by Alex Johnson

Due to time constraints, Vice President for Student Organizations Jon Ching (’07) and his Vice Chair, Karen Hooper (’06), have resigned from their respective positions. They submitted their resignations to ASLC President James Atkin (’06), who accepted them.

Atkin wrote later of Ching’s resignation, “While I am sad to see him go, I understand and support his decision,” and went on to state that, “It is imperative that ASLC move quickly to fill these positions before the end of the semester.”

To fill the vacancy, the Chartering and Budgeting Board will meet under the direction of Chief Justice Charlie Blackmar (’06). The board will select one of its members to fill the vacancy left by Ching, and this person will select a vice chair to be approved by the Chartering and Budgeting Board.

Atkin aims to have this transition completed by December 5th.
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by Craig Beebe

In the midst of a week of lectures and workshops relating to the Ray Warren Multicultural Symposium, an interdepartmental group of nine faculty members submitted a proposal for a new Ethnic Studies minor at Lewis & Clark College. The proposal, which currently states that the minor will consist of a broad selection of courses from a variety of departments, could possibly be considered in a faculty-wide vote in February.

Meanwhile, supporters of the proposed minor hope to raise awareness and support among the campus community.

Assistant Professor Rima DasGupta (Sociology/Anthropology), who was one of the nine faculty members to propose the minor, said that now was an important time to consider such an endeavor.

“We see Ethnic Studies as an exciting new addition to the intellectual life of the college,” said DasGupta.

The course proposal, a tentative copy of which was made available to the PioLog, states that the proposed minor “will give our students the analytic tools to understand better both the historical development and contemporary consequences of this powerful social force [ethnicity].”

The proposal also emphasized that many of LC’s peer institutions have already developed programs suited specifically to Ethnic Studies. Programs already exist at Amherst, Swarthmore, Wellesley, and Pomona. Mills College, located in

As proposed, the minor would consist of 24 credits, most of which would come from a list of a few dozen courses available in various departments. Sociology/Anthropology and History would offer most of the minor’s courses, but other courses would be offered in Psychology, English, Music, Communication, French Studies, Hispanic Studies, and, potentially, the Graduate School. Four of the 24 credits would consist of a Core class, and the minor would be completed with a Capstone course, to be taught as a colloquium with rotating topics each year.

The courses would cover a wide variety of topics related to ethnicity. The courses would seek to “highlight the interrelated processes by which ideas, institutions, economic structures, and social practices concerning ethnicity have been constructed in the United States and around the globe,” according to the proposal, which also emphasized that the minor would have a specifically transnational approach.

The tentative proposal also says that very few additional resources would be necessary to run the minor program. Most of the courses included in the program are already offered. An additional part-time adjunct instructor would have to be hired each year to fill one class for the faculty member teaching the Capstone course, as well as a program secretary and possibly one work-study employee. There would also be some basic administrative costs.

DasGupta said that she has seen a good deal of support for the new minor from students, staff, and administration, but that faculty support had been “mixed.”

“Some faculty members welcome this proposal as something long overdue for LC, while others have questioned the usefulness and academic merit of such an area of study,” DasGupta said.

TJ Harrison, a So/An major who conducted a survey of the student body last month for a Quantitative Research Methods project, said that her data showed a good deal of interest from students in developing the minor. Though she had not completely tabulated her results, Harrison said that her preliminary study of the 600 responses she received showed that more students favored the minor than opposed it.

However, she added that a “decent percentage” were either neutral on the topic or wanted more information.

Harrison herself supports the minor because she feels that it will allow for students to pursue interdisciplinary studies of ethnicity and its influence.

“The study of ethnicity and diversity is central to the purpose of this college,” she said. “Ethnic Studies gives us all a chance to learn about who we are, who our neighbors are, and how we all came to be here together.”

“That’s important knowledge for students to have,” she added.
Harrison also suggested that the minor might add to diversity of the student body and the faculty by attracting a wide range of applicants who see that the College is committed to such a goal. Though she recognized that there were many forms of diversity discussed by LC students, she added that she thought ethnicity was important.

