Availability of overdose rescue kits expands across campus

Availability of overdose reversal drug expands across SOU campus

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SOU’s four-year-old initiative to make naloxone rescue kits widely available has expanded to 24 fixed locations across campus plus three Campus Public Safety patrol vehicles, as opioid overdoses continue to rise throughout the region and state.

The rescue kits – with nasal spray containers of the overdose reversal medication naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan – are located primarily in easy-to-find fire extinguisher and AED cabinets in most SOU buildings. They can be found in the Shasta, McLoughlin, Cox, Susanne Homes and Madrone residence halls; the Greensprings Complex; Ivy Hall in the Cascade Complex; the Digital Media Center; the Education/Psychology, Theatre, Music, Art, Computer Services and Science buildings; The Hawk; the Facilities, Maintenance and Planning building; the Raider Stadium Training Room; Stevenson Union; Hannon Library; Lithia Motors Pavillion; the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the Campbell Center; and Churchill, Britt and Taylor Halls.

The kits enable friends or passersby to save the lives of those experiencing opioid overdoses. Heroin and methadone, along with prescription pain medications such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, codeine, hydromorphone, morphine, oxymorphone, fentanyl and buprenorphine all are considered opioids.

Oregon saw a total of 1,114 opioid deaths from April 2021 to April 2022, the most recent year for which figures are available from Oregon Health & Science University. That’s an 18.5% increase over the previous year – a period in which overdose deaths nationwide increased by 6.9%. The Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office reported 91 opioid overdose deaths in the 2021 calendar year, compared to 41 in 2020 and 16 in 2019.

Naloxone can legally be possessed and administered in Oregon, and was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for over-the-counter sales. It has no narcotic effects, and works by reversing opioid-induced depression of the respiratory and central nervous systems.

The nasal spray is easy to use, but familiarity with the procedures is advised. Self-training tools include a nine-minute video with details on how and when to administer naloxone, and a step-by-step description of the medication’s use.

SOU Institute for Applied Sustainability to host tourism training

SOU Institute for Applied Sustainability to offer training

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Southern Oregon University’s new Institute for Applied Sustainability will team with Travel Southern Oregon and its statewide counterpart, Travel Oregon, to host a sustainable tourism training seminar on April 2 in Portland for travel industry professionals. The session is an opportunity for SOU to build its reputation as a respected and influential resource in Oregon for those interested in sustainable tourism.

Pavlina McGrady, Ph.D. an SOU associate professor of business and fellow in the Institute for Applied Sustainability, will join Travel Oregon research manager Ladan Ghahramani, Ph.D., as instructors for the training session. Participants will become the first cohort of SOU’s Sustainable Tourism Practitioner Training program as they learn about the future of sustainable tourism through a day-long schedule of interactive lectures, and local and international case studies. There will also be a review of Travel Oregon’s 10-year strategic plan.

The session – from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 2, at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland – will be offered one day before the three-day Oregon Governor’s Conference on Tourism, which begins at the convention center on Monday. The sold-out sustainable tourism session will have about 50 participating travel industry professionals.

The initial training session on Sunday is funded by a $10,000 strategic investment grant from Travel Southern Oregon. A second training session, to be scheduled in May or June in southern Oregon, will likely be paid for by the Institute for Applied Sustainability.

The SOU institute was created last fall as part of an historic, $12 million gift to SOU from Lithia Motors and its GreenCars division. The two largest elements of the gift are a $5 million scholarship fund and $4 million to establish the Institute for Applied Sustainability, which will collaborate with Lithia on projects including a national sustainability conference, an academic credential in corporate sustainability and a national sustainability demonstration site.

SOU-RCC Innovation Jam on Saturday at RCC's Tablerock campus

SOU, RCC collaborate in regional “Innovation Jam”

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Participants will form teams and invent solutions to “some of the region’s most pressing problems,” including sustainability and environmentalism, in an Innovation Jam on Saturday that features SOU and RCC students, and is overseen by business leaders, innovators and educators from around Oregon.

