"O" E-Clips: highlights of media coverage involving the UO and its faculty and staff

UO E-Clips is a daily report prepared by the Office of Communications (http://comm.uoregon.edu) summarizing current news coverage of the University of Oregon.

Media mentions for March 16

Faculty submit union petition

The Register-Guard, similar story in the Corvallis Gazette Times: Faculty members at the University of Oregon have taken a big step -- possibly the final one -- toward forming a labor union. United Academics of the University of Oregon on Thursday said it has submitted a petition along with hundreds of signature cards to the state Employment Relations Board seeking to establish a union that would represent 1,912 academic employees, including adjunct professors, tenure-track professors and research faculty. The union said it has received signed cards from a majority of the employees who would be represented, and believes the state will certify the signatures as valid, thereby putting the union in place.

Charity challenge

The Register-Guard: In an American Philanthropy class at the University of Oregon earlier this week, the class discussion got pretty hot. Teams of students were arguing about which of five Lane County nonprofit organizations would make the best use of a $5,000 grant. Some students asserted that a larger agency was too big, and a donation there might be but a drop in the bucket, instructor Paul Elstone recalled. Others argued that smaller nonprofit groups are beautiful, as in: "These guys are only raising $10,000 a year -- $5,000 would increase their donations by 50 percent." "It got a little acrimonious, actually," Elstone said. "Students were really involved in advocating for their nonprofit." ...You could see this discussion as purely academic because it is part of a university course. But it was quite real in that Wells Fargo Bank had granted the class the power to award $5,000 to whichever nonprofit group the teams of students could muster a plurality of votes.

Chorus Frog May Carry A Deadly Infection

Oregon Public Broadcasting via EarthFix (Vance Vredenberg has spent 17 years watching yellow legged frogs die in the the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Now he thinks another species of frog may have helped make them sick. The yellow legged frog was once a common sight in California's alpine lakes and streams, but its population has declined by about 95 percent. Vredenberg, a biology professor at San Francisco State University, says a microscopic fungal disease called chytridiomycosis swept through the Sierra Nevada, killing frogs. ... Other scientists believe that chytridiomycosis has been present in the Americas for a long time, but some new environmental factor is making it more virulent in particular watersheds. "It could be anything. It could be pollutants in the water, or a changing climate, that's turning this thing on," says Andrew Blaustein, a professor of zoology at the University of Oregon.

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Media mentions for March 15

Construction begins on $17M building in UO research park

KVAL News, story follows in its entirety, video available online: Construction for a new state-of-the-art building at the University of Oregon is underway. The $17 million project will house the two non-profit organizations, Oregon Research Institue and the Educational Policy Improvement Center. They both have strong ties to the University, and the site of the 80,000 sq ft building is located south of the railroad tracks that runs through the Riverfront Research Park. "This is for us a dream come true and the opportunity to get all of our offices spread all over Eugene into one spot in really a state-of-the-art building," said EPIC CEO Dave Conley. It is the first construction project in 14 years at this site. Most of the estimated 70,000 hours of construction will be done by subcontractors from the Eugene area and Willamette Valley. The area between the tracks and the river front will remain undeveloped.  Conley said the project is projected to be complete by the end of the year.

Union win at Oregon

Inside Higher Ed (University of Oregon faculty members may have a union soon, after a group representing faculty members at the university filed about 1,100 signed authorization cards with the state's Employment Relations Board Tuesday. Officials at United Academics, an organization representing tenure-track, non-tenure-track and research professors, said that the number represented a majority of the institution's approximately 2,000 faculty members. The university has until April 4 to object to the petition for unionization, according to an official at the Employment Relations Board. Oregon is a state where no election is required as long as a certified majority of the employees in the proposed unit file cards. A challenge could theoretically come if 30 percent of the faculty members petition for an election, but no organizing has taken place for such a challenge.

Animal Nature: Global warming and wildlife; Washington enlists citizen help tracking wolves

The Oregonian: The effects of climate change on wildlife make news this month, from drills in equatorial Africa to chipmunks in California's Yosemite National Park and migratory birds that pass through the United States: Drills: Wild drills may suffer severely if climate change continues to warm the rainforests of equatorial Africa, the only place the rare primates live, new research by a University of Oregon professor and others shows. If global warming predictions prove accurate and drill populations collapse, it won't be the first time, according to Nelson Ting, UO anthropology professor. A similar collapse occurred 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. During the Holocene epoch, hot and dry temperatures reduced the African forest canopy that drills and other species need. Today, they face many additional threats, especially poaching and habitat loss due to logging and cultivation.

Controversial ESP study fails

Discovery News: A study published last year in a scientific journal claimed to have found strong evidence for the existence of psychic powers such as ESP. The paper, written by Cornell professor Daryl J. Bem, was published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and quickly made headlines around the world for its implication: that psychic powers had been scientifically proven. Bem's experiments suggested that college students could accurately predict random events, like whether a computer will flash a photograph on the left or right side of its screen. Scientists and skeptics soon raised questions about Bem's study and methodology. For example Ray Hyman, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon at Eugene who previously evaluated the efficacy of psychic abilities for the Pentagon, found many flaws in Bem's study. At the time Hyman told Discovery News, "I'm puzzled as to how four referees and two editors of a prestigious journal could allow Bem to publish as 'experiments' studies that violated accepted methodological standards."

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Media mentions for March 14

West Coast Governors Predict Massive Uptick In 'Clean Economy' Jobs

OPB News, story follows in its entirety, audio available online: The West Coast is poised for a dramatic uptick in so-called "clean economy" jobs. That's the prediction issued Wednesday by the leaders of Oregon, Washington, California and British Columbia. But it's not clear if the region can actually pull it off. Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber and Washington Governor Chris Gregoire joined with the leaders of California and British Columbia to make this prediction: In eight years, the region's clean economy sector can triple if it has the proper tools to succeed. That could mean a million new jobs related to everything from renewable energy to alternative fuel vehicles. But University of Oregon economist Tim Duy has this caveat: "We have to be cautious when we make these predictions about net new jobs. Some of these jobs are likely to be essentially replacing another job." For instance, say a construction worker helps to build an energy efficient office complex. That's not a net gain if that same worker would have had a job at a conventional building across town. Meanwhile a report issued last week by the Oregon Employment Department shows that the state's employers are forecasting a net loss of green jobs in the short term.

Drill monkeys will struggle to adapt to climate change

Digital Journal: A scientific team have used DNA studies to predict how a certain type of monkey will fare as the climate changes through global warming. The findings are of a concern for the conservation of the Drill monkey, and may have wider research implications. A group of scientists, based at the University of Oregon, have been studying a rare and endangered monkey in relation to the species and effects of changes to its habitation caused by climate change. The monkeys, called the Drill monkey (Mandrillus leucophaeus), are found in rainforests in Africa near the equator (in countries such as Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon). The scientists have found from an analysis of the DNA of the monkeys that they have historically been susceptible to changes to their habitats. This means that as climate change makes the natural habitats of the Drill monkeys more arid, then there is a strong prediction that population of the monkeys will significantly decrease.

Art Museums Giving It the Old College Try

The New York Times: WHEN it opens this fall, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University will be the latest in a series of new university art museums that have opened around the country. But here and at other campuses, striking buildings are just a part of the new profile of university art museums. With the help of departments as varied as nursing, law, meteorology and engineering, the museums' directors are deploying their extensive collections, and sometimes the artists themselves, to enhance curriculums. ... Harvard, Oberlin, the University of Oregon, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina and dozens of other colleges and universities have built art museums, too, according to Ms. Rorschach, and more are being built. For example, DePaul University opened its Art Museum in Chicago in September 2011. The Art Museum of West Virginia University is scheduled to open next year. All have attracted extensive collections and operated under the general mandate, Ms. Rorschach writes, "to give students an opportunity to develop into more cultivated, well-rounded and well-educated adults through contact with original works of art."

Adjuncts and postdocs sre among U. of Oregon faculty who vote to unionize

Chronicle of Higher Education, brief follows in its entirety: A wide range of different faculty types at the University of Oregon have voted to form a union affiliated with the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, according to a statement from union organizers. The AAUP says the formation of the union was supported by a majority of University of Oregon workers in each faculty category it would represent: tenured and tenure-track faculty, full-time and part-time contingent faculty, research assistants, research associates, and postdoctoral employees. The union will be formally certified once Oregon's Employee Relations Board confirms the election's results.

All in the family: Father and son examine how arts affects the brain

Maryland Community News: Professor emeritus at the University of Oregon, Michael Posner is a cognitive neuroscientist. His son, Aaron Posner, is an established theater director who has helmed productions on local stages such as Folger Theatre. With one family member in science and the other in arts, life has not always been a case of "like father, like son." There is something they both share, however: a brain. Beginning Thursday, the two will come together for several presentations of "The Theater of the Brain" at the Mansion at Strathmore, exploring what happens in the brain when a person looks at a work of art or listens to a piece of music. Father and son also will discuss how involvement in the arts helps shape various cognitive processes. The event is part of Strathmore's ongoing series "Arts and the Brain."

UO theater students to spend spring break at Shakespeare fest

The Register-Guard, brief follows in its entirety: Two dozen undergraduate students from the University of Oregon theater program will spend spring break at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, thanks to a gift from the Williams Foundation. The money, totalling $25,000 over three years, will allow the students to visit the festival and do intensive workshops with actors, designers, directors and management as well as see five or more plays each, at a low cost to each student. "We hope to make this spring break to Ashland a regular feature of our undergraduate programs for years to come," said Ariel Ogden, marketing coordinator for University Theatre. "We will also be looking forward to initiating internship and other programmatic/research opportunities at OSF for our graduate students." Ogden also said the university hopes to bring people from OSF to conduct workshops in Eugene.

