nominations for McNair Scholars program

Promising students sought for SOU McNair Scholars Program

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SOU faculty and staff are asked to help identify and nominate students for the next cohort of SOU’s McNair Scholars Program, which has prepared eligible undergraduate students for post-graduate education since 2003.

A majority of past participants in the program have said they were encouraged by faculty or staff to apply, so the program’s director is seeking nominations of students who have shown academic promise and an interest in graduate school. Prospective McNair Scholars should be sophomores, juniors or early seniors.

Those who wish to be considered this spring for the 2020 cohort must submit their completed application packets by 3 p.m. on May 6.

The SOU program offers one-to-one guidance from faculty mentors as it helps participants complete their undergraduate degrees, enroll in graduate school and prepare for doctoral studies. SOU’s McNair program serves 28 undergraduate scholars each year, and more than a dozen alumni have completed their doctoral programs since the program began 15 years ago.

Student participants in the nation’s 187 currently funded McNair programs are considered “targets of recruitment” for graduate admissions officers. They are offered fully-paid visitation opportunities and often given offers of admission that include all-expenses-paid packages with stipends for living expenses.

Benefits and resources available free of charge to participants in SOU’s McNair Scholars Program include seminars on topics pertinent to pre-doctoral students, advising, tutoring, access to a resource library, help with graduate school applications, travel assistance and more.

The program is named for Ronald E. McNair, who stood up for civil rights as a youth before becoming a physicist and astronaut. He was the second African-American to fly in space, but died in the 1986 explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

The McNair program was initiated in 1989 by the U.S. Department of Education to increase doctoral studies by students from underrepresented and disadvantaged groups.

Those wishing to recommend a student for SOU’s McNair program should send the student’s name, email address and undergraduate major to program director Dee Southard at McNair@sou.edu.

SOU-Universidad de Guanajuato agreement signed

SOU and Universidad de Guanajuato pledge to build upon 50-year friendship

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University and the Universidad de Guanajuato officially renewed a friendship that has been built over the past 50 years when the institutions’ leaders pledged Monday to broaden their collaboration over the next half-century.

SOU-UG presidents sign agreement“Today’s agreement is to reaffirm our commitment to the exchange of students and faculty,” SOU President Linda Schott said at the ceremonial re-signing of a memorandum of understanding between the schools. “Our goal for this 50th anniversary celebration is to build an even firmer relationship.”

Delegations from the city of Guanajuato and its namesake university are in Ashland this week for a series of events to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of the Ashland-Guanajuato sister city and sister university relationships. President Schott and other SOU leaders hosted their Universidad de Guanajuato counterparts for breakfast on Monday, then toured a “unity” themed exhibit at the SOU Art Building before reassembling for the signing ceremony.

UG Rector General Luis Felipe Guerrero Agripino – the equivalent of president at a U.S. university – said he hopes to honor the two universities’ history of cooperation by expanding upon it.

“Imagine, 50 years ago we didn’t have the technology and all the ways we have to communicate now,” he said. “So there is no excuse. The best way to celebrate the 50th anniversary is to commit even more to the relationship we have.”

More than 1,000 students, faculty members and others have participated in exchange programs between the two universities and the cities of Ashland and Guanajuato, and some families from the Mexican city have been involved for three generations.

Beatriz Navarro-Parada, the Mexican consulate general for Oregon and southwest Washington, attended Monday’s ceremony and pledged the support of her office in any future collaborations.

“Please count on the consulate to help with your relationship,” she said. “We will work together.”

The 50th anniversary celebration will continue with events including an invitation-only reception and concert for the Guanajuato delegation on Tuesday night at the SOU Music Recital Hall, and a free, public lecture series on Thursday morning in the SOU Art Building’s Meese Auditorium.

President Schott and a small delegation from SOU visited Guanajuato a year and a half ago, and a larger group from Ashland and the university will continue the 50th anniversary celebration in the central Mexican city from May 27 to 31.

Guerrero Agripino, the UG rector general, joked on Monday that the two universities’ relationship is so solid that they sometimes mirror each other.

“On the visit we had, when we hosted Dr. Schott (in Guanajuato), we had rain. This is to prove to you that we are very well aligned,” he said, motioning toward a window in the Hannon Library and a downpour outside. “We can create the same conditions.”

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Guanajuato lectures-night scene

SOU community invited to Guanajuato lectures

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Three SOU alumni from Guanajuato will present free, public lectures on Thursday, April 11, as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of the sister-university relationship between SOU and the Universidad de Guanajuato.

Members of the SOU community are encouraged to attend the lectures and to welcome the visiting delegation from Guanajuato.

“If you see any visitors from Guanajuato on our campus next week, be sure to tell them bienvenidos – welcome to SOU,” said Provost Susan Walsh, who is organizing the 50th anniversary celebration.

Thursday’s lectures will be in the SOU Art Building’s Meese Auditorium at 9, 10 and 11 a.m. The first speaker will be Martin P. Pantoja Aguilar, an educator at the University of Guanajuato, who will address “Public Financing in Mexican Universities: A Matter of Academic Quality?” Georgina del Pozo, an administrator and former Amistad program coordinator at the University of Guanajuato, will speak next, discussing “Guanajuato City: History, Culture, Living, Education and Amistad.” Susana Montalvo, who has managed several small business projects in Mexico and the U.S., will wrap up the series with her talk, “Small and Medium Business in Mexico and the USA: Common and Divergent Paths.”

The lecture series is part of a multi-day celebration of the relationships between SOU and University of Guanajuato, and the cities of Ashland and Guanajuato, that began in 1969. The partnerships will be formally renewed during a breakfast observance on Monday, and an invitation-only reception and concert for the Guanajuato delegation will be held at SOU’s Music Recital Hall on Tuesday evening.

More than 1,000 students, faculty members and others have participated in exchanges since the Sister City agreement between Ashland and Guanajuato began in 1969.

The cooperative link between the two communities is unique, even though both Guanajuato and its university are much larger than Ashland and SOU. Several Guanajuato families have participated in exchange programs with SOU for three generations, and more than 80 marriages tying people from the two cities have resulted.

SOU Spring Powwow 2018

SOU Native American Student Union’s spring powwow returns to campus

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University’sNative American Student Union and Native American Programs will share their culture with campus and the community at the 27th annual Spring Powwow on Saturday and Sunday, April 13 and 14 at SOU’s Lithia Motors Pavilion.

The event will return to the SOU campus this year, after being held for the past few years at Phoenix High School.

The spring powwow is expected to attract hundreds of participants and spectators through the weekend, providing a glimpse of Native American culture.

The event will feature displays and demonstrations that include drumming, dancing and cultural sharing from tribes throughout the Northwest. Dancers will perform and Native American arts and crafts will be available.

The grand entry ceremony will take place at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday, and at noon on Sunday.

The family-friendly powwow is free and open to the public. No alcohol or drugs will be permitted. Lithia Motors Pavilion, located just south of the university’s football stadium, features a 1,400-seat gymnasium.

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Mike Rousell-SOU-Surprise-TEDx

Surprise! SOU’s Rousell discusses the brain, dopamine and change at TEDx

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Mike Rousell, an associate professor of education at SOU, still remembers the surprise response he received from a teacher after complaining about his childhood dyslexia and learning difficulties. “Why don’t you become a teacher?” his instructor asked.

What that teacher may not have realized is that the unexpected comeback may have produced fertile ground in which the seeds of Rousell’s confidence as an academic and future educator could take root. Rousell has spent more than three decades as a psychologist and professor analyzing what he calls “surprise-driven formative events,” and offered a fast-paced, informative – and surprising – presentation at a TEDx Talks event held earlier this year in Salem and published recently on YouTube.

“Surprises to beliefs we hold about ourselves can be defining and formative,” he told the TEDx audience. “So now that you know what surprise-driven belief formation looks like, what does a surprise-driven formative event look like?

“Samantha used to think that her shyness was a weakness – that is, until one day when her swim coach named her captain of the swim team. He told the team, ‘She may be shy, but when she talks you’re going to want to listen.’ Since that surprise comment, she now feels quietly powerful.”

Rousell, who has taught full-time at SOU since 2008, was one of 11 speakers at the January TEDx event, the sixth in a Salem series. His 12-minute talk – “Surprise! How Your Brain Secretly Changes Your Beliefs” – examined how the human brain is affected by surprise and the groundwork for reevaluation is laid.

He said that surprise produces a jolt of dopamine, a chemical that enables the transmission of signals among the brain’s nerve cells. He said it’s “essentially a neurological error signal” that to human ancestors signaled inherent danger or opportunity.

And Rousell portrayed strategic surprise as a “life hack” that can enrich others’ lives.

“If you’re a teacher and you have a student who is frozen with the fear of making mistakes, catch that student making a mistake,” he said. “They will be surprised, and they will expect criticism. Surprise that student instead and say, ‘Your eagerness to make your mistakes so willingly make you a strong learner.’

“If you surprised that student, they got a burst of dopamine and they have to make sense of that. So now when they make those inevitable mistakes, they get a little hit of dopamine … which says, ‘Fight on, because you’re a strong learner.’ And that is the signal feature of a growth mindset.”

Rousell received his bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Alberta, and his master of education and doctorate from the University of Oregon. He taught elementary, middle and high school in Edmonton, Alberta, before accepting his position in the School of Education at SOU, and also has worked in private practice and school counseling as a certified psychologist.

He told the TEDx audience that humor is an effective tool in changing people’s beliefs, because of its frequent use of an element of surprise – and he offered an example. Rousell said that a consequence of his line of study is that he is often asked what has been the biggest surprise in his life.

“I was having a little disagreement with my wife and at the end of it she looked at me and she said, ‘you might be right,’” he said.