SOU Solar Power Industry

Outlook is sunny for solar at SOU

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NEWS RELEASE
(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University’s solar power prospects will become considerably brighter this fall, with the installations of three new photovoltaic arrays and a 57 percent increase in generating capacity.

“It’s a unique and thrilling opportunity to have three solar arrays being installed this year, furthering SOU’s commitment to implementing sustainable solutions,” said Roxane Beigel-Coryell, SOU’s sustainability and recycling coordinator. “Increasing the university’s solar energy resources is a crucial step to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support Ashland’s renewable energy generation goals.”

Expanding solar energy production on campus is one of the many strategies SOU is pursuing to reduce its environmental impacts and build a better university for the future. The university is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

After this fall’s solar projects are completed, SOU will have eight arrays on seven buildings with total capacity of 391.45 kilowatts. The anticipated solar energy generation will increase 57 percent to 535,665 kilowatt hours per year, from the current 340,700 kilowatt hours.

The first new solar installation is scheduled to take place on Thursday, when 68 photovoltaic panels are placed on the new Student Recreation Center’s storage building. The array, funded by the SRC and the university’s Outdoor Adventure Leadership Program, will have a 23.8 kilowatt capacity. Its output will be fed back into the electrical grid and credited to SOU’s accounts, reducing the university’s utility bills.

Next up will be a 180-panel installation on the Student Recreation Center, which is expected to start Oct. 1 and wrap up in November. That array, with a 63 kilowatt capacity, is funded by the combined SRC and Lithia Motors Pavilion construction project. The power it produces will be fed directly into the SRC, reducing the building’s utility bills.

The third project will be at the university’s Hannon Library, where 159 panels with a generating capacity of 55.65 kilowatts will be installed in the late fall and early winter. That array will be funded by the Associated Students of Southern Oregon University’s Green Fund, and the student government organization will be paid by the university for the electrical power that will be fed directly into the library.

“The solar (array) being installed on the library is especially exciting because it’s made possible through a unique funding model proposed by SOU students,” Beigel-Coryell said. “This project, funded by SOU students, will provide the university with more renewable energy generation while providing the student Green Fund with revenue each year to fund more sustainable projects on campus.

“We haven’t seen this particular funding structure used on any campuses yet and we hope to serve as a model for other schools to leverage available resources to implement renewable energy projects and provide revenue for sustainable solutions.”

SOU’s first solar installation was a 24-panel, 6 kilowatt array that was placed on Hannon Library in 2000 and it still generating electricity at 70 to 80 percent efficiency. The university also has arrays on the Higher Education Center in Medford (56 kilowatts), the Stevenson Union (31.59 kilowatts), and the McLoughlin (73.7 kilowatts) and Shasta (82.5 kilowatts) residence halls.

-SOU-

SOU Golf Benefit

Lithia/Raider Club Golf Shootout nets fundraising record

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The 28th annual Lithia/Raider Club Golf Shootout turned in another record outing last Thursday, bringing in over $450,000 to help SOU student-athletes.

The tournament, held at the Rogue Valley Country Club in Medford, featured 54 fivesomes and sponsors. A record 24 companies reached out as major sponsors this year, with each contributing $12,500 to the event.

The major sponsors included Lithia Motors, The Partners Group, CARFAX, Cars.com, Edmunds, Wells Fargo, US Bank Dealer Services, PermaPlate, Chrysler Capital, MAXDigital, JP Morgan Chase, Cox Auto, Toyota Financial, CDK Global, Enterprise, Axalta Coating Systems, TD Auto Finance, Assurant, Ally, American Credit Acceptance, Exxonmobile, ELeads1, Central States and Autopoint.

The event has doubled in funds raised for SOU Athletics since 2012, and has totaled nearly $2.5 million during that time frame.

Tournament results: https://bit.ly/2MHZZx0.

SOU Health and Wellness Center

SOU’s annual Employee Health and Wellness Fair coming Sept. 26

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SOU’s annual Employee Health and Wellness Fair will be presented from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 26, downstairs at the Stevenson Union. The fair includes the university’s yearly flu shot clinic.

Those who attend will be eligible for raffles, with various prizes provided by vendors at the event.

All employees are encouraged to participate in the once-per-year opportunity to connect with representatives of insurance plans through Providence, Moda, Willamette Dental, VSP (vision) and The Standard (life).