The event, co-hosted by Invent Oregon, is a regional collegiate competition that engages entrepreneurial students in all-day brainstorming sessions. The southern Oregon event will be from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at RCC’s Table Rock Campus in White City.

Abigail Van Gelder, executive director of Invent Oregon, said students from SOU’s Design Thinking and Creative Entrepreneurship courses will bring “the multi-disciplinary communication and collaboration skills needed to launch and scale a 21st-century startup.” Students from RCC’s industrial technology program will provide “expertise in tools, technology and manufacturing,” she said.

Students will work on prototypes through the day, with a keynote address, final pitches, feedback from local mentors and advisors and networking open to the public starting at 4 p.m. Advisors will provide input, using design-thinking guidelines and techniques.

“This is the only workshop of its kind being hosted by Invent Oregon this year,” Van Gelder said. “We are working with RCC and SOU to pilot new ways to serve innovation students across the state outside of the channel of having a team that represents their university at the Invent Oregon Collegiate Challenge.

“We look forward to taking this workshop across the state to other partner schools next year.”

The SOU-RCC partnership in the Innovation Jam is the result of collaboration between Marshall Doak, director of SOU’s Small Business Development Center, and Kim Freeze, RCC’s Dean of Science, Art and Technology.

The event will include a catered breakfast and lunch for registered participants.

Event location:
RCC’s Table Rock Campus in White City, Oregon
7800 Pacific Ave, White City, OR 97503

Event Schedule:

  • 8:30am — 9:00am: Registration and Breakfast
  • 9:00am — 10:00am: Kickoff and Initial Instructions
  • 10:00am — 10:30am: Design Thinking Module
  • 10:30am — 11:30am: Problem Statement Introductions and Customer Interviews
  • 11:30am — 1:30pm: Mentor Guided Team Session
  • 12:00pm: Lunch Delivered
  • 1:30pm — 2:00pm: Pitch Design Module
  • 2:00pm — 3:00pm: Pitch Design
  • 2:30pm — 3:30pm: Pitch Coaching Session
  • 3:00pm — 4:00pm: Final Presentation Prep
  • 4:00pm — 5:30pm: Guest Speaker, Pitch for the Judges and Awards

Contact Information:     

Story by Angelina Caldera, SOU Marketing and Communications student writer

Friday Science Seminar speaker discusses zebrafish in study of neurological disease

Friday Science Seminar: What can we learn from a fish?

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Michael Johnson, Ph.D., an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Kansas and developer of electroanalytical methods for the study of Parkinson’s and other neurological diseases, will be the guest speaker on March 10 for SOU’s Friday Science Seminar.

The lecture, at 3:30 p.m. in Room 151 of the SOU Science Building, is titled, “What Can We Learn From a Fish? Zebrafish as a model of neuronal function and disease.” The presentation is part of the SOU STEM Division’s Friday Science Seminars program, which offers events on topics ranging from astronomy to computer science to biochemistry.

Johnson studies neurological diseases, such as Parkinson’s, using zebrafish as a model organism. He will discuss the use of fast-scan cyclic voltammetry, an electrochemical technique used to monitor neurochemicals in living organisms, to measure the effects of zinc ion on dopamine release and uptake in zebrafish brains. The method allows for the detection of sub-second changes in dopamine levels.

Zebrafish were used first at the University of Oregon for the study of development, but have become recognized as a valuable tool to study neuronal function.

Johnson will share his research in two areas during his SOU talk. In the first project, his team has developed a method to apply zinc ion with sub-second precision in zebrafish brains to measure the immediate effect on dopamine release and uptake. They have also identified differences in how zinc ion affects dopamine release and uptake in zebrafish treated with rotenone, a model of Parkinson’s disease.

In the second project, Johnson’s team has adapted a method to measure oxytocin, a nonapeptide with various functions.

Johnson received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. He later earned his master’s degree in analytical chemistry from the University of Colorado, Denver, and his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. Johnson joined the faculty at the University of Kansas in 2005, where he has focused on developing electroanalytical methods for the study of neurological disease.