How Much Does UO Get from NIT?

KEZI, story follows in its entirety, video available online: The Ducks are moving on to the second round of the NIT tournament, which means they get to host another game at Matt Knight Arena, but it doesn't necessarily mean any more money for the University of Oregon. Tuesday night's game against LSU brought in a crowd of just more than 5,000 people, almost exactly what the Oregon athletic department projected. For the next game on Sunday, the UO estimates close to 7,500 people will show up. But no matter how many fans fill the stands, the university doesn't make much money off these post-season games. "A lot of the revenue actually goes to the NIT, the majority of it. There's a very small portion that comes back to us that actually just basically covers the cost of putting on the game," said UO Senior Associate Athletic Director Craig Pintens. Pintens says the money made is split about 90-10. Oregon takes the smaller portion. Pintens says that's still better than other post-season tournaments that typically end up costing schools money, especially host schools like Oregon is this year for the NIT. That second round game will be on Sunday at 2 p.m. and tickets are now available online.

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Media mentions for March 13

Science pub continues at Calapooia Brewery

Albany Democrat-Herald: On Wednesday, March 14, David Tyler, a University of Oregon chemist, will be the second speaker in what Calapooia Brewing Company hopes will be a regular event. The brewery will feature Tyler at its Science Pub, which General Manager Paul Huppert believes is something that will catch on. It may have already. Tyler follows fellow UO professor David C. Johnson, who spoke at the brewery in February and drew a full house. "It's a little new to Albany, but the premise has been popular in Portland and, more recently, in Corvallis for a while now," Huppert said. "I'm a bit of a science nut, and it appears there are a few more out there like me." Huppert said the science pub idea began in Portland and was spearheaded by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. "It has been successful for them and for us too," he said. Huppert was actually contacted by Andy Bettingfield at the University of Oregon about starting something similar in Albany. "I jumped at it," Huppert said. "Probably because of my own interest in science."

Research institute to mark groundbreaking

The (Bend) Bulletin, reprinted from The Register-Guard, story follows in its entirety: With construction of its new home well under way, the Oregon Research Institute has decided that it's past time to throw a little party. ORI will mark the start of active construction with a public gathering Wednesday at the building site in the Riverfront Research Park. Local dignitaries and company and research park officials will be on hand to help celebrate the beginning of the end of a decadelong effort to secure a new headquarters. Construction of the four-story building began in January and much of the first-floor concrete already has been poured. Workers will soon begin pouring the three-story, tilt-up walls, which should then be lifted into place in early April with the fourth story added later, said Dan Hoechlin, ORI's facilities manager. The $17 million, 80,000-square-foot building is going up on what was a vacant field between the two largest buildings in the University of Oregon's research park along the Willamette River north of campus. The site is a compromise that was chosen after a local group raised strong objections to the original ORI site, which was directly on the riverfront.

Seattle hopes to land established NBA team

The Seattle Times: Nothing has ever really come all that quickly or easily for Seattle's major pro sports teams. So why should landing another NBA franchise be any different? The news last week that Sacramento's City Council had approved a plan to build a new arena in that city that could keep the NBA Kings there appears to have all but shot down the best and most immediate option for getting a new team here. "An NBA team returning to Seattle is a lot further away than it was," said Paul Swangard, the managing director at the University of Oregon's Sports Marketing Center, who attended the recent NBA All-Star Game and gauged the temperature of the league's financial health. "And that's just a reality based on the success of the overall NBA business right now, the health of most markets and a dwindling number of viable relocation candidates."

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Late mentions for March 12

More than 800,000 Oregonians received food stamp benefits in January

The Oregonian: More than 800,000 Oregonians relied on food stamps to put meals on the family table in January, the highest number ever. A report released Monday by the Oregon Department of Human Services shows 800,785 people --or 22 percent of Oregonians --received help in January from the state-federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That reflected a 5.9 percent increase from January 2011. ... "Yes, the economy is improving. However we're still deep in the hole," says Tim Duy, an economist at the University of Oregon. He suspects a combination of factors could be contributing to the continued rise in food stamp recipients in Oregon. Many of the new jobs that have been created are in the leisure and hospitality sectors and may not pay enough to lift family incomes beyond the food stamp range, Duy says.

Damascus voters make big decision in how to craft city's comprehensive plan

Daily Journal of Commerce: City governance can be a thankless job – especially when land-use laws are involved. ... Damascus, incorporated as a city in 2006, is required by state law to adopt a comprehensive plan. But six years later, the city is still at square one, and Damascus voters rejected a proposed comprehensive plan its counselors adopted in November 2010, by a two-to-one margin. ... Meanwhile, Peter Walker, a University of Oregon professor and the author of the book "Planning Paradise – Politics and Visioning of Land Use in Oregon," said the story of Damascus is indicative of a greater problem stewing in Oregon. "(Damascus is) a symptom of a bigger problem of the state land-use planning system, which is that in many ways it's really sort of lost touch with ordinary people and local communities, and needs to take seriously the concerns of local people, and actively engage in a bilateral and substantive process of political negotiation with communities," Walker said. "Rather than saying, 'By the power of fiat, this community will now become part of the city.' "

Developers agree to renew Old Town Chinatown, but not on how to do it

Daily Journal of Commerce: Redevelopment of Portland's oldest neighborhood has been a piecemeal effort for years, but project by project, the face of Old Town Chinatown is continuing to morph. Now the question is whether a united vision is possible for the area. ... University of Oregon graduate students are producing the in-depth development study, which will be presented March 21. The uses, condition, height, ground-floor activity, history and several other metrics will be documented for each building. "A lot of people are watching," said Howard Davis, a UO architecture professor. "When you're trying to move forward with so many projects, the more information you have, the better."

2013 Best Graduate Schools Preview

Top 10 Education Schools: Want to know the rankings for these schools and others? Visit usnews.com on March 13. -- Chicago Tribune: Applying to graduate school is a journey that involves deciding what to study, finding the right school, and submitting applications to competitive programs. To put you on that path, each year, U.S.News & World Report surveys more than 1,200 graduate schools and programs and ranks them according to our methodology. Here, we offer a sneak peek of the 2013 Best Graduate Schools rankings. U.S. News surveyed programs at 280 schools that grant doctoral degrees in education. In alphabetical order, here are the top 10 highest-ranked education schools. Harvard University (MA); Johns Hopkins University (MD); Northwestern University (IL); Stanford University (CA); Teachers College, Columbia University (NY); University of California--Los Angeles; University of Oregon; University of Pennsylvania; University of Texas--Austin; University of Wisconsin--Madison; Vanderbilt University (Peabody) (TN) The actual ranking and score of these and other graduate schools will be available March 13, 2012, on usnews.com. (Note: Due to ties, there are more than 10 schools listed here.) Access the U.S. News Education School Compass for more in-depth rankings and searchable data, tools, and an expanded directory of programs.

Masters of the Attention Economy: What #Kony2012 and the Oregon Ducks Have in Common

Huffington Post: What do a shoe and apparel billionaire and a college football team have to do with an indicted African War Criminal and a skyrocketing viral video? Everything. In January, I cheered with old and new friends, long-lost relatives and thousands of strangers as the Oregon Ducks took the field at the Rose Bowl. In February, it took eight hours before I encountered my first Ducks fan in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He had never seen a game live or on TV, but he knew the Ducks prevailed in Pasadena and that, "The helmets were the most incredible thing I've ever seen!" In March, I sat with a friend and colleague to watch a video about LRA leader and indicted war criminal, Joseph Kony that garnered 70 million views in four days. We cringed, we mocked, we attempted to hide welling emotions at crescendo moments. Then we took to Twitter and our inboxes to monitor the steady stream of support and criticism directed towards Invisible Children and Kony 2012. The three events over three months made one reality clear to me: the "Attention Economy" has arrived with a thunder. As Jason Russel says in his hyperbolic viral hit, "The world will never be the same."

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Media mentions for March 16

Faculty submit union petition

University of Oregon academic employees make a key move toward organizing

By Christian Wihtol -- The Register-Guard

Faculty members at the University of Oregon have taken a big step -- possibly the final one -- toward forming a labor union.

United Academics of the University of Oregon on Thursday said it has submitted a petition along with hundreds of signature cards to the state Employment Relations Board seeking to establish a union that would represent 1,912 academic employees, including adjunct professors, tenure-track professors and research faculty.

The union said it has received signed cards from a majority of the employees who would be represented, and believes the state will certify the signatures as valid, thereby putting the union in place.

Scott Pratt, a UO philosophy professor and member of the union organizing committee, said he is confident the state will certify the union.

After that, employees would create bylaws, elect leadership, canvass faculty to identify their concerns and begin contract negotiations with the UO, Pratt said. Topics likely would include compensation, working conditions and class sizes, he said.

"We'll be able to enhance the quality of the teaching and learning environment," said Pratt, a UO faculty member since 1995.

"Enrollment at the UO has grown by 4,000 students during the last five years, but support for instruction has not kept pace, resulting in dramatic increases in class sizes," Deborah Olson, a special education instructor, said in a union news release.

The union declined to say how many cards it collected, but said it had an overall majority and a majority in each of the three major work groups -- adjuncts, tenure-track faculty and research workers.

Faculty members who signed authorization cards have opted to affiliate with both the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, the union said.

The UO is entitled to challenge the petition and the proposed work groups covered by the union. The challenge would be heard by the Employment Relations Board.

