Mental Mojo is a seminar that gives UO students the opportunity to learn how to boost their mental capacities by following a few simple steps. Dr. Jay Sutliffe advises students to adopt a plant-based diet to decrease overall inflammation in the body. In conjunction with regular exercise, this will help reduce stress and maintain a higher GPA. Sutliffe said, “We’re trying to educate students on how we can synchronize our body cycles and our lifestyle cycles together, so we can get our mojo on, so we can have better success, more energy, vitality.” Stress, tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine all work against students ability to lead a healthy lifestyle so do what you can to get your mojo back.

Despite high unemployment rates, there is some good news for people working minimum wage. On January 1st, Oregon’s minimum wage will go up by fifteen cents, from the current $8.80 to $8.95. This increase will make Oregon’s minimum wage the second highest in the nation.

On September 1^st, the University of Oregon officially became a Smoke and Tobacco Free University. This is the first time a public university in the State of Oregon has established this rule.

It did not take long, however, for students to find ways to get around this ordinance. Because the University of Oregon does not own city streets, streets bordering the campus have become a popular location for students to smoke. “We are working with the city. The city is actually looking to go smoke and tobacco free as well on their side walks, streets and in parks and things like that, so we’re working with the city right now to see to address some of those issue,” said Marci Torress, the Director of Healthy Campus Initiative.

Ten cities and two counties in Oregon have already prohibited smoking in public areas. The University of Oregon and Lane County are hoping to work together to create a smoke and tobacco free community. Lane County has made no official plans to implement a smoking ban.

The controversy surrounding the University of Oregon football team and marijuana usage in April of 2012 has introduced a new policy. In past years, the University of Oregon only required student-athletes to take a drug test with reasonable suspicion. As of September 1^st, however, the athletic department has been granted permission to perform random drug testing on a temporary basis.

The new policy received final approval at a public hearing on October 3^rd after talks began in July of a stronger drug policy within the athletic department. The University of Oregon is the seventh school in the Pac-12 to adopt a random drug testing policy for student-athletes. Oregon State University is in negotiations to adopt the rule as well.

Athletics will continue to test student-athletes for illicit substances and performance-enhancing drugs. The first two drug tests a student-athlete fails will result in counseling, substance abuse education, psychological evaluation and signing a behavioral modification contract. A third failed test results in suspension for half of the season, and a fourth failed test results in dismissal from the team and loss of scholarships.

A recent survey from the University of Victoria stated that thirty-one percent of students own ebooks or tablets, a nineteen percent increase since 2011. However, when it came to school documents, only three percent of students used their tablets, while fourty-six percent still prefer hard-copy books.