Dr. Mary Cullinan

On Wednesday (May 9) the offices of the President and Provost hosted Campus Connections. This informal monthly get-together provides opportunities for sharing information, introducing new staff and faculty, and thanking people. Hosted by various deans and directors, recent Campus Connections have been wonderfully energetic and innovative, replete with films, music, and competitions.

Jim Klein and I were a bit more low tech. However, with John Stevenson providing technical assistance, we handed out clickers and quizzed attendees on interesting facts about SOU. With clickers, everyone can answer without embarrassment: we could just see in graphs what percentage of folks clicked the different options.

Almost everyone knew the topics of this year’s Distinguished Lectures, but almost no one knew that we’re now in the Frontier Conference for football. Only a handful knew that Nabokov wrote part of Lolita in Ashland, using our library archives, but many people knew we’re offering the UO’s Ed Leadership doctoral program on our campus.

With so much going on as we sprint toward the end of the year, it was great to get folks together, briefly celebrate our 140 years of history, and thank folks for all their hard work.

In Fall 2013, over 700 resident SOU students will move into beautiful new rooms. The huge residence hall and dining commons project is now officially underway. On this golden spring morning (April 27), we officially broke ground for the North Campus Village. It will be the largest construction project ever in Ashland.

The groundbreaking ceremony brought together SOU faculty, staff, and students as well as many of the folks who have made this public-private partnership come together—representatives from the Collegiate Housing Foundation, American Campus Communities, and Adroit Construction.  David West of our Native American Studies program provided a blessing.

Dignitaries included Ashland Mayor John Stromberg and Jackson County Commissioner Don Skundrick. We all donned hard hats and lifted golden shovels for the ceremonial breaking of ground.

The North Campus Village will be an extraordinary addition to our beautiful campus. Students are already asking if they can reserve rooms for Fall 2013!

Two excellent events today (April 26) highlighted student achievements—and the folks who help provide support.

At lunch in the Plunkett Center, we celebrated students who have received scholarships from the Patricia D. and William B. Smullin Foundation.

Patsy Smullin was there to meet our Smullin Scholars: Torrey Johnson (Outdoor Adventure Leadership), Morgan Lycett (Business), Anastasiya Andreyeva (Education), and Chas Barnard (Music). Smullin Scholars are chosen because they’re successful, dedicated, ambitious, and hard working. These students were also filled with stories of travel and plans for the future. Each of them is going to make a difference in the world!

In the afternoon, I visited the annual Alternative Spring Break Sharing Session. At this event, students speak about the work they did on their ASB trips and thank the folks who provide financial support for the trip. ASB is a significant annual experience for SOU: it embodies our commitment to civic engagement and to helping our students become productive global citizens. This spring students traveled to Gold Beach, Sacramento, and Guatemala. Pastor Tim Cartwright (pictured here) from Grace Lutheran Church is always a great supporter of ASB.

With help from community members such as Tim and from philanthropic organizations such as the Smullin Foundation, SOU students are able to achieve amazing dreams.

On Saturday and Sunday (April 21-22), sunshine warmed the Rogue Valley. It was a great weekend for biking, gardening, running, golfing—or just walking around smiling and enjoying the outdoors.

The SOU softball team (in action above) was in LaGrande, sweeping the EOU Mountaineers. Back in Ashland, the SOU campus was alive. The Music Recital Hall was booked with events, and the Oregon Student Association met on campus.

On Saturday, we hosted the second annual Latino Family Day. I was delighted to welcome a large group of families who were here to become acquainted with our campus. Our faculty, staff, and students answered questions, gave tours, and offered sessions in Spanish to help ensure that families were engaged and that students would be ready to come to SOU when they leave high school.

I was particularly happy to see that many of the participating families were from the Phoenix-Talent school district, where we have developed our Pirates-to-Raiders partnership.

Kudos, as always, to Jon Chavez Baez, Alma Rosa Alvarez, and others who spent that gorgeous Saturday helping kids and families learn about the road that leads to a university education.

On Wednesday (April 18), people from on and off campus filled the Meese Room to attend this spring’s Distinguished Lecture. Dr. Mark Tveskov, SOU Professor of Anthropology, spoke about the archaeological research that he and his students and colleagues have been doing at Fort Lane, north of Jacksonville.

In a fast-moving hour, Dr. Tveskov also presented a fascinating overview of the historical impact of the fort and the ways it affected local indigenous people, settlers, and the soldiers, most of whom had journeyed to Oregon from the East Coast.

