ROSE (roz) n. One of the most beautiful of all flowers, a symbol of fragrance and loveliness. Often given as a sign of appreciation.

RASPBERRY (raz'ber'e) n. A sharp, scornful comment, criticism or rebuke; a derisive, splatting noise, often called the Bronx cheer.

We hereby deliver:

• ROSES to volunteers who gave up their Saturday last week to pick up trash, weed playgrounds, trim trees, spruce up trails and even attack thorny blackberry thickets on the final day of the 10th annual "Down by the Riverside" weeklong cleanup, sponsored by SOLV.

Once titled Stop Oregon Litter and Vandalism, SOLV has kept its acronym but changed and expanded what it stands for. Now, SOLV volunteers attack stands of noxious weeds that take over and nullify natural ecosystems, remove dump sites, conduct a twice-annual beach clean up and plant vegetable and flower gardens in schoolyards, among other things.

Their work last weekend yielded weighty results: Volunteers removed 1.2 million pounds of trash and 4 million pounds of invasive weed species (such as blackberry) and natural debris from around the state.

• RASPBERRIES to Gregory Vincent, the University of Oregon's vice-provost for institutional equality and diversity, for setting a controversy on fire over a five-year diversity program plan for UO that borders on dictatorial in scope — then leaving.

Vincent headed up the committee that came up with the plan, which would award everything from tenure to program funding based on how well applicants met "cultural competency" standard. The plan also calls for requiring engineering admissions to ensure that a set percentage of the student body to represents a certain ethnic, racial or cultural demographic. A "gender and sexuality" requirement could be added to graduation criteria. The draft diversity plan is available for review at http://vpdiversity.uoregon.edu/.

The plan may simply be starting out with its most aggressive foot first, but many of its provisions already have stepped on the toes and raised a ruckus at the university with its call for "hiring 40 faculty members by 2012 to teach courses in a ‘cluster' of diversity-related topics," among them gender, race, gay and disability studies.

Many faculty members who support formalizing and organizing diversity curriculum to prepare students for an increasingly global academic setting nevertheless balk at how this plan, if implemented as written, would pervade and control many aspects of academic life.

Vincent doesn't have to worry about that, however. After setting off this red-hot debate, he announced last week that he was leaving to assume a similar post at the University of Texas in Austin.

At least his departure gives the university the perfect opportunity to announce that it is going to rethink its diversity plan in favor of one that replaces suspicion, confrontation and control with information, communication and cooperation.

• ROSES to Oregon's sudden summer. Just when we'd started considering surrendering to the battalions of slugs that inhabit the garden, had resigned ourselves to a mildewy umbrella that never really dries out, and remained bemused about whether the rain had drowned out the drought — Wednesday dawned with summer.

True, it was too hot Wednesday and Thursday to be ideal, but those lucky enough to enjoy to get outside enjoyed a western Oregon landscape vibrant with wild roses, blue skies and fully emerged foliage so bright-green that we had to wear shades.

Back came color and scent and warm air.

With the possible exception of pollen sufferers, we can't think of a population luckier with their surroundings than mid-valley residents looking forward to the three-day weekend that means — three weeks early — "Summer's here!"

• RASPBERRIES to six former Oregon colleagues of Dr. Jayant "Jay" Patel, 56, who recently was dubbed "Dr. Death" by the Australian media because 87 of his patients have from complications in the two years that he worked as a surgeon in a Queensland hospital. But then, patients dying in droves is nothing new for Patel, whose fatality rate more resembled that of a serial killer than a surgeon.

Patel practiced in Oregon from 1989 to 2000 at Portland's Kaiser Permanente hospital, when his practice was restricted here statewide because of the high rate of complications and death among Patel's patients. The Oregon Board of Medical Examiners finally restricted Patel's practice statewide in 2000. Undaunted, Patel left Oregon, armed with six glowing letters of references from his former colleagues.

Patel moved in 2003 to Australia and sought to hand out his shingle again. The Medical Board of Queensland failed to check Patel's dismal medical history in New York and Oregon, relying heavily on the letters of recommendation from those Oregon doctors who wrote them seven months after the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners restricted Patel's practice.

The word again was proved to be more powerful than the sword and, where Patel is concerned, just as lethal.

• ROSES to Samaritan Albany General, for combining technology and compassion so that military personnel deployed on assignment around the world can tune in to a program they would never want to miss: The birth of a child.

The hospital has installed a live video-fed system so that faraway dads can see their babies born in an Albany delivery room.

The hospital's information technology supervisor came up with the idea, and it took a year and a lot of paperwork to pull it off. Those who want the video service need to let the hospital know a few months in advance, but we agree with hospital personnel: It's worth the trouble.