Passport grant to make study abroad opportunities more accessible

SOU receives passport grant – student applications open through June 7

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Southern Oregon University has been selected by the Institute of International Education (IIE) to receive an IIE American Passport Project grant that will pay for as many as 25 SOU students to obtain U.S. passports.

IIE’s American Passport Project is a key initiative under the institute’s Center for Access and Equity, and demonstrates the organization’s commitment to create more equitable access to study abroad opportunities. The program prioritizes first-year students receiving Pell grants – for whom this may be their first passport – in order to remove a barrier to future study abroad participation.

Adult passports currently cost $130, plus a $35 execution fee at the passport facility.

“While $165 may not be a large amount compared to other costs associated with study abroad, like plane tickets, students without a passport and with limited financial resources are often hesitant to spend that money until they know they absolutely need it,” said SOU Education Abroad advisor Ariel Bloomer.

That certainty may come too late, and result in a missed opportunity. Routine processing of passports currently takes 10 to 13 weeks. Many international programs will not be able to process an official acceptance until the student’s passport information is received, and then students may need to account for a student visa process that could take another two to 12 weeks, depending on the destination.

“Removing this barrier is as much about timing as it is about the cost,” Bloomer said. “We want students to be able to say ‘yes’ to international opportunities when they arise, and not have a lengthy administrative process waylay them.”

To apply for the IIE American Passport Project Scholarship, students should check their eligibility and fill out the brief application on Scholarship Universe by June 7. Student nominations will then be confirmed with the Institute of International Education.

All applicants will receive information on the passport application process from the Office of International Programs, which also operates as a Passport Acceptance Facility serving students and the community Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 4 p.m. Selected students will be able to take passport photos and complete their passport application all on campus with the support of International Programs staff.

IIE awarded passport funds to 48 institutions in the IIENetwork this year, including both Southern Oregon University and Oregon State University, which will help up to 1,200 students across the country obtain passports. IIE aims to reach 10,000 U.S. students by 2030 through the IIE American Passport Project, with the overall goal of increasing diversity and inclusion of students studying abroad.

“A passport is the first thing that opens up their world to the possibility of study abroad,” said Courtney Temple, IIE Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer.

Current or future students who want to learn more about studying abroad while at SOU can explore the International Programs web page, the Outdoor Adventure Leadership international expeditions page, or read about recent faculty-led programs such as Criminology in Ireland.

Story by Ariel Bloomer, SOU Education Abroad advisor 

EV charging station survey

Campus survey to help steer expansion of EV charging stations

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Southern Oregon University is seeking input on the expansion of its electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure on campus. The university is increasing its EV charging capacity and wants to hear from students, faculty, staff and community members about where and how they would like to see the charging stations located.

The survey, which can be found here, asks respondents about their EV ownership, their charging habits and their preferences for EV charging locations. The survey is open to everyone, regardless of whether they own an EV.

SOU aims to strategically plan and identify optimal locations for charging stations as the demand for electric vehicle charging increases on campus. The intent is to accommodate the distinct charging needs of students, employees and visitors to campus.

SOU currently has 12 charging ports – six double stations – on campus, plus a single charger for its partnership project with the City of Ashland for an EV carshare program funded by Forth Mobility.

One challenge that SOU faces is an electrical infrastructure and connection points that vary in quality and capacity at different locations across campus. That means installation costs for the charging equipment will differ, depending on the sites that are chosen.

The university’s Solar Power and Rechargeable Cars Committee (SPARC) – made up of faculty, students and staff members – will address that issue and others as its members develop a strategy to expand the EV charging infrastructure. The EV Charging Survey was developed by Marissa Defazio, a student representative on SPARC and director of the Associated Students of SOU’s Environmental Affairs Committee.

The survey aims to gather opinions and suggestions from the SOU community to ensure that the expansion aligns with needs and preferences.