Entitled “Myth, Memory, and Identity: Fort Lane and the Rogue River Wars,” the talk enabled us to glimpse archaeological work―tracing the origins of artifacts such as buttons, pipes, and the detritus of everyday life at the fort―and to gain insights into the varying implications of European-American settlement, the Gold Rush, and federal policy on this small but strategically located plot of land in southern Oregon.

Click here to watch the speech, recorded live

On Monday (April 9) I updated the campus on the challenges we face and the exciting events and achievements of this spring term.

Challenges in Oregon tend to be about financial support as the state continues to disinvest in higher education and we strive to keep tuition affordable. The inspirational events range from a recent $1M gift from the Osher Foundation for scholarships to great news from students who are being accepted into prestigious graduate programs and summer internships.

Our news this year is framed by our 140^th anniversary. As we hurtle toward the end of another academic year, we should remember the journey this institution has traveled since 1872. It has been a long and winding road. However, it has also been an inspiring journey–from the days of Ashland Academy to this impressive modern institution with over 6,000 students in Ashland and Medford.

It’s a joy every day to be part of the journey.

The Rogue River Room was crowded this afternoon (March 22) with representatives of local services clubs, including AAUW, Soroptimists, Kiwanis, Lions, and two Rotary Clubs; all gathered for the 39^th Annual Ashland Service Clubs’ Lunch. I’m always delighted that these folks come together on the SOU campus to share the good work they’re doing in our community.

This is a great opportunity to catch up with friends and learn about the myriad ways to support worthy causes in our region.

I appreciate, also, having an opportunity to update our luncheon guests on the progress of SOU, from record enrollments to our new residence hall project and upcoming lectures and events.

I was particularly pleased to tell the crowd that our students are as dedicated as our guests to the values of community service. Last year over 5,000 SOU students participated in service activities. For the fifth year in a row, SOU has been named to the President’s Honors Roll for civic engagement.

Photo by RWBalzer

This past weekend (January 14-15) I had the opportunity to see our students perform brilliantly in athletics and in the arts.

On Saturday night, I attended a wrestling match between SOU and Pacific University in the Bob Riehm Arena. I admit to knowing very little about wrestling—I was glad the program included rules and scoring as well as stats—but it was easy to see how athletic and proficient the SOU wrestlers are. From light to heavyweight, SOU dominated.

SOU’s rivalry with Pacific goes back over fifty years; this was our eighteenth consecutive victory (an impressive 41-3). Bob Riehm was there in person (as he often is), so it was particularly exciting that our wrestling stars were so successful.

On Sunday afternoon I enjoyed stars of another kind in the Music Recital Hall. The concert highlighted three students who have been supported by scholarships donated through Chamber Music Concerts. Mitchell Hansen (horn), Lisa Nichols (flute) , and Jamie Krull (saxophone), accompanied by Jodi French on piano, showed professional aplomb as well as technical expertise and emotional nuance in works by Beethoven, Paul Taffanel, and Paule Maurice. Even though the wintry weather was a bit daunting, a good crowd gathered to enjoy our students’ performances.

At both events, it was inspiring and heartening to see faculty, staff, and students as well as community members coming out to support and applaud our students’ talent and hard work.

This weekend (November 18-20) presented four opportunities to see The Caucasian Chalk Circle in the Center Stage Theatre. Putting Bertolt Brecht’s works on stage can never be easy. This play is particularly challenging as it melds realistic and often violent scenes with musical pieces and the conventions of myth and fable.

Director Michael Hume, who has directed for SOU in the past and is a long-time company member of OSF, set the production during the bloody Pol Pot regime in Cambodia rather than in the Russia of Brecht’s original play. The setting enabled the production to include stage sets, music, and dance movements evocative of Southeast Asia while also calling to mind a tragic era familiar to modern audiences.

The production included a number of demanding roles that highlighted the dramatic, musical, and even comic skills of our student actors. Kudos to everyone involved.

If you didn’t get to one of the SOU plays this term, mark your calendars for winter and spring productions!

May 22, 1856 The Caning of Senator Charles Sumner - click the image for the full story

On Thursday evening (November 17), a crowd gathered in the Meese Auditorium to learn about and discuss the concept of civility—our campus theme—and how it applies to our daily lives.

Jon Lange, from the Department of Communication, Ed Battistella, from Language, Literature, and Philosophy, and Jeffrey LaLande, an historian and U.S. Forest Service retiree, spoke to engaged and attentive listeners. Each from a slightly different perspective, presentations touched on the linguistic history and connotations of the word civility as well as watershed moments in American history, both distant and recent, when civility has been embraced or abandoned.

