By Thanksgiving, students, faculty and staff may know which vendors will begin offering new, tasty food fare at the Erb Memorial Union that will enter the 21st century with a substantial face-lift.

The EMU is preparing to undergo a major renovation of its food service and recreation areas, which director Charles "Dusty" Miller says is long overdue for the facility's 45-year-old west wing where the bulk of these services are housed.

"Exciting changes are coming at the EMU," he says. "The EMU board has been working closely with campus planning groups and several outside consultants to come up with a workable plan which will greatly enhance the food offerings and create a more modern, comfortable, user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing environment."

The $4 million renovation project is being funded with dedicated student building fees--no state dollars are involved--and is currently in the schematic design phase. Construction is slated to begin next summer, and the renovated areas are scheduled to be up and running by Fall Term 1998.

"This has been a carefully orchestrated project, and the campus has been involved every step of the way," says Miller. "We worked with a highly regarded marketing firm which conducted campus-wide surveys and focus groups to determine what people want from their university union."

Based on marketing research conducted by Thomas Ricca Associates of Denver, campus user and design groups developed a plan for the west wing which will likely include a "street of shops" atmosphere including a coffeehouse, quick-serve coffee area, bakery, convenience store, billiards, arcade and other recreational areas.

In addition, the EMU put out requests for proposals from outside vendors to provide "healthy/vegetarian" cuisine, a sandwich shop and deli, and Italian food.

The plan also includes an innovative concept: a "market booth" to be staffed by outside vendors, such as those found at Eugene's Saturday market, who will operate on a rotating basis during the week. Local vendors recently set up in the EMU Courtyard to give lunch diners a taste of their offerings. Customers were encouraged to fill out evaluations to help determine which vendors will be included in the new food area.

"We got great participation and feedback by customers during the trial period, and we are encouraged that we received vendor responses to all four RFPs," says Theresa Coleman-Kaiser, EMU food service manager. She reports EMU officials are carefully reviewing the vendor proposals and hope to make final selections by the end of November.

"Our campus community told us they wanted more of a marketplace feel, but our feasibility study indicated we simply couldn't afford to provide those services in-house, which is why we decided to look to outside vendors," Miller says.

What will be included in the EMU renovation will be determined after the user and design groups complete the schematic design in December, after which the design development and construction planning will get underway.

The EMU hired architects McBride/Seder Associates of Portland to lead the design team for the project. Mark Seder, a UO alumnus, and Richard McBride both have extensive experience with campus projects including work at Oregon State and Washington State universities and Western Oregon State College.

Wildish Construction of Eugene was selected as project contractor. An analysis earlier this year by the structural engineering firm, ISES Corp. of Stone Mountain, Ga., found the EMU areas targeted for renovation to be structurally sound.

Separate renovation projects were completed this year at the EMU to provide more convenient service to campus and community members. These included the relocation and remodeling of the university scheduling and reservations office from the mezzanine level to the main floor, and expansion and modernization of the basement photo ID office to accommodate new imaging equipment needed for the university's new One Card program. In addition, work is underway to upgrade the east campus child care sites.

These projects totaled about $370,000, and funding sources included student building fees, university resources and EMU reserves.

Previous renovation projects at the university union were completed in 1986, involving the Ballroom, second-level lobby and art gallery, the Gumwood Room, and the Maple and Oak meeting rooms; and in 1974, when the 57,000-square-foot east wing was added.

The 189,000-square-foot EMU is named in honor of Donald M. Erb, seventh UO president, and memorializes former students who died in service to their country. Originally built in 1949-50 using student building fees and more than 2,500 private gifts, it was remodeled in the early 1960s to serve a growing student enrollment.

Early tallies of giving to the 1996 State of Oregon Employees' Charitable Fund Drive suggest that UO contributors are being much more generous than last year when they gave $127,000.

"In the first weeks, it looked as if University of Oregon contributions were going to total only slightly more than in 1995," says UO Campaign Coordinator Nancie Fadeley, Academic Affairs. "But now, as those who didn't get around to giving initially are adding their pledges and checks, it's possible that UO giving in 1996 will be much more."

It's not too late to give, she says, even though the announced deadline was Nov. 15.

"Gifts coming in now will join earlier ones in contributing to Oregon's quality of life by promoting strong, healthy families, clean air and water, opportunities for self-help and self-sufficiency, and community vitality," she notes.

Information, including replacements for lost-on-desks Charitable Fund Drive pledge forms, are available from department campaign coordinators and from Fadeley, 6-3013.

Marj Bigelow would like to describe a typical work day, but no two days ever resemble each other. As a Public Safety lieutenant, she does "whatever needs to be done."

That includes supervising the day shift of police officers and dispatchers, coordinating with the Eugene Police Department and reviewing police reports. She also has been known to vacuum the office and clean the refrigerator.