The university is working to secure funding for the additional charging stations. SOU has already received support from the Oregon Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Energy to install EV charging stations, and funding from the Student Green Fund to install EV charging at the Student and Family Housing complex.

The university is committed to sustainability and reducing its environmental impact. By expanding its EV charging infrastructure, SOU is making it easier for students, faculty, staff and community members to drive electric vehicles.

The university is asking for help to make the expansion project a success. All are encouraged to take the survey and share it with friends, family and colleagues.

The Creativity Conference at SOU is this week

Fifth year of Creativity Conference at SOU to unfold this week

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(Ashland, Ore.) — The fifth annual Creativity Conference at SOU will begin a four-day run on Thursday, May 18, with a lineup of 123 presenters, including seven keynote speakers. The conference is expected to draw many of the world’s top scholars, researchers and practitioners in the field of creativity, along with a wide variety of working professionals looking for ways to bring creativity into their work.

The conference, first held in 2018, will be presented in a hybrid format. Thursday, May 18, will be reserved for remote presenters and those presentations will be livestreamed via the conference app. In-person attendees will have the option of watching the streams for those events in designated rooms on SOU’s campus. In-person presentations will be held Friday, May 19, through Sunday, May 21, in Southern Oregon University’s Stevenson Union, but all of those sessions will also be livestreamed and available to remote attendees. Attendees will also be able to view archived versions of all presentations.

Registration remains open for the event, which begins with an 8:30 a.m. “kickoff” address on May 18 by Mark Runco of SOU, who co-created the conference with Dan DeNeui, SOU’s Associate Provost.

“This conference features internationally renowned speakers and presenters who are prominent in the study of creativity,” DeNeui said. “The material they present will spark imagination and cause attendees to rethink how they approach their work.

“This year we are featuring a keynote address and numerous presentations on the role of artificial intelligence and creativity.”

Individual events at the conference will again be held in any of four formats: 60 minute panel presentations by two or three people; 40- to 50-minute presentations by individuals; 15-minute “boom talk” presentations that quickly get to the “so what” of their topics; and poster presentations. All varieties of presentation formats will all offer time for questions and answers.

This year’s keynote speakers are Arthur I. Miller, emeritus professor of the history and philosophy of science at University College London ; Ivonne Chand O’Neal, founder and principal of the creativity and arts impact research firm Muse Research, LLC; Roger Beaty, and assistant professor of psychology at Penn State University and director of PSU’s Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Lab; Roni Reiter-Palmon, Varner Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology and director of the I/O Psychology graduate program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha; and Ted Adams, founder of Clover Press, author of graphic novels and member of the SOU Foundation’s Board of Trustees.

Mark Runco will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from SOU at the 2023 Creativity Conference. He is past president of the American Psychological Association’s Division 10 and editor of the Journal of Creativity. He is editor emeritus of the Creativity Research Journal and has co-edited three editions of the Encyclopedia of Creativity. His creativity textbook has been translated into over a dozen languages (the 3rd edition is due out any day). Runco was previously the Torrance Professor of Creative Studies at the University of Georgia and is currently director of creativity research and programming at SOU.

The SOU Creativity Conference is an international event that provides cutting-edge information and resources for those who are interested in learning more about the science and application of creativity research. The conference provides an opportunity for creativity researchers to collaborate and broaden their networks.

SOU’s strategic plan specifically emphasizes creativity, innovation and other human skills that augment technical skills and are particularly valued by employers.

Those with questions about the conference may reach out to either Mark Runco at runcom@sou.edu or Dan DeNeui at deneuid@sou.edu.

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International student Aiki Deguchi of Japan

SOU’s Aiki Deguchi: An academic voyager

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Aiki Deguchi, a student from Japan who was awarded the “Most Outstanding First Year/Transfer Student in the Communication Discipline” accolade last year by professors, will graduate from SOU this August with a bachelor’s degree in language and communication. The 23-year-old has spent the last two years studying in the U.S., and in doing so, his thoughts on individualism and perspectives on humility, political engagement and the value of student-teacher relationships have evolved.

