SOU solar transition receives support from Congress

SOU receives solar support from Congress

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University will receive $2 million to support its transition to solar power and energy independence, a result of the federal appropriations bill hammered out through months of negotiations and approved by Congress last week.

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon included the solar project in the spending bill at the request of SOU President Rick Bailey. The allocation will be used to partially fund the university’s multi-year solar transition.

“The entire Southern Oregon University community is grateful for the support of the federal government as we begin our effort to become the nation’s first public university to produce all of its own daytime electricity on its campus,” President Bailey said. “We especially appreciate the support and work of Senators Wyden and Merkley for prioritizing our sustainable energy conversion in this year’s federal spending bill.

“This allocation will allow us to take a substantial step toward our goal, and it reinforces our institution’s commitment to environmental stewardship, financial prudence and responsible leadership,” he said. “We look forward to beginning our next round of solar installations to further reduce both our dependence on the electrical grid and the day-to-day costs of powering a 21st century campus.”

The federal funding comes just two months after SOU received a $1 million grant from the Oregon Department of Energy to pay for most of a $1.34 million project to add solar arrays to The Hawk Dining Commons and the Lithia Motors Pavilion/Student Recreation Center complex. That project also includes the installation of battery storage at The Hawk to support students, first responders and the broader community, if needed.

The new federal allocation will help pay for additional solar arrays on SOU’s parking lots and rooftops. Producing all of its own electricity will save SOU at least $700,000 per year in utility costs, and President Bailey plans to expand the program from there – additional solar installations will eventually enable the university to generate income by selling electricity to local utilities. He achieved a similar but smaller solar project at Northern New Mexico College, where he served as president before joining SOU.

SOU will continue to implement energy conservation and energy efficiency measures as it increases its solar capacity.

The university currently has nine solar arrays on its Ashland campus, plus an array at the Higher Education Center in Medford and a pole-mounted array installed last year by a nonprofit on land leased from SOU. The two new arrays supported by the state grant will increase SOU’s solar capacity, and the federal funding will push the project forward even further.

SOU’s first solar array – a 6 kilowatt project with 24 solar panels – was installed on the rooftop of Hannon Library in 2000. A total of five new arrays have been added in just the past three years, in projects funded through a combination of private investors, grants, the student body and the university. SOU’s Hawk Dining Commons and McLoughlin Residence Hall each have solar hot water systems installed to augment their natural gas domestic water heating, and the campus also has three net-zero buildings – they create as much or more energy than they use.

The transition to solar energy is one of four entrepreneurial opportunities SOU is pursuing to create more of its own revenue. The university has also begun a project to demolish the long-vacant Cascade housing complex and replace it with a senior living facility that produces partnerships between its residents and the university. Funding for the demolition has been approved by the state and is expected to begin in the next few months.

Other projects that will produce revenue or reduce expenses for SOU include the establishment of a University Business District in southeast Ashland – discussions are underway with the local business community – and replacement of its operational software with the cutting-edge Workday platform, which eventually will save the university about $750,000 per year in recurring costs.

The projects are part of an effort to realign SOU’s financial structure, reducing expenses to better reflect current enrollment and academic interests, fight the national trend of skyrocketing tuition, expand revenue sources and position the university for strategic growth.

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New grant for prior learning credits

SOU receives state grant to provide “prior learning” credits

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University has received a one-time, $338,000 grant from the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission to expand opportunities for students to receive academic credit for knowledge and skills gained through life experiences such as work or military service.

SOU’s current Credit for Prior Learning program was initiated in 2015 as an option in the university’s bachelor’s degree program in Innovation and Leadership, which has been popular among mid-career adult students. The HECC grant, which was awarded this fall, has expanded the prior learning program campus-wide, and it already has been adopted in other academic areas, including Business, Communication, Media & Cinema.

“Offering students the option of Credit for Prior Learning is a way to honor the skills and knowledge our students bring to the school even before they have started taking classes on our campus,” said Moneeka Settles, coordinator for the Innovation and Leadership program. “It benefits students, no matter their major, because it recognizes the wisdom they have gained on their own life path.”

