The University of Oregon and the Eugene Police Department have signed a Declaration of Cooperation to formalize a community policing relationship that has evolved over two decades.

The official declaration, announced Feb. 25 at City Hall, defines areas of present and future mutual cooperation and assistance between the university and the police department. It may be the first of its kind in the nation.

According to Leonard Cooke, Eugene chief of police, members of the Eugene Police Department (EPD) and the University of Oregon have successfully developed areas of cooperation around a shared interest of enhancing the safety of residents, students, faculty, staff and visitors in and around the university campus.

"This declaration officially recognizes the relationship, the shared commitment to maintain successful practices and identifies areas where further cooperation is desired and planned," says Vice President Dan Williams, Administration. He predicts that most members of the campus community won't find the changes noticeable.

One change that will be evident, however, will occur March 1 when Sgt. Rick Gilliam will assume command of the four EPD officers assigned to the campus under contract with the university. He will replace Sgt. Dave Poppe who is retiring after heading the campus detail for three years.

The university also has its own force of 34 nonsworn Public Safety officers who are headed by Director Stan Reeves, a former EPD sergeant.

"While this agreement enables us to solidify and formalize our relationship with EPD, it also provides continuity for our consultative processes, so that we can maintain a consistently dependable relationship even though it is inevitable that the people involved in both agencies will change over time," Reeves says.

Current areas of public safety cooperation between the city and university include police protection services, training of campus public safety officers, community policing and EPD use of professional consulting services of UO faculty.

Some future areas of cooperation identified in the declaration include:

• Expanded training opportunities for both police officers and campus public safety officers.

• Coordination and planning of patrols on campus and nearby neighborhoods and around large-scale university-related events.

• Supporting the sworn officer status for the university's Public Safety director to assure high standards of professionalism and familiarity with police practices and standards.

• Timely notification with investigation updates provided to Public Safety when high-profile or serious incidents involving students or the campus occur.

• Specifications for cooperation with Public Safety on incidents and investigations will be included within the Eugene Police General Operations Manual.

The electrical power interruption that struck campus a few minutes after 4 p.m. Feb. 24, plunging offices and classrooms into darkness and stopping time, is at least partly to blame for the delayed delivery of this issue of News & Views which disappeared into the electronic ether as your editor watched helplessly when his computer screen went black.

The power quit when an EWEB transformer near the greenhouse, along the bike path to Autzen Stadium, failed. Except for a youngster stuck in (but quickly rescued from) the Music elevator, stuck elevators in Willamette and Villard, and multiple false fire alarms across campus, there seemed to be little major impact.

Clocks hooked to the campus system were re-set by contractor employees on Wednesday.

It is unclear whether voicemail problems that cropped up about 7 a.m. Feb. 25 for departments using Intuity/Audix 2--who call 6-6123 to retrieve their voicemail messages--were related to the power outage. Whatever the cause, Telecommunications and US West staff fixed the problem by late Wednesday.

Utility crews had restored power within 45 minutes Tuesday, but your editor had to spend the next couple of days re-creating calendar entries and news columns. [The lesson: BACK UP! BACK UP! BACK UP!]

Faculty and staff can help feed the more than 400,000 Oregonians that face hunger each year--half of them children--by donating nonperishable food or cash to the Governor's State Employee Food Drive.

Underway through March 5 on campus, the drive is "an opportunity to help address the growing need of our fellow citizens whose requests for food increased by 17 percent this year, in part due to cutbacks in the food stamp program," says Melissa Crown, UO State Employee Food Drive coordinator. "I hope everyone will participate and be as generous as possible."

A public relations intern in the UO President's Office, Crown says food and money donated by UO employees will go directly to Food for Lane County which will distribute it to people requesting emergency assistance throughout the county. Last year, university employees contributed 1,236 pounds of food and $1,273 in cash for the estimated one in seven people who go hungry.

Statewide, employees collected more than 291,000 pounds of food and more than $267,000 in donations last year. That was the largest amount ever collected by a single food drive in the history of the Oregon Food Bank which oversees distribution of donations to 20 regional agencies.

The most critically needed items include baby food, formula and powdered milk. Also on the "most wanted" list are canned fruits, vegetables and meats, boxed meals, soups, peanut butter, pasta and grains.

For every dollar collected, the university will receive credit for six pounds of food. Cash donors should make checks payable to "Food for Lane County" and give them to departmental representatives.

The producers of "UO Today" at the Oregon Humanities Center and the Instructional Media Center have announced the following programs and guests through mid-May for the half-hour interview show airing locally at 9 p.m. Wednesdays on TCI cable channel 97:

• Week of March 2: Leon Johnson and feature on a faculty art show

• Week of March 9: Forest Pyle III, English, and Sandra Morgen, CSWS

• Week of March 16: Louise Bishop, English and Honors College, and Kathie Bedbury, UO Alumni Association

• Week of March 23: James Mohr and John Nicols, both History, on their interactive maps of the ancient world project (repeat)

• Week of March 30: Mike Raymer, Physics and Optics Center, and Thomas Mossberg, Physics

• Week of April 6: Margaret Prentice and Terri Warpinski, both Fine and Applied Arts

• Week of April 13: Ernie Kent, head men's basketball coach

• Week of April 20: Jennifer Craig, Dance

• Week of April 27: Eva Brann, Kritikos Professor in the Humanities, and Richard Heinzkill, Library

• Week of May 4: Paul Slovic and Ray Hyman, both Psychology

• Week of May 11: Judith Musick, Clare Lees and Regina Psaki on the Feminist Humanities Project

Besides broadcasting locally, "UO Today" airs in Ashland, Medford, Portland, Prineville, Salem and Sunriver. Check local cable listings in these areas for broadcast schedules which are subject to change without notice.

