PETITION PG

VOL. 122, ISSUE NO. 43

GET IN TOUCH

EMERALD MEDIA GROUP 1395 UNIVERSITY ST., #302 EUGENE, OR 97403 541.346.5511

NEWSROOM

EDITOR IN CHIEF Ryan Nguyen

MANAGING EDITOR Francis O’Leary

ENGAGEMENT EDITOR Ashley Ng

NEWS EDITORS Jack Forrest Duncan Baumgarten Ardeshir Tabrizian

A&C EDITORS Sarah-Mae McCullough Grace Murray

SPORTS EDITORS Shane Hoffmann Mojo Hill Charlie Gearing

PHOTO EDITOR Maddie Knight

DESIGN EDITOR Kira Chan

COPY CHIEF Sophia Edelblute Capps

MULTIMEDIA EDITORS Meaghan FitzPatrick Sarah Miller

DIGITAL EDITOR Jordan McMinn

BUSINESS

PUBLISHER & PRESIDENT Bill Kunerth X317

bkunerth@dailyemerald.com

VP OPERATIONS

Kathy Carbone X302 kcarbone@dailyemerald.com

DIRECTOR OF SALES & DIGITAL MARKETING

Shelly Rondestvedt X303 srondestvedt@dailyemerald.com

CREATIVE & TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

Sam Rudkin X327

creative@dailyemerald.com

STUDENT SALES MANAGER Stella Kalomiris

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Patrick McCumber Keaton Roberts Amy Menendez

THE DAILY EMERALD

The Daily Emerald is published by Emerald Media Group, Inc., the independent nonprofit media company at the University of Oregon. Formerly the Oregon Daily Emerald, the news organization was founded in 1900.

ON THE COVER

(Courtesy of Ty Thompson)

ONLINE PETITIONS FOR RECONSIDERING COMMENCEMENT GAIN GROUND

Over 1,700 people have signed a petition asking UO to consider alternate options.

BY JANE GLAZER • TWITTER @JANEGLAZER

After the University of Oregon decided June 12 to hold its spring 2021 commencement ceremony virtually, some seniors have organized to request that UO consider in-person graduation alternatives.

UO said its decision for a virtual commencement was made with “great care” and in accordance with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health officials.

In response to this decision, UO senior Ally Grimaldi created a petition asking the administration to include UO students in reconsidering possible commencement alternatives.

The petition lists a few alternatives: hosting commencement outdoors in spaces like Autzen Stadium or Hayward Field; vaccinating spring 2021 graduates or postponing graduation events until summer 2021.

The petition has 1,700 signatures as of April 1.

“The Olympic Trials are still being held six days after our virtual commencement ceremony,” UO student Daniel Paulsen commented on the petition. “Make it make sense.”

In an email sent to students on March 18, UO said that they might be able to add an in-person activity to previous commencement plans.

Paulsen also quote tweeted the university’s tweet about the cancelation, saying that if UO made this decision in respect to safety, then UO should pull out of hosting the Track and Field Olympic Trials. In response, UO tweeted that UO is working with TrackTown USA, who is working with state and county health officials, to ensure that the Olympic Trials follow public health guidelines. Paulsen said in an interview with the Emerald that he viewed this response as a “cop out.”

Other supporters of the petition said that it is an unfair use of students’ tuition money, suggesting that graduates get vaccines and that it is unfair to host the U.S. Olympic Team Trials a week later.

In an interview with the Emerald, Vice President for Student Life Kevin Marbury said that hosting the U.S. Olympic Team Trials was an obligation signed many years ago.

“If they’re able to safely hold the event, we’re obligated to honor that contract,” Marbury said.

Paulsen said that he wishes UO would have offered free caps and gowns or another amenity for students in lieu of an inperson graduation to “lessen the backfire.”

The university said it will waive the separate commencement fee that the university traditionally charges to students this year. The UO Alumni Association is covering the cost of diploma covers.

Paulsen said that he found this decision to cancel in-person commencement to be premature. “I think with the athletics being in person, with a lot of the more recent vaccinations ramping up on a federal level, I think it’s, a) very premature but, b) showed that the university just didn’t really have the time to plan something like this, which doesn’t really sit well when you spend four years at a place, give them a lot of money and spend four years thinking about graduation,” Paulsen said.

The university said that it chose not to make a decision later in the term because it determined that it is unlikely that gatherings of more than 50 to 75 people will be allowed, making an inperson event highly unlikely according to its commencement webpage.

On March 26, Lane County moved into the low risk level. This means that indoor spaces can hold 50% capacity, and outdoor gatherings have increased to a maximum of 300 people.