"The university has not had an opportunity to thoroughly review the petition for certification yet, and it is premature to comment further," interim President Robert Berdahl said Thursday.

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Charity challenge

A UO seminar has steered $50,000 from Wells Fargo to 14 charities in 10 years

By Diane Dietz -- The Register-Guard

In an American Philanthropy class at the University of Oregon earlier this week, the class discussion got pretty hot.

Teams of students were arguing about which of five Lane County nonprofit organizations would make the best use of a $5,000 grant.

Some students asserted that a larger agency was too big, and a donation there might be but a drop in the bucket, instructor Paul Elstone recalled. Others argued that smaller nonprofit groups are beautiful, as in: "These guys are only raising $10,000 a year -- $5,000 would increase their donations by 50 percent."

"It got a little acrimonious, actually," Elstone said. "Students were really involved in advocating for their nonprofit."

Renee Irvin, an associate dean for finance in the Department of Architecture and Allied Arts, was on hand to observe the proceedings and found that she had to sit on her hands. "I had to use full control not to join in on the debate," she said.

Finally, Elstone had to call a timeout on all the back-and-forth arguing, student Whitney Logue recalled. But it was so easy to get excited, she said: "We just care so much."

You could see this discussion as purely academic because it is part of a university course. But it was quite real in that Wells Fargo Bank had granted the class the power to award $5,000 to whichever nonprofit group the teams of students could muster a plurality of votes.

Irvin, with the help of Eugene-based Wells Fargo executive Dave Frosaker, launched the philosophy class as a freshman seminar a decade ago. Since then, successive classes have funneled $50,000 from Wells Fargo to 14 charities.

Word of the charity challenge has spread.

"I'm proud that 20 universities -- from Ivy League down to small colleges -- have copied our model," Irvin said. "We were the first to launch it and keep it going."

Frosaker said he has no reason to believe the bank won't fund the class for another decade. "It's been a great run, and we have no plans to not keep it going," he said.

"Excellent. That's what I wanted to hear," Elstone said.

But before the students could get their hands on the Wells Fargo money, they had to do their homework. They studied the roots of American philanthropy in the works of Carnegie, Rosenwald and Rockefeller.

They considered the question: "Corporate Philanthropy: Does it exist?"

The philanthropy students learned to take a critical look at nonprofit organizations through financial disclosure forms and websites such as GuideStar and Charity Navigator.

They asked: "Is this a worthy organization? Or are there red flags we need to think about?"

Then, each of the 23 students chose a Lane County nonprofit organization, researched it and wrote a single-page case statement. Then, each gave a brief "elevator pitch" to the class.

Each student cast two votes for two nonprofit groups, and the five agencies that emerged with the most votes advanced to the finals.

This year, the finalists were The Relief Nursery, Looking Glass, Sexual Assault Support Services, St. Vincent de Paul and Mainstream Housing.

Then, students divided up into groups of four or five, each team advocating for one of the five finalists. They visited their assigned agency, studied how it operates and who it serves.

At the end of the course this week, each team made a 15-minute pitch on behalf of its organization. After each pitch, the other teams were required to ask critical questions. Some of the sharper questions triggered heated debate.

The team backing Sexual Assault Support Services began its presentation with an interactive true-false game, which was an eye-opener for some of the students, Logue said, especially when they heard that 81 percent of sexual assaults occur at home.

"It's not stranger danger," Logue said. "They were really surprised by the actuality of it."

The SASS team students -- Logue, Carmen Kuncz, Ryan Dutch, Sarah LeVaughn and Matt Scotton -- described the emotional support that the agency provides clients, its financial functioning, its effectiveness.

The agency gets about $550,000 in annual revenue, Logue said.

During the term, the students learned that telling a single story can have a greater impact on potential donors than a litany of facts.

So Logue, 19, decided she would tell the story of her own sexual assault.

It wasn't easy, she said, aware that other students might disbelieve, reject or challenge her. "It's an uncomfortable topic, so I didn't know how they would respond to it," she said.

On a high school prom night -- less than a year ago -- an acquaintance cornered her and assaulted her, Logue told her fellow students. She didn't tell anyone in the small California town where she lived, except her best friend.

It was confusing, she said.

"It took me an entire summer to figure out that I was sexually assaulted because I always had the perception that it was someone who jumped out at you from the bushes," she said. "I was fighting misconceptions even within myself."

She got help at Sexual Assault Support Services and at a similar university-based group after she moved to Eugene to start college.

"They are all great people," she said, "who do so much with so little."

The other students were silent, Logue recalled. "They were really listening."

Hunter Meece, on the Looking Glass team, was won over. "They were attacking a problem that's overwhelming in our community," he said Thursday.

After the class cast its ballots, Elstone slowly chalked a hash mark on the board for each vote awarded to each nonprofit group.

At first, Sexual Assault Support Services got few votes.

"But a couple minutes in, (the marks) started to exponentially increase," Logue said, up to 15 or 16, and before long it was clear that her team had won.

Tears welled in Logue's eyes. "And then I quickly composed myself," she said.

STUDENT GIVING

The University of Oregon's American Philanthropy class has studied, evaluated, debated and voted on where to place a $5,000 donation, provided by Wells Fargo, each year for 10 years.

2012: Sexual Assault Support Services of Lane County, $5,000

2011: ShelterCare, $5,000

2010: Hosea Youth Services, $5,000

2009: A Family for Every Child, $5,000

2008: CASA of Lane County, $5,000

2007*: The Relief Nursery $5,000; Sponsors Inc., $5,000

2006*: Willamette Family Inc. $5,000; Center for Family Development, $2,500; Child Advocacy Center of Lane County, $2,500

2005: Pearl Buck Center, $5,000

2004: Committed Partners for Youth, $5,000

2003: Start Making A Reader Today $3,500; Greenhill Humane Society, $1,500

* Weyerhaeuser also provided donations in these years

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Chorus Frog May Carry A Deadly Infection

Oregon Public Broadcasting

Vance Vredenberg has spent 17 years watching yellow legged frogs die in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Now he thinks another species of frog may have helped make them sick.

The yellow legged frog was once a common sight in California's alpine lakes and streams, but its population has declined by about 95 percent. Vredenberg, a biology professor at San Francisco State University, says a microscopic fungal disease called chytridiomycosis swept through the Sierra Nevada, killing frogs.

"It makes the black plague look like nothing," Vredenberg says.

Since the 1980s, the disease (which biologists call chytrid for short) has sickened at least 200 species of amphibians worldwide, particularly in Australia and Central America, and as many as 600 species may be affected.

But Vredenberg says chytridiomycosis doesn't affect all frogs equally. At his study areas in the Sierra Nevada, he noticed survivors.

"There was this really interesting pattern in the field," Vrandenberg says. "Yellow legged frogs were dying off by the tens of thousands. But Pacific chorus frogs were doing just fine."

Even if you've never heard of the Pacific chorus frog, you've probably heard one before. From Mexico to British Columbia, they are the frogs kids often catch and grown-ups hear ribbiting in chorus outside campsites and along roadside ditches.

Vrendenberg and a grad student brought dozens of the chorus frogs back into the lab and observed them for four months. They found the frogs were infected with hundreds of millions of zoospores of the fungus that causes chytridiomycosis -- surprisingly intense infections -- but they didn't die. Patches of the chorus frogs' skin appeared to resist the infection, allowing them to survive with what would otherwise be lethal levels of the disease.

In a paper published this week, Vredenberg and his colleagues suggest that the partially immune chorus frogs may act as a perfect host for the disease, helping it spread from pond to pond and travel upstream.

"The findings help explain the pattern and speed of the chytrid epidemic in the Sierras," he says.

Vrandenberg is concerned the Pacific chorus frog could help the disease spread in other remote mountain ranges.

"They have an enormous distribution, and the number of species they overlap with is huge," he says. "Salamanders, red legged frogs-- there are dozens of dozens of species that they could be putting at risk."

Pacific chorus frogs recorded in Crater Lake National Park

It's not yet clear what Vredenberg's research means for frogs and toads in the Northwest. Scientists have found chytridiomycosis present throughout the region, but it hasn't caused any major outbreaks in the region.

Explaining how and why outbreaks of chytridiomycosis have appeared suddenly worldwide is a tricky business. Some scientists like Vredenberg believe the disease originated in Africa and has only recently been spread around the world by the trade of African clawed frogs. They also carry the host pathogen without getting sick, and were common in labs and pet shops and even used in an early pregancy test.

Other scientists believe that chytridiomycosis has been present in the Americas for a long time, but some new environmental factor is making it more virulent in particular watersheds.

"It could be anything. It could be pollutants in the water, or a changing climate, that's turning this thing on," says Andrew Blaustein, a professor of zoology at the University of Oregon.

Blaustein and other scientists agree that while the fungus has been a major factor in amphibian declines in the Sierra Nevada and Colorado, it has had little impact so far on sensitive species in the Oregon Cascades.

"We don't see lots of dead and dying animals here," Blaustein says. "But we do see the chytrid in almost every species."

Blaustein says it's not yet clear what has prevented a major outbreak of the amphibian disease in the Northwest, or whether the Pacific chorus frog could help it spread here.

This story originally appeared through the EarthFix public media collaboration.

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Media mentions for March 15

Union Win at Oregon

By Kaustuv Basu

University of Oregon faculty members may have a union soon, after a group representing faculty members at the university filed about 1,100 signed authorization cards with the state's Employment Relations Board Tuesday. Officials at United Academics, an organization representing tenure-track, non-tenure-track and research professors, said that the number represented a majority of the institution's approximately 2,000 faculty members.

