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Popular Herbicide Could Be Impacting Infant Health

One of the most widely used herbicides in the United States—and across the world—could be harming infant health, according to PhD candidate Emmett Reynier and economics assistant professor Edward Rubin. 

In agricultural counties with increased exposure to glyphosate have shown to lower birthweights and gestations. The College of Arts and Sciences economists published this research in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A research fellowship with the US Environmental Protection Agency supported the research. 

Glyphosate is used to kill plants that aren’t genetically modified to withstand the herbicide, such as weeds. Since the introduction of genetically modified crops, the annual use of glyphosate has increased by about 750%, according to the US Geological Survey. 

“What this means is that, for whatever reason, if an infant is expected to be at the very low birthweight end of the scale, then glyphosate exposure could affect you more,” Rubin said. “It’s like being sick and then getting hit with another illness. You’re more vulnerable.”

Read More About the Study

News from CAS

THEATRE ARTS – Coming to University Theatre's Hope Theatre in February is "POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive." The all-female feminist satire looks at sex and politics and women working in the confines of the patriarchy.
BIOLOGY, PHYSICS - A new study published in the journal mBio shows how one kind of bacteria, Vibrio cholerae, triggers those painful contractions by activating the immune system. The research also finds a more general explanation for how the gut rids itself of unwanted intruders, which could also help scientists better understand chronic conditions like inflammatory bowel disease. The research was led by Julia Ngo, a now-graduated doctoral student in Karen Guillemin and Raghu Parthasarathy’s labs.
ECONOMICS - Increased exposure to glyphosate, one of the most widely used herbicides in the United States and much of the world, harms infant health in agricultural counties, according to a new study by two University of Oregon economists Emmett Reynier and Edward Rubin. The two published the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

All news »

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Your Gift Changes Lives

Gifts to the College of Arts and Sciences can help our students make the most of their college careers. To do this, CAS needs your support. Your contributions help us ensure that teaching, research, advising, mentoring, and support services are fully available to every student. Thank you!

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What’s Happening in CAS?

CAS goes to Hollywood! Peek behind the scenes with students who worked as interns on the set of an upcoming movie, and binge-watch hit shows and films featuring CAS faculty and alumni. Plus, hear from an alum who attended the world's biggest climate conference—and more!

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Undergraduate Studies

Wherever your academic goals eventually take you at the UO, all Ducks begin their journey with foundational courses in CAS. More than 60 percent of students go on to pursue a major in a CAS department or program. With more than 50 departments and programs, there’s an intellectual home for almost any interest, talent, or career aspiration.

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Graduate Studies

The College of Arts and Sciences offers more than 30 master's programs and more than 20 doctoral programs across a diverse range of disciplines. Both as contributors to research teams and through their own scholarship and teaching, our CAS graduate students are indispensable to the vitality of the UO academic mission.

Student Support Services

We provide our students with a variety of resources to help you thrive inside and outside the classroom. Through Tykeson Advising, we provide comprehensive academic and career advising from the start of your journey at the University of Oregon. Learn about career preparation and get assistance in selecting the very best classes. Connect with labs, libraries, IT and tutoring. Find your community on campus.

World-Class Faculty

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The College of Arts and Sciences faculty members are a driving force of the high-output, high-impact research activity that has earned the UO membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU). Our world-class faculty members are inspiring teachers.

Among them are five members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, four members of the National Academy of Sciences. They are committed to helping students discover their academic passion. Every day, they work to expand students’ intellectual horizons, preparing them for life after college with real-world knowledge and skills.

 

 

Spotlight on CAS Academics

Choose Your Path

The College of Arts and Sciences offers more than 50 majors and nearly 70 minors across multiple departments and programs in the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. We also offer 36 master’s programs and 25 doctoral programs.

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Meet our Dean

In the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), we are committed to excellence in research and teaching, student success, and diversity, equity, and belonging. 

A liberal arts education—one that offers a breadth of intellectual approaches and perspectives and depth in a major discipline—is the foundation to a purposeful life as a life-long learner, engaged citizen, and leader. The skills you will learn here—from written and verbal communication to analytical and quantitative reasoning, to compassion and understanding—are those that employers seek and will open the door to a wealth of opportunities. 

You will find more than 50 majors and a multitude of minors within CAS, and seemingly endless opportunities for personal exploration and discovery. Whether you are an incoming first-year student, a grad student or a transfer student, you can map an exciting future and be part of a fun, warm, engaged liberal arts community here. Come join us. And go Ducks! 