There will be investment and retirement planning specialists from TIAA-CREF, Fidelity and the Oregon Public Universities Retirement Plans. The OPURP representatives will answer questions about both the Optional Retirement Plan (ORP), which is a 401(a) plan, and the TDI 403(b) plan.

Information will also be available about programs including Healthy Team Healthy U, Weight Watchers and the Cascade Centers employee assistance program (EAP); the Rogue Valley Transportation District; the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); and the Association of Professors, Southern Oregon University (APSOU).

The free flu shot clinic, for employees currently covered under an SOU medical insurance plan, will  be located in the front of the student union’s Arena Room.

SOU LGBTQ Pride

SOU earns top Campus Pride ranking for LGBTQ-friendliness

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NEWS RELEASE
(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University has been recognized by Campus Pride for the sixth year in a row as one of the nation’s Top 30 LGBTQ-Friendly Colleges and Universities.

Campus Pride is a nonprofit that supports and improves campus life for LGBTQ people on more than 1,400 U.S. campuses. The Campus Pride list is considered the most reliable list of LGBTQ-friendly colleges and universities.

SOU earned five out of five stars on the Campus Pride Index, which ranks universities in each of eight categories: policy inclusion, support and institutional commitment, academic life, student life, housing and residence life, campus safety, counseling and health, and recruitment and retention efforts. SOU drew five-star rankings in six of the categories and four-and-a-half stars in the other two.

Thomas Arce, coordinator of SOU’s Queer Resource Center, said the recognition from Campus Pride is a testament to equity and inclusion efforts throughout the university.

“Southern Oregon University’s commitment to LGBTQ+ student success is unparalleled,” Arce said. “That includes living in the residence halls, accessing health and wellness resources, finding a community to befriend, studying queer and feminist scholars, and simply thriving in an inclusive and affirming campus environment, where it’s OK to be one’s authentic self.

“I’m grateful to be part of the many collaborative ventures with students, faculty and staff to make the LGBTQ+ experience at SOU prideful.”

SOU was also named as one the of the nation’s top LGBTQ-friendly universities by Affordable Colleges Online in 2018, with special recognition given to the Queer Resource Center and the university’s gender-inclusive housing.

The Campus Pride list of the top 30 LGBTQ-friendly colleges and universities included three Oregon institutions: SOU, the University of Oregon and Portland State University. Only three other states – New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – had three colleges or universities on this year’s list.

Arce said that some of the activities and services that make SOU stand out as welcoming to LGBTQ students are the presence of sexual orientation and gender identity in the university’s non-discrimination policy; gender-inclusive housing options; the stand-alone Queer Resource Center; and LGBTQ-related academic offerings through the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Program. SOU also participates in LGBTQ-specific college fairs and its counseling and health staff provide queer- and trans-friendly services.

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SOU Adams songbirdsongs Caballito Negro

Caballito Negro & Friends perform John Luther Adams’ “songbirdsongs”

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NEWS RELEASE
(Ashland, Ore.) — Caballito Negro (flutist Tessa Brinckman and percussionist Terry Longshore) along with their guest artists, flutist Elizabeth McNutt and percussionists Chris Whyte and Jared Brown, will perform “songbirdsongs” by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29, at the SOU Music Recital Hall.

The concert is free for full-time students and SOU faculty,$5 for seniors 65 and older, and $10 for regular admission.

“songbirdsongs,” an epic poem to wilderness, is a collection of indeterminate miniature pieces for piccolos, ocarinas and percussion, based on free translations of bird songs.

“These small songs are echoes of rare moments and places where the voices of birds have been clear and I have been quiet enough to hear,” Adams writes. “This music is not literal transcription. It is translation. These melodies and rhythms are not so much constructed artifacts as they are spontaneous affirmations.

“No one has yet explained why the free songs of birds are so simply beautiful. And what do they say? What are their meanings? We may never know. But beyond the realm of ideas and emotions, language and sense, we just may hear something of their essence.”

