March 2019 - SOU News

Ashland, SOU mark 50 years of Guanajuato “sister” relationships

March 26, 2019/in Press Releases, The Arts

(Ashland, Ore.) — Delegations from Guanajuato, Mexico, and the Universidad de Guanajuato will visit Ashland and Southern Oregon University in April to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of their sister city and sister university relationships.

The celebration will include a formal renewal of the partnerships between the cities and universities, and is seen as an opportunity to recommit to the ideals that inspired the relationships in 1969.

“I hope each of us will see this 50-year anniversary as a waypoint at which we can pause, reassess and re-energize before continuing our journey together,” SOU President Linda Schott said in a statement to celebration participants. “Let’s contemplate the future, how our partnership relates to our changing world and what steps we should consider to keep our efforts fresh and relevant.”

On the university side, the multi-day celebration will be highlighted by an invitation-only reception and “gala concert” at the SOU Music Recital Hall on the evening of Tuesday, April 9. The concert will feature four new commissioned works from faculty at Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU, along with a composition by Javier Gonzalez Compean from Guanajuato.

Other university events involving the delegation from Guanajuato include breakfast, ceremonial re-signing of the sister university memorandum of understanding and an SOU campus tour on Monday, April 8. Universidad de Guanajuato Rector Luis Felipe Guerrero Agripino, who has a particular interest in crime prevention, will meet with faculty from SOU’s psychology and criminology departments.

Activities on Wednesday, April 10, include professional development opportunities for SOU faculty and members of the Guanajuato delegation, on the topics of transforming teaching and becoming universities for the future. There will also be an event at the International Peace Flame at SOU’s Thalden Pavilion.

The cooperative link between the two cities and the two universities is unique. Guanajuato is closer in size to Eugene than to Ashland, and Universidad de Guanajuato – which is larger than any university in Oregon – has sister university relationships with more than 300 other institutions worldwide.

But the Ashland-Guanajuato relationships – between both the cities and universities – were the first for each entity. More than 1,000 students, faculty members and others have participated in exchange programs and some families have been involved for three generations. More than 80 marriages have united partners from Ashland and Guanajuato.

In addition to the university activities, Guanajuato business, city government and community representatives will have the opportunity to explore and experience various elements and amenities of Ashland. Delegates from the Mexican city will see a performance of “Hairspray” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and will celebrate the relationship with breakfasts, lunches and dinners hosted by churches, local organizations and service clubs.

The Ashland Chamber & Travel Ashland is sponsoring events at venues including the Ashland Art Center, ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum, Thalden Pavilion, Brickroom, Irvine & Roberts Vineyards and Mt. Ashland. The events will showcase Ashland’s economy and amenities, and some of the themes that unite Ashland and Guanajuato.

The City of Ashland has planned specific events and tours for Guanajuato’s official city delegation. The Amigo Club, a key partner in the friendship, is coordinating volunteer host families and has a large role in planning for the visit.

“Whenever I consider the sister city relationship between Ashland and Guanajuato, it warms my heart to think of all the friendships that have been built over the years,” said Sandra Slattery, executive director of the Ashland Chamber of Commerce. “Of course, the educational student exchange was the cornerstone for the creation of the relationship, but it truly expanded through the 50 years with the ‘people-to-people’ connections that were formed … even marriages!

“It’s been an honor, as the Chamber, to be coordinating and facilitating the steering committee for the celebration welcoming over 50 Guanajuato citizens to Ashland. May we welcome them with open arms as we work for future strengthened relationships and new partnerships to create peace and friendship in our world.”

Delegations from the city of Ashland and SOU will also participate in 50^th anniversary festivities in Guanajuato from May 27 to 31.

The celebration will stretch into the summer as Ashland observes the anniversary as the theme for its 4th of July parade.

