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SOU president urges support following national tragedies

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Southern Oregon University President Linda Schott called upon the campus community today to support one another in the wake of hate-motivated shootings during the past week in a Pittsburgh synagogue and at a Kentucky grocery store.

“These and other acts of targeted violence leave us all feeling raw, and more reliant than ever on the supportive environment that we nurture here at SOU,” the president said.

The university’s Student Support Network will host a community gathering to remember victims of the Pittsburgh and Kentucky shootings from 5 to 6 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 1, in the Stevenson Union’s Guanajuato Room. Representatives of several programs on campus will be present to support those in need, and light refreshments will be served.

“It is our responsibility as an institution of higher education to serve, during times such as these, as a beacon of understanding, unity and inclusion,” Schott said. “We must pick each other up, build upon our shared beliefs and embrace our differences.”

Rabbi Julie Benioff of Ashland’s Temple Emek Shalom has offered to make herself available to Jewish or other SOU students and employees who want to talk about the recent tragedies. She can be reached through her office at (541) 488-2902. The Temple, at 1800 E. Main St., will also hold a healing and memorial service at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 3.

SOU students can visit or call the university’s Student Health and Wellness Center at (541) 552-6136 to schedule time with counselors. Assistance is also available from the Office of Student Support and Intervention at (541) 552-6223, or at Room 321 of the Stevenson Union.

All SOU employees are eligible to seek guidance from the university’s employee assistance program, Cascade Centers, by calling (800) 433-2320 or visiting the organization’s website at cascadecenters.com.

“I urge each of you to listen as your friends, colleagues and acquaintances share their thoughts,” President Schott said. “We can help each other through events such as these by showing compassion and striving to understand the feelings of those around us.”

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Piano master Jerome Rose to perform in SOU’s Tutunov Series

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SOU’s Tutunov Piano Series will host a master of the piano on Friday, Nov. 2, when Jerome Rose – who has been hailed as “the last romantic of our own age” – graces the Music Recital Hall stage.

Rose will perform selections from Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin in a performance of about 90 minutes, with a 15-minute intermission.

He is one of America’s most distinguished pianists, having played in major concert halls across five continents and studied under the late Austrian-American pianist Adolph Baller. Rose is a frequent performer at the Toho Conservatory of Music in Tokyo, Japan.

Admission to the SOU performance is free for full-time students of any school. Tickets are $20 regularly, and $5 for Oregon Trail Card Holders. Students and Oregon Trail Card Holders must purchase their tickets in person and show appropriate ID.

Tickets can also be purchased online at oca.sou.edu/box-office, by calling (541) 552-6348, or by stopping at the OCA Box Office. The Box Office is open Monday through Friday, noon to five. Visa and Mastercard are accepted.

Rose had his debut with the San Francisco Symphony at age 15 and began teaching when he was 25. He is a graduate of Mannes College and Juilliard School of Music, and is currently on the faculty of Mannes College of Music.

Rose also founded the International Keyboard Institute and Festival in 1999. The summer music academy at New York’s Hunter College attracts some of the world’s top piano students and is staffed by world-class piano faculty and performing artists. The festival hosts the Dorothy Mackenzie Piano Competition, with winners awarded international performing and recording opportunities.

Parking on the evening of the SOU performance will be free in the university lot on South Mountain Avenue and Henry Street. Contact the Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU Box Office with any questions, at (541) 552-6348 or oca.sou.edu/box-office.

Story by Bryn Mosier, SOU Marketing and Communications intern

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SOU and city of Ashland respond to cougar sightings

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Southern Oregon University and the city of Ashland are working with state and federal wildlife officials to ensure safety on the SOU campus and in the community following multiple cougar sightings and confrontations Sunday night and this morning.

The Ashland Police Department will respond promptly to future cougar sightings, with officers’ actions based on immediate danger to humans or domesticated animals. Factors may include whether the sightings occur at night or during the day, when the animals aren’t typically seen.

Students leaving SOU’s Hannon Library at about 10:30 p.m. Sunday reported seeing a cougar. Ashland Police and SOU Campus Public Safety officers responded and were able to scare away a small cougar they found just outside the library.

A larger cougar was then located outside the nearby Susanne Homes building, and it reacted menacingly to the officers’ attempts to scare it away. The Ashland Police officers got authorization from Chief Tighe O’Meara and fired a shot at the cougar after ensuring the shot would not endanger anyone. The cougar apparently was not hit and ran from the area. However, another resident reported being confronted by a cougar on the SOU campus at about 6:15 a.m. today.

“Our university and community have deep respect for the wildlife with which we share this beautiful region,” SOU President Linda Schott said. “We balance that respect with our obligation to provide a safe campus environment, and we are grateful to be addressing this safety concern in partnership with the city as well as state and federal partners.”

An Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife officer confirmed during a meeting today with city and university representatives that the actions of the cougar outside Susanne Homes on Sunday night justified the shot being fired by police. A trapper from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also attended the meeting and said traps could be set near confirmed cougar sighting areas, but results are not typically positive in urban areas.

The sightings Sunday night and this morning follow a rash of reports over the past week of cougars close to downtown Ashland, near the downtown fire station and the Safeway Store, and in Lithia Park. There have been multiple reports in recent weeks of deer being killed by cougars in Ashland’s neighborhoods.

Ashland Police and SOU’s Campus Public Safety recommend walking with other people and being aware of your surroundings when outdoors at night. If confronted by a cougar, make yourself look large, yell and back away slowly – but do not run.

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Ignorance and Wisdom: Presentation kicks off SOU’s Campus Theme

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The 11th year of SOU’s Campus Theme will kick off at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 30, with the presentation, “Ignorance, Wisdom and the Etymological Fallacy,” by English Professor Edwin Battistella.

The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be in Room 319 of the Stevenson Union.

This year’s Campus Theme – “Ignorance and Wisdom” – will explore those two concepts and their relationships. The university adopts at theme each year for a series of lectures and discussions. Last year’s was “Truth,” and the previous year was “Shapes of Curiosity.” The series each year creates opportunities for students, faculty, staff and community members to engage in intellectually stimulating conversations.

Tuesday’s talk will focus on what can be learned from the history of words. Battistella’s interactive presentation will look specifically at the history and development of the words “ignorance” and “wisdom,” the limits of word history and the mechanism of semantic change. He will also explore techniques to study and pin down the meanings of those and other similar words.

SOU faculty members are asked to encourage their students to attend the presentation.

Battistella, who earned his doctorate in linguistics from the City University of New York, teaches linguistics and writing at SOU. His work has appeared in the Huffington Post, Politico, Oregon Humanities and the Oregonian. He is the author most recently of “Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology,” published in 2014 by Oxford University Press.

Battistella is also on the editorial board of “The Oregon Encyclopedia” and is the co-editor-in-chief of journal “Language and Linguistics Compass.”

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SOU president draws line on side of inclusion

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SOU President Linda Schott reassured the campus community today that the university will not waver in its commitment to inclusion, equal rights and opportunities for all, despite recent discussions at the federal level regarding the definition of gender.

“We will always welcome, value, support and protect all students and prospective students – regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, immigration status, nationality, religious affiliation or political persuasion,” the president said. “That includes all who identify as transgender or non-binary.”

Recent news reports indicate that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is leading an effort to establish a legal definition of gender under Title IX – the civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination at educational institutions receiving federal funding. The department is pushing for a gender definition based narrowly on biological traits, reversing protections established over the past several years by courts and administrative rule-making.

Separately, the Department of Justice argued in a brief submitted this week to the U.S. Supreme Court that civil rights laws banning sex discrimination in the workplace do not extend to transgender people – again, based on the definition of “sex.”

President Schott said in a message to campus on Friday that inclusion and diversity are vital elements of the SOU identity, and the current debates “will not change who we are or the values that define us.”

“Our university steadfastly supports the rights of each member of our campus community – and the estimated 1.4 million Americans who recognize themselves as a gender other than the one that their biology indicates – to be valued as individuals with their own particular characteristics,” Schott said.

The standards of equity, inclusion and diversity are mentioned prominently throughout SOU’s new Vision, Mission and Values. One of the seven strategic directions that were identified in the university’s recent strategic planning process outlines the goals of replacing systemic barriers with equitable processes, establishing pathways that support the success of those from underrepresented backgrounds and preparing all learners – regardless of background, identity and position – to thrive in a diverse world.

“Whatever the eventual outcome may be at the federal level, I assure you that equity and inclusion will remain unassailable principles at SOU,” the president said. “Under any definition of gender, equal protection and equal rights will always apply to every student, prospective student and employee at this university.”

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SOU’s Left Edge Percussion presents world premiere of Tower Music

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Terry Longshore will lead SOU’s Left Edge Percussion in the premiere of New York composer Joseph Bertolozzi’s percussion arrangement of “Tower Music.” The work features 82 percussion instruments played by five performers, and will premiere Nov. 8 at the university’s Music Recital Hall.

Left Edge Percussion is a contemporary percussion group in residence at SOU’s Oregon Center for the Arts.

The idea behind “Tower Music” grew out of Bertolozzi’s “Bronze Collection” project for solo percussion. He reasoned that everything vibrates and drummers like to bang on things, so why not play the Eiffel Tower?

Never thinking he would get permission to drum on the iconic French tower but liking the concept, Bertolozzi first sought approval from the New York State Bridge Authority to create another piece, “Bridge Music,” on the Mid-Hudson Bridge.

“I didn’t think I’d get permission for that either, but at least I didn’t have to learn French just to ask,” he said.

