with the police or a costly trip to the emergency room if that’s not what they really need, Silver said.

“Our ability to transport clients to staffed services also saves our city and county millions in ER and jail diversion,” Arlo Silver, White Bird’s CAHOOTS office manager, said.

Silver said that some city planners have begun reaching out for guidance on starting their own program.

“We currently are busy responding to requests we receive from communities and do not often reach out to introduce the model without being asked first,” he said.

Portland and Denver have both recently

implemented mental health response teams. The Portland Street Response and Denver’s Support Team Assistance Response programs both cite CAHOOTS as the model for their programs. PSR is still a pilot program having launched this past February, but STAR has shown promising results since it started last June.

The influx of interest in CAHOOTS comes after widely publicized incidents of police brutality over the past year, Silver said. By giving an alternative to the traditional method, the program is applicable to the discussion of changing the system of policing. The CAHOOTS Act would not take any money from police department budgets, only allocating federal Medicaid funds.

Since its inception in 1969, the White Bird Clinic has been committed to serving underrepresented members of the community. They are eager to help other cities build their own programs that will help them in their own unique ways, Silver said.

“When thinking about how CAHOOTS-modeled programs can improve other cities, that really depends on the community,” Silver said. “Our model provides an option in times of crisis that looks different than the traditional police response and centers on the client’s needs, and we hope to see some other communities go in the same direction.”

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OPINION

WHAT’S WHAT’S WRONG WRONG WITH WITH MEN’S MEN’S COLLEGE COLLEGE BASKETBALL BASKETBALL MEDIA? MEDIA? Sterling: Media coverage and treatment of college basketball’s “blue blood” programs is tired and unengaging. By giving preferential treatment to only a few teams, the sport as a whole suffers.

BY BAZIL STERLING • TWITTER @RAZZLE_BAZIL Premier programs dominate the collegiate athletic landscape in their respective sports. In men’s college basketball, these programs are often referred to as “blue bloods.” Current examples such as Kentucky, Duke, Kansas and North Carolina have reigned over men’s college basketball for decades, and their passes to this exclusive club seem to never expire. Similar to the preferential treatment received by professional teams in large markets, blue blood programs receive far more media attention and praise than their lesser known counterparts.

For the first time since 1976, both Duke and Kentucky failed to qualify for the ongoing men’s NCAA tournament. Kansas and North Carolina lost in the first two rounds. This rare event opened the door for other teams to make the most of the national spotlight. The struggles of said premier teams causes me to Oregon guard Elgin Cook attacks the basketball late in question if they truly deserve their the second half. The Oregon Ducks face the Duke Blue titles in modern college basketball.

Devils on March 24, 2016, in the Sweet 16 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. (Kyle Sandler/Emerald) Smaller programs like Gonzaga and Butler consistently perform at the same level of said teams yet do not garner nearly as much media attention.

Oregon, for instance, has played on par with such programs throughout Dana Altman’s tenure, yet the lack of historical success overshadows modern accomplishments. Six consecutive NCAA tournament appearances speak for themselves, and the program is only on the rise. In a sport where rosters can change drastically on a yearly basis, the value placed on past achievements is simply illogical. Of course, past achievements are meaningful and somewhat noteworthy, but allowing championships from years ago to majorly shape current perceptions of programs is an inaccurate way to judge them.

The beauty of college sports is the diverse nature of talent, human interest stories and its proclivity for randomness. March Madness is the perfect example of this. Sixty-eight teams get the opportunity to make their mark on collegiate athletics. The I am less inclined to primary reason I adore this tournament consume men’s college is because I’m introduced to players and programs that I would never have basketball media heard of otherwise. for much of the year I am less inclined to consume because I can’t stand men’s college basketball media for much of the year because I endless discussions can’t stand endless discussions involving the same four involving the same four or or five teams.” five teams. In the 2020-21 season, I heard far too many BAZIL STERLING discussions about “blue blood” teams having down seasons. When there are hundreds of college basketball programs in the country, why do I have to constantly listen to lazy content and opinions about the same programs? I would much rather hear about success stories of lesser known programs than listen to the struggles of a team that won a title two years prior. For blue blood programs, personnel turnover is incredibly relevant. A team like Kentucky could have a different starting lineup every year. Teams are judged based on past achievements, even when no one involved in the current program actually achieved anything.