Individuals, businesses and organizations who have worked together on the celebration include the Ashland Chamber of Commerce, City of Ashland, Southern Oregon University, Amigo Club of Ashland, Ashland Art Center, Ashland Culture of Peace Commission, Ashland Fire & Rescue, Ashland Parks & Recreation, Ashland Police Department, Ashland School District, Ashland Springs Hotel, Barbara Tricarico, Brickroom, El Tapatio, Gathering Glass Studio, Grizzly Peak Winery, host families, Irvine & Roberts Vineyards, Karen & Allen Drescher, La Clinica, Lloyd M. Haines, Martolli’s Restaurant, Mt. Ashland, Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Our Lady of the Mountain Catholic Church, Platt Anderson Cellars, Rogue Valley Peace Choir, Rogue Valley Roasting Co., Rotary Clubs of Ashland, ScienceWorks Hands-on Museum, Southern Oregon Printing, Temple Emek Shalom, Travel Ashland and Weisinger Family Winery.

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SOU’s Lithia Motors Pavilion/Student Recreation Center strikes LEED Gold

March 20, 2019/in Campus News, Press Releases

(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University’s Lithia Motors Pavilion and adjacent Student Recreation Center have earned LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, joining a growing list of SOU facilities to be recognized as sustainable.

The athletic pavilion and recreation center complex, which opened last spring, was awarded all 68 points that were sought on the Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) checklist. The SOU facility was recognized for sustainability elements including a design that allows the capture and treatment of storm water runoff, significant reduction of both energy and water consumption, and building practices that diverted more than three-quarters of the construction waste away from landfills.

“This certification recognizes not only the hard work of our facilities staff and contractors, but also the dedication of our university to live and operate sustainably,” SOU President Linda Schott said. “Sustainability is an ideal that is expressed throughout our Vision, Mission and Values. It is a key part of who we are as a university, and it reflects our commitment to a better future for our students and region.”

The Lithia Motors Pavilion and Student Recreation Center facility is the fifth at SOU to achieve LEED certification, and a sixth application is in progress. The RCC-SOU Higher Education Center in Medford is LEED Platinum, which is the Green Building Council’s highest sustainability rating. The McLaughlin and Shasta residence halls, and The Hawk dining facility, all have been certified as LEED Gold, and LEED Silver certification is being sought for SOU’s recently renovated and expanded Science Building.

The nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council provides a sustainability rating system that takes into account elements of a building’s design, construction, operation and maintenance.

The athletic pavilion and recreation center complex was recognized for features including a bike-friendly infrastructure and electric vehicle charging stations, lighting that minimizes disturbances to night skies and wildlife, flush and flow plumbing fixtures that reduce water usage by 39 percent and efficiency measures that reduce energy consumption by almost 23 percent. Other elements that were cited include a rooftop solar installation that offsets 10 percent of the facility’s annual electricity consumption, the use of sustainable lumber products and recycled building materials, and the use of substances such as paints and sealants that emit only low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOC).

“SOU is excited to expand the campus inventory of green buildings with the LEED Gold-certified Lithia Motors Pavilion and Student Recreation Center,” said Roxane Beigel-Coryell, the university’s sustainability and recycling coordinator. “This certification celebrates the many green building strategies implemented that will support ongoing energy efficiency, water conservation and improved indoor air quality – as well as modeling SOU’s commitment to sustainability.”

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Natural gas failure limiting some services at SOU

March 19, 2019/in Campus News

Failure of a valve on the main natural gas line that serves SOU and a large portion of Ashland is affecting students and employees at the university in various ways, but is expected to be resolved this evening or on Wednesday.

One of SOU’s natural gas-fueled boilers was temporarily converted this morning to burn diesel fuel. That boiler will provide heat and hot water to most buildings in the core of campus.

However, the Shasta, McLoughlin and Madrone residence halls will be without hot water until the natural gas service is restored, and The Hawk dining facility will be without its gas grills, steam kettles and dishwashers. Other campus facilities – including OLLI; the Facilities, Maintenance and Planning offices; the Digital Media Center; and the Bookstore – are on independent gas meters and are also without heat.

