The Public Employees’ Benefits Board (PEBB) approved a year 2000 insurance program on June 15 that continues to offer employees choices among most of the same companies and options as in the past, including cash back for purchasing economical plans and a cash payment for opting out of medical coverage.

PEBB’s decision came in direct response to requests from Oregon University System (OUS) and other employee groups across the state, according to Denise Yunker, OUS benefit and human resources manager.

The current medical and dental plans will be discontinued effective Dec. 31, 1999, so all employees will have to complete new medical/dental enrollment forms during this fall’s open enrollment period. Although employee benefit levels may change, in most cases the companies will remain the same.

After 18 months of work to merge the two existing benefits boards (BUBB and SEBB), Yunker says the new program will support the goals of the enabling legislation (SB 141 in the 1997-99 legislative session) and PEBB’s policies established at the beginning of the process. In the midst of an increasingly challenging health insurance market, she says the new program will provide quality health care benefits to state employees regardless of their geographic location, income level or family size.

New features will be added in plan year 2000 in response to state employee preferences and PEBB’s call for needed improvements. Alternative care through licensed chiropractors, naturopaths and acupuncturists will be covered, and mental health/chemical dependency benefits will be increased. The prescription drug plans will give health care providers a middle choice between generic and brand name drugs.

The PEBB medical plans and carriers will be:

• PEBB Copay Plan: Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon

• PEBB HMO Plans: Providence, ODS and Kaiser Permanente

• PEBB PPO-A: Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon

• PEBB PPO-B: Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon

Dental and life plans all will have slight changes in benefits, but the carriers will remain the same. Dental coverage will include:

• Traditional Plan: ODS

• Preferred Plan: ODS

• Managed Care Plans: Kaiser Permanente, Willamette Dental

In addition, PEBB renewed its contract with Standard Insurance Co. as life and disability insurance carrier.

PEBB will continue to update employees throughout the summer about the upcoming changes including the open enrollment period, according to Helen Stoop, UO benefits administrator.

"Open enrollment materials should be distributed during the week of Sept. 27, and informational meetings about the changes will follow soon afterward," she says. "Employees should carefully read the PEBB newsletters beginning with the July issue that will summarize plan decisions and watch for their open enrollment packets, which will include all the details about the new program."

A slave trader wrote "Amazing Grace" after hearing the abolitionist William Wilberforce speaking about the evil persecutions and torture faced by slaves. Moved by the words, he realized the importance of human dignity and the basic rights that everyone should share.

Talk awhile with Carla Gary, Multicultural Affairs director and university advocate for students of color, and it becomes apparent that she brings that kind of inspiration to the campus community. Her work, and the work of her staff, is guided by the same hope for a better future for people of all colors that inspired the hymn’s author.

"Our hope is that education will raise the bar, that it will make students strive for higher achievement because it is critically important that all students have a sense of the world," Gary says. "We are in the midst of an anti-affirmative action wave, a growth in hostility directed at people of color, both violently and verbally, and a culture that sees the face of criminality as black or brown.

"These are the compelling reasons," she says, "behind the need for training in cultural diversity and for self-esteem workshops. They are strong justification for engaging in conversations about race, for asking difficult questions and being prepared to hear difficult answers, especially in those venues in which these conversations rarely take place."

Gary, a UO alumna who grew up in Portland, attended the university in the late 1960s and early 1970s, left without graduating and then returned to earn her bachelor’s degree in 1980. After earning a law degree and working as an independent trial investigator, she returned to her alma mater in 1986, serving three years as assistant director of what was then known as the Council for Minority Education.

Beginning in 1989, she spent four years at the University of Maryland, working to recruit and retain underrepresented graduate students of color. From 1993—98, Gary was associate dean of faculty in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. In September 1998, she returned to Oregon to accept her current position.

While a UO psychology major, Gary had started doing counseling and soon found she had a natural rapport with people. She was able to make connections that escaped the efforts of others.

For instance, while a trainer at the Pearl S. Buck Center, Gary worked with a man who hadn’t spoken for more than 20 years. She carried on conversations with him for months, attempting to teach him how to speak again. Finally, one day he said, "OK."

"It was the most amazing and profound thing I had experienced up to that point," she recalls. "I realized in that moment that I was able to make a difference and that I could reach those thought unreachable."

Gary, who graduated from the University of Iowa law school in 1983, returned to Portland, working for three years under contract as a legal investigator. For her, it proved to be a time of disillusionment with the law and the justice system.

Most discouraging was her work on the infamous "Don’t Choke ‘Em, Smoke ‘Em" case that ended in the acquittal of white police officers who had been accused of strangling a black man to death. She came away from that case feeling that young black men really lived in fear for their lives, and decided to return to education to improve minority recruitment and retention as a way to change that.

"Universities and colleges must get a bigger width and breadth of backgrounds to promote diversity because perception is shaped by experience, and people of color often have different experiences," says Gary.

This also is why she champions the need to diversify faculty.

"They bring differing perspectives to their interpretation of knowledge, which informs their research and consequently affects the knowledge they produce. This diversity won’t happen if universities continue to recruit from narrow backgrounds, looking for the same things in the same people. On a good day, this is a daunting task, but it’s my goal to engage people so they can feel those connections and see that hope for a better future."

Gary, who was the first black cheerleader at the UO, is still cheering, but this time for Multicultural Affairs, as she strives with her staff to bring the light and inspiration of "Amazing Grace" to the University of Oregon.