“Bridge Music” is now in its 9th year as a public sound art installation.

Using “Bridge Music” as a proof of concept, Bertolozzi approached the French government (six times) and eventually received permission to “sample” (record) the Eiffel Tower’s surfaces. He and his team of audio and video engineers sampled over 10,000 sounds of the Eiffel Tower, then narrowed those down to about 2,800 “usable” sounds. He next constructed scales and “instrument sets” out of those raw recordings.

Seven years of planning, fundraising and sweat later, “Tower Music” became a reality. It reached  No. 11 and No. 16, respectively, on the iTunes Classical and Billboard Classical Crossover charts.

The score for “Tower Music” on the Eiffel Tower itself is written out in standard notation so it can be performed live by 100 percussionists. A possible live performance directly on the Eiffel Tower is currently in development for the 2024 Paris Olympics, but is far from certain.

Meanwhile, Bertolozzi’s new arrangement makes it possible for a percussion 5tet to reproduce the music – for instance, with cymbals standing in for fence crashes, bass drums for booms on the Tower legs with a log and glockenspiel for pings on a pipe.

“This arrangement is important to me, as it will bring live performances of the work into the concert hall, since live performance on the Eiffel Tower itself will be an extremely rare (if ever) event,” Bertolozzi said. “It gives longevity and presence to the music by allowing live audiences to enjoy live performances in an authentic, composer-created arrangement.”

Bertolozzi, joined by SOU’s Longshore and Left Edge Percussion, will also give a free talk about “Tower Music” from 12:30 to 1:20 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 6, , in the Music Recital Hall.

Longshore and Left Edge Percussion tours and performs throughout the Northwest and actively collaborates on innovative projects with composers and artists of various media. Members of the group have been featured around the globe at prestigious festivals, competitions, conferences and workshops.

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Coin of the realm: SOU recognizes service excellence

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SOU has borrowed from the somewhat mischievous military tradition of the “challenge coin” to recognize service excellence on campus and support the university’s Strategic Direction II: to become an employer of choice and create a culture of service excellence to all constituents.

“Service Excellence coins” have been presented to a total of 11 SOU employees over the past couple months – most recently and visibly, to Churchill Hall administrative assistant Kathy Park during last week’s meeting of the SOU Board of Trustees.

SOU-service coin“She’s a classic unsung hero – one of those many employees working hard, mostly behind the scenes – and she does a great job,” says Vice President for Finance and Administration Greg Perkinson, who joined President Linda Schott and Board of Trustees Chair Lyn Hennion in surprising Kathy with the award.

“Giving her that round metal object – also known as a coin – is just a way of saying thanks.”

The origin of military challenge coins is a little hazy, but the Wikipedia version involves an American pilot who was shot down behind enemy lines in World War I, made his way to a French outpost and narrowly avoided execution as a spy by showing his unit’s medallion.

The military tradition of carrying specific unit medallions or coins grew. It started as a way to reinforce pride in the military unit, then morphed into a way for military commanders to recognize excellence. One member of a unit can also challenge another member to show his or her coin at any time.

Perkinson says the coins are being used by senior leaders at SOU to reward outstanding achievement, attitude or behavior, and to help build a culture of service excellence across campus. They are sometimes awarded privately, with a handshake and a thank-you, and sometimes more formally or publicly – as was the case at last week’s board meeting.

The face of the coins bear an SOU emblem and the back is inscribed with four of the elements that have been identified as critical in promoting service excellence at SOU: knowledge, teamwork, accountability and quality service.

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SOU lands 46 on Academic All-Cascade Conference team

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Forty-six Southern Oregon University student-athletes from the Raiders’ fall sports teams received Academic All-Cascade Conference honors, CCC Commissioner Rob Cashell announced Tuesday.

To earn the distinction, a student-athlete must have been enrolled at their current institution for at least one year and reached sophomore academic standing with a minimum institutional grade-point average of 3.2.

SOU’s women’s soccer team had 15 honorees, the volleyball team had 11, the men’s soccer team 10, the men’s cross country team six and the women’s cross country team four. SOU football players are not included because that Raiders team competes in the Frontier Conference. Below is a complete list of SOU’s Cascade Conference academic honorees:

Ahmon Afenegus (environmental science), men’s soccer
Ryan Alexander (business), men’s cross country
Brendan Allen (public accounting), men’s soccer
Kiley Barcroft (pre-nursing), volleyball
Kayle Blackmore (communications), women’s cross country
Hannah Bogatin (business), volleyball
Seth Campbell (environmental studies), men’s cross country
Daisy Cervantes (psychology), women’s soccer
Jamie Chelberg (biology), women’s cross country
Elliott Cook (journalism), volleyball
Jared Delaney (biology), men’s soccer
Nathan Edwards (environmental science), men’s cross country
Lauren Fillipow (criminal justice), women’s cross country
Gonzalo Garcia (business), men’s soccer
Sarah Garoutte (criminology/psychology), women’s soccer
Zac Hansen (environmental studies), men’s soccer
Alex Harbert-Castro (business), men’s cross country
Ruth Hegstad (English), women’s soccer
Makayla Hoyt (environmental studies), volleyball
Natalie James (sociology), volleyball
Dani Johnson (business), volleyball
Kadyn Jones (biochemistry), volleyball
Cassandra Kohler (environmental science), women’s soccer
Nila Lukens (biology), volleyball
Misty Martinez (health and P.E.), women’s soccer
Paul Matyas (environmental science), men’s soccer
Daniel McDevitt (outdoor adventure leadership), men’s soccer
Deziree McKee (education), volleyball
Macaylea Mitchell (environmental science), women’s soccer
Gabi Nevinger (pre-pharmacy), women’s soccer
Noah Oberriter (pre-nursing), men’s cross country
Shayla Potratz (communications), women’s cross country
Taylor Ristvedt (environmental science), volleyball
Morgan Rohmann (pre-physical therapy), women’s soccer
Emma Ryan (psychology), volleyball
Simone Schroder (pre-physical therapy), women’s soccer
Jazmin Shaffer (business), women’s soccer
Ben Stevens (health and P.E.), men’s cross country
Makena Totushek (nursing), women’s soccer
Jonas Verrinder (health and P.E.), men’s soccer
Mia Volpatti (health and P.E.), women’s soccer
Aislinn Waite (psychology), women’s soccer
Emily Williman (business), women’s soccer
Brionna Wood (biology), women’s soccer
Wyatt Zabinski (biology), men’s soccer
Daniel Zamores (pre-physical therapy), men’s soccer

This story is reposted from souraiders.com

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SOU president urges campus to vote in upcoming election

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SOU President Linda Schott has asked all members of the campus community to “practice democracy” by casting their ballots in the Nov. 6 General Election.

“Consider what’s best for you, your community, your state and your country, and then vote,” the president said. “I won’t tell you what to think or how to vote, but I do hope you will do both conscientiously.”

Ballots have been mailed to Oregon voters, and the state’s Voters Pamphlet is available online. The deadline for voter registration has passed, but those who are unsure if they’re eligible to vote can check their status on the Oregon Secretary of State’s website.

Similar services are offered by other states, including California’s voter status-check site.

The SOU president reminded out-of-state students in today’s all-campus email that they should discard ballots from their original state if they have more recently registered to vote in Oregon. If they haven’t registered in Oregon, they can still legally vote in their home state. But it is illegal to vote in more than one state.

“Part of our mission at SOU is to prepare our learners to be responsible citizens, engaged at the local, state and federal levels,” Schott said. “If you are a student, your ballot is the final exam for this course on representative government. If you are an employee at the university, you have an opportunity to model good citizenship.”

She pointed out that democracy itself has withstood the test of time, weathering several difficult periods through more than 240 years of U.S. history.

“Sometimes our personal beliefs and preferences are validated,” Schott said. “Even on the occasions when they aren’t, we are able to come back in future elections and help nudge the course of history onto a track that’s more to our liking.

“Regardless of your political perspective, vital issues and pivotal races are on the line in this year’s election. Cast your ballot and participate in this wonderful gift of democracy!”

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Measles shots are part of the first-year experience

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First-year students at SOU and other state colleges and universities in Oregon have something important to remember before beginning their second term: they must provide proof of measles vaccination, or a legal exemption.

The Oregon College/University Immunization Law, adopted by the legislature in 2014, requires proof of hard measles (rubeola) immunization for all full-time students. Those at SOU can access a measles vaccination form online at myhealth.sou.edu. They must use their SOU log-in information, then click on “forms” and complete the measles form.

Those who have already had measles, are pregnant or have had reactions to immunizations are not required to be vaccinated, but must have medical documentation. Online-only students also are not required to be vaccinated, and non-medical exemptions are available for those who complete an online educational module and then submit a certificate of completion to the SOU Student Health and Wellness Center.

Students who complete neither the immunization form nor the on-medical exemption module may have an academic hold placed on their SOU accounts.

Measles was a common childhood disease up until the 1960s. Once effective vaccinations against the disease came into play, measles was almost completely eliminated in the U.S., but outbreaks still occur.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has kept an eye on measles cases this year. There were 107 cases reported in 21 states, including both Oregon and Washington, as of mid-summer. A record outbreak of 667 cases occurred in 2014, prompting the Oregon immunization law.

More information about the measles requirement and vaccination opportunities is available on the Student Health and Wellness Center website, or students may contact the center at (541) 552-6136.

Story by Bryn Mosier, SOU Marketing and Communications intern