Students’ proposals for Prior Learning credits must meet several criteria under SOU’s policy for the program. Students must produce a portfolio that supports evidence they have learned the course outcomes, then faculty members assess the portfolio on a pass, no-pass basis. Students can also earn Credit for Prior Learning through challenge exams and military credit. Credits for prior learning can make up no more than 25 percent of the credits required for graduation.

SOU is among five Oregon universities and 14 community colleges that received this year’s HECC grants for Credit for Prior Learning programs. The HECC awarded a total of $10 million for the programs, under the state’s Future Ready Oregon investment package to support education and training that may lead to employment and family-wage careers. The grants are for one year, but institutions can apply to renew them annually.

Future Ready Oregon, funded by the 2022 Legislature, prioritizes historically underserved and vulnerable communities by offering opportunities to receive college credit “for prior experience or skills gained outside of traditional higher education institutions.”

The HECC requires standards for prior learning programs, monitors their implementation and provides periodic reports on them to the legislature. The HECC, which adopted its own prior learning standards in 2014, tracks the types and number of Credits for Prior Learning that are awarded throughout the state each year.

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Financial reporting honor for SOU

SOU earns state recognition for financial reporting

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SOU was notified recently that it has received the Oregon Department of Administrative Services’ Gold Star Award for the 2021 fiscal year – at least the fifth consecutive year the university has received the state’s top financial reporting honor under former Director of Business Services Steve Larvick, who retired from that position in June.

“Steve, our rock star, was instrumental in receiving another Gold Star rating,” said Greg Perkinson, SOU’s vice president for finance and administration, in an email announcing the accomplishment.

Larvick retired June 30 after 40 years of service at SOU but was hired back to serve as controller until his successor, Agnes Maina, began work in late October. Larvick is continuing to help with the university’s transition to the Workday core information system.

The state’s Administrative Service Department lists 13 criteria – ranging from verifying funding techniques to preparing and submitting audited annual financial reports – that must be accomplished by specific dates each year for a state agency or university to earn the Gold Star Award.

“Clearly, the Gold Star is a challenge to earn, and its achievement is due primarily to your agency’s diligent efforts to maintain accurate and complete accounting records throughout the year,” said George Naughton, the Administrative Services Department’s Chief Financial Officer, in an email announcing SOU’s most recent award.

The Gold Star Award is Oregon’s equivalent to the nationally recognized Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting, issued each year by the Government Finance Officers Association. Oregon has earned the GFOA certificate every year since 1992, in large part because of the efforts of state agencies to earn Gold Star recognition, Naughton said.

Daniel Henderson inducted into inventors academy

SOU alumnus and Foundation Board member inducted into inventors’ academy

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Daniel A. Henderson, a 1984 graduate of Southern Oregon University and emeritus member of the SOU Foundation Board of Trustees, is among 169 innovators worldwide who have been inducted in this year’s class of fellows in the National Academy of Inventors.

Henderson is best known for his patented invention of wireless picture and video messaging used in every cell phone in the world. He has received a total of 31 U.S. patents and his prototypes for wireless picture and video messaging are part of the collection at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. He received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2011 and was featured as a mobile technology innovator in a 2012 Super Bowl commercial for Best Buy.

Inventors inductee honored in Times Square“It is a true honor to be selected as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors,” Henderson said. “I am proud to be included in an elite group of distinguished colleagues, scientists and inventors that are so impactful on the great challenges of our time.”

Election as a fellow in the National Academy of Inventors is the highest professional distinction for academic inventors. Members of this year’s class of NAI fellows come from a total of 110 research universities, governmental and non-profit research institutes worldwide. They hold more than 5,000 U.S. patents combined, and include Nobel laureates, members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and other prestigious organizations.