Adams is an American composer whose music is inspired by nature – especially the landscapes of Alaska, where he lived from 1978 to 2014. His orchestral work, “Become Ocean,” was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Caballito Negro performs intercultural work in a fearless, ecstatic blend of modern and traditional aesthetics. Inspired by Federico García Lorca’s poem, Canción de Jinete (1860), flutist Tessa Brinckman and percussionist Terry Longshore collaborate with many prominent, innovative artists, creating contemporary music that pushes the flute and percussion repertoire to new heights, and always in the spirit of duende. For more information go to caballitonegro.com

Flutist Elizabeth McNutt in on the faculty of the University of North Texas and is the director of the Sounds Modern series at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Chris Whyte is on the faculty of Portland State University and Western Oregon University, and is a member of the Portland Percussion Group. Jared Brown is the director of the Oregon Fringe Festival, and is an active composer and performer.

-OCA at SOU-

SOU Mt Ashland ECOS

Save the Date: Raiders volunteer @ Mt. Ashland Oct. 6

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ECOS — the Ecology and Sustainability Resource Center — is hosting its third annual SOU Day of Service at Mt. Ashland, and the Oct. 3 date is rapidly approaching.

The clean-up, spruce-up is SOU’s largest off-campus day of service and the entire SOU community is invited to participate. All volunteers will receive a free t-shirt, a free lunch and free transportation to and from the mountain.

The day of stewardship will help care for the slopes and buildings of the local not-for-profit Mt. Ashland Ski Area. Service work will include helping with erosion mitigation, clearing brush from slopes, indoor lodge work and maintenance, and removing trash from the slopes before the snow flies.

Project work will be available for a variety of abilities and interests.

Questions? Email Jill Smedstad, Environmental and Community Engagement Coordinator at smedstadj@sou.edu.

SOU Schneider Museum

Fall exhibitions at SOU’s Schneider Museum

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NEWS RELEASE

(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University’s Schneider Museum of Art has announced the opening of its Fall Exhibition, “Terrain: The Space Between from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation.” The work is curated by SMA Director Scott Malbaurn, and includes work by Vija Celmins, Judy Pfaff and Ed Ruscha, on view in the museum’s Entry Gallery through Jan. 5.

The exhibition’s opening reception will be from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 27, at SOU’s Schneider Museum of Art.

“The Schneider Museum of Art continues to curate exciting exhibitions of some of the most important artists of our time,” said Jordan D. Schnitzer, President of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. “The artists on view encourage patrons to think about the space and time in our lives. This is our fifth exhibit at the Schneider and we look forward to continuing our partnership in the future.”

Exhibition Essay Excerpts by Elizabeth Walborn
Ed Ruscha, Judy Pfaff and Vija Celmins have vast differences in artistic styles, but they share a similar appreciation in the spaces between.

  • The space between the viewer, the black redaction marks and the landscape in Ruscha’s “Country Cityscapes: It’s Payback Time” (1991) leaves a question of what is blocked out – not only the words, but the scenery behind it. One is caught between wanting to know what is more important; what lies behind the large marks or the reasons behind marking the image.
  • In Pfaff’s “End of the Rain” (C) (2000), the space between the viewer and the blue house creates a feeling of driving along an abandoned country road and spying an old home across the lake.
  • The lack of space between the viewer and the waves in Celmins’ “Ocean with Cross #1” (2005) creates a loss of horizon and a direct plain of existence, leaving the spectator in a state of alarm.

About the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
Jordan D. Schnitzer bought his first work of art from his mother’s Portland contemporary art gallery at age 14, starting his lifelong avocation as a collector. He began collecting contemporary prints and multiples in earnest in 1988. The collection now exceeds 13,000 works and includes many of today’s most important contemporary artists. It has grown to be one of the country’s largest private collections. He generously lends work from his collection to qualified institutions. The Foundation has organized over 160 exhibitions and has had art exhibited at over 100 museums.

Schnitzer is also president of Harsch Investment Properties, a privately-owned and Portland-based real estate investment company that owns and manages office, multi-tenant industrial, multi-family and retail properties in six Western states. For more information about the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, please visit jordanschnitzer.org.

About the Schneider Museum of Art
The Schneider Museum of Art, part of the Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU, is a vital force in the intellectual life of SOU that promotes an understanding of the visual arts within a liberal arts education. Serving both an academic and community audience, it builds a challenging environment that engages with the visual arts through exhibitions and programs supporting interdisciplinary study, research and discourse. Visit sma.sou.edu.