Sports media must alter its approach to covering college basketball. More emphasis must be placed on curating truly interesting stories and recaps rather than highlighting the mundane happenings of a handful of programs. By fixating on the same subjects, the end result is repetitive media that fails to truly educate or entertain audiences. Shutting out 99% of the nation’s teams suffocates the unique nature of the sport.

Bazil Sterling is a columnist for the Emerald’s opinion desk.

He specializes in sports discourse and reminding you that athletics matter more than your education. Follow his Twitter @razzle_bazil

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COVER

OSPIRG’S STUDENT FUNDING COULD BE IN JEOPARDY AFTER ASUO LEAVES IT OFF BALLOT Although ASUO will fund the statewide public interest advocacy group through next year, ASUO’s vote against putting OSPIRG on the ballot poses questions about OSPIRG’s future.

BY LEO BAUDHUIN • TWITTER @NOTALEOBUTLEO The ASUO senate voted against putting the Oregon Student Public Interest OSPIRG returned as a fully funded program through ACFC in the years that Research Group on the ASUO elections ballot at its Feb. 24 meeting, citing concerns followed — and through a student referendum vote in ASUO elections. about a lack of racial equity in OSPIRG’s advocacy work. Following the decision, Shana Weiland, LCC’s student government vice president, said LCC has taken OSPIRG decided against pursuing other avenues of getting on the ballot postpone its own measures to reduce OSPIRG funding. LCC students currently pay $3 per its biennial reaffirmation until 2022. term to fund OSPIRG organizing, but that number will drop to $2.50 for the 2021After the senate’s unanimous decision, OSPIRG chair Elizabeth Radcliffe said 22 school year — barring any change that emerges from the appeals process. UO it didn’t make sense to try to collect signatures from the required 10% of the UO students each pay $1.75 for OSPIRG. student body given the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We can’t table,” she According to OSPIRG’s UO chapter website, it pools this student fee money from said. “We can’t do class announcements. We don’t have access to our peers the way across the state to hire full-time professional staff to help student advocacy efforts. that we normally would, and it just isn’t possible to reach the thousands of students Gutterman said an entry-level position pays $35,000 a year — something he said he that we need to run a real reaffirmation vote.” sees as a fair rate for a student-funded nonprofit job. “The reality is that the folks OSPIRG Organizing Director Lucas Gutterman said the referendum vote at UO is that are working for us care about making a difference,” he said. “They don’t want to an opportunity for students to show support for OSPIRG’s campaigns and reaffirm get paid a fat check. That would not really be appropriate.” that they’re willing to pay a couple of dollars every term ASUO Senator Nick Keough said they’re worried about the for that work. The vote also gives OSPIRG’s voice more lack of transparency around how OSPIRG uses its student power and weight when it meets with elected officials, fees and the fact that students may not know what their Gutterman said. $1.75 is going toward. In fact, students are allowed to ask any Currently, OSPIRG — an Oregon student-run lobbying OSPIRG representative for their money back and “I think the reality of that nonpartisan nonprofit advocacy group — is running OSPIRG has to cut a check for $1.75. campaigns on hunger and homelessness, clean electricity Weiland said LCC’s student government brought up the situation was that there was and textbook affordability. lack of transparency during budget hearings last year, and The lack of a student vote doesn’t mean OSPIRG won’t OSPIRG came back with more information this time around. a lot of poor communication be present on UO’s campus next year; ASUO’s Athletics and Still, he said the numbers he got were written as a fraction in the relationship between Contracts Finance Committee approved the organization’s of a percentile of a full-time employee position. “It became funding for the 2021-22 academic year at a January contract very hard to actually calculate that out in the room,” he said, new staff people and the hearing. However, it does mean ACFC will have more power “to figure out what we’re actually contributing and what over its OSPIRG contract going into negotiations for the we’re getting for that contribution to those members who existing student leadership.”