Although we all may perceive deterioration of civility throughout our culture in recent years, the panelists reminded us of days when members of Congress attacked each other physically and disagreements could lead to duels rather than lawsuits. Discussion after the presentations ranged from issues regarding television, talk radio, and Baby Boomers to questions of when some incivility might actually be appropriate.

It was a lively, enlightening, and definitely civil exchange of ideas and viewpoints—reminding us all yet again of the importance of a liberal arts education in maintaining a civil society.

Dr. Diana Maltz stands beside the poster for her lecture.

On Wednesday (November 9), we held the first Distinguished Lecture of the academic year. The Distinguished Lectures Series highlights the work being done by SOU faculty. All across campus, our faculty are doing great things—creating art, discovering new species, working on projects that benefit our environment and communities. The Distinguished Lecture Series provides insights into some of this wonderful work.

On Wednesday, we heard from Professor Diana Maltz, Chair of the Department of Language, Literature and Philosophy. Her talk, titled “Simple, Beautiful, New: Counterculture in Britain, 1890-1910,” examined a trend in late Victorian England that seems very familiar today: people getting back to the land, wearing comfortable clothes, and eating a vegetarian diet.

Such values, common today, were revolutionary in the England of 1890 when the middle and upper classes typically wore painful and constricting clothing, lived in ornate and cluttered rooms, and ate a diet relying heavily on meat. The focus on what we might now call “new age” values influenced writers as diverse as George Bernard Shaw and George Orwell.

Dr. Maltz introduced her audience to utopian communities as well as writers and thinkers most of us were unaware of. And she reminded us that, really, nothing is new under the sun.

The room was packed at Talent Middle School on the evening of October 22 as students and their families came to learn about “Pirates to Raiders,” a new partnership designed to open doors for Hispanic students.

The program forms an alliance with eighth-grade students, their families, the Phoenix-Talent School district, and SOU. Each member of the partnership agrees to participate in ensuring that these students take all the right steps over the next five years. If they do, they will be accepted to SOU.

Families are an integral part of Pirates to Raiders. They pledge to make sure their children regularly attend school; they support their students’ academic progress, attend Pirates to Raiders events with them, and ensure students complete the program.

SOU and the school district provide mentorship, access to scholarship and financial aid information, transportation to Pirates to Raiders events, and opportunities for students to learn about the university.

On that Thursday evening, students listened attentively as current SOU students spoke to them in Spanish about why coming to SOU has been so important to them and what goals they hope to reach.

I am very hopeful that the Pirates to Raiders program will be an inspiration and a gateway for students.

On Wednesday (November 2), the SOU Development folks put on a fun thank-you bash for SOU faculty and staff who have donated to the university over the years. Our own John Stevenson and his spouse Anna played their greatest hits, and guests enjoyed a lovely spread donated by Sodexo. A number of SOU Foundation Board members joined us, as did some alumni and retired faculty.

These photos capture a few of the festive moments as we celebrated the generosity of our university community.

The Art Affair is a delightful annual event that brings university and community members together to support SOU’s Schneider Museum of Art. This year’s event, on September 9, was particularly memorable as we celebrated the museum’s 25^th anniversary. Dining and dancing in the museum itself, we also honored descendants of Bill and Florence Schneider, who were instrumental in fundraising for our Center for the Visual Arts.  These are photos from that lovely evening.

It was a gorgeous fall weekend (September 24-25)—and a winning weekend for SOU athletics. On Friday night the stands were packed with supporters in red for the volleyball game against the Northwest Eagles. After a disappointing first match, the Raiders came back to win the next three sets. Each match was tight; it wasn’t until the last one that SOU players really got into their stride and took over the court, beating the Eagles 25-18.

Michael Springer clinched the win with his interception in the final 10 seconds. Photo RW Balzer

Natalie Scheller finished with 10 kills and a .714 attack percentage: Photo by RW Balzer

The energy in the stands was terrific at that game and also at the football game against the Webber International Warriors on Saturday. The Raiders scored early and maintained the lead throughout—though they spent a good part of the game in defensive mode. The Raiders are 1-3 overall right now, but there are good signs of a strong team emerging as we move through the season.

The SOU volleyball team came back Saturday night to sweep the Evergreen Geoducks decisively in three straight matches. The Raiders are now ranked 18^th nationally.

With students back on campus, fall in the air, and wonderful team spirit, it was a great weekend!