Staff at The Hawk are using induction stovetops to boil water for sanitization and limited cooking. The kitchen is offering salads, sandwiches, fresh fruit, pasta bar, already-prepared baked goods and some items that are being grilled on outdoor barbecues.

Elmo’s in the Stevenson Union is offering limited service, with sushi, salads, grab-and-go fare and limited grill items. Einstein’s coffee shop in the student union is at full service; Southern Grounds at the Hannon Library is offering limited beverage options.

Avista Corporation, the Ashland area’s natural gas supplier, turned off the gas meters of homes surrounding SOU this afternoon and told customers the outage is expected to last until Wednesday. However, Avista said on its website that it may take two to three days for the outage to be fully resolved. The gas company said 2,300 customers in an area from the Ashland Airport to downtown are affected.

SOU students renovate “Hypertext Hotel”

March 18, 2019/in Student Life

There was always a vacancy for students and some special guests in a particular place of lodging. Enter the “Hypertext Hotel….”

The year was 1990. A room of students typing on Macintosh desktops at Brown University participated in the first ever hypertext writing workshop. Under the wing of postmodern fiction’s legendary trickster, Professor Robert Coover, students accessed, constructed and soiled the binary walls of a collaborative writing space consisting of hyperlinked windows of language and the occasional MacPaint rendered illustration.

The writers relied on traditional storytelling and the grace of the reader’s imagination to raise what became the Hypertext Hotel, located in what was – and to some extent remains – an unexplored city block in literature’s scholarly district.

Fast-forward to 2019. The writing that made up the hotel – believed this time last year to be mostly lost to time – has been recovered. The HTML files that once ran on an application called Storyspace were found on Coover’s old faculty PowerBook G4 and are now entering virtual reality.

The Hotel redux, titled “Hypertext Hotel – VR,” has been guided by Southern Oregon University Professor Robert Arellano, founder of the Emerging Media and Digital Art (EMDA) major at SOU, hypertext literature pioneer and former student of Coover’s. Arellano was one of the students who sat in the Brown computer lab writing hotel rooms and subplots of his own.

Early in this year’s Winter term, Arellano enlisted two all-star EMDA students, Andrew Masek and Quinn Jacobus, to model 3D rooms based on the original writing in the recovered HTML files. Masek and Jacobus have since created, in just 12 weeks, the first iteration of Hypertext Hotel – VR.

“In 2018, at the same time as our practicum class planned to re-open the Hypertext Hotel, the Game Dev club had gotten real traction and purchased an Oculus along with a high-end PC to run VR in Unity,” Arellano said. “Meanwhile, Miles Inada had a 3D class that was a real turning point in the EMDA program. That’s how I met Quinn Jacobus, one of the main student designers of the Hypertext Hotel – VR.”

The project, which was on display at SOU’s Schneider Museum of Art from Jan. 24 to March 16, stood as the first VR installation in a museum that has proven hospitable to digital art. The (re)opening night produced much energy – to be expected when art, wine and novel interactive realities are made free to the public.

Hypertext Hotel – VR appeared next to four other faculty artists and two returning guest artists – Adam Bateman and Maria De Los Angeles – in a series called “From Ignorance to Wisdom” (consistent with the current campus theme of the same name).

“From Ignorance to Wisdom” may seem a vague title for the historic hypertext project. But as Arellano points out in his artist statement, the project was made possible by the atypical process of working with students rather than lecturing – as Coover had done in the previous writing lab on early-model Mac computers. The process requires all parties to admit ignorance, listen to the wisdom of others and learn together. It produces an effective learning environment in which students produce “school projects” worthy of display in nationally recognized art museums and creative professors are positively challenged.

The installation did encounter roadblocks, as may be expected of an experiential digital art project.

“On the opening day, we learned that the PC we planned to run ‘Hypertext Hotel – VR’ on during the Schneider show did not have a powerful enough CPU,” Arellano said. “We scrambled to find an alternative, but there was not a powerful enough rig at the university that could be dedicated to the museum for the required length of time.