2022-23 fiscal year. are not full time on the Lane campus.”

OSPIRG took root on UO’s campus after politician and Kyra Solis and Katie Stafford, former OSPIRG board former U.S. presidential candidate Ralph Nader spoke members at UO, said they both credit OSPIRG with helping LUCAS GUTTERMAN on campus in 1970. “He had this idea of setting up public them develop community organizing and advocacy skills in interest research groups throughout the country and basing their time with the organization. Still, both highlighted issues OSPIRG Organizing Directo r it on campuses,” 1970-71 ASUO President Ron Eachus said. they saw in the way the organization was run toward the end Eachus said students at UO were excited about Nader’s of their time with the group. idea and started working to get something in place almost Although Stafford said her initial experience with OSPIRG immediately. When UO’s OSPIRG chapter was established, was positive, that changed when it brought in a new campus students paid $1 per term for public advocacy and research. According to a 2008 organizer. “There was a shift in the culture and how things were going that a lot of Daily Emerald article, OSPIRG had chapters at 12 Oregon colleges in the 1970s, and us weren’t thrilled with,” she said. That organizer has since left OSPIRG. statewide PIRGs popped up across the country.

At the time, Stafford was a college student, volunteering at a lab and serving as Over time, this enthusiasm waned. Today, only UO, Lane Community College and vice president for the OSPIRG board — on top of dealing with her own health issues.

Southern Oregon University fund OSPIRG chapters through student fees — though She said new OSPIRG leadership told her she was expected to spend 20 hours a OSPIRG also has chapters at Portland State and Oregon State University. week campaigning — on top of whatever time she spent in meetings — because it “We have a pretty good relationship with OSPIRG,” Associated Students of SOU was what she signed up for. This was the first time Stafford was made aware of these President Andrew Zucker said. He said OSPIRG’s SOU chapter has helped students expectations, she said. build advocacy skills, as well as aiding SOU in lobbying for things like a basic needs “I personally felt that that wasn’t responsible,” Stafford said. “It was irresponsible navigator at a statewide level. “Without their sort of research, us students wouldn’t of me to be putting all of my time on something that wasn’t going to directly really have a lot of the resources that we need to lobby in an effective or competent affect my education or my health.” She said she found this expectation frustrating, way,” Zucker said. especially for an unpaid position.

However, at LCC and UO, that relationship is more complicated.

“It’s definitely part of the nonprofit world to rely on volunteer labor,” Solis, who ASUO cut OSPIRG funding in 1998 following opposition from a conservative still works for a nonprofit, said. “But to do so with the free labor of students to such student group on campus and removed funding again in 2009, this time citing an extent that they start struggling like that — it’s totally unethical.” concerns about OSPIRG using student incidental fee money to pay professional Gutterman said he does not remember talking with board members about the staff members who do not operate exclusively on UO’s campus. amount of time OSPIRG professional staff asked them to put into their work.

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COVER

OSPIRG members meet with a guest during a Zoom meeting. (Maddie Stellingwerf/Emerald)

Radcliffe said she currently spends between 10 and 15 hours a week on OSPIRG, a commitment greater than most UO student volunteers, since she chairs both the UO chapter and the OSPIRG board.

Solis spent a large portion of fall 2017 coordinating OSPIRG’s campaign in opposition to the LNG Jordan Cove pipeline. She said the staff pushback she experienced when trying to get the campaign off the ground felt antithetical to OSPIRG’s mission as a student-run organization.

The students coordinating most of OSPIRG’s campaigns work with a professional organizer to write class announcements.

However, Gutterman wrote the announcement for the LNG pipeline. Gutterman said it’s part of his position to write materials for OSPIRG’s lead campaigns, including the LNG pipeline in 2017, and that any controversy was due to miscommunication.

“I think the reality of that situation was that there was a lot of poor communication in the relationship between new staff people and the existing student leadership,” he said.