More from Dean Chris Poulsen

The College of Arts and Sciences includes:

50+
undergraduate degree programs
30+
masters programs
25
PhD programs
10,000+
Undergraduate students in CAS Majors
825
faculty members
1,295
masters and PhD students in CAS

Happening at CAS

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Feb 4
Department of History Coffee Hour 10:00 a.m.

Please join us Tuesday mornings for a free cup of coffee, pastries, and conversation with your history department community. We’re excited to continue this tradition for...
Department of History Coffee Hour
January 14–March 11
10:00–11:00 a.m.
McKenzie Hall 335

Please join us Tuesday mornings for a free cup of coffee, pastries, and conversation with your history department community. We’re excited to continue this tradition for our history undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff. We hope to see you there!

Feb 4
Patty Krawec: "Surviving Together" 4:00 p.m.

Presented by the Oregon Humanities Center Our world has become rife with peril and uncertainty. Indigenous writer Patty Krawec asks, “How do we survive everything that is...
Patty Krawec: "Surviving Together"
February 4
4:00 p.m.

Presented by the Oregon Humanities Center

Our world has become rife with peril and uncertainty. Indigenous writer Patty Krawec asks, “How do we survive everything that is happening? From climate change to polarizing politics to a seemingly endless cycle of displacement and erasure for modern-day land grabs, we live in a world that profits from instability and precarity. How do we survive? We survive not by drawing boundaries around ourselves and hoarding resources that must be expended to protect what will inevitably slip through our fingers. We survive by becoming kin. By remembering what it means to be related not only to each other but to the worlds around us. Revisiting our traditional stories, whatever those traditions may be, and re-imagining them in our contemporary world, can help us find new ways to see each other and forge the solidarities we need to survive.” 

As the 2024–25 Robert D. Clark lecturer Patty Krawec will give a talk titled “Surviving Together.”

Krawec is an Anishinaabe/Ukrainian writer and speaker belonging to the Lac Seul First Nation in Treaty 3 territory Canada. 

She is a founding director of the Nii’kinaaganaa (we are all related) Foundation which challenges settlers to pay rent for living on Indigenous land and disburses those funds to Indigenous people, meeting immediate survival needs as well as supporting the organizing and community building needed to address the structural issues that create those needs.

In her book, Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future (2022) Krawec critiques the harmful impact of European Christian settler colonialism on Indigenous Americans. She details Indigenous American history from the first humans to populate the Americas through the present and outlines ways in which descendants of European colonizers and Indigenous people can become ‘good relatives’. 

Krawec’s talk, part of this year’s “Re-imagine” series, is free and open to the public and will be livestreamed and recorded. Please register.

Feb 5
Cinema Studies in Dublin 4:00 p.m.

Join Global Education Oregon for an information session on our Summer 2025 Cinema Studies in Dublin program! This summer program is a fantastic opportunity to work both critically...
Cinema Studies in Dublin
February 5
4:00–5:00 p.m.
Fenton Hall 119

Join Global Education Oregon for an information session on our Summer 2025 Cinema Studies in Dublin program! This summer program is a fantastic opportunity to work both critically and creatively, taking courses on contemporary Irish cinema and digital filmmaking, as well as attending Ireland’s largest film festival held every year in Galway, the Film Fleadh. Weekly excursions and local outings in and around Dublin and the Irish countryside allow you to learn on location about the country’s rich film history and explore the sites where important historical events, and films about those events, took place.

This program has received high interest, and students are encouraged to apply early. The Cinema Studies in Dublin program is on a rolling admission application process, and the final deadline to apply in March 15.

Feb 5
Creative Writing Reading Series Presents: Peter Vertacnik 4:30 p.m.

The Creative Writing Program invites you to a poetry reading with Peter Vertacnik. Peter Vertacnik is the author of The Nature of Things Fragile (Criterion Books, 2024), winner...
Creative Writing Reading Series Presents: Peter Vertacnik
February 5
4:30 p.m.
Knight Library Browsing Room

The Creative Writing Program invites you to a poetry reading with Peter Vertacnik.

Peter Vertacnik is the author of The Nature of Things Fragile (Criterion Books, 2024), winner of the 2023 New Criterion Poetry Prize. His poetry, translations, and criticism have appeared in journals such as 32 Poems, Bad Lilies, The Cortland Review, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The Hopkins Review, Literary Matters, Poet Lore, and THINK, among others. With Chase Dearinger, Vertacnik is the co-director of the Cow Creek Chapbook Prize at Pittsburg State University. Currently he resides in northeast Florida where he teaches at Episcopal School of Jacksonville.  

Free and open to the public.

For more information about the Creative Writing Reading Series, please visit https://humanities.uoregon.edu/creative-writing/reading-series