SOU remains a Bee Campus USA

SOU – the nation’s first Bee Campus – keeps its designation

/in

(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University – which collaborated with Bee City USA to develop guidelines for Bee Campus certification in 2015 – has been recertified as a Bee Campus USA for a fifth consecutive year.

Colleges and universities are awarded the honor of being a Bee Campus based on the rigorous criteria of the Bee City USA organization, an initiative of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. SOU helped create the Bee Campus award after being inspired by two early adopters of the Bee City designation – Ashland and neighboring Talent.

There are 98 Bee Campuses across the United States, including four other colleges in Oregon: Lane Community College and University of Oregon in Eugene, and Portland Community College and Portland State University in Portland.

SOU’s place as a Bee Campus is hard-earned – students and faculty maintain over a dozen pollinator-friendly gardens, two pollinator-friendly beds, herbicide-free wildlife areas and a subcommittee of SOU’s Sustainability Council dedicated to bees and other pollinators. The work is recognized not only by Bee City USA, but also from the Sierra Club, which named SOU the nation’s top pollinator-friendly college in 2018.

The university’s dedication to pollinators is a key element of its commitment to sustainability. A third of all food is produced due to insect pollination, while 90 percent of wild plants and trees require pollinators to reproduce.

It is generally believed that the decline in honey bee populations is caused by a complex combination of factors – including diseases, parasites, mono-cropping and exposure to insecticides, herbicides and fungicides – that progressively weaken the bees’ individual and collective immune systems.

Colleges and universities that apply to become certified Bee Campuses must commit to development of habitat plans, hosting of awareness events, development of courses or workshops that support pollinators, sponsorship and tracking of service-learning projects for students, posting of educational signs and maintaining a pollinator-related web presence.

Story by Blair Selph, SOU Marketing and Communications student writer

-SOU-

Ed Battistella's new book is on presidential insults

SOU professor’s book shows presidential insults are nothing new

/in ,

(Ashland, Ore.) — The contentious 2016 presidential campaign inspired Southern Oregon University English professor Ed Battistella, and the result is a new book examining the history of presidential insults and invective.

“Dangerous Crooked Scoundrels: Insulting the President, from Washington to Trump,” was published last month by the Oxford University Press.

The book documents more than 500 presidential insults and spares none of the 45 U.S. presidents. Holders of the nation’s highest political office have been called “ignoramuses,” “idiots” and “fatheads,” and have drawn comparisons to creatures including “sad jellyfish” and “strutting crows.”

“I’ve always loved history and was curious about the insults and invective used in earlier elections,” he said. “Our language provides plenty of ways to insult those in power and our Constitution gives us the right to do it.”

Battistella’s new book demonstrates that insulting the president is a time-honored American tradition.

“It was a pleasure to read a book that made me laugh aloud,” U.S. Senate historian emeritus Donald A. Ritchie said in his review of the book. “Edwin Battistella has done an impressive job of documenting and explaining the history of presidential ignominy. I suspect that readers will be sending him their favorite insults for the next edition.”

“It’s an engaging, thought-provoking look at a tradition as old as the republic and as immediate as the next election,” said Rosemarie Ostler, author of “Splendiferous Speech.”

Battistella is the author of several books, including Oregon Book Award finalist “Bad Language” and “Sorry about That: The Language of Public Apology.”

He earned his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers College and his master’s degree and doctorate in linguistics from the City University of New York. He teaches linguistics and writing at SOU.

Battistella wrote in an April 1 opinion piece for Time Magazine that presidential insults are an unwelcomed but expected part of the job for U.S. commanders in chief.

“Today, Donald Trump characterizes reporting he does not like as ‘fake news’ and has called the mainstream press ‘enemies of the people,’ Battistella wrote. “But part of the genius of American democracy – both in our legal system and in our politics – is that citizens can openly insult the president.

“We enjoy protections of freedom of speech and freedom of the press that other nations do not, and our freedoms allow us to direct invective at the president with legal impunity.”