Solis also took issue with the fact that the announcement did not include acknowledgement of the fact that the pipeline would run over Indigenous lands — something she said she specifically asked Gutterman to incorporate. “By removing them entirely, you’re erasing them,” she said.

“You cannot separate environmentalism from the needs of People of Color and queer people,” Solis said.

Gutterman said he doesn’t remember seeing Indigenous land mentioned in the project proposal.

For Stafford and Solis, their experiences with OSPIRG — and the experiences of other board members they witnessed — led to the board resigning en masse at the end of 2017.

Solis said the board that year was the most diverse that she remembers, with at least three out of six identifying as queer, BIPOC or Latinx.

Keough worked with OSPIRG from fall 2017 through winter 2020, especially focusing on its textbook affordability campaigns. Over time, they noticed the lack of a racial justice lens in OSPIRG’s advocacy — specifically in its environmental work — and decided to step away from the group.

They said they voiced these concerns via Instagram early last summer and were met by responses from roughly 15 UO and LCC students sharing personal stories about working with OSPIRG. Among these students was a member of the 2017 board, who brought the mass resignation to light.

Keough passed the information they gathered — including screenshots of various student responses and the 2017 board’s resignation letter — on to ACFC at the end of June 2020.

ACFC member Jon Laus said the committee decided to ask all of its service providers to include a racial equity clause in its contract with ACFC ahead of this year’s negotiations. “We’re in the midst of this huge movement,” he said, alluding to the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the country last summer. “Why don’t we capitalize on it?”

Laus said OSPIRG pushed back against adding a racial equity campaign when ACFC presented it with the idea during Summer 2020. ACFC meeting minutes from last summer show OSPIRG described itself as a “public advocacy group” rather than a “social justice organization” — though OSPIRG’s website now highlights that it sees racial justice as an issue of public interest.

Radcliffe said OSPIRG is now working to add a racial justice lens to its various campaigns in light of protests last summer, though it is still discussing what concrete plans will look like. Still, she said it is working to include information about how BIPOC communities are often most affected by the issues OSPIRG is advocating for and to collaborate with the UO Multicultural Center in centering BIPOC voices going forward.

“We agree that integrating racial justice more into our campaigns is a really important and urgent issue,” Stone told the ASUO senate. Stone said OSPIRG also donated money raised for its hunger and homelessness campaign to Huerto de la Familia — a garden that focuses on helping Latinx Eugenians — instead of Food for Lane County.

Keough asked Gutterman at the senate’s Feb. 24 meeting what OSPIRG did to ensure it was supporting BIPOC and queer students following the 2017 resignations. Gutterman said he and OSPIRG director Charlie Fisher worked to improve communication between professional staff and students.

Laus said ACFC is taking a more active approach in ensuring OSPIRG integrates a racial equity lens into its work going forward. Although the language of the 2021-22 contract is still being finalized, he said they’re adding a clause that asks OSPIRG to meet with ACFC biannually to go over OSPIRG’s plans and allow ACFC to provide feedback.

Laus said adding this language will help ACFC ensure that OSPIRG follows through on its commitment to racial justice in its campaigns going forward.

“It’s definitely part of the nonprofit world to rely on volunteer labor. But to do so with the free labor of students to such an extent that they start struggling like that — it’s totally unethical.”

KYRA SOLIS Former OSPIRG board member at UO (Courtesy of Kyra Solis) W E D N E S D AY, M A R C H 3 1 , 2 0 2 1

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SPORTS

WEIGHING THE DUCKS’ OPTIONS UNDER CENTER

(Photo courtesy of the UO Athletic Department)

(Photo courtesy of the UO Athletic Department)

With flashy young talent on the way and ample experience already present, Joe Moorhead and the Oregon coaching staff will face a difficult quarterback decision come training camp.

BY CHARLES GEARING • TWITTER @GEARINGCHARLIE On Nov. 7, Tyler Shough took the field for his first collegiate start. Many believed the year studying under Justin Herbert would make Shough a viable option, and for his first few games, that seemed to hold true.