The university has until April 4 to object to the petition for unionization, according to an official at the Employment Relations Board. Oregon is a state where no election is required as long as a certified majority of the employees in the proposed unit file cards. A challenge could theoretically come if 30 percent of the faculty members petition for an election, but no organizing has taken place for such a challenge.

The now-likely formation of the faculty union at Oregon would be a major victory for academic labor, which has struggled in recent years to organize at research universities. "It shows that faculty members are increasingly frustrated at the increased corporatization of research universities," said Jack Nightingale, associate director for higher education organizing at the American Federation of Teachers.  He said the effort to organize at Oregon was about two years old, with the AFT working with the American Association of University Professors and local faculty members.

Deborah Olson, an instructor at the university's College of Education, said that faculty members don't have a voice and have been alienated from the decision-making process. "They are fairly powerless," said Olson, who is on the Organizing Committee of United Academics.

Another United Academics Organizing Committee member, Gordon Sayre, an English professor, said faculty input is not respected in budgeting or in campus planning. Sayre said that faculty salaries at the university continue to lag behind those at peer institutions. "And when we did get raises last year, it seemed to be a very secretive process," he said.

According to figures from Howard Bunsis, chair of the American Association of University Professors Collective Bargaining Congress and a professor of accounting at Eastern Michigan University, the number of full-time faculty members at the university increased by 15 percent from the fall of 2005 to the fall of 2010, while the number of administrators increased by 26 percent in the same time period. Student enrollment went up by 15 percent in that time. "The faculty realized that we are better off when we act collectively. I think that's what this is about," Bunsis said.

Robert Berdahl, interim president at the university, said in an e-mail that the university was notified Wednesday that the authorization cards have been submitted. "The university has not had an opportunity to review the petition for certification yet and it is premature to comment further," the e-mail said.

When the union drive started, the university pledged neutrality. A spokesman said at the time that the university's leaders "support the right of workers to organize and have maintained neutrality on the issue of a faculty union. The university seeks to simply provide factual information to assist those affected by the effort to make informed decisions."

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Animal Nature: Global warming and wildlife; Washington enlists citizen help tracking wolves

By Katy Muldoon, The Oregonian

The effects of climate change on wildlife make news this month, from drills in equatorial Africa to chipmunks in California's Yosemite National Park and migratory birds that pass through the United States:

Drills: Wild drills may suffer severely if climate change continues to warm the rainforests of equatorial Africa, the only place the rare primates live, new research by a University of Oregon professor and others shows.

If global warming predictions prove accurate and drill populations collapse, it won't be the first time, according to Nelson Ting, UO anthropology professor. A similar collapse occurred 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. During the Holocene epoch, hot and dry temperatures reduced the African forest canopy that drills and other species need.

Today, they face many additional threats, especially poaching and habitat loss due to logging and cultivation.

Ting and 10 other international researchers gathered feces of drills in the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko Coastal forests that stretch across Nigeria, Bioko Island (Equatorial Guinea) and Cameroon, and extracted DNA. The samples provided a window into drills' modern genetic diversity; from that researchers inferred past population changes. Their study was published online in the journal Ecology and Evolution.

"Our findings," Ting said in a university news release, "show that this type of animal, which already is very much endangered because of hunters, would not be able to deal with the level of climate changes that could be coming." Ting is co-director of UO's molecular anthropology group.

Protecting the forest habitat, he said, will be critical if drills are to survive.

Alpine chipmunks: The warming world is forcing alpine chipmunks to higher ground and rapidly reducing their genetic diversity, threatening the species' survival, according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

University of California, Berkeley, biologists in 2003 surveyed Yosemite's birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. They essentially re-traced a survey conducted between 1914 and 1920 by Joseph Grinnell, founder of the university's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

Over the past century, many small mammals in Yosemite had moved or retracted their ranges to higher, cooler elevations. The average temperature in the park has increased by more than 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit during those years.

In the early 1900s, Grinnell and colleagues found alpine chipmunks at elevations of 7,800 feet. In the new survey, chipmunks stuck to a range about 1,640 feet higher upslope.

To test the genetic impact from the range loss, researchers compared genetic markers from 146 alpine chipmunks with those from 88 of their historical counterparts, according to a UC Berkeley news release. The genetic diversity had fallen, leaving the chipmunks more vulnerable to disease, inbreeding and other problems that can threaten a species.

Migratory birds: Analyzing data from eBird, a citizen science database with a decade of observations from amateur birdwatchers, researchers from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that at least through the eastern United States, rising temperatures seem to cause birds to migrate earlier than they once did.

Over the long term, that could spell trouble, said Allen Hurlbert, assistant professor of biology.

Birds "have to time it right so they can balance arriving on breeding grounds after there's no longer a risk of severe winter conditions," Hurlbert said in a university news release. "If they get it wrong, they may die or may not produce as many young. A change in migration could begin to contribute to population decline, putting many species at risk for extinction." 

He and other researchers focused on species that occur widely in the eastern half of the country. They reviewed recorded temperatures and dates on which bird watchers first noticed certain species in their areas. On average, each species reached various stopping points 0.8 days earlier per degree Celsius of temperature increase. Some schedules sped up by three to six days for each rising degree.

The study was published in the journal PloS ONE.

Wolves: The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently put up a new website designed so the public can help animal managers keep track of wolves.

Those who happen to spot one or more wolves, their dens or other wolf sign can share in great -- or scant -- detail whatever they've spotted or heard. The page includes a detailed graphic offering tips on how to tell the difference between a wolf and a coyote, which looks similar but is much smaller than a wolf.

The department expects to use publicly submitted information to help manage the species.

A late 2011 survey found five wolf packs in Washington, totaling 27 wolves and including three breeding pairs.

Washington plans to remove wolves from the state's endangered species list once 15 successful breeding pairs are documented for three consecutive years among three wolf-recovery regions (four pairs in Eastern Washington, four pairs in North Cascades, four pairs in South Cascades/Northwest Coast, and three pairs in any recovery region).

The gray wolf is protected by the state as an endangered species throughout Washington; it's federally listed as endangered in the western two-thirds of the state.

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Controversial ESP Study Fails

Analysis by Benjamin Radford

A study published last year in a scientific journal claimed to have found strong evidence for the existence of psychic powers such as ESP. The paper, written by Cornell professor Daryl J. Bem, was published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and quickly made headlines around the world for its implication: that psychic powers had been scientifically proven.

Bem's experiments suggested that college students could accurately predict random events, like whether a computer will flash a photograph on the left or right side of its screen. Scientists and skeptics soon raised questions about Bem's study and methodology. For example Ray Hyman, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon at Eugene who previously evaluated the efficacy of psychic abilities for the Pentagon, found many flaws in Bem's study. At the time Hyman told Discovery News, "I'm puzzled as to how four referees and two editors of a prestigious journal could allow Bem to publish as 'experiments' studies that violated accepted methodological standards."

As I wrote when I first reported on this study, "Bem has replied to his critics and stands by his findings. Ultimately, of course, either the findings will stand the test of time and be replicated by other researchers, or they won't."

NEWS: Flawed ESP Study Sparks Uproar

Replication is of course the hallmark of valid scientific research--if the findings are true and accurate, they should be able to be replicated by others. Otherwise the results may simply be due to normal and expected statistical variations and errors. If other experimenters cannot get the same result using the same techniques, it's usually a sign that the original study was flawed in one or more ways.

So far it's not looking good for psychics; the experiment was replicated, and failed. A team of researchers Professor Chris French (Goldsmiths, University of London), Stuart Ritchie (University of Edinburgh) and Professor Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire) collaborated to accurately replicate Bem's final experiment, and found no evidence for precognition. Their results were published in the journal PLoS ONE.

Ironically, the publication that had originally published Bem's study refused to publish the latest research calling that same study into question. "Our submission was rejected without being sent for peer review on the basis that the journal has a policy of not publishing replications," said French. "Our paper has opened up the debate on the proper place of replication in the scientific literature."

In other words, The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology's editorial policies actually violate standards of good science by preventing the publication of studies designed to ensure that research it originally published is valid. As French wrote in a piece published in The Guardian, "Although we are always being told that 'replication is the cornerstone of science', the truth is that the top journals are simply not interested in straight replications – especially failed replications. They only want to report findings that are new and positive." Wiseman said that he hoped that "academic journals and popular media alike will offer the same weight to negative results as given to eye-catching positive results."

NEWS: Psychics And Airline Security

Bem, who had encouraged other researchers to replicate his study, acknowledged that the latest findings do not support his claims, writing that "I believe that Ritchie, Wiseman, and French have made a competent, good-faith effort to replicate the results of one of my experiments on precognition.... Nevertheless I consider it premature to conclude anything about the replicability of my experiments on the basis of this article.... In mainstream psychology it usually takes several years before enough attempted replications of a reported effect have accumulated to permit an overall analysis."

As before, Bem has replied to his critics and stands by his findings. Ultimately, of course, either the findings will stand the test of time and be replicated by other researchers, or they won't.

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Media mentions for March 14

Drill monkeys will struggle to adapt to climate change

By Tim Sandle

A scientific team have used DNA studies to predict how a certain type of monkey will fare as the climate changes through global warming. The findings are of a concern for the conservation of the Drill monkey, and may have wider research implications.

A group of scientists, based at the University of Oregon, have been studying a rare and endangered monkey in relation to the species and effects of changes to its habitation caused by climate change. The monkeys, called the Drill monkey (Mandrillus leucophaeus), are found in rainforests in Africa near the equator (in countries such as Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon).