“Discussions of racial and ethnic diversity don’t have to replace discussions of other forms of diversity,” she said.

DasGupta, however, emphasized that the faculty members who proposed the new minor were not expressly doing so for the purpose of increasing diversity of the student body and faculty.

The minor “will increase diversity of the curriculum,” she said. “If it attracts diverse students and faculty, that’s great, but we see this as an important intellectual endeavor.”

For the moment, the proposal committee must wait to see whether the faculty as a whole shares their view. After making some changes to their original proposal as suggested by the Curriculum Committee, the group resubmitted the proposal for a faculty-wide vote. The earliest possible vote will be in February, DasGupta said.

Harrison said that a student coalition was forming to support the minor and that a community forum would likely be held on January 17 as part of the Martin Luther King Day activities at LC. She said that students would be able to voice their concerns and interests at that time.
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by Nathanael Massey

The reality of homelessness was brought home to Lewis & Clark on Tuesday, Nov. 8, when attorney Marc Jolin visited the campus to speak about the many difficulties, and often impossibilities, with which Portland’s homeless population struggles. Jolin, who works with issues of homelessness through his position on the board of JOIN: A Center for Involvement, stressed a need for understanding in matters of homelessness—both at an institutional level, in regard to the laws and policies the city employs to deal with homelessness, and on a personal level, in dealing with law makers, enforcers, the general public and especially in coming to know the homeless themselves.

“It’s not just the system,” he said, “its people who have a deep desire for dignity and respect, just like you do.” The academic environment of college caused him to think of homelessness on a sociological level, he said: as a failure of social welfare, society and so on. Only after working on the street level did he come to understand that homelessness was more than just a symbol, but an experience that affects thousands of individual lives in this city every day.

As many as seventeen thousand people may experience homelessness over the course of a year, Jolin said. The majority of these are only transitionally or episodically homeless, as a Citizen’s Commission on Homelessness shows, but there is still a significant margin, around ten percent, who experience homelessness chronically. On any given night, Jolin said, over three thousand people are homeless in Portland, and less than half of these pass the night in shelters: the rest sleep on the street.

Portland has approached the problem from several different angles in recent years. The most visible right now is Portland City’s Home Again resolution, a ten-year plan to end homelessness. The plan focuses on creating immediate housing for people experiencing homelessness, as well as coordinating and reforming local services that provide basic necessities to those people. Currently most homeless services are private non-profit organizations, with the exception of the state’s mental health system. The state, which receives money from the federal government to combat homelessness, channels the money to the private non-profits.

by Jonathan Frochtzwajg

The circumspect three-day suspension of a Skyline employee last month has again raised the contentious topic of janitorial issues at Lewis & Clark. The employee’s suspension came after she allowed So/An student Ilana Adleson (’08) to “shadow” her on the job as part of a project for Prof. Oren Kosansky’s “Qualitative Research Methods” course. Although the college intervened and the employee was reinstated with back pay (bankrolled by the college), questions still surround the incident. It remains unknown exactly why the employee was suspended, whether the incident will remain on her record, and whether this particular employee was being harassed because she is a vocal union delegate.
The incident’s main effect has been to stir the ashes of an ongoing debate at LC over janitorial issues. In the past, students have agitated for janitors to get proper cleaning attire and on-campus parking permits. Last year, students organized a “get to know your janitor” event at the Co-Op. Presently, a group of students tutor the daytime janitors in English twice a week. According to student and activist Deborah Schwartz (‘06), “students and faculty are in the initial stages of forming a group dedicated to advocating for janitors’ rights. One of the goals of the group will be to get Lewis & Clark to commit to socially responsible contracting. The group will also serve as a resource for janitors on campus.”

Around 1997, Lewis & Clark stopped employing its own janitors and began subcontracting them through Skyline. This means that the college has a contract with Skyline, but not with the individual janitors. The goal of subcontracting with Skyline was to lower costs and cede maintenance duties to a company that specializes in them. This arrangement, said General Counsel David Ellis, results in the college having “very few, if any direct [contractual] obligations to the Skyline employees.”