Shough threw for over 300 yards in two of his first three starts. The offense flourished around him as Johnny Johnson III, Devon Williams and Jaylon Redd made explosive plays in the passing game, while CJ Verdell and Travis Dye picked up chunks of yards on the ground.

It seemed all of the questions surrounding the Ducks’ new-look offense and its future without Herbert had been answered, and Joe Moorhead’s system, with Shough at the helm, appeared to be working without a hitch.

But following a narrow week four loss to Oregon State in Corvallis, Shough’s confidence seemed to falter, and the Ducks’ offense sputtered. The following week, after a strong first half in Berkeley, the Ducks were held scoreless for the remainder, losing to a winless Cal team 21-17.

After a 3-0 start to the season, the Ducks had lost two straight. The wheels came loose and the quarterback position was in limbo.

Boston College graduate transfer Anthony Brown, who’d yet to see the field in 2020, split snaps with Shough in the Pac-12 championship, acting as a switchblade against a USC defense that hadn’t prepared for his more mobile, shifty playstyle.

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in the Ducks’ Fiesta Bowl appearance against Iowa State, restating the uncertainty towards who would assume the starting role moving forward.

In mid-February, Shough entered the transfer portal, announcing only 10 days later that he’d take his talents to Texas Tech. While his transfer reflects an unfortunate loss for the program, it’s important to note that Shough’s vacancy makes room for what’s still to come.

Entering the 2021 season, the Ducks have options.

The bulk of the conversation revolves around Brown and highly ranked recruit Ty Thompson. Seeing former four-star California recruit Jay Butterfield take snaps wouldn’t come as a surprise either.

With a plethora of returning receivers, the Ducks may well be looking for a pro-style, Herbert-esque pocket passer.

Butterfield could provide that.

Thompson, ranked second nationally at his position, is the highest-rated quarterback recruit in Oregon football history and should be a major point of excitement and well-deserved anticipation among fans. His natural talent and ability to lead show all the desirable qualities of a true freshman starter.

He has the hype, but he’s got the history to back it up too.

The state of Arizona has become a hotbed for high-end high school football programs and a national pipeline for highly ranked athletes. Thompson played, and won, in some of the most competitive divisions of high school football, leading Mesquite High School to

back-to-back state championship titles in his junior and senior seasons.

Sure, it’s been quite some time since a freshman has occupied the starting quarterback position in Eugene. Since 2012 with Marcus Mariota, to be precise.

But that turned out okay, right?

While there’s no telling how his skill set will translate at the next level, one can say without a doubt that seeing Thompson under center week one would give the thundering crowds of Autzen Stadium something to be excited about, and reasonably so.

Brown’s story, albeit different, should be equally interesting for Oregon fans.

He came out of high school as a threestar recruit with 15 offers, vastly different from Thompson’s 20 offers and five-star rating. But while Thompson has the glitz and glam of a highly sought recruit, Brown has experience and success at the college level.

It hasn’t all been easy for Brown. In fact, quite the opposite. After red-shirting his freshman season at Boston College, he rose into the starting job in 2017. He hit the ground running, starting the first ten games of the season and winning the majority. But the success was short-lived, as the then-sophomore went down with a season-ending injury in his 11th career start.

Brown was resilient. The New Jersey native started all 12 games the following season, leading the Eagles to a 7-5 record on the year. He became just the fifth Boston College quarterback of all time to throw for 20 touchdowns in a season.

In 2019, after six starts, Brown was

struck once again by injury, sustaining a lower leg tear that would sideline him for the remainder of the year.

In 2020, Brown landed in Eugene.

After being inactive through the entirety of the Ducks’ abbreviated season, Brown surfaced as a role-player in the Pac-12 Championship game, and as a potential starter in the Fiesta Bowl.

Brown threw two all-important touchdowns in the Ducks’ victory over USC. And with the vast majority of snaps against Iowa State the following week, Brown threw for a modest but respectable 147 yards, adding 36 rushing yards and two touchdowns with his feet.

