When university officials added specificity to existing allowable practice, they wanted all to understand that this institution considers sexual harassment a serious enough offense to be factored into critical decisions on promotion and tenure.

"We hope the biggest impact of this clarification will be to serve notice to all faculty that sexual harassment has the real potential to impact their employment status at the university," says Vice Provost Lorraine Davis.

Director Ken Lehrman, Affirmative Action, agrees wholeheartedly with that assessment, noting the clarification "reinforces the message that sexual harassment will not be tolerated."

Both say confusion and misunderstandings that have arisen since the clarification was announced publicly in February convince them to try to clarify what has changed and what hasn't changed.

First, Davis explains, administrative procedures always have "allowed" written reprimands about sexual harassment to be included in faculty promotion and tenure files.

"What this clarification does is to proactively direct that such written reprimands and tougher sanctions are henceforth to be included in promotion and tenure files," she says.

In practice, Davis says, this means that if a written reprimand for sexual harassment is in a faculty member's personnel file, it will be included in the promotion and tenure file. Besides written reprimands, the record of sanctions that could appear in faculty promotion and tenure files includes other disciplinary actions such as changes in an individual's contract.

"Every promotion and tenure review panel and its individual members will continue to determine the extent to which that piece of information should play a role in the committee's or the individual's assessment," she explains.

Davis says as has been past practice, all sanctions including written reprimands as a result of a sexual harassment finding also may influence assessment of post-tenure reviews and merit increase situations.

The second misconception, Davis says, is that any allegations of sexual harassment will be included in faculty promotion and tenure files.

"Only the written reprimands and more severe sanctions will make it into these files," she stresses. "The clarification does not cover allegations which have not resulted in a disciplinary sanction."

Lehrman says the clarification does not include remedial actions that could be the outcome of informal resolution procedures such as mediation.

"One of the reasons informal resolutions are not covered is because we want the cooperation of the accused parties. We want to continue offering a positive, constructive resolution option that is appropriate and satisfactory to those involved."

Lehrman states that the clarification will not have an effect on the decision to file a formal or an informal grievance.

"For any grievance presented to Affirmative Action, the choice of whether to proceed formally or informally always remains with the grievant," he says. "Grievants continue to have the option to convert an informal complaint to a formal one within a reasonable time."

Lehrman says the grievance pamphlet available from his office describes more resolution scenarios and outlines the formal and informal options for grievants. This pamphlet is revised to stay current with changes in policy or practice.

When you come to work on Friday, March 8, Mark Rhinard and cooperating campus representatives of the Governor's 14th annual State Employee Food Drive will be counting on you to bring along some food items or a cash donation for needy Oregonians.

"'Canned Food Friday' is the grand finale to our on-campus effort to help Food for Lane County and other Oregon Food Bank Network agencies that last year provided emergency food supplies to more than 430,000 Oregonians, nearly half of them children," he says.

Rhinard, an intern in the UO President's Office, says each state agency is challenged to collect more food than all the rest.

"The University of Oregon won the contest in 1991, bringing in more than 14,000 pounds of food," he notes. "We haven't done as well in the last several years, and we're getting a late start this year, but we can still do it!"

Physical Plant employees have delivered food barrels to campus buildings and offices. They will pick up and deliver filled barrels to Food for Lane County at the end of the day on March 8.

Two of the most critically needed food items are baby food and powdered dry milk. Other "most wanted" foods include canned fruits and vegetables, boxed meals, peanut butter and canned meats and meals.

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

For more information, call Rhinard, 6-3071.

"Instead of growing plants, I like to think I help `grow' people--humans. I especially like to influence them and get them excited about Japan," Ruth Kanagy says.

An assistant professor of Japanese language, pedagogy and second language acquisition, she was born and grew up in Japan, where her parents were missionaries. She came to the university in December 1994 to help start graduate courses in Japanese language and pedagogy. Now, all but one of the students enrolled in the second year of the program are female native Japanese speakers.

"I've ended up in this interesting position of being an American, yet teaching native Japanese females how to teach their language to foreign students.

"There is sort of an old stereotype," she continues, "that the Japanese language is so difficult, no one except native speakers can learn it. But, Japanese are very aware a lot of foreigners are coming to Japan, studying the language and becoming as fluent as native speakers."

Kanagy is now researching how young children learn to speak and understand Japanese. Once a week, she visits Eugene's Yujin Gakuen Japanese Language Immersion School where half of each day the curriculum is taught in Japanese and the other half is taught in English.

"I videotape and audiotape the kindergarten class because I want to see how the little five-year-old kids learn to understand Japanese, never having known about it before entering school," she says.

Rather than always teaching Japanese, Kanagy says her relaxation is talking in Japanese with friends.

"It makes me feel at home. All of my Japanese friends here are internationalized. Since they are out of their home and experiencing another culture, we all can share perspectives on little quirks in American and Japanese behavior.