Bigelow has spent the past 23 years in law enforcement on campus. Her favorite part of the job is helping the students. Despite working 12-hour days, she claims she never gets bored. There is always a surprise waiting.

She will miss the students and the hard work when she retires in December. For now, she has other things to think about--aggressive transients on campus and drug pushers at 13th and Kincaid.

Bigelow, who had five children (two are deceased) and has four grandchildren, worries about students who experiment with drugs and alcohol.

"I wish parents would let their kids grow up before they send them to college," she says. "They're going to experiment with life."

She has seen students unconscious for two days from drinking alcohol. One fell out of a dorm window to his death after drinking vodka all day.

"You never get used to these situations," she says, "but you handle it." She stresses that her faith in God has helped her through more than one crisis.

Bigelow, 45 when she entered the Oregon Police Academy at Monmouth, was the only woman in her graduating class. Her first 10 years at UO, she patrolled the campus--supervising other street officers seven of those years.

When she arrived, officers spent most of their time locking buildings and writing parking tickets. Today, they keep busy investigating bicycle thefts.

Bigelow spends her spare time in her garden, where she grows "millions of flowers." After she retires, she may do some volunteer work. She also plans to do extensive work on her home.

Now that heavy rains and flooding have inundated western Oregon, can ice or snow be far behind?

With that sobering thought in mind, Director Linda King, Human Resources, reminds employees and supervisors to prepare for the possibility of inclement weather disrupting work and family life.

"Historically, the UO rarely shuts down under such conditions, even when public schools and child-care centers close for bad weather," she says. "That's why we encourage supervisors to recognize the difficulties this creates for working parents and to respond with as much flexibility as circumstances permit."

This year, the new Vivian Olum Child Development Center will provide on-site child care for school-age children whenever local public schools close due to snowy or icy weather. For information, call the center, 6-6586, or Child and Family Services Administrator Karen Logvin, 6-2962.

King also urges supervisors to review and update inclement weather leave policies and notification procedures with employees.

"The university notifies a number of local radio and television stations about closure or work curtailment," she says. "Because we cannot guarantee that stations will use the information we provide, it's a good idea to listen to several stations."

For information, call King, 6-2966.

When the toilet overflows or the elevator breaks down, who do you call? Greta Pressman, campus relations manager for Facilities Services, hopes it's your building manager.

Building managers are volunteers who act as liaison between the building's occupants and Facilities Services. The building manager`s two main functions are reporting building problems to Facilities Services and notifying occupants of any planned shutdowns for repairs or maintenance.

As successful as the current program is, Pressman sees a need for stronger communication between building managers and Campus Operations which includes Facilities Services, Public Safety, and Environmental Health and Safety.

"Incidents such as finding explosive devices on campus and other threats to the safety of university employees are unfortunately real occurrences on campuses today," she says. "In such a situation, getting the information to all those possibly affected is paramount."

Acknowledging the role managers play in the efficiency of the program, Pressman also realizes that improving general day-to-day functions of these busy people is equally important.

"These are people who have other full-time jobs. This is an add-on to what they are currently doing. We at Facilities Services and the other building occupants really do rely on them," she stresses.

Except for the science complex, each building on campus generally is assigned one manager.

"The science buildings are perhaps different than many of the other departments on campus," says Bruce Wilson, Molecular Biology building manager. "We have a lot of demands. Molecular Biology alone has 21 research labs."

In the science buildings, each of the multiple building managers is responsible for a single department. Pressman says science building managers have more contact with Facilities Services due to the nature of their jobs.

Managers in other parts of campus like Mark Turner, Political Science, say that communication improvements such as a newsletter, updated information for building managers and informational exchange meetings with other managers could be very beneficial.

Other planned changes include:

The use of ad hoc or focus groups to review and recommend solutions to specific issues;

A system for customer feedback to the Campus Operations Continuous Improvement Program; and

An electronic/telephone communication system to contact buildings in emergencies and for periodic updates.

"Right now, the changes are moving from the planning to the implementing stage," says Pressman. "I intend to have them in place by the end of this year."

Business Affairs will expand its hours, effective Dec. 2, to better accommodate faculty, staff and students. The new hours will be from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday.

According to Larry Tergesen, associate director of accounting, the old hours of 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. did not meet the needs of the large number of people who wanted to come in at the start or end of the business day.

"This way," he says, "we now have the same hours as the rest of the university, and it makes it easier for people to stop by on their way in to work, or on their way out."

Faculty and graduate students seeking support through any of three fellowship programs administered by the Oregon Humanities Center have less than one week to submit applications.