University employees, alumni and other supporters have a new way to proclaim their UO affiliation with the release of the official University of Oregon license plate. Available in March from the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles, the Duck license plate will be offered for a one-time $32 fee plus the cost of renewal. Proceeds will help fund general university scholarships. For information, call Merchandise Marketing and Licensing, 6-6035.

All qualified UO faculty are invited to apply for the Arts and Sciences deanship, and nominations of both internal and external candidates also are welcome.

Applications and nominations are due March 2 for full consideration, according to search committee chair Norman Wessells, former provost and Biology emeritus.

"We intend to identify the strongest possible group of candidates for this important deanship," Wessells says.

Joe Stone, Economics, currently fills the position which was vacated when Risa Palm left at the end of the 1996-97 academic year to become dean of arts and sciences at the University of North Carolina. The university hopes to fill the post by July 1.

Besides Wessells, other members of the search committee are Gerald Berk, Political Science; Nilendra Deshpande, Physics; Robert Hurwitz, Music; Mark Johnson, Philosophy; Kelli McCarton, General Science undergraduate student; Sandra Morgen, CSWS and Sociology; Michael O'Riley, Romance Languages graduate student; Rick Steers, International Affairs and Management; Janis Weeks, Molecular Biology and Neuroscience; and Molly Westling, English.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has approved re-accreditation of the UO Graduate Program in Communication Disorders for eight years.

ASHA is the only national accrediting agency for speech language pathology training programs in the nation.

"This recognition of the quality of our program is crucial if we are to continue our effort to help fill the national shortage of well-trained speech language pathologists," says Marilyn Nippold, Communication Disorders and Sciences director.

Forty master's degree students are currently enrolled in the UO program. Graduates work as speech language pathologists in settings such as public schools, hospitals and rehabilitation centers.

When the UO program was established in 1930, accreditation was not required. Since the early 1990s, only students from accredited programs can receive national certification.

In the spotlight

In the 15th annual Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District VIII Juried Awards Competition, 10 UO staff and three offices earned the following recognition:

• The UO Alumni Association (UOAA)--Katharyn Bedbury, Kelly Evans and Mike Lee--the Grand Gold Award for its website.

• The New Media Center--Mike Holcomb, Heather Brown, Steve McGrew, Akiko Kami and Dennis Gray--gold for the Museum of Art website.

• Kelly Evans and Katharyn Bedbury, UOAA, silver in newsletter writing for "The Shape of Success."

• Ross West, Communications, bronze for feature writing for "The Crash at the End of the Tunnel"; bronze in tabloid periodicals for Inquiry; and--with Dennis Gray, Justin Lin, Mike Holcomb and David Goodman--bronze for a photo image enhanced with state-of-the-art technology.

• At Oregon Quarterly, freelance designer Chris Michael, bronze in illustrations for art for the cover story, "What Price Prisons."

• At University Publications, Lori Howard, silver in special event publications for "Water: The Renewable Metaphor" and bronze awards in individual publications for "Teaching the Past in the Present" and "Treasures from the UO Museum of Natural History"; Terry Duffy, bronze in individual publications for the Architecture Visiting Critic Program invitation; and George Beltran and illustrator Jesse Springer, bronze for the 1998 Summer Session illustration.

Awards were presented Feb. 23 at the CASE District VIII Conference in Seattle.

Harry F. Wolcott, Anthropology emeritus, recently completed a two-month tour as a visiting research scholar at the University of Canberra and Curtin University. He presented seminars at Australia National University, the University of Western Australia and Waikato University in New Zealand.

Susan Racette, EMU, will be honored March 3 as a Purchasing Hero during the annual Partners in Public Purchasing Seminar and Trade Show in Seaside. She will be recognized for her proactive development of a waste tax provision in the campus vending contract. Revenues help pay for waste costs associated with the contract and also support the campus beverage container recycling program.

Lani Loken-Dahle, Physical Education, was named executive director of World Acrobatics, Inc., during the 1998 World Acrobatics Congress in Las Vegas.

On the move

Adrian Rodriguez is the new interim assistant dean of student life for multiethnic student programs. A graduate of Southern Oregon and Northern Arizona University, he will support and assist students in developing programs to enhance and foster a campus environment which recognizes, celebrates and values its racial diversity. Rodriguez will work with the Multicultural Center and ethnic student unions. A search later this year will fill the post permanently.

Alan Contreras has been named assistant director of Legislative Relations, with responsibilities for alumni liaison, coordinating legislative internships and producing publications to support the university's legislative relations efforts. A graduate of the university and the UO law school, he most recently worked six years as senior associate at the Oregon Community College Association.

In Print/On Display

James L. Rice, Russian, contributed a paper (in Russian) on "Eros in Dostoevsky's World," read in absentia on Jan. 17 to the Symposium on Sex and Gender in Russian Culture at Russian Humanities University, Moscow. On July 30, he will present an English version at the Tenth International Dostoevsky Symposium at Columbia University.

On the podium/stage

Katya Hokanson, Comparative Literature, presented "Orientalism as a Career: Senkovsky and Uvarov" at the fall American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies meeting in Seattle.

In memoriam

Charley Leistner, formerly Speech, died Jan. 23 of a brain hemorrhage. A graduate of Georgetown College in Kentucky, Baylor and the University of Missouri, Leistner, 72, was a member of the UO faculty from 1962 through 1989. A past editor of Forensic Quarterly, he was department chair from 1964-1972. A memorial service was held Feb. 24 in Gerlinger Hall. Memorial contributions may be made to the Southern Poverty Law Center.