“The question is,” said Prof. Elliott Young, “what kind of responsibility does an institution like Lewis & Clark have to employees of subcontractors? Even if they don’t have legal obligations to the employees, they have an ethical obligation.”

The college’s ethical obligations to janitors has been a concern since budget cuts made at the end of last semester resulted in Skyline reducing the hours of nine workers to the point where they lost their health benefits. “Given the size of the budget…I don’t think it’s ethical to balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable sectors of our community,” said Young.

Prof. Bruce Podobnik was similarly outraged at the cuts. Soon after he found out about them, he met with Provost Jane Atkinson. According to Podobnik, Atkinson claimed that the janitors work for Skyline, not for Lewis & Clark, so the college is not responsible for their loss of benefits. Unsatisfied, Podobnik continued to rally for the college to remedy the situation. In one tense meeting with President Hochstettler and Atkinson, he suggested that the budget cuts constituted institutional racism because the janitors are completely Latino. The President told Podobnik to “tone down the rhetoric.”

Last month, at a Multicultural Symposium event hosted by Young, students had an opportunity to ask the President questions about janitorial issues. There, he admitted that he did not realize budget cuts would directly effect janitors because he confused the Skyline that serves Lewis & Clark with a larger company by the same name. He announced that he would meet with a night crew of janitors to discuss their concerns about their work situation.

At the meeting, the recently-suspended janitor expressed a desire for the nine workers who lost their benefits to get them back, and told Hochstettler that with more and more students on campus, the staff is being spread too thin. Podobnik’s personal interactions with the janitors have revealed that they are being pressured to work harder, even through their breaks. Skyline may have even told janitors to be as unobtrusive as possible by not interacting with students and eating in out-of-the-way areas like janitorial closets.

Atkinson said that the Executive Council is currently considering the issues confronting Skyline janitors, but preferred to make no further comment. “We as a college are not going to just turn a blind eye to employee conditions, but beyond that- discussions are ongoing,” said Ellis, the legal representative of the college, but he too opted to make no further comment.

“I’d like to hold [the President]’s feet to the fire to ensure that the workers…get fair pay and benefits,” said Podobnik. Others, including Young and the newly formed janitor advocacy group, are also eager to act. Next semester, a forum for janitors, Skyline management, and LC students, faculty, and staff will be convened to discuss college employee conditions. Currently, Lewis & Clark has no code of conduct for employers, no labor code of ethics, and no living wage policy. As these labor issues are becoming more heated, the college may be forced to confront them.
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The ten-year plan emphasizes its intention as a permanent solution, and in doing so brings to light the problems many people experiencing homelessness face in extricating themselves from their situation. Jolin addressed this difficulty as the product of several factors, including laws against vagrancy and camping in public places, a lack of laws protecting the homeless against discrimination from employers and landlords and the difficulties in ascertaining forms of identification and access to overworked public defenders for legal assistance.

Basic healthcare for the homeless is non-existent, and although hospitals have an obligation to admit anyone in critical condition, there are no laws ensuring healthcare to a person dying of a terminal illness in the street, Jolin said.

Other recent legislation pertaining to homelessness has raised concern among advocates and skepticism from the homeless population. The November edition of Street Roots, a newspaper about issues related to homelessness, describes one such instance—a measure, under the designation of Mayor Tom Potter and under the leadership of the new Public Safety Action Committee, to crack down on aggressive panhandling and improve the safety of the city’s image.

So far this has only involved conversations between the six police officers assigned and panhandlers about what does and does not involve aggressive behavior. At the same time, advocates like Monica Beemer, executive director of Sisters of the Road Café, express doubt about the overall effect such a measure may have to the city’s homeless community. Beemer noted in the article that blanket legislation such as the PSACs generally affects a wider range of the population than those directly implicated.