While the Ducks were anything but perfect against Iowa State, Brown was far from the issue. And against USC, Brown was crucial in giving the Ducks another offensive look and confusing a talented Trojan defensive group.

A Ducks offense with Thompson at the helm would be an exciting sight but would be one with a lack of certainty.

Sure, Mariota took over as a freshman and was more than sufficient, but that was an anomaly. Brown provides a look for the Moorhead offense that is proven to work.

It’s a coin flip for who gets the job. But on either side of the coin are two viable options to fill the role.

Oregon football will enter the 2021 season facing a quarterback competition for the second year in a row. On one hand, they have a generational talent in Thompson. On the other, ample experience and game-ready ability in Brown.

2021 | 9th ANNUAL

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SPORTS

DISAPPOINTING LOSS FOR ALTMAN, DUCKS POINTS TO FUTURE PROMISE

BY SHANE HOFFMAN • TWITTER @SHANE_HOFFMANN In the minutes immediately following Oregon’s Sweet 16 loss to USC on Sunday, Ducks head coach Dana Altman admitted he’d made a mistake.

“I’ve got to know my personnel,” he said. “Franck [Kepnang] did a heck of a job there late. I didn’t use him the first half because offensively we were having trouble getting going. He hasn’t worked much against the zone. He gave us a big lift that second half and he did a great job.”

After playing just over a minute in the first half of Sunday’s game, Kepnang ignited a late 11-0 run that brought the Ducks within striking distance. In a span of eight minutes, the freshman center added eight points and a rebound and brought the requisite size to match up with USC’s frontline.

“He got a couple of rebounds, he kept the ball alive a couple times and he just was a presence in there and his energy defensively gave us a big lift,” Altman said. “Again, I’ve got to take my share of their responsibility. It’s March, hell, I should know my personnel.”

Altman’s postgame comments were a brutally honest peek behind the curtains; a vulnerable moment for a coach who’s made a name for himself by knowing his personnel and adapting to a revolving door of roster changes. And while Oregon suffered a 14-point loss to an in-conference foe and renewed rival, the game’s closing minutes may have given a glimpse into the future of the program.

Sophomore center N’Faly Dante, the Ducks’ lone true rim protector, collapsed on the floor with a torn ACL just six games into the season. A few games later, Altman made a decisive move. Recognizing the strength of the Ducks’ roster lay in their quartet of two-way wings — Chris Duarte, Eugene Omoruyi, LJ Figuroa and Eric Williams Jr. — Altman rolled out a small-ball lineup featuring Will Richardson at point guard. No player under 6 foot 5.

No player over 6 foot 6.

The new lineup played to its skill

Oregon Ducks center Franck Kepnang (22) lays on the floor reaching towards the ball. Oregon Ducks take on the Washington Huskies at the Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene, Ore., on Feb. 6, 2021.

(Maddie Knight/ Emerald)

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set, winning 13 of the season’s final 16 games while leading the conference in made threes and steals per game.

But no matter how hard they fought, the Ducks were always smaller, and upsizing came at the expense of perimeter shooting.

Against Iowa in the round of 32, the Ducks surrendered 36 points to the 7-foot Luka Garza but controlled the outside where they exploited a weak Hawkeyes defense. Against USC, they held the Mobley brothers in check but paid dearly for it as the Trojans lit them up from range.

Altman went with his gut and stuck to his five. And so marked the end of another iteration of the late-year surges Oregon’s become known for since Altman took over.

Next year, the Ducks seem poised for a rebranding. As Duarte and Omoruyi transition to the NBA and fellow senior LJ Figueroa mulls his decision, the Ducks’ front court screams promise.

Barring an unforeseen decision, Dante, who some projected as an NBA first-rounder when he arrived at Oregon, is set to return. Chandler Lawson, whose four-star brother Jonathan will join the Ducks next fall, is no doubt rearing to re-enter the starting lineup. There’s a newcomer too, the five-star, 7-foot stretch big from Napa, California, Nathan Bittle.