The scientists have found from an analysis of the DNA of the monkeys that they have historically been susceptible to changes to their habitats. This means that as climate change makes the natural habitats of the Drill monkeys more arid, then there is a strong prediction that population of the monkeys will significantly decrease.

Drill monkeys are related to baboons and mandrills. They are a short-tailed monkeys around 2 feet long, weighing up to 37 pounds and are dark grey-brown in color. Drill monkeys are omnivorous and they forage on the ground. They have a flexible social organization, and live in groups of up to 25 individuals which periodically come together to form bands consisting of up to 200 animals.

Studying the genetic sequences of the chemicals which make up DNA provides a road-map into an organism's past. By looking at the modern genetic diversity of a creature, then changes to its past population size can be inferred, and this can then be used to make predictions about future changes. Coupling this with information from fossils about climate, the scientists have shown that as the monkeys were susceptible to past climatic changes then the current increase in global temperature is likely to mean that they will not be successful in adapting to the changes to their forest habitats.

Thus the scientists have predicted that there will be a significant population decline with the Drill monkeys if the forest continues to dry out and vegetation becomes scarce, as a result of a rise in the temperature through climate change.

The lead researcher, Nelson Ting, a professor of anthropology, is quoted as saying: "Looking at its modern genetic diversity, you can infer changes in past population size… We could see many of these equatorial forests becoming very arid. Forest will be lost as vegetation changes to adapt to dryer conditions. Our findings show that this type of animal, which already is very much endangered because of hunters, would not be able to deal with the level of climate changes that could be coming."

The research is important in furthering knowledge about how wildlife habitats and climate changes affect different species and similar studies on other animals are likely to be undertaken. From this, recommendations for wildlife conservation can be made, such as, in the case of the Drill monkey, reducing the destruction of the forest habitat by humans to preserve the habitat for longer.

The research was published in the following journal:

Nelson Ting et al. Genetic signatures of a demographic collapse in a large-bodied forest dwelling primate (Mandrillus leucophaeus). Ecology and Evolution, 2012.

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Art Museums Giving It the Old College Try

By KEITH SCHNEIDER
The New York Times

WHEN it opens this fall, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University will be the latest in a series of new university art museums that have opened around the country.

But here and at other campuses, striking buildings are just a part of the new profile of university art museums. With the help of departments as varied as nursing, law, meteorology and engineering, the museums' directors are deploying their extensive collections, and sometimes the artists themselves, to enhance curriculums.

In one project under development at the Broad, Amy Franceschini, an artist and urban garden advocate from San Francisco, would serve as an artist-in-residence working with students and faculty in the university's sustainable agriculture program to develop a local foods program in Detroit. Ms. Franceschini attracted attention by using visual design references and received financing for San Francisco community gardens. She also designed a pogo stick that also served as a shovel and a bicycle that converted into a wheelbarrow.

In another planned project, Tim Hyde, a photographer and video artist from New York, would work with Michigan State's forestry and natural resources students and faculty, drawing on his 10 years of photographing the deadfall and shadowed canopy of an 80-year-old red pine plantation in western Michigan.

"The students in M.S.U.'s programs in sustainable forests would have the opportunity to see their world through the eyes of an artist who brings a sensitivity and new vision to something they study every day," Michael Rush, the Broad Museum's director, said in describing his interest in Mr. Hyde's work. "He would open their eyes to an entirely new perception of what a forest is and can be."

University art museums, of course, have been a mainstay of American campuses since 1832, when the Yale University Art Gallery was established, the first university museum devoted exclusively to art, according to a paper by Kimerly Rorschach, the director of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke.

Harvard, Oberlin, the University of Oregon, the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina and dozens of other colleges and universities have built art museums, too, according to Ms. Rorschach, and more are being built. For example, DePaul University opened its Art Museum in Chicago in September 2011. The Art Museum of West Virginia University is scheduled to open next year.

All have attracted extensive collections and operated under the general mandate, Ms. Rorschach writes, "to give students an opportunity to develop into more cultivated, well-rounded and well-educated adults through contact with original works of art."

In the 21st century, university art museums have become more aggressive in extending their missions and collections to reach deeper into classrooms and curriculums not ordinarily associated with art. At Duke's seven-year-old Nasher Museum, two members of its 30-person staff are devoted exclusively to finding uses for pieces from the collection to enhance course work in various academic departments. Medical students, for instance, spend a day studying visual art in an exercise intended to hone observation and description skills that Nasher staff member developed with professors.

A Duke professor of geology uses the museum's collection of art carved from stone for lessons on the influence of time, oceans and weather.

In both instances, Nasher's academic coordinators helped their colleagues in medicine and geology use art to interest students heavily influenced by the visual immediacy of the Internet, and to be aware that their careers were likely to include colleagues and alliances outside the United States.

"Students need to learn things and to be innovative and entrepreneurial in this new global world," said Ms. Rorschach. "Art is about communicating effectively, about communicating visually, about understanding."

At the University of North Carolina, Mimi V. Chapman, an associate professor of social work, worked with the academic coordinators at the university's Ackland Art Museum to train graduate students to more carefully evaluate how their impressions were formed in working with clients. "Art is a way that helps uncover how students see things through a personal lens, and become aware of biases they may not be aware they have," she said.

This semester, Professor Chapman and eight graduate students spent a day in January and another in February studying an assortment of 20th century portraits and landscapes, among them Milton Avery's "Landscape," painted in 1948. The dominant images in Avery's impressionistic scene are a blue hammock swinging from two dark tree trunks along a pathway flanked by blue and gold trees. Professor Chapman assigned students to describe what they saw in the picture -- its images, colors, and emotions -- and where they would hang it in their own homes.

Alison Doernberg, a 34-year-old student, was surprised by the range of responses to Avery's painting. "Even though it was a simple image, people had very different perceptions," said Ms. Doernberg. "Some of us felt the trees were dark and foreboding. Other people saw them as solid and providing shade. Their view was more positive. It seemed to me, at first glance, to be an image that wasn't particularly provocative. But it turned out to be a lot to discuss.

"The lesson is that it's not just what I am seeing in a piece of art or a client," she said. "It's also thinking about why I am perceiving things the way I do. Are they coming from things in front of me or from other sources in my life? It feels very transferable to me."

In October, the University of Wisconsin opened a $47.2 million, 81,000-square-foot addition to the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison. The museum's academic outreach program includes a project with Steven A. Ackerman, a professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, who teaches an introductory course on weather.

Among the Chazen's collection of landscapes, Professor Ackerman chose to focus on "Our Good Earth," painted by the American regionalist John Steuart Curry in 1942. Visiting the museum last fall with a group of students studying atmospheric optics and cloud formations, he drew their attention not to the central features of Curry's painting -- a young, muscular overall-clad farmer standing watch as two children play in maturing wheat -- but to the range of blues in Curry's sky and the shape and shading in Curry's puffy clouds.

"We are particularly interested in how the artist represents clouds," he said. "Today's scientists deal with tons and tons of data. How do we represent the huge volume of data we receive? How do we visualize that data? How artists visualize the world is very valuable to us."

In East Lansing, Lou Anna K. Simon, the president of Michigan State, said novel academic programs would be part of the university's plan to establish the Broad as a "museum without walls."

"It is a focal point of this campus," said Ms. Simon. "Students from any department, any part of this campus, will find some place for themselves at the museum."

Alison Gass, a new curator at the Broad, was busy recently scouting empty spaces on and off Michigan State's campus to house an art and garden project. Ms. Gass came to Michigan from San Francisco, where she worked at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, became aware of Ms. Franceschini's work and included several pieces of Ms. Franceschini's art in an exhibition at the museum.

"I called Amy when I got here and I told her this place was fantastic," said Ms. Gass. "There is land here. They study food systems and forests and have experimental farms. There is real potential to be a leader in land art."

Ms. Franceschini said she was interested in the Michigan State opportunity. "Local food and gardens are critical agents of change," she said. "The process of making that happen is as much part of the creative process as traditional art. The idea of applying art to knowledge production and the knowledge economy there is very attractive."

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All in the family

Father and son examine how arts affects the brain

by Topher Forhecz

Professor emeritus at the University of Oregon, Michael Posner is a cognitive neuroscientist. His son, Aaron Posner, is an established theater director who has helmed productions on local stages such as Folger Theatre. With one family member in science and the other in arts, life has not always been a case of "like father, like son."

>> The Theater of the Brain

>>

>> When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Mar. 29, April 5 and April 26.

>>

>> Where: The Mansion at Strathmore, 10701 Rockville Pike, North Bethesda

>>

>> Tickets: $21 general admission, $18.90 stars price

>>

>> For information: 301-581-5100www.strathmore.org

There is something they both share, however: a brain.

Beginning Thursday, the two will come together for several presentations of "The Theater of the Brain" at the Mansion at Strathmore, exploring what happens in the brain when a person looks at a work of art or listens to a piece of music. Father and son also will discuss how involvement in the arts helps shape various cognitive processes. The event is part of Strathmore's ongoing series "Arts and the Brain."

Some of the material Michael Posner will discuss draws from a report he wrote in 2008 that was commissioned by The Dana Consortium, a research foundation, to deal with this very subject. He also will reference other books including "The Bard on the Brain: Understanding the Mind Through the Art of Shakespeare and the Science of Brain Imaging."

Michael Posner, who has been with Oregon since 1965, studies the brain by using a collection of methods called neuroimaging.