It is critical, Jolin reiterated, that people experiencing homelessness be treated with respect. Successful reform will take more than changes to the system. Relationships must be built, he said, and the homeless themselves must be allowed to take part in developments.
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by Craig Gilden

Two weeks before the start of Lewis & Clark’s football season, the team gathered for a meeting with President Hochstettler in which he informed them that the majority of their season would be cancelled. During this meeting, he announced the formation of a football commission which “would determine what needs to be done in order to maintain football and whether or not this would be a feasible proposition.”

On Monday, Nov. 21, President Hochstettler gathered the members of the football team together once again, but this time, he had much better news for the players. Hochstettler reported to the players that the commission’s findings “have reaffirmed the importance of football and of other intercollegiate sports as vital elements within the life of the College.”

The news came as a giant sigh of relief for players who had been nervously awaiting the President’s decision. Although the task of the commission was to figure out how football could successfully fit into the overall scheme of the college, the team knew in the back of their minds that the elimination of the program was still a distinct possibility. Now that the players know football at LC will be a part of their future they can continue to work towards preparing for next season without having those doubts in the back of their heads.

Receiver Mike Anchustegui (‘08) also was relieved that the administration appears to be supportive of the football program, saying that “it’s reassuring to know that we have an administration and others who are backing the athletic program at a school that has such a high academic standing.”

Being able to recruit athletes that can qualify academically and are able to afford LC has been a major problem for the football program in the past. One of the proposals by the commission was to make a slight change in the admissions process. In the past, SAT scores and GPA’s have been the main factors in admitting students into LC. Admissions will now be looking at more factors in selecting applicants, putting more focus into extracurricular activities. These changes will not only benefit the athletic programs, but also departments such as theatre and music. Having a well-balanced and diverse student body is a priority of the new administration, and these changes in the admissions process will attempt to admit students who will be active in the campus community, whether it is through sports or theatre.

These changes do not mean that LC will let students in which decrease the school’s academic reputation. According to a member of the football team, if LC would have admitted applicants who had 1200 SAT scores and 3.5 GPAs, the team would have had more than enough players to field a competitive squad this season.

“We have never had a problem attracting athletes to the school, only a problem of getting them admitted and providing an adequate financial aid package,” said defensive back Ryan Lockard (‘07).

Not everyone was thrilled with the President’s announcement. A group of 12 students wrote an email to members of the LC administration asking for more dialogue with the community before any new policies are enacted. Evan Higgins (‘08), one of the authors of the email, put the goal of the email this way:

“While we support LC sports (a few of us are athletes and we have many friends that play), we feel that academics must be the priority. With this letter, we are not making accusations or saying what the administration is doing is wrong. We are hoping to get a clearer statement as to the actions the administration will be taking to restore LC football to its former position. The language of the letter implies that drastic measures willbe taken, and, frankly, that worries us.”

Yet comparable colleges, such as Occidental and Puget Sound, have been able to balance strong football programs with strong academics.

Players also believe that the football program can do their part in becoming more attractive to recruits. Linebacker Josh Houk (‘07) thinks that having a fresh start could give the Pios one recruiting advantage.

“We can offer more playing time than anyone else right now because of our small roster and need for players. The elimination of redshirting in Division 3 also has helped our cause in the playing time area. Now the bigger schools can not redshirt their freshman and give them a year to learn and fit into their program. Players will waste a year of eligibility by going to places such as Linfield and Whitworth. Hopefully we can capitalize on this.”

Lineman Mike Brooder (‘07) sees communication as a crucial part of the recruiting process and something that the football program can improve on.

“I know that we, as a football program, can take it upon ourselves to do a better job of communicating with prospective student athletes who meet or surpass the academic standards of the college by encouraging them to participate in the early application process, helping them establish a dialogue with the financial aid office, and keeping them updated with the progress of their application.”

According to Brooder, who served as a member of the internal commission, student reaction played a major role in the decision making process.

“The support expressed during student focus groups concerning the possible elimination of football and the student presence at the two home games allowed the external commission to focus their efforts on addressing problems aside from a lack of student support. I feel the entire investigation and resolution processes of the internal and external commission would have played out much differently had there not been a strong student presence at the games this year.”