"It doesn't really matter what country international people are from," she continues. "I just like people who have another interesting perspective."

--COURTNEY HEDBERG, COMMUNICATIONS INTERN

The world's top thinkers on the Holocaust, including Nobel Peace Prize winner and Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel, will speak May 5-8 at a conference on ethics at the university.

The Ethics After the Holocaust Conference will bring together the world's foremost Jewish thinkers to examine the messages the Holocaust carries for today's scholars and politicians.

"This conference will be an unprecedented gathering of three generations of Holocaust scholars, including some of the greatest living Jewish intellectuals, who speak from their experience in and with the Holocaust," says Cheney Ryan, Philosophy and Peace Studies.

"The university is deeply honored to host a meeting of such internationally preeminent scholars and leaders. Symposium participants, representing many generations and personal experiences, will advance the public's understanding about this pivotal and horrifyingly tragic moment in the history of humankind," says President Dave Frohnmayer.

Confirmed speakers, in addition to Wiesel, include philosopher Emil Fackenheim, historian Deborah Lipstadt and philosopher Raul Hilberg.

For information or to register, call 6-3934.

Oregonians overwhelmingly prefer mail-in ballots to polling-place elections, a post-election telephone survey of 1,225 voters shows.

More than 76 percent of those surveyed rated vote-by-mail favorably, "a remarkably high number," says Priscilla Southwell, Political Science. "I found the results very encouraging. Almost all of the results affirm the positive aspects of vote-by-mail."

In the Jan. 30 special election, 65.8 percent of Oregon's 1.811 million registered voters cast ballots, a new record for the state and one of the highest voter turnouts in the nation in special elections involving federal office.

Southwell's findings indicate that "new" vote-by-mail voters are very similar to traditional voters. Fears that mail-in ballots would lead to widespread fraud may be overblown, she says.

A $500,000 gift from the Woodard Family Foundation provides support for a prominent marketing professional on the faculty of the rapidly expanding sports marketing program at the Lundquist College of Business.

The gift will support the Woodard Endowed Instructor of Sports Marketing at the James H. Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. Candidates for the instructorship will be visibly successful sports marketing professionals.

The Woodard gift, along with support from Warsaw and others, has enabled the center to grow rapidly from only one faculty member teaching 80 students in a single course in fall 1994 to the current second-year program with four faculty members, six classes and 200 students.

Rick Burton, who previously worked for a Connecticut sports marketing firm, is the first Woodard Instructor. Burton's clients included National Football League Properties, Reebok and Gillette. Before that, Burton worked as a product and advertising manager at Miller Brewing Co. where he helped craft the successful Miller Light "Tastes Great, Less Filling" campaign.

"We want students at the UO to be able to experience firsthand those who have been successful in sports marketing," says Casey Woodard, vice president of the Cottage Grove, Ore., foundation. "Rick Burton is entirely in keeping with our hopes for the success of this program."

Burton's flamboyant teaching techniques at the Warsaw Center have earned him a reputation for dynamic classroom instruction. He knows the first rule of marketing is to get your target audience's attention. To illustrate the rule to students, he might show five minutes of "Jurassic Park," twang an electric guitar or launch a remote-controlled blimp.

Not only can Burton share his personal experiences in sports marketing with students, but he also has many contacts in the industry whom he can invite into the classroom as guest speakers. This year, he plans to bring in speakers from the NFL, Nike, Toyota and the Women's Sports Foundation.

Letters are going out in early March to current and retired faculty and staff, seeking gifts to support the Vivian Olum Child Development Center as well as all other UO departments and programs.

A part of The Oregon Campaign, the letters are intended to elicit gifts of any size and from as many people as possible, says Betsy Bradley, UO Foundation Annual Giving Program coordinator.

"We're hoping participation will be widespread because that helps convince other donors that the university is worthy of their support," she says.

Outright gifts and donations by payroll deduction are welcome. For information, call Bradley, 6-2114.

Multicultural Excellence nominees sought

Multicultural Affairs encourages faculty and staff to nominate deserving students of color for Excellence Awards to be presented this spring. The nomination deadline is March 8. Award criteria include academic success, leadership excellence, and campus and community involvement. Undergraduate and graduate students in good academic standing are eligible. For information, call Randy Choy, 6-3479.

Office support job info just a call away

Employees wanting to learn when a specific office support position opens on campus now can call 346-2979 to hear a recorded message indicating when the applicant pool list for that job will be pulled, says Chris Lonigan, Human Resources. Those submitting an application for the specific vacancy can expect that, within a day of receiving their application, Human Resources will add their names to the office support pool. Individuals who want general information about UO job vacancies and application procedures also can call the UO Jobline, 346-2957, or browse the Web at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu:80/~humanres/Position-Announcements-University-of-Orgon.html

Ashland trip set during spring break

Performances of five plays from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Oregon Cabaret Theatre await travelers to Ashland during spring vacation. EMU Associate Director Frank Geltner says the March 27-30 trip will feature "The Winter's Tale," "Arcadia," "Moliere in Paris," "Strindberg in Hollywood" and "A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline." For costs and other trip information, call Geltner, 6-0007.