“For the opening reception, Andrew Masek, the other main student designer, loaned us his personal machine. And the following day, the owner of Medford’s Cyber Center, Anthony Kaiserman, stepped in and kindly donated a computer for the show’s entire six-week run.”

When you ride the elevator for a unique perspective from the hotel’s 1300-level room, you might see that the project has been a catalyst for electronic literature, convincing the most reluctant of writers to jump into the quickly growing digital pool.

The hotel also follows up on its promise of being a generative, collaborative and largely anarchic experience – one that a lone author would find hard to come by. An author could write a letter to another writer, who then writes on that letter and sends it to yet another writer. The software – whether the original Storyspace or the open-source Twine – allow a writing experience conducive to collaboration, and one that will become more streamlined and collaborative with time.

After putting on the Oculus headset and walking through the 3D hotel rooms, an observer might be left to ask what’s next in the Hotel project? The “Hypertext Hotel – VR” showcases what is possible for artists, in largely accessible ways. Writers collaborate with each other in a computer lab and merge their work with that of 3D artists, VR experts, programmers and others. The redux is a catalyst for more students and artists, such as Masek and Jacobus, to collaborate by bringing the original stories to life again – maybe alongside some new ones.

In line with the tradition of storytelling, the hotel has become a place to write stories inspired by what is possible now, in celebration of what came before.

Story by James Cutrona, EMDA class of 2018

SOU’s Holmes gets prestigious Academic All-America recognition

March 15, 2019/in Student Life

Southern Oregon University senior Tristen Holmes has been named to the NAIA’s Google Cloud Academic All-America second team for men’s basketball – one of just 13 student-athletes in SOU history to receive Academic All-America honors.

Holmes is among 10 student-athletes nationwide to be picked to the NAIA first and second teams by the College Sports Information Directors of America.

The Academic All-America selection was the second recognition this week of Holmes’ academic accomplishments – he is one of four student-athletes from SOU’s winter sports teams who were named Daktronics-NAIA Scholar Athletes on Tuesday. Holmes, an interdisciplinary studies/pre-dentistry major, and business administration major Tate Hoffman were recognized from the men’s basketball team. Men’s wrestler C.J. McKinnis, a business administration major, and women’s basketball player Delaney Sparling, a health and physical education major, also received the Daktronics honor.

Student-athletes must be juniors or seniors, have a minimum cumulative grade-point average of 3.5 and be enrolled at their current institution of at least one full year to be eligible the Daktronics-NAIA Scholar Athlete distinction. SOU’s fall sports teams produced 23 Daktronics-NAIA Scholar Athletes.

The Google Cloud Academic All-America program recognizes student-athletes for their combined performances athletically and in the classroom, and is considered the most prestigious of academic honors for college athletes.

A committee of the College Sports Information Directors of America selects honorees from various sports at the NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and NAIA levels. In 2017-18, the most recent full academic year, a total of 19,146 student-athletes were nominated across all sports and 1,497 were recognized as Google Cloud Academic All-America first- or second-team members.

Holmes, a point guard for the SOU men’s basketball team, is a two-time All-Cascade Conference performer and North Medford product. He is a McNair Scholar, has a cumulative GPA of 3.84 and has been accepted to attend Oregon Health & Science University in Portland next fall.

He averaged 16.4 points, 5.7 rebounds and 3.7 assists this season. He was the only player during the Cascade Conference regular season to rank among the top 15 in all three of those statistical categories.

Holmes made 98 career starts and finished his SOU basketball career with 1,412 points, 577 rebounds and 453 assists – the first player in school history with more than 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 400 assists. He finished at No. 3 in assists and No. 12 in scoring in the basketball program’s record book.

He and the Raiders had a 21-11 record this season, falling in the Cascade Conference tournament championship game at College of Idaho. In his four-year SOU career, his teams totaled 83 victories.