“This year’s class of NAI Fellows represents a truly outstanding caliber of inventors,” said NAI President Paul R. Sanberg, Ph.D. “The breadth and scope of their inventions is truly staggering. I am excited to see their creativity continue to define a new era of science and technology in the global innovation ecosystem.”

The 2022 class of fellows will be honored and presented their medals at the 12th Annual Meeting of the National Academy of Inventors next June in Washington, D.C.

Henderson has founded numerous technology companies and was formerly with IBM Corporation. He is also an artist, and has had many public exhibitions of his large scale stone sculpture in the United Kingdom, China, the New Jersey Institute of Technology and at SOU’s Schneider Museum of Art.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon publicly congratulated Henderson in 2003, when his contributions to wireless communications and computing technologies were acknowledged by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. “I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first commercial use of cellular phones than to recognize you, a developer, an inventor and an Oregonian,” Wyden said.

Then-Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon added praise of his own in 2007.

“Ever since the days of the early pioneers, Oregon has been a magnet for innovators and trail blazers, and there can be no doubt that you have truly blazed new trails in the fields of wireless technology and digital convergence,” Smith said.

Henderson served as a member of the SOU Foundation Board of Trustees from 2002 to 2014, and has been a permanent, emeritus member of the board since 2018. He also serves on the Board of Overseers, the Dorman Honors College Board and several other boards at New Jersey Institute of Technology, and is engaged in fostering innovation, creativity and diversity in STEM education to benefit society.

Agriculture interests stay with SOU student

SOU student maintains passion for agriculture

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No two SOU students are alike in all ways, but Abigail Rademacher may be among the least typical. For starters, she is now an economics major at SOU, a medium-sized liberal arts university – and has a passion for agriculture and livestock, having transferred from a large ag school.

But Rademacher stands out even among others who share her farming/ranching interests; she took a brief break from classes this fall for a trip to Indiana, where she was awarded an FFA American Degree – an honor bestowed on fewer than 1 percent of the nation’s Future Farmers of America members.

“I thought that this might inspire other students that dedication to their passions and extracurricular activities can help to enhance their education at an undergraduate level,” she said.

Rademacher received her FFA State Degree in 2019, while a junior at Eagle Point High School, then graduated with honors – and a 3.8 GPA – a year later. The difference between the FFA State Degree and American Degree is mostly a matter of scale – the American Degree requires much higher levels of community service, investment and profits from agricultural or livestock projects. Rademacher also completed the equivalent of 360 hours secondary and post-secondary agricultural education to qualify for the national-level honor, through a combination of college-level courses while in high school and ag-specific coursework at Iowa State University prior to her transfer to SOU.

Then there’s the requirement for American Degree recipients to have invested at least $7,500 and earned at least $10,000 – and spent at least 2,500 paid and unpaid hours – in agricultural projects. Rademacher checked those boxes through a variety of FFA “Supervised Agricultural Experiences,” which are similar to 4-H projects. She completed a swine production project, showed both swine and steers, wrote an agricultural blog, worked in the garden department of a Lowes home improvement store, worked at an agricultural magazine at Iowa State, attended a Global Youth Institute conference and created a wine label for a local winery.

She completed community service and demonstrated leadership by volunteering with an Adopt a Family, Hearts with a Mission, the Maslow Project and Feed America, and at events including an agricultural dinner and auction, a cattlemen’s annual meeting and at an annual quilt show. She served as a group leader at the Global Youth Institute conference, as public relations chair and vice president of her Public Relations Student Association of America chapter and as Eagle Point High School’s Pear Blossom princess for 2020.

Rademacher landed this fall at SOU – where her grandparents and mother are alumni – after leaving Iowa for health reasons. She changed her focus from business to economics following a conversation with Bret Anderson, an associate professor and chair of SOU’s economics program.

“My goal after my bachelor’s is to pursue a Ph.D. in agricultural economics with a potential career as a policy analyst within the Department of Agriculture,” Rademacher said. “I haven’t heard of many opportunities at SOU related to ag, and would love any suggestions.”