Members of the team were thrilled with the newfound support towards football and appreciative of the large crowds during the home games. The crowds were a definite help to the team.
“I think that this past season has really helped the program gain more support from the student body and the campus as a whole. The crowds at our two home games were amazing and really changed the atmosphere of the game,” said Anchustegui.
The team hopes that the support will continue into the future as well.

“The football program situation definitely has changed the support for football, not just the student body but the faculty as well. Hopefully, it wasn’t just a situational thing and in the future the stands will be filled just the same because of a new winning tradition,” added Lockard.

As far as the immediate future is concerned, there will be a football team next season. In order to have a more competitive roster, the football team hopes to add around 30 new players to the school next year. In his meeting with the team, Hochstettler said that 26 new players have already applied for early admission, which is a record number.

The team will also remain in the Northwest Conference instead of opting to play an independent schedule. This will allow the program to view its growth from year to year and eventually become a conference contender. Whatever the future holds for football at LC, we all know that this administration will do its best to have a competitive program. It also must be understood that significant improvement may not be visible immediately.

“I think it is important to remember, however, that this is not going to be an overnight turn around of the football program. Such circumstances as ours are just about the definition of needing to rebuild, and we intend to do just that,” said Brooder.
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by Nathanael Massey

After the successful establishment of the Student Bon Committee, ASLC is shifting responsibility from itself to the members of the SBC, ASLC Executive Vice President Rhett Tatum said in a recent email. The members of the new committee took up their responsibilities Wednesday, Nov. 16, at their first official meeting.

During the first half-hour of the meeting, members brought to the table a range of issues, which they had gathered from their various backgrounds and peer groups, said Kiersi Burkhart (’09), who serves on the committee. Those issues were then weighed by the committee as a whole, she said, and the most prevalent presented to the Bon Appetit’s general manager, Bill Masullo, who attended the second half of the meeting.

The issues under discussion included areas of student concern in terms of lack of substantial vegetarian options, concern over the high prices of meal plans, a take-out food system, and an amendment to the meal plan which would allow extra meals to roll over from week to week.

Masullo expressed the possibility of immediate support for the rollover plan, said Burkhart, while decisions on other issues were postponed for deeper inspection. With respect to the issue of the meal plan prices, Masullo deferred the SBC to John Eldridge and Resident Life. Burkhart said that although he was personally willing to make the Bon’s financial records available to the SBC, Masullo preferred that they first address the issue with Residence Life, which plays a large part in designing the campus meal plans.

The function of the SBC is to act as an intermediary between the student body and the General Bon Committee, as well as having direct communication with the Bon, as they did at their last meeting. Madeline Tuson-Turner (’07), who was selected to lead the SBC, will act as representative to the General Bon Committee, Tatum said. She, along with Burkhart, the informal vice chair, will take over many overseeing responsibilities as ASLC withdraws its own involvement. Tatum said that ASLC will continue to support the SBC in the future, especially in the recruitment of new committee members.
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by Lexie Briggs

On Monday evening, Representative Earl Blumenauer came to Lewis & Clark campus to discuss his plan to withdraw troops from Iraq. More than 100 students and community members came to hear the Congressman’s views and participate in the town-hall style meeting, despite little advance advirtising for the event.

Recently, Congressman Blumenauer added his voice to the growing dissent over American troop presence in Iraq. He released “The Blumenauer Plan for Iraq,” a document detailing what he sees as US goals in Iraq. This plan involves bringing the 46,000 Guard and Reserve forces back to the US immediately following the December elections. Monday’s meeting was an opportunity for students to discuss their own views on Iraq with the Congressman.

“It’s useful to be able to put these issues out,” Blumenauer said. “We’ll be getting emails about this part of the decision-making process that you can’t get from reports. It helps it come alive.”

“I try to come to Lewis & Clark campus often in part because I’m a Pioneer,” he said. Blumenauer graduated from LC in 1970. “One of my first big meetings on Iraq was here in 2003,” he said.

“Essentially, I want consensus on good common sense,” Blumenauer said. “I’m more concerned with having everybody put their issues out than building consensus on what we should do in Iraq.”
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