This story is expanded from an earlier version at souraiders.com

New director hired at SOU Honors College

March 14, 2019/in Academics, Press Releases

(Ashland, Ore.) — Cherstin Lyon – a history professor and co-director of the Faculty Center for Excellence at California State University, San Bernardino – has been hired as director of the Southern Oregon University Honors College following a national search. She will begin work at SOU on July 31.

Lyon, who visited the university for interviews in January, will be the second director of the Honors College. She will succeed Ken Mulliken, who created the Honors College in 2013 and left last summer to take a position at the University of Illinois, Springfield.

“I am confident that this outstanding program is in good hands and that Cherstin will help guide it to new heights,” SOU Provost Susan Walsh said in announcing the hire to campus on Thursday.

Prakash Chenjeri, a philosophy professor at SOU who has served in various honors programs for many years, is currently interim director of the Honors College and will continue in that role until Lyon’s arrival.

Lyon has served on the CSU-San Bernardino faculty since 2006. She also serves as a faculty associate in CSUSB’s Office of Community Engagement and on the Program Transformation Committee for its University Honors program.

She has served previously as an instructor at the University of Arizona, an adjunct faculty member at Utah Valley University and a graduate teaching fellow at both the University of Arizona and the University of Oregon.

Lyon received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the UO, and her Ph.D. from Arizona. Her doctoral thesis was on “Prisons and Patriots: The Tucsonian Draft Resisters of Conscience Of World War II,” and she is author of the book, “Prisons and Patriots: Japanese American Wartime Citizenship, Civil Disobedience and Historical Memory.”

The Honors College at SOU, currently in its sixth year, accepts students from any major. All who are accepted into the Honors College participate in specialized programs and hands-on experiences outside the classroom.

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SOU’s “Retention Summit” aimed at seeing students through to graduation

March 13, 2019/in Campus News

The campus community is invited to participate in a “Retention Summit” at 3:30 p.m. Thursday in the Stevenson Union’s Rogue River Room, to examine what’s being done – and what other steps might be taken – to encourage students to remain at SOU through graduation.

Participants in Thursday’s summit will hear reports on current student retention efforts, data and benchmarking, and on the university’s new Navigate platform – an application created by the Education Advisory Board (EAB) to improve the student experience.

Those at the event will then break into small groups and discuss other potential means of improving retention, such as engaging and supporting students, and addressing their academic needs.

SOU President Linda Schott also hosted an “Enrollment Summit” in November to discuss this academic year’s enrollment dip among incoming SOU students and how it might be addressed. The president and SOU’s enrollment and admissions staff have followed up with several steps to ensure that this year’s decline will not be repeated.

The university overcame state and national trends toward lower enrollments a year ago with gains in both total headcount and full-time equivalent students. Early projections for the 2019-20 academic year suggest that SOU may rebound with another year of gains, if current application trends continue.

Steady enrollment growth helps the university counteract some of the effects of decreased state support. The higher education budget currently being discussed among Oregon legislators would fund the state’s seven public universities well below current service levels and would likely require large tuition increases or significant program cuts.

Alumnus Daniel Breaux: Love at first sight

March 12, 2019/in Alumni

SOU graduate Daniel Breaux (‘14) says the school’s character-driven athletics philosophy stays with him every day, and he applies those values in his career as a police officer in Berkeley, California, as well as in his personal life.

Breaux came to SOU for football and its well-regarded criminal justice program.

“I wanted a school and a team that reflected my own values,” he said. “SOU and the athletic department did just that. When I visited the campus and met the athletic department staff and coaches, it was love at first sight.”

Breaux says he was particularly impressed with Athletic Director Matt Sayre and the late Craig Howard, who was then SOU’s head football coach, and their shared vision for the football program.

“Coach Howard said from the beginning that he was there to develop men who would become better husbands, fathers, employees and citizens of the world,” Breaux said. “Along the way, he’d help us become better players and win championships.

“I knew I was in the right place. It’s not just about winning games, it’s about academics, our school and our community.”

With encouragement from the coaching staff, Breaux dove into college life, serving in student government as an athletics senator, working with the planning committee for the new recreation center, helping to develop the Raider Weekend of Service and even volunteering at the local humane society.