Materials must be submitted by Monday, Dec. 2, for 1997-98 Graduate Research and Faculty teaching and research fellowships. The same deadline also applies to outside scholars who are invited to apply for new Summer at Oregon research fellowships.

Open to doctoral students in any department who expect to complete their humanistic dissertations by the end of the academic year, OHC graduate fellowships provide recipients time, space and other resources, including use of a computer at the center and funds for professional conference travel.

Faculty research awards enable scholars in any discipline to pursue full-time individual or collaborative humanistic research in residence at the center for one quarter. Recipients are expected to give one work-in-progress talk on campus and arrange one off-campus presentation.

OHC teaching fellowships support development or improvement of cross-disciplinary humanistic courses for undergraduates by faculty working individually or in teams. Fellows get a $2,000 one-month summer stipend and, if requested, $1,000 for course enrichment.

The center's Coleman-Guitteau and Wulf endowed professorships also provide resources to faculty for curriculum development, research, classroom activities and instructional materials for courses that foster critical thinking and address basic questions of human nature, conduct and culture.

Supplanting Visiting Summer Research Fellowships is the new Summer at Oregon Fellowship. This year, it consists of a four-week summer research fellowship in conjunction with the June 23-July 18 residency of Giuseppe Mazzotta, Yale University professor of Italian, who will teach a Romance languages course and offer a faculty seminar.

Applicants will be notified by Feb. 14 or Feb. 21, depending on the fellowship program.

For forms and other information, call 6-3934.

In the spotlight

One of the world's leading cognitive scientists, Michael Posner, Psychology, received the 11th annual Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health and Education on Nov. 6. The award, which carries a $50,000 prize, honors Posner and his collaborator Dr. Marcus E. Raichle for pioneering the use of neuroimaging and developing it into a credible, versatile tool for understanding human cognition and solving clinical problems.

Dean Duncan McDonald, Journalism and Communication, recently was named to three of the nation's leading groups in journalism education: the Accrediting Council for Journalism and Mass Communication, a standards-making and review body; the National Advisory Board of the Freedom Forum's Pacific Coast Center, site of this foundation's work and philanthropy in journalism education; and the steering committee of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, the nation's leading awards program in journalistic writing and photography.

Christopher Ramey, University Planning, is new chair of the City of Eugene's Historic Review Board.

Robert Petit, Student Health Center, received the Ruby Rich Berger Award for Outstanding Service to College Health on Nov. 9 from the Pacific Coast College Health Association.

In Print

The most recent issue of the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology includes an article written by Jon Erlandson, Anthropology, and Kevin Bartoy, History, entitled "Cabrillo, the Chumash and Old World Diseases."

In the spotlight

Garrett Hongo, Creative Writing, received the Frances Fuller Victor Award for Literary Nonfiction for his memoir, Volcano, during the 1996 Oregon Book Awards presentation Nov. 14 in Portland. Tom Hager, Communications, was among nominees for the prize for best literary nonfiction of the year for Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling.

Terry Takahashi, Biology, has received a three-year, $150,000 McKnight Investigator Award from the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience. The award, for "gifted mid-career scientists," will enable Takahashi to continue his research into the link between perception and attention.

The Lane Education Network (LEN), involving the university and 13 other public and private partners, is a semifinalist in the 1996 National Information Infrastructure Awards. Judges picked LEN as one of 20 semifinalists in the Public Access category. The Computing Center's Network Services group and Advanced Technology Center were instrumental in designing and deploying the network which current serves about 70,000 people. National winners will be announced Dec. 3.

On the move

Associate Dean David Schuman, Law, will join the Oregon Department of Justice on Jan. 1 as deputy attorney general under newly elected Attorney General Hardy Myers. In the post, Schuman, a 1984 UO law alumnus, will serve as second-in-command to Myers, a 1964 UO law alumnus. Schuman joined the faculty in 1987 and received the UO's Ersted Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1989.

On the podium/stage

Karen Logvin, Child and Family Services, was a panelist discussing "Family Work/Life Issues in Higher Education" in October at the 50th national convention of the College and University Personnel Association in San Diego, Calif.

Neill Archer Roan, Arts Administration and Oregon Bach Festival executive director, delivered the keynote address at the Oct. 18-21 Alberta Arts Showcase in Edmonton. Roan also presented workshops on marketing strategy, planning and managing customer loyalty.

Sean Kohles, Exercise and Movement Science, spoke Oct. 7 on "Ultrasonic Elasticity of Cortical Bone" and on "Local and Global Response of Cortical Bone After Total Hip Arthroplasty" at the Orthopaedic Research Seminars hosted by Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital and Children's Hospital in Boston. On Oct. 18, Kohles presented "Cortical Bone Elasticity in Aging Rats with and without Growth Hormone Treatments" during the American Society of Biomechanics annual meeting in Atlanta.