Then there’s Kepnang, a hulking 6-foot-10 power athlete whose leadership skills have past and present coaches raving. If the fearlessness displayed Sunday is any indication, he’s poised for a meteoric rise in his sophomore campaign.

All of a sudden, Oregon has an embarrassment of riches to toy with on the front line. It remains to be seen who Altman adds to fill out his roster — undoubtedly utilizing the transfer portal to his advantage — but Sunday’s game could be remembered for more than the end of another Tournament run for the Ducks.

It could be the last time Oregon gets bullied up front for quite some time.

A&C

A LOOK BACK AT

OSCARWINNING

LGBTQ+ MOVIES (Makena Hervey/Emerald)

While this year’s nominations lack LGBTQ+ themes, we can still draw on older films that laid the groundwork for queer representation in mainstream media.

BY DREW YORK With the 93rd Academy Awards approaching, it’s safe to say that the most memorable moments of 2020 didn’t have much to do with the movies released this year. The nominees seem to lack the LGBTQ+ themes that have been on the rise in recent years.

There are some astounding queer films that have earned Oscar recognition in previous years, breaking film barriers by representing LGBTQ+ stories on a large scale. Through these movies, we see that representation is vital; it has the power to give people a voice and educate others about the human experience.

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) The Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” took home four Oscar awards in 2019. Three of them were in technical categories: Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. The movie featured Rami Malek’s vocals with Mercury’s, providing performances that felt both authentic and accurate to the original singer. Undoubtedly, the film’s incredible recreation of Queen’s 1985 Live Aid performance made the movie deserving of the editing and sound awards.

A first-time Oscar nominee, Malek, who played Mercury, took home the award for Best Actor. In his heartfelt acceptance speech, Malek connected his own experience as the son of an immigrant to Mercury’s identity, saying that Mercury lived his life as a gay immigrant unapologetically.

“The fact that I’m celebrating him and this story with you tonight is proof that we’re longing for stories like this,” Malek said.

Moonlight (2016) Many recall the infamous slip-up where “La La Land’’ was announced as the Best Picture winner for the 89th Academy Awards, only to be corrected just moments later. “Moonlight” was the first LGBTQ+ film to win Best Picture, not to mention the first winner featuring an all-Black cast. Additionally, it also took home the award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The film follows a young man named Chiron and his difficulties with identity and sexual orientation as a Black man growing up in Miami. We see significant moments of his life as a young boy, a teenager and eventually as an adult, exploring Black masculinity through Chiron’s struggles.

Mahershala Ali, who played Chiron’s father-figure Juan, won the award for Best Supporting Actor; he was the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar. With queer People of Color historically left out of the mainstream, the movie’s Oscar success showed the importance of highlighting the experiences of minorities, specifically gay Black men.

Brokeback Mountain (2005) Perhaps the most well-known gay film of the 2000s is “Brokeback Mountain,” which tells the story of two

cowboys named Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis (Heath Ledger) navigating their complex emotional relationship in the ‘60s and ‘80s. The film received the Academy Awards for Best Director (Ang Lee), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score; it was infamously snubbed for Best Picture by the movie “Crash.”

As one of the first mainstream portrayals of an explicit same-sex relationship between two men, the film received homophobic criticism alongside its acclaim. Before his tragic death in 2008, Ledger was known for defending the movie, going so far as refusing to present at the 2007 Oscars because of a joke about “Brokeback Mountain” in the opening monologue. In an interview with the fashion magazine Another Man, Gyllenhaal reflected on Ledger’s decision.

“That’s the thing I loved about Heath. He would never joke,” Gyllenhaal said. “Someone wanted to make a joke about the story or whatever, he was like, ‘No. This is about love. Like, that’s it, man. Like, no.’”

These influential movies have only scratched the surface of the stories that still need to be told in the mainstream. Transgender people still aren’t adequtely represented; when they are, they’re played by cisgender actors, such as Eddie Redmayne’s portrayal of trans woman Lili Elbe in “The Danish Girl.”