“In student government, I learned whole new aspects of the university,” he said. “I learned about the work of servant leadership, and I developed an entirely new view about my role as a student and a contributor to the community.”

Breaux did all of this while winning accolades as a defensive end on the 2014 National Championship football team and managing to graduate with honors two terms early.

Howard was an integral part of his college life, Breaux says.

“I remember whenever the football team went to an event, Coach Howard would tell us to leave the room better than we found it,” he said. “I know sometimes he literally meant for us to clean up our garbage before we left, but I also took it as something to be applied to everyday life.

“Now I do the same with police work. I want to leave my community better and have a positive effect on the world around me.”

Reposted from the Spring 2016 issue of The Raider, SOU’s Alumni Association magazine

Zaretta Hammond-culturally responsive teaching-SOU

Author of “Culturally Responsive Teaching” to give SOU campus theme talk

March 12, 2019/in Campus News

Zaretta Hammond, the San Francisco-area author of “Culturally Responsive Teaching & the Brain,” will discuss how teachers can support underserved students in an April 10 presentation that’s part of SOU’s 2018-19 campus theme of “Ignorance and Wisdom.”

Hammond notes that student populations across the country are progressively growing more racially and linguistically diverse. She will discuss having a real impact on learning by being more responsive to students’ differences.

Her talk will touch on igniting intellectual creativity and accelerating learning by incorporating the latest findings from cognitive neuroscience and the principles of culturally responsive teaching that she lays out in her 2014 book.

The event will be from 4:30 to 630 p.m. on Wednesday, April 10, in the Rogue River Room of SOU’s Stevenson Union. It is co-sponsored by the SOU Provost’s Office, School of Education and Division of Humanities and Culture; the Ashland, Medford and Central Point school districts; and the Southern Oregon Mentor Consortium.

Hammond, now a national education consultant, is a former high school and college expository writing instructor. She is passionate about the interconnections of equity, literacy and culturally responsive teaching. She blogs at CRTandtheBrain.com and calls herself “a former writing teacher turned equity freedom fighter.”

She received her bachelor’s degree in English literature from New York University and a master’s degree in secondary English education with a concentration in writing instruction at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

The 11^th year of SOU’s Campus Theme features a variety of presentations that explore the concepts of “Ignorance and Wisdom,” and the relationships between the two.

The university adopts a 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, presented by SOU’s Arts and Humanities Council, creates opportunities for students, faculty, staff and community members to engage in intellectually stimulating conversations.

SOU faculty members are asked to encourage their students to attend and participate in the Campus Theme presentations.

Governor’s Food Drive fills the shelves at SOU Student Food Pantry

March 7, 2019/in Campus News

The SOU community contributed non-perishable food and payroll deductions equivalent to a total of 8,022 meals during this year’s Governor’s Food Drive, which directly benefits the university’s Student Food Pantry and those who rely on it.

The university’s payroll deductions are down somewhat this year, but donations to the Student Food Pantry hit a record high with 1,809 pounds of nonperishable food. Collections bins at all buildings on campus accounted for 1,580 pounds of donated food, and a benefit concert sponsored by the Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU drew another 229 pounds.

The Governor’s Food Drive draws donations each February from state government and public university employees throughout Oregon, to support the Oregon Food Bank Network. SOU arranged for its food donations to go directly to its Student Food Pantry, which provides SOU students who are in need with as many as 10 items of nonperishable food or hygiene supplies each week.

Prizes were awarded this year for those who participated in either the payroll deductions or food donations portion of the drive.

Associate Registrar Katrina Simpson won a drawing for all of those who signed up for payroll deductions, and will receive two tickets to the Chamber Music Concerts, an affiliate organization of the SOU Foundation.

Employees of Churchill Hall – which collected almost 215 pounds of food in its collection barrels, the most of any building on campus – will be treated to coffee and snacks by SOU Dining and A’viands. Central Hall finished in a close second place, with 202 pounds of food collected.