In the email sent to students on March 18, the UO said students will be notified as soon as any new graduation plans are confirmed due to the risk level change. Paulsen said that while the petition “obviously was great,” he does not think that the decision will change due to the amount of work it takes to plan a graduation ceremony. Despite this reality, he said he saw the petition as showing camaraderie among his class. “We have all learned throughout college that you have to use your voice to stand up for what you want,” Paulsen said. “I think this is a good example of how on the same page we all are as a class.”

Editor’s note: UO senior Ally Grimaldi works for the Daily

Emerald as a copy editor. She was not interviewed for this story and was not involved in the editing of this story.

Around OR

REGIONAL AND STATE NEWS

COVID-19 VARIANT FOUND IN WASTEWATER OF 2 OREGON

CITIES: Wastewater testing showed the B.1.1.7 variant of COVID-19 is present in McMinnville and Grants Pass, OPB reported. The variant was first detected in the United Kingdom and is 50% more contagious and causes more severe illness. Researchers at Oregon State University have been testing wastewater around the state and said there are also faint traces of the variant in Albany and Forest Grove. – SILAS SLOAN

SPRING FOOTBALL BEGINS:

With the end of mens and womens basketball seasons, the spring football schedule began this week. The Ducks’ football team, composed of a collection of returners and newcomers alike, took the field this week to begin practicing and hashing out a starting lineup. While it’s only late March in Eugene, fall football has peaked over the horizon for the first time in 2021. – CHARLES GEARING

(DL Young/Emerald)

‘TRIGGERED LIFE’ EXPLORES

CHILD ABUSE: Keith Mascoll, a Portland-based actor and advocate, produced “Triggered Life: A Requiem of Healing,” a livestreamed one-actor, twocharacter theater piece that explores a heavy topic: the sexual abuse of minors. The piece is based on Mascoll’s own experiences as well as his conversations with others who have experienced abuse. It will be regularly live streamed through the Portland Playhouse through April. – SARAH-MAE McCULLOUGH

GTFF RELEASES OPEN LETTER ABOUT UO COVID-19 PRACTICES

UO graduate employees call on Oregon Gov. Kate Brown to hold UO accountable for unsafe COVID-19 practices.

BY KATHERINE WINELAND • TWITTER @KATWINELAND

The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation at the University of Oregon have released an open letter to demand better working conditions at UO, claiming the need to hold the university’s “administration accountable for their ineffective and unsafe management” after February’s spike in COVID-19 cases.

While the letter acknowledges UO providing more testing opportunities for students, it also claims that this response was not enough.

The letter states that UO failed to protect the campus community because of its lack of effective PPE for the entire community, and lack of effective communication for campus users. The letter also states that UO has failed to take accountability for the COVID-19 cases off campus, as well as the lack of safety in the residence halls and dining halls.

The letter includes five demands for immediate attention from the Oregon government, as well as Eugene and Springfield officials. These demands include safer experiences for residence hall employees such as PPE, hazard pay, vaccination priority and using current COVID-19 case amounts to establish boundaries from a rising campus population.

The letter also demands consequences for large student gatherings and heightened accountability and transparency from the UO administration — including disaggregated data from MAP testing, PPE availability and protocol. Lastly, the letter floated a potential policy requiring vaccines for public universities.

Rhiannon Lindgren, the GTFF vice president of organization, said that this has been an issue for a while, citing a press conference last fall about UO simply tracking cases, not minimizing them.

“We want people to recognize that the UO has the power and the capacity and the money to provide much better protections and mitigation strategies for COVID,” Lindgren said. “And why are they not doing so?”

For Lindgren, transparency is the real issue at stake. Wanting to know the plan for mitigating COVID-19 cases, as well as locations of higher density cases as well as how many cases in Lane County are coming from UO.

In response to these claims, UO spokesperson Saul Hubbard said that the UO Monitoring and Assessment Program has had a robust effect in mitigating COVID-19 spread on campus.

Additionally, with the MAP testing, Hubbard said that the weekly testing for students in residence housing catches positive cases quickly and allows for students to be moved to isolation housing. Hubbard said that UO was anticipating a spike in cases at the beginning of winter term after the holiday break.

The statement did not mention anything about offcampus students.

Rachel Hampton, then-VP of operations at GTFF, uses a sign as her voice. Following the vote to authorize a strike, the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation holds a rally to demand a fair contract at Johnson Hall on Oct. 18, 2019. (Marissa Willke/Emerald)

Support The Daily Emerald in College Media Madness 2021 and donate today! Check out our newly designed housing site!

The best resource for student housing with over 100 listings.

The Daily Emerald is joining more than 20 student-run newsrooms for a nationwide fundraising competition. Gifts made between March 15 and April 5 will help us meet our goal of finishing No. 1 in the standings at collegemediamadness.com.

dailyemerald.com/duckshousing