"When you think or use your brain in processing, thinking and feeling and so on, you change the local blood supply in the areas where neurons are active and that can be sensed by a number of different methods," he says. "Most common is a high magnetic field called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) so you can look at, essentially, the degree oxygenation of the blood is used as a measure of the activity of the neurons in that particular area."

The areas of the brain Michael Posner studies involving memory include the hippocampus and amygdala. People remember things for different reasons, he says, whether they have an emotional attachment to it or they're depending on a sense of rhythm.

Starting a child early down an artistic road also helps develop these processes from an early age.

"If he goes deeply into it, works very hard at it," Michael Posner says. "And that kind of training probably improves some of the networks that are important for attention and memory."

There is a lot of overlap in terms of what functions are enhanced when working with the arts, but Michael Posner also says different arts affect the brain differently.

"To some degree this is still unknown, but there are some specific links, for example, between aspects of music and number processing or mathematics," Michael Posner says. "Also between the visual arts, like sculpture and drawing and so on, and various spatial skills."

Michael Posner says he is fascinated with the intense interaction that occurs between actor and director.

"That's a very powerful aspect when you watch the director trying to help the actor get to the same place the director has in mind. That's very important and there's a little data I don't know how much we'll deal with it [at the presentation] about people and interaction and what that does in terms of brain mechanism," Michael Posner says.

Aaron Posner will be on hand to illustrate some of the points his father makes by discussing his own long-running career in theater.

The Helen Hayes Award-winner is a celebrated playwright and director. His adaptations include "The Chosen" and "My Name is Asher Lev." His production of "Cyrano de Bergerac" currently is on stage with Philadelphia's Arden Theatre company, which he co-founded.

Aaron Posner says his father is a man of hard science, whereas he is concerned about how the arts impact his day-to-day behavior. He recalls once asking his father what he was busy working on.

"He said, 'Focus your attention to the bottom of your left shoe,' and I said, 'Okay. I have,' and he says, 'I'm figuring out how you do that.'"

Aaron Posner says the conversation the two will have at Strathmore is something they have discussed before.

"We talked a lot over the years, as he will discuss his research and what he's actually doing about attention. It's been a continual conversation over the years about how that relates in the sense that, as a theater director, I am constantly engaged in sort of explorations about how the brain functions, in how we perform onstage, the kind of multitasking one has to do to be a performer," Aaron Posner says.

With his ability to lead large productions, teach and translate his vision throughout his day, deciding whether or not the arts affect his mind is a no-brainer for Aaron Posner.

"The manner in which one learns lines increases your capacity to memorize," Aaron Posner says. "The capacity of people who learn to multitask in the theater clearly lends itself to more of that."

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Media mentions for March 13

Science pub continues at Calapooia Brewery

By Steve Lathrop, Albany Democrat-Herald

On Wednesday, March 14, David Tyler, a University of Oregon chemist, will be the second speaker in what Calapooia Brewing Company hopes will be a regular event.

The brewery will feature Tyler at its Science Pub, which General Manager Paul Huppert believes is something that will catch on. It may have already.

Tyler follows fellow UO professor David C. Johnson, who spoke at the brewery in February and drew a full house.

"It's a little new to Albany, but the premise has been popular in Portland and, more recently, in Corvallis for a while now," Huppert said. "I'm a bit of a science nut, and it appears there are a few more out there like me."

Huppert said the science pub idea began in Portland and was spearheaded by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

"It has been successful for them and for us too," he said.

Huppert was actually contacted by Andy Bettingfield at the University of Oregon about starting something similar in Albany.

"I jumped at it," Huppert said. "Probably because of my own interest in science."

The plans are to keep it going. Huppert said the Science Pub will be a regular feature at Calapooia on the second Wednesday of each month.

Most speakers will be members of the University of Oregon science faculty, but Huppert would like to expand it and get other college campuses involved.

"There's no reason we can't get some OSU scientists to take part," he said.

Johnson, the initial speaker, talked about nanotechnology. Around 50 people were in attendance.

"I recognized a lot of professors and high school and college science teachers," Huppert said. "And we had a lot like me who are just interested in science."

Tyler's topic will be centered around green science, including recycling and the everyday choices people make in terms of sustainability.

On campus, Tyler, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has been a member of the UO Materials Science Institute and faculty since 1985.

Huppert, who has been with Calapooia for five years,  said the talks will cover all areas of science, from biology to physics and beyond. Each program encourages audience participation and also will have a question and answer period.

He said all ages are welcome and the first program featured retired professors and students alike.

The program begins at  6:30 p.m. at Calapooia Brewery, 140 Hill St. N.E. Everyone is welcome. Those under 18 must be accompanied by a parent, adult or guardian, who must place their food and beverage orders. Programs are slated to run until about 8 p.m.

For additional information, contact Calapooia Brewery at 541-928-1931.

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Seattle hopes to land established NBA team

By BOB CONDOTTA - The Seattle Times

SEATTLE -- Nothing has ever really come all that quickly or easily for Seattle's major pro sports teams.

So why should landing another NBA franchise be any different?

The news last week that Sacramento's City Council had approved a plan to build a new arena in that city that could keep the NBA Kings there appears to have all but shot down the best and most immediate option for getting a new team here.

"An NBA team returning to Seattle is a lot further away than it was," said Paul Swangard, the managing director at the University of Oregon's Sports Marketing Center, who attended the recent NBA All-Star Game and gauged the temperature of the league's financial health.

"And that's just a reality based on the success of the overall NBA business right now, the health of most markets and a dwindling number of viable relocation candidates."

Chris Hansen, the San Francisco hedge fund manager whose $290 million pledge is at the heart of Seattle's new plan to build an arena in the Sodo District, has indicated that his efforts will continue even if Sacramento is off the board.

And observers say that even with Sacramento appearing in good shape to keep the Kings, it's a situation worth watching until ground is broken on the arena there.

Neil deMause, editor of the website Field of Schemes, which tracks arena and relocation issues, says Hansen should keep Sacramento "on speed dial. So much is up in the air there about the financing. No one really knows if the parking revenues (slated to account for up to $250 million of the cost of Sacramento's arena) are going to come through.

"There are a lot of moving pieces and even with (council approval) of the term sheet, the whole thing could still fall apart."

But Hansen has preached patience and says it's a misperception that his plan is tied to Sacramento.

"There are lot of teams out there struggling, and I think our job is not just to focus on which team," Hansen told The Seattle Times last week. "I'll leave that to other people to speculate which is the ideal to move here and why and when that will come up."

If Sacramento doesn't work out, the question then becomes where Seattle looks next for a team, especially since NBA commissioner David Stern insists that expansion is not an option.

Both Swangard and deMause say the obvious answer is New Orleans. The Hornets are owned by the NBA and struggling both on the floor and at the gate.

"Every relocation question needs to start with them," Swangard said.

There's just one problem for Seattle -- Stern really wants to keep the team in New Orleans, due in part to a feeling of not wanting to let the team walk and add to the woes the city has experienced since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Stern said at the All-Star Game there are two groups of buyers lined up that will keep the team in New Orleans.

Memphis has often been cited as a possible candidate for relocation down the road as the Grizzlies continue to struggle to fill seats despite fielding a young, winning team.

Owner Michael Heisley tried to sell the team in 2006, and also now is part of a group putting in a bid to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers, causing some to wonder about his long-term commitment to the Grizzlies.

Some have also questioned the long-term viability of the Charlotte Bobcats, who are among the worst teams in the league and also struggling to fill seats.

But the team is owned by NBA legend Michael Jordan, a North Carolina native who is unlikely to want to have as his legacy that he let the local pro franchise leave.

Only four NBA franchises have moved since 1985.

"I would not be surprised to see Seattle get a team in five to eight years, maybe," deMause said.

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Late mentions for March 12

More than 800,000 Oregonians received food stamp benefits in January

By Michelle Cole, The Oregonian

More than 800,000 Oregonians relied on food stamps to put meals on the family table in January, the highest number ever.

A report released Monday by the Oregon Department of Human Services shows 800,785 people --or 22 percent of Oregonians --received help in January from the state-federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That reflected a 5.9 percent increase from January 2011.

Social service officials said they were not surprised to have broken the 800,000 mark. Food stamp numbers have grown steadily over the past few years and state forecasts indicate the number of food stamp recipients could top 840,000 by June.

But it does come at a time when Oregon has been seeing some encouraging economic signs, including an unemployment rate that finally dropped below 9 percent.

Oregon started the year off with an 8.8 percent unemployment rate in January and the state reported 5,400 new jobs were created.

The view from social service offices wasn't as bright.

"If they're going back to work they may not be getting the hours or the wages they used to get," says Belit Stockfleth, the state's food stamp program manager. "We're helping to keep them afloat while they get back on their feet."

Traditionally, the demand for food stamps rises in winter and eases in the summer, when more people are working in agriculture or construction. But the recession and slow recovery have upset that pattern.

In January, the most recent numbers available, every region in Oregon saw a growth in the number of food stamp recipients, with Multnomah and Clackamas counties among those reporting increases higher than the state average.

In Multnomah, 159,527 people received food stamps, a 6.6 percent increase over last year. In Clackamas there were 51,285, an 8.3 percent increase.

In Hood River and other Columbia River Gorge cities, 10,064 received food assistance, which was a 7.9 percent jump over January 2011. In Medford, Ashland and surrounding areas, 77,059 received similar help, an increase of 7.5 percent.

"Yes, the economy is improving. However we're still deep in the hole," says Tim Duy, an economist at the University of Oregon.

He suspects a combination of factors could be contributing to the continued rise in food stamp recipients in Oregon.

Many of the new jobs that have been created are in the leisure and hospitality sectors and may not pay enough to lift family incomes beyond the food stamp range, Duy says.