The University of Oregon is included on four of the 10 "Best of" lists–more than any other Oregon university–published in the just-released "Kaplan-Newsweek College Catalog 2000." Compiled after surveying 4,500 high school guidance counselors nationwide, each of the lists contains about 100 schools. Counselors place the UO among "Schools Representing the Best Value for Your Money," "Schools That Are ‘Hidden Treasures’," "Schools with Top Athletic Programs" and "Schools with the Best Range of Extracurricular Activities."

The Oregon Department of Administrative Services recently signed a contract with AT&T, shifting its local phone service and billing to the private telecommunications firm and ensuring Y2K readiness for state government’s telephone system.

UO officials say the switch-over, at least in the near future, won’t mean many changes on campus.

"In the long run, we’ll be able to buy local service from AT&T as well as US West Communications, which could result in better rates," says Dave Barta, Telecommunications Services. "Except for that future option, the change will be transparent to the campus community."

The campus phone system, which Barta says is ready to handle Y2K, also will be unaffected by a possible state government switch to seven-number dialing and a Portland-area move to 10-digit dialing, at least for a while.

"We will maintain the campus and OUS five-digit dialing plan as long as we can," Barta says. "Any change will be due to growth and not because the state switched carriers."

In the spotlight

Jim Mooney, Law, received the Orlando John Hollis Teaching Award for excellence in classroom instruction at the Law commencement in May. Also honored was Frank Lacy, Law emeritus, who received the 1999 Meritorious Service Award in recognition of his more than four decades of faculty service during which he played a significant role in guiding the law school’s development.

Rennard Strickland, Law dean, was installed as the 1999-2001 chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Law School Admission Council at its June 5 annual meeting. The council regulates the process of recruitment and admission for more than 200 accredited law schools and administers the Law School Admission Test (LSAT).

Helen Stoop, Human Resources, was appointed to the Oregon University System Optional Retirement Plan Committee, effective July 1.

Linda F. Ettinger, Arts and Administration, is the recipient of a 1999-2000 grant from the Northwest Academic Computing Consortium. She will develop a National Arts Management Clearinghouse web site to foster communication among members of the Association of Arts Administration Educators.

Sheri Donahoe, University Housing, and Amy Schroeder, Alumni Association, completed the 1998-99 Leadership Eugene-Springfield Program. They join 15 current and previous UO employees who are alumni of the Eugene and Springfield Chambers of Commerce program which since 1985-86 has prepared individuals who have shown a commitment to and personal involvement in the metropolitan area to become informed, trained and committed community leaders.

Three chemistry professors–Jim Long in February, Deborah Exton in January and Ralph Barnhard in November 1998–were chosen as Mortar Board Professors of the Month.

Jim Hutchison and Mike Haley, both Chemistry, were honored for their work as faculty advisers of the UO Student Affiliates Chapter of the American Chemical Society (ACS) which received honorable mention for its 1997-98 program.

Marina Guenza, Chemistry, received $183,000 from the National Science Foundation and $25,000 from the American Chemical Society to fund her research in correlated many-chain dynamics.

Rebecca Dorsey, Geological Sciences, and Catherine J. Page, Chemistry, each received a National Science Foundation grant through its Professional Opportunities for Women in Research and Education program.

Greek adviser Mike McRee, Student Development, won the Association of Fraternity Advisor’s Outstanding New Professional Award.

Twenty faculty are recipients of 1999 Summer Research Awards. They are Jeffrey M. Hurwit, Art History; Peter Ho Davies and Garrett Hongo, Creative Writing; Elizabeth Bohls, English; Barbara Setsu Pickett, Fine and Applied Arts; Peter A. Walker, Geography; Raymond Birn and Randall McGowen, History; Bart Johnson, Landscape Architecture; Susan N. Gary, Law; Robert Kyr, Steve Larson and Marc Vanscheeuwijck, Music; Michael C. Anderson and Sara D. Hodges, Psychology; Kyoko Tokuno, Religious Studies; Barbara K. Altmann and Julian Weiss, Romance Languages; and Lawrence R. Carter and Marion Sherman Goldman, Sociology.

On the move

Joann ZumBrunnen, Admissions counselor, has been promoted to assistant director of admissions.

Karen Kreft, a State of Oregon administrator for 14 years, has started work as executive director of the University of Oregon Foundation. She succeeds Jon Jaqua, who stepped down to devote more time to his family and various business interests.

Margaret Bailey, Admissions, is leaving to begin graduate study at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., while her husband, Kirk Bailey, Legislative Relations director, will leave campus to pursue professional legal opportunities in the nation’s capital as soon as the Oregon Legislature adjourns. Both plan to return to Oregon after her master’s degree program is completed.

Alan Contreras, Legislative Relations, left the university to become, on July 6, administrator of the Oregon Office of Degree Authorization, a unit of the Oregon State Scholarship Commission. He will work in Eugene and Salem.

Natalie Frye joined Business Affairs on June 16 as a Human Resources Information System accountant.

Dan Geiger has been hired as Outdoor Program coordinator, succeeding Bruce Mason who retired. A UO alumnus, Geiger has been assistant coordinator of the EMU program since 1990.

Wes Morrill stepped down June 30 as dean of student life but continues as University Counseling Center director. Laura Blake Jones, on leave until Aug. 10, will become interim dean of student life; until then, Stephanie Carnahan is acting dean of student life. Following Elaine Green’s departure for graduate study in Ohio, Carnahan also is administering the student conduct program until the new director of student judicial affairs, Chris Loschiavo, arrives on July 21.

In Print/On Display

Lani Lokendahle, PARS, is author of "Bouncing Back," a look at her UO trampoline classes and growth of the trampoline industry, in the May 1999 issue of Athletic Business. She also wrote an article addressing misinformation published about trampoline injuries and emphasizing the benefits of participating in trampoline activity, in the June 1999 issue of Pediatrics.