He began work toward his degree at Tokyo International University and came to the U.S. to study under an exchange program at Willamette University in 2019. With a hundred Japanese exchange students surrounding him, he found that his own language and culture were too accessible, as he wanted to immerse himself in American culture and language. He transferred to SOU that same year, determined to study in the U.S. and earn a degree – he is currently the only college student among his group of friends in Japan.

Students in Japan wear tuxedos to graduation, but Aiki is excited to wear the American regalia cap and gown when he walks across the commencement stage.

Risks and rewards
Aiki DeguchiThe most striking cultural clash for Aiki has been experiencing American individualistic culture, as the foreign frame of mind comes off as abrasive. The self-importance that seems ingrained in American culture has been a confounding adjustment for Aiki. Social behaviors in the U.S. that have stood out to him are that people are friendly here, yet they distance themselves from others and make it clear that other people are “not their problem,” he says, and people are not nearly as consumed with their own agendas back home.

Being presentable and agreeable is a priority in Japan, whereas self-expression and self-praise are a priority in the U.S. – he says that in Japan, self-praise “does not exist,” he says.

When asked about his biggest fear in coming to the U.S., he starts with a concern of his parents – mass shootings. “Even though I am kind of scared of it, I’m in Ashland, so I feel safer,” Aiki says. His most daunting challenge was undoubtedly speaking English in public.

He says the professors at SOU are very friendly, while he describes teachers in Japan as formal and strict. A benefit of the cultural differences has been his ability to experience school in a highly interpersonal way, especially as a communication major. His experience at SOU has been refreshing, as he “can get to know everyone in class,” Aiki says.

An instructor who has made the biggest impact on him at SOU is Erica Knotts. He says that she has been more than a teacher because they have built a relationship, and he views her as a friend. His internship with Knotts as a teacher’s assistant in her mediation course this term has been an outlet for him to “overcome and kind of be confident” when public speaking, he says.

A first time for everything
Proximity to others has been eye-opening for Aiki, as he feels there is a greater distance between people in Japan than in the U.S. – from professor-student relationships to everyday interactions among strangers. Aiki describes Americans as sometimes overly friendly and alarmingly willing to be approached. It was a transition for Aiki to be approached when shopping for food, as in Japan, he says people keep more to themselves.

For him, a positive effect of American friendliness is the compliments he sometimes receives, as those are less common in Japan. Aiki had never received a compliment on a haircut before living in the U.S., as a haircut in his culture is regarded simply as self-maintenance rather than a form of self-expression worthy of praise.

Aiki says it is a priority in Japan to be polite and humble. He describes Japan as a mostly homogenous culture that treats daily attire as an expectation and not a form of self-expression. His own views on that have changed, and now he believes what he wears is “not anyone’s business.” Living in the U.S. for two years has given Aiki “the idea that people don’t have to be the same,” he says.

He has also noticed that young people in the U.S. are highly interested in politics, which is in contrast to Japan. He noticed that students were posting about their political beliefs and voting plans., and he has been surprised by the closeness of election results. Seeing peers his age passionate about politics, and observing youth amplifying their voices through political engagement, have made an impact on him and changed his perspective on voting. He voted for the first time when he went home to Japan last summer.

Seeing the world
A goal for Aiki after returning to Japan is to start working and return to eating well. He says the high cost of living in the U.S. is astonishing, and he feels that it affects quality of life.

Something Aiki has been able to accomplish in the U.S. that he would not have had the opportunity to do back home is travel. He has been to New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco since being in the U.S., and has been to Seattle – his favorite, local big city, Seattle – five times. He has played baseball for 10 years, and is attracted to Seattle by both its authentic Japanese cuisine and the Seattle Mariners.

His aspiration after college is to be a flight attendant on non-domestic airlines. After extensive self-reflection and experiencing the world with new eyes, Aiki has learned more about himself and those around him, and he feels able to impart the wisdom he has gained in another country to others.