We can still look at these films as foundational to LGBTQ+ representation. Their impact on society has definitely been for the better. Looking ahead, there is a world of queer stories still waiting to be told.

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YELLOW YELLOW SUNFLOWERS, SUNFLOWERS, BLUE BLUE EYEBALLS: EYEBALLS: A A STUDENT STUDENT ARTIST’S ARTIST’S PATH PATH

UO junior Sophie Barlow recounts her experience as a visual artist recognizing the value of art.

BY NIKA BARTOO-SMITH • TWITTER @BARTOONIKA

Yellow flowers droop over a yellow vase in one of about mental health and motivation during the pandemic. As the title suggests, the Vincent Van Goh’s famous paintings. The original author urges people to not feel guilty about how they are spending their time — painting, part of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” series, productive or not. hangs in the National Gallery in London.

“There was a time in the pandemic where I was dealing with a lot of Sophie Barlow remembers visiting the mental health stuff, which I feel like a lot of people were,” Barlow said. museum on a family vacation when she “Feeling unmotivated but also like I had to be motivated. If I wasn’t was young and seeing that painting. doing art every day, what was I doing? But realizing that I just need to For her, that was the first time she do what feels right for me.” recognized that art is a “real thing” that The accompanying image Barlow produced looks down upon a people pay money to go and see. woman who is lost in her thoughts. A colorful stream of images — “It doesn’t have to be just a fun flowers, hands, mushrooms and doodles — flows from her head. thing. It can be something that you Along with the written piece, the image represents mental health spend your life doing,” Barlow said. and the need to give yourself grace.

Barlow, an Art and Technology For Barlow, art has always been a kind of medicine. She major in her third year at the struggles with both anxiety and ADHD. University of Oregon, creates When she draws, Barlow is able to forget about her worries art that mostly centers around a and focus completely on her art, forcing her to be calm and common theme — things are not express her emotions on paper. She tries to incorporate creativity always what they seem. One of her throughout her daily life. pieces depicts an image of someone’s “When I am drawing, at least in my sketchbook, it’s for me,” head. The androgynous person is Barlow said. “It’s kind of all over the place, it doesn’t have to make painted completely in shades of green sense.” and blue. Bubbles magnify parts of the As an art student who is nearing graduation, face, adding an eerie effect as eyes crowd Barlow expressed struggling with the image. “imposter syndrome.” In other “I created the image by first drawing the words, doubting her abilities and person with eyeballs crying more eyeballs,” worrying about her future as an Barlow said. “It was all for a digital drawing class artist and the likelihood of creating project about drawing destroyed drawings. This a career in art. piece is the one I was talking about when I Over the past few months, discovered for myself how being a digital artist Sophie Barlow, a junior, hopes to work as an artist after Barlow also began sharing graduating. Sophie Barlow is an Art & Technology major at for school can intertwine with the physical her work via Instagram. the who works with painting and digital art. (Will Geschke/ world and my physical art.”

She said that over the last Emerald) As an Art and Technology major, Barlow term, she has begun to “feel creates a lot of artwork digitally, but she still more involved in the art makes time to sketch. Barlow explained that she almost always has a sketchbook community which makes me feel a with her. Part of her routine is repetition. She draws the same thing over and over little more confident in myself and until she hits a “breakthrough.” where I’m at with my education.”

Barlow recently started working as an illustrator for Align Magazine, a fashion and Barlow plans on graduating in the lifestyle magazine spring 2022. Along with a major in Art at UO. In the and Technology, she is also working spring issue, toward an anthropology minor and an Barlow published education certificate. She is not sure where If I wasn’t doing art every day, her first piece, an she will end up career-wise, but has illustration for considered becoming an art teacher. She Sophie Barlow poses with an untitled piece she what was I doing?” a written story also enjoys animation and is looking into created in a class during freshmen year. Sophie SOPHIE BARLOW titled, “Giving an internship at Laika animation studios Barlow is an Art & Technology major who works with painting and digital art. (Will Geschke/ yourself grace.” in Portland.

Emerald) The story is

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