-SOU-

SOULA work at Peter Britt Gardens

SOULA archaeological research leads to historic designation for Britt Gardens

/in ,

Seven months after the Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology was awarded a grant to analyze the Peter Britt Gardens, the site was accepted into the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service. 

The Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology conducts archaeological research throughout southwest Oregon, allowing students to gain practical experience toward their anthropology major and the Cultural Resource Management certificate. SOULA works with the Coquille Indian Tribe, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Medford District Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Oregon State Parks, Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), Jackson County and the Southern Oregon Historical Society.

Peter Britt settled in the Rogue Valley in 1852 and is best known for his early photography and agricultural innovations that helped spur the wine and pear industries in southern Oregon. He documented southern Oregon and its residents, and is credited with taking the first photograph of Crater Lake.

He created a formal garden on his property that was a cherished community space and a popular tourist destination. In 1960, 55 years after Britt’s death, his house and the connected garden burned down. 

Oregon’s State Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation nominated the site to the National Register of Historic Places at its June 2019 meeting. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the register is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.

Before the inclusion of the Britt Gardens Site, only nine individual properties in Jacksonville were listed in the register.

SOULA initially excavated the 4.5-acre Britt Gardens in 2010 and 2011, before funding dried up and prevented the hundreds of findings to be fully studied. However, the city of Jacksonville and the state Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation approved a $15,000 grant to continue SOULA’s anthropological research in August 2019, as part of an effort to reconstruct the historic site. The committee awarded 17 other similar grants.

SOULA’s research uncovered Peter Britt’s original log cabin on the property. According to Mark Tveskov, the director of SOULA and an associate professor of Anthropology at SOU, the cabin site is “rare and highly significant, as it is one of the earliest known cabin sites yet discovered and professionally excavated in the State of Jefferson.” The cabin was the initial home Britt lived in when he came to the Rogue Valley in 1852, before he began construction of a larger home in 1856.

As the reconstruction of the gardens continued, SOULA teamed up with the Hannon Library to digitize over 100 artifacts from the site. Of the 2,064 prints created by Peter Britt, 776 can be found on the Southern Oregon Digital Archives. SODA was created by the Hannon Library in the early 2000s with grants from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Oregon State Library.

Peter Britt Gardens was added to the National Registry of Historic Places last month, making it the 10th Jacksonville location to be added and the first addition since March 2000. “It is rare for archaeological sites to make this distinction, so we are all happy that the nomination made it all of the way through,” said SOU research archaeologist Chelsea Rose.

Listing in the National Register is the first step towards eligibility for National Park Service-administered federal preservation tax credits that have leveraged more than $45 billion in private investment and National Park Service grant programs. Britt Gardens hosts the Britt Festival, an outdoor music and performing arts festival.

Story by Blair Selph, SOU Marketing and Communications student writer

Retired SOU registrar Mike Corcoran

Retired SOU registrar Mike Corcoran passes away

/in

Retired Southern Oregon University registrar Michael Corcoran passed away in the early morning hours of Sunday, March 29, after a hard fought battle with cancer.

Mike was born in Florida on Sept. 19, 1944, but grew up in southern Massachusetts. He served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War as a “Ditty Bopper,” intercepting enemy code.

He was especially proud of his time at SOU, where he was hired in 1997 as associate director of information technology. He became registrar in 1999 and served in that position until his retirement in June 2007. Mike often talked about how he loved being registrar because it allowed him to work with and help students one-on-one.

Mike’s birthday was on the little-known holiday “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” and it was not uncommon for him to come to work dressed as a pirate on that day. He leaves behind a legacy of intellect and humor.

Mike is survived by his wife, Cindy Corcoran; children Ryan (Amber) Corcoran, Kelly Porter, Chris (Jennifer) Corcoran and Bobby Corcoran; and six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Mike donated annually to St. Jude Children’s Hospital, and contributions in his honor would be welcomed. He will be buried in the National Veterans Cemetery in Phoenix, Arizona, once the world is no longer in quarantine. He earned that privilege and will receive full military honors.