For example, a family of four can earn as much as $3,554 per month and still qualify for some benefits.

Also, people may have waited to sign up, either because they were too embarrassed or they thought their situation would soon improve, Duy added. With 500 Oregonians exhausting their unemployment benefits each week, many may not have been able to hold off any longer.

A demographic breakdown from the previous month showed children under age 18 accounted for more than 37 percent, or 293,379, of the December recipients statewide.

Oregonians over age 60 comprised 8.5 percent or 26,748 recipients. But seniors accounted for the fastest growing group, Stockfleth says.

Part of that is by plan.

In Multnomah and Clackamas counties, the state is working with churches and other non-profits to make sure the elderly know they're eligible for benefits.

And part of it out of anybody's control.

"Many seniors were supplementing their income with part-time jobs that no longer exist," Stockfleth notes, "and boomers are aging in."

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Damascus voters make big decision in how to craft city's comprehensive plan

BY: Lee Fehrenbacher

City governance can be a thankless job – especially when land-use laws are involved.

"We're not evil people like all the articles say," said Diana Helm, president of Damascus City Council and owner of Terra Casa Home Decor on Oregon Route 212. "We're just citizen volunteers. We're giving our time to the city to try to put together a comprehensive plan to make the bulk of the people happy … and at this point it's just impossible. It's impossible. I've never in my life felt hopeless, and I feel hopeless about Damascus and where we're headed."

Damascus, incorporated as a city in 2006, is required by state law to adopt a comprehensive plan. But six years later, the city is still at square one, and Damascus voters rejected a proposed comprehensive plan its counselors adopted in November 2010, by a two-to-one margin.

On Tuesday, residents will vote on Measure 3-389, which would require any new city ordinance or plan adopted by the council to be accompanied by a financial impact report and be subject to a public vote before the council could submit it to Metro or the state.

Helm believes the measure – generally expected to pass – is vague to a fault and could clog the system with futile processes.

"I think (some people) think if they vote it down then we don't have to have a comprehensive plan," she said. "But that's not true. We're required by the state to have one, and if we don't do it, then one very well could be put on us by the state and it might not be the one we've been working on."

But Dan Phegley, chief petitioner for the measure and leader of a group called Ask Damascus, sees it differently. Phegley said he thinks the planning process has been exclusive and covert, giving rise to his battle cry, "They didn't ask us in Damascus."

"What we're really up against is Metro and their forced land-use planning," Phegley said. "Metro is a regional government that has been sending out disciples all over the world, but they've never gotten anyone to copy it and so they're a big believer in spending money, and light rail is their religion."

Some background

The city of Damascus recently conducted a phone survey to find out why people voted against the proposed comprehensive plan. Helm said the results weren't too surprising.

Some people, she said, were concerned about conservation, and others worried about preservation of property rights. But many people just didn't want growth.

"Most of the people moved here to get out of the city, to live in a rural community and not grow up," Helm said. "Being in the urban growth boundary has been a big pill for people to swallow."

That pill came in December 2002, when Metro expanded its UGB to include Damascus.

Robin McArthur, Metro's planning and development director, said that expansion was the result of an urban growth report that Metro conducts every five years to identify the need for housing and jobs on a 20-year horizon.

Dan Phegley, right, and his wife, Debb, are spearheading a campaign for Measure 3-389, which would require any comprehensive plan or ordinance adopted by Damascus City Council to be approved by voters. The measure is expected to pass. (Photo by Lee Fehrenbacher/DJC)

In 2000, the population in the seven-county statistical area was 1.9 million people with approximately 973,000 jobs, according to Metro's 2009-2030 Urban Growth Report. Metro estimates there is a 90 percent chance that by 2030 the population will grow to between 2.9 million and 3.2 million people, with between 1.3 million and 1.7 million jobs.

McArthur said Metro chose Damascus for the UGB expansion because, at the time, the state's primary focus was on preserving farmland and forestland. However, Damascus, she said, has a lot of "exception lands" – open land not primed for farming.

State laws have since changed to protect more exception lands through urban and rural reserves for the benefit of businesses like wineries, vineyards and nurseries – often the first to go in a UGB expansion, McArthur said.

"So we changed state law and … if the new urban and rural reserve work had been in place, we may or may not have brought in Damascus," she said. "But that's water under the bridge."

The controversy continues

Meanwhile, Damascus is struggling to comply with state requirements; the city's incorporation in 2006 was arguably the first attempt by citizens to control the process. But with that move came a controversial price tag for the cost to provide infrastructure for development – $3.5 billion. That estimate motivated Phegley.

"They later did a study on the sewer and water supply, and that was between $2 billion and $8 billion," he said. "That's a heck of a spread and when you're talking about a town of 12,000 people. We're talking $300,000 per household, well over."

John Morgan, Damascus' community development director – the man tasked with forging a path forward for the city's comprehensive planning process – said that interpretation of the costs for infrastructure is, "frankly, ludicrous."

Morgan said the original estimate for infrastructure – i.e., sewer treatment, water treatment, a major sewer trunk line and extensions to new development – was $3.5 billion spread out over 50 years. He said most of that money would come from system development charges placed on developers, with some community block grants and/or bond measures picking up a small remainder of the balance.

"So the thought that the $3.5 billion is going to be paid for by the existing residents of Damascus is just completely out of the ballpark from how this stuff works," Morgan said.

Meanwhile, Peter Walker, a University of Oregon professor and the author of the book "Planning Paradise – Politics and Visioning of Land Use in Oregon," said the story of Damascus is indicative of a greater problem stewing in Oregon.

"(Damascus is) a symptom of a bigger problem of the state land-use planning system, which is that in many ways it's really sort of lost touch with ordinary people and local communities, and needs to take seriously the concerns of local people, and actively engage in a bilateral and substantive process of political negotiation with communities," Walker said. "Rather than saying, 'By the power of fiat, this community will now become part of the city.' "

Instead of asking Damascus residents if they wanted to be included in the UGB, Walker said Metro started the conversation by saying, " 'This is going to happen. Can we work with you to try and make it happen in a way that you can live with it?' "

Moving forward

The answer, at least so far, has been a resounding "no." But Morgan said he has a plan.

"It makes more sense to me to create a plan that revolves around the core values (of Damascus) in how it's written and formatted, rather than the statewide planning goals," he said.

Morgan said the original plan, the one rejected last May, took the exact opposite approach. Rather than centering around the legacy the city hopes to establish for itself, Morgan said the city previously made the state's 14 land-use goals the top priority.

McArthur said she understands that some people are dissatisfied with Metro's decision to bring Damascus into the UGB. But she added that the process also involves an extensive period of research and public hearings.

"I think the idea behind the comprehensive plan is for the community to manifest its own destiny, and Damascus has that opportunity as well," she said.

Morgan said decisions will be reviewed to assess whether they align with citizens' hopes. And by traveling that path, he said, meeting the state's requirements should be a breeze.

Phegley is skeptical. He believes a comprehensive plan is not representative of the will of the people and that Measure 3-389 will bring accountability to local government.

Morgan, hoping to get buy-in from the citizens, doesn't think the measure will hinder the process one bit.

Whatever happens, the winds of change are coming.

"The community is going to urbanize," Morgan said. "That is a fundamental fact of change that is real. There is an extreme transformation that is going to occur over the next 40 to 50 years, and since that change is going to happen, how do we make that acceptable and desirable for the vast majority of the citizens of Damascus?

"That's a challenge, and it's a big one."

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Developers agree to renew Old Town Chinatown, but not on how to do it

BY: Lindsey O'Brien

Redevelopment of Portland's oldest neighborhood has been a piecemeal effort for years, but project by project, the face of Old Town Chinatown is continuing to morph. Now the question is whether a united vision is possible for the area.

Developers soon will have access to a new survey of several hundred buildings on 43 blocks in the neighborhood, and some say it will be a useful tool for planning future projects. But the survey has reignited conversations about the challenges of redeveloping an area with a diverse cultural past, a blighted reputation, and strict regulations because of its historic status.

"That area is definitely not finished," said Anne Naito-Campbell of Bill Naito Co., which has invested in the development of Old Town Chinatown for more than 50 years. "The city and developers have done block-by-block improvements, but hopefully this study will help us come up with new ideas."

Development has been bolstered by the Portland Development Commission's Downtown Waterfront urban renewal area, but money is dwindling.

"There's probably PDC resources to do one more sort of large play (in Old Town Chinatown)," said Lew Bowers, director of PDC's Central City team. "You need to prioritize, get around one project and say 'yep, this is it.' "

Without the aid of the PDC, some stakeholders, including developer David Gold, are calling for property owners and developers to become more involved in projects that will help the community make progress.

University of Oregon graduate students are producing the in-depth development study, which will be presented March 21. The uses, condition, height, ground-floor activity, history and several other metrics will be documented for each building.

"A lot of people are watching," said Howard Davis, a UO architecture professor. "When you're trying to move forward with so many projects, the more information you have, the better."

The new development study inspired Naito-Campbell, daughter of late real estate mogul Bill Naito, to spearhead a public discussion. Last week, 14 influential developers, architects, city officials and other Old Town Chinatown stakeholders laid out some of the difficulties and opportunities in the district.

The conversation, moderated by Peter Englander of the Portland Development Commission, revealed that the appropriate size and massing of new development in the district remains a divisive topic – some prioritize the district's historic scale, while others want increased height limits.

"People continue to debate it because there's no resolution from the city council," said developer Art DeMuro. "My position is that (Old Town Chinatown's) strength lies in its historic identity as Portland's oldest commercial center, and that identity is defined by its collection of cast-iron architecture, its scale as a turn-of-the-century commercial hub, and its location on the riverfront."

DeMuro's company Venerable Properties last year purchased a parking lot in a prime location between the Burnside Bridge and the Skidmore Fountain Building. Though he says his plans for Block 11 are in the earliest stages, DeMuro emphasizes that future construction will involve "compatible infill."

"My experience in historic redevelopment is that the greatest success in revitalization occurs when unique identity can be reinforced and strengthened," he said.

But Gold contends that height limits – 75 feet for some blocks in the neighborhood – are preventing development.

"If you can only build a three-story building, you're not going to get a surface parking lot owner to develop it," he said at the panel discussion. "I've said to people at the PDC, 'You've got to help me because I cannot go to my deathbed owning a full block of surface parking in Portland – it'll kill me."

Gold for years tried to bring Seattle-based Asian grocer Uwajimaya to the district; however, the effort ultimately fizzled, and now he is converting the former Grove Hotel into an international youth hostel with ground-floor retail.

While Gold has a vision for development of the surface parking he owns in Old Town, he said they bring in too much money to warrant a project subject to 100-foot height limits.

"I'm all in favor of appropriate sizing for the buildings in Old Town Chinatown in the historic district, but you can't set up policy that basically stymies all development on a small lot; the city needs to come up with other incentives," he said at the meeting.

Several ongoing planning efforts and university collaborations may produce new ideas for the district. The UO architecture students in the fall will collaborate with Tokyo's Meiji University to analyze several Old Town Chinatown development scenarios, including the possible addition of a Japanese-style gate into the cityscape.

"They will be hypothetical projects, but looking at them could help move the conversation about height restrictions forward," Davis said. "I don't know if there's a way to keep both sides happy, but I like to imagine there is."

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Masters of the Attention Economy: What #Kony2012 and the Oregon Ducks Have in Common

Jason Wojciechowski

What do a shoe and apparel billionaire and a college football team have to do with an indicted African War Criminal and a skyrocketing viral video? Everything.

In January, I cheered with old and new friends, long-lost relatives and thousands of strangers as the Oregon Ducks took the field at the Rose Bowl. In February, it took eight hours before I encountered my first Ducks fan in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He had never seen a game live or on TV, but he knew the Ducks prevailed in Pasadena and that, "The helmets were the most incredible thing I've ever seen!" In March, I sat with a friend and colleague to watch a video about LRA leader and indicted war criminal, Joseph Kony that garnered 70 million views in four days. We cringed, we mocked, we attempted to hide welling emotions at crescendo moments. Then we took to Twitter and our inboxes to monitor the steady stream of support and criticism directed towards Invisible Children and Kony 2012.

The three events over three months made one reality clear to me: the "Attention Economy" has arrived with a thunder. As Jason Russel says in his hyperbolic viral hit, "The world will never be the same."

Kony 2012 oversimplifies on issues of policy; it reinforces dangerous societal viewpoints of Africans and the regions problems; it promotes a "White Man's Burden" hero culture; it makes outrageous and unsubstantiated claims about Invisible Children's impact and the campaign's potential. Yet, it is beautiful and brilliant. Anyone who cares about building movements of positive change should study this film, and their investigation should start with understanding the "Attention Economy."

>>    If the Web and the Net can be viewed as spaces in which we will

>> increasingly live our lives, the economic laws we will live under have to be

>> natural to this new space. These laws turn out to be quite different from

>> what the old economics teaches, or what rubrics such as "the information age"

>> suggest. What counts most is what is most scarce now, namely attention. The

>> attention economy brings with it its own kind of wealth, its own class

>> divisions -- stars vs. fans -- and its own forms of property, all of which

>> make it incompatible with the industrial-money-market based economy it bids

>> fair to replace. Success will come to those who best accommodate to this new

>> reality.

>>

>>     (Emphasis mine)

Those prescient words began scholar Michael H. Goldhaber's, 1997 paper, The Attention Economy: The Natural Economy of the Net. At the same moment designers and marketers at Nike's sprawling campus in Beaverton, Ore., were launching a 15-year experiment to test Goldhaber's premise. The proving ground would not be the Internet, but a football field in the small city of Eugene, Oreg., home of the ferociously named Oregon Ducks.

The Attention Economy Gets Wings

Nike co-founder and 1959 Oregon alum Phil Knight had secured a deal with the school -- he would provide a blank check to support the athletic department's stadium and facility upgrades in exchange for Nike having carte blanche design control for the football teams uniforms and merchandise. While the university gained an indoor practice facility in the rainy state (though fans proclaim, "It Never Rains at Autzen Stadium!"), Nike Creative Director Todd Van Horne, and top designers like Tinker Hatfield, had the chance to create a football powerhouse through the principles of the Attention Economy, as brilliantly detailed by Michael Kruse last August in, "How Does Oregon Football Keep Winning? Is it the uniforms?"

They would create the Oregon football brand from scratch and reinvent it, not every season, but every game! The palette was wide open to the point that every Ducks ticket now carries a color notice for fans, "Oregon v USC: WEAR BLACK." Players were adorned with silver wings and shiny helmets. Nike rescued a struggling paint and design company from the verge of collapse to create a whole new variety of paint made of glass beads and a shimmering proprietary coating dubbed, "LiquidMetal."

The fans hated the new look, the sports writers skewered and the opponents mocked. It all went according to plan. "If you're purposely trying to stir up the nest and increase visibility, you want them saying something," Hatfield commented in an interview for SportsBusiness Journal. Viewership steadily increased, the team drastically improved and while the vitriol spewed at the ugliest uniforms in sports, teenagers across the country slid closer to their TV sets to get a look at what the Ducks were wearing that week. One of those kids named LaMicahel James from Texarkana, Texas would lead the team to three straight Bowl Championship Series appearances including a Rose Bowl victory. When the Heisman Trophy finalist was asked why he considered Oregon when so many better and local colleges wanted him, James responsed, "I loved the uniforms."

Nike and the University of Oregon created an enduring brand through constant iteration and a great football team through packaging and adherence to the Attention Economy. Knight's crew understood that eyeballs and discussion were more important than money or even product quality when it came to trouncing the competition in the shoe game. They wildly outbid all suitors in 1984, not for Michael Jordan's endorsement, but for his attention -- or, more aptly the attention he would bring to the shoes on his feet. While a roster that included the best basketball player of all-time suggested that attention could translate into success, the Ducks project allowed the Nike team to test attention currency with a struggling small-market team. And that's the short story of how a team of silver-helmeted underdogs became football greats and an Oregon t-shirt found it's way to an Ethiopian who knew nothing of the sport.

The Attention Economy Goes Viral

Now to the story of three young filmmakers and activists who discovered an under-reported war in Northern Uganda and spent the next nine years trying to gain the world's most valuable currency: attention. They made 11 films about the the LRA's brutal tactics of abducting children and turning them into child soldiers and sex slaves. They built a fledgling charity and methodically grew a movement. They gained powerful allies and enemies in the process. They used films, speaking engagements, marketing and social networks to procure attention for the issue. Then the band of activists directed that attention to Capital Hill, at times in partnership or at least in concert with the world's largest NGOs.

This is how change happens and in the hyper-connected information economy, attention is the currency that unites people and prods politicians. Invisible Children can be accused of being naive on several points, but not on this. In fact, they are clearly far ahead of their peers. Jason Russel's first-person account is brave and foolish -- the two usually go hand-in-hand. It is not the story of Uganda's internal strife, nor Central Africa's bandits and poor governance, nor child soldiers, nor domestic politics. It is the story of three people whose lives intersected with tragic and wonderful consequences: a young father from California; a child from Uganda; a vicious Warlord. It is not policy dissertation or an activist's power analysis. It is a well told story that asks the viewer to participate. The average age of those viewers according to YouTube: 13-24.

Kony 2012 has succeeded by being controversial. It will anger many and be dismissed by others, but it has deeply engaged youth. It has also succeeded by stirring criticism. As the Ducks discovered, dissent is not anathema to attention. In fact, dissent and disdain are vital ingredients. 4500 stories have been written about the film in the past 24 hours, which also means 4500 stories have been written about Kony and the LRA. The frenzy has given attention to countervailing voices like the stinging critique by Michael Diebert on the Huffington Post and eloquent response by Ugandan journalist Rosebell Kagumire that has been seen by 150,000 people and counting.

Like the Oregon-Nike experiment, Kony 2012 is a startling and stunning success in the Attention Age. We should spend less time denouncing that reality and more time understanding and shaping it. We can decry Kony 2012 for misinterpreting the current political reality of Uganda or wish equal attention was focused towards the ongoing massacre in Syria, the plight of women and the coming food crisis in the Sahel, but as my friend recently returned from West Africa commented, "That is not this guy's fight." Thoughtful critiques should continue, the more ink spilled the better. However, in the midst of our doubts, we should remember that there were millions of young people who had never heard of the International Criminal Court, Joseph Kony or even Uganda a mere four days ago. Russell's passion ignited theirs. That should be celebrated. Not because they will, "Blanket the night" on April 20, but because these youth will seek to prove Kony 2012's grandiose claim that in a connected world they can and will stand up for each other. In a world of Bieber and Twilight they choose to turn their limited attention to human rights and justice. I for one welcome their limitless optimism.

We in the activist community can spend weeks tearing down Invisible Children's effort. Or, we can choose to accept the new reality of the Attention Economy and get to work. Goldhaber forecasts in his paper, "If you have enough attention, you can get anything you want." What do you want?