Pagers more affordable under new contract

Prices for pagers have dropped dramatically--half of what some departments were paying a few months ago--under the new state contract which took effect Feb. 1 with Westlink Paging. Leases for numeric display pagers now cost $3.65 a month, and alpha numeric pagers (with word readout capability) are $8.25 per month. Extended area coverage, formerly $1 a month extra, is now free, so most of the I-5 corridor from Ashland to Bellingham as well as much of the Oregon Coast and a few spots in Eastern Oregon are covered by the flat monthly rate. Brief informational meetings about the contract's products and services are set at 10 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. March 5 in the Bean West Conference Room. For information, call Holly Gryte, 6-1023.

In the spotlight

The National Science Foundation has selected two UO faculty to receive Faculty Early Career Development Program grants. Michael M. Haley, Chemistry, will receive $195,000 to conduct research and develop activities aimed at providing undergraduate and graduate students with "hands-on" learning in their study of chemistry. Elizabeth Housworth, Mathematics, will receive $51,000 to conduct research in mathematics and improving mathematics education.

Nancy Tuana, Philosophy, will direct a seminar on "Feminist Epistemologies" for 12 college teachers this summer. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the seminar will offer independent research and study projects and group discussions of common readings.

The University of Oregon returned home Feb. 26 with six awards in the Council for Advancement and Support of Education District VIII Juried Awards Competition. They are:

Ginny Carter Smith Grand Crystal Award/Grand Gold--Mike Ritchey, Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, Jim Lustgarden, Jeanne Maasch and students Alyson Smith and Chris Curtis, Lundquist Business College, and Pauline Austin, Communications, for "Gridiron Cybercast" in electronic media relations.

Gold--Kristine Hickox, Frances Milligan and George Beltran, University Publications, Brian Gallagher, Admissions, photographer Jack Liu and editor Adel Brown, for "Insight" in viewbooks; and George Beltran and Frances Milligan, University Publications, for "Martin Luther King Jr. Poster" in exhibition publications.

Silver--Amy Schroeder, UO Alumni Association, Kristine Hickox, University Publications, and Penny Eberlein, Printing Services, for "100 Years of Oregon Football" in anniversary publications; and Ross West, Communications, and Carol Morton, UC Davis, for "Experts Disagree on Value of Secret Parapsychology Research" in electronic media relations.

Bronze--Amy Schroeder, Alumni Association, Kris Hickox, University Publications, and Penny Eberlein, Printing, for "100 Years of Oregon Football" in publication design.

The Oregon Bach Festival and Oslund Design, Inc., are recipients of the only Gold Winner prize in the direct response-mail category of the 1995 Summit Creative Awards competition. The award, which recognizes creative excellence by smaller creative firms in the United States and Canada, was for the festival's "A Gift from Our Musical Garden" fund-raising package that included a compact disc of holiday music and other components. Entertainment Distributing and Eugene Print contributed to the project.

Jeff Ostler, History, received the 1996 Carstensen Award for his article, "The Rhetoric of Conspiracy and the Formation of Kansas Populism," published in Agricultural History, vol. 69, Winter 1995.

Five graduate teaching fellows have been chosen for 1996-97 Oregon Humanities Center Graduate Fellowships. They are Elizabeth Claman, Comparative Literature; Gerald Heidenreich, Germanic Languages and Literatures; Zhanshu Liu and Jeff McCarthy, English; and Gerald W. Marr, Anthropology.

Barbara Welke, History, has received the 1996 Organization of American Historians Lerner-Scott Prize for best dissertation on the history of women. The dissertation is "Gendered Journeys: A History of Injury, Public Transportation and American Law" (Chicago, 1995).

John Lukacs, Anthropology, has received a National Geographic Society research grant for "Bioarchaeology of Mesolithic North India: Chronology, Demography and Subsistence." From the University of Allahabad, he will collect samples at archaeological sites and analyze evidence of diet and disease in ancient human remains.

On the move

Peter Bergquist, Music, has received the rank and title of professor emeritus in recognition and gratitude for his 31 years of distinguished service. Provost John Moseley praised Bergquist's world-renowned scholarship, excellence as a teacher and generosity in university and community service.

In print

Wendy Larson, East Asian Languages and Literatures, has had her book, Women and Writing in Modern China, accepted for publication by the Stanford University Press.

At the podium

John Reynolds, Architecture, spoke about "Passive Cooling and Spanish Courtyards" on Feb. 21 at the University of Southern California.