Aiki dreams of living in another country one day. Singapore is on his dream board for its beauty and language accessibility, as it is common to speak English in there. The biggest takeaway from his experience as a world traveler is that he has “learned people are so different.” He hopes his exuberance for experiencing the world through a different lens will propel him toward more opportunities.

Story by Angelina Caldera, SOU Communications multi-media reporter

Civil rights theorist Ian Haney Lopez

Civil rights theorist Ian Haney Lopez to speak at SOU

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion has partnered with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to bring celebrated law professor and civil rights theorist Ian Haney Lopez to the SOU campus for a public lecture on creating a free and equal multi-racial democracy.

Haney Lopez’s lecture, “Building a Broader ‘We’: Fusing Race and Class,” is part of the SOU Campus Theme lecture series, which is focusing this year on “identity.” The talk will be at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, May 16, in the Rogue River Room of SOU’s Stevenson Union.

The lecture centers on the question of how we can make the transition from a multi-racial population to a multi-racial democracy – and one that is “genuinely racially egalitarian.” Haney Lopez, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, will challenge audience members to examine their understanding of racism, and will discuss a model of racism that blends race and class to show the value of embracing a multi-racial society.

SOU’s Campus Theme lecture series is meant to create opportunities for students, faculty, staff and community members to engage in intellectually stimulating conversations. Each theme in the annual series – which began in the 2009-10 academic year – focuses on a specific concept and addresses big questions, enables deep understanding and broadens the intellectual horizons of participants.

The collaboration between SOU’s Office of EDI and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is the result of ongoing conversations about how the two organizations can build community and serve as partners in the work of equity. Anyania Muse – OSF’s Interim Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of IDEA People, Culture & Operations – was familiar with Haney Lopez, and proposed the community lecture partnership.

Haney Lopez teaches in the areas of race and constitutional law. His research centers around class, race and politics, and the ways in which class and race are often leveraged for gain – dividing society in ways that benefit the whole the least. He is considered one of the nation’s leading thinkers on how racism has evolved since the civil rights era.

He authored the 2014 book, “Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class,” which examines how politicians exploit racism to ultimately support rule by the rich; and the 2019 book, “Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America,” about how the manipulation of coded racism evolved during the Trump era. He also wrote the books “White by Law” and “Racism on Trial.”

Haney Lopez holds an endowed chair as the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Public Law at UC-Berkeley, and has been a visiting law professor at Yale, New York University and Harvard. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from Washington University, a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton and a law degree from Harvard.

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Global Innovation Scholars visit by Guanajuato delegation

SOU-Guanajuato collaborations expand with Global Innovation Scholars

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University hosted two professors and nine business students last week from Universidad de Guanajuato, as the two longtime sister campuses continued their Global Innovation Scholars program – a collaboration on multicultural business development that was initiated through the U.S. Department of State.

The nine Guanajuato students, along with 10 SOU students who visited Guanajuato in April, worked last week on development plans for three Rogue Valley businesses or organizations –  Ride My Road, Mt. Ashland and the Ashland Climate Collaborative. The 19 combined students in this year’s exchange program spent the week in Ashland researching and analyzing the businesses, then offered their suggested development plans to the business owners.

SOU President Rick Bailey hosted a welcome reception for the Guanajuato delegation, and the Ashland Amigo Club – which supports the Ashland-Guanajuato Sister City program – hosted a farewell gathering at the Grizzly Peak Winery.

The SOU and UG students did similar work in Guanajuato last month, when they researched and offered development suggestions to three Mexican businesses. The SOU delegation that visited Guanajuato was led by Dee Fretwell, a Business Department instructor and director of the Global Innovation Scholars program at SOU; Jeremy Carlton, a Business Department instructor and chair of the department; and Vincent Smith, a professor and director of the Division of Business, Communication and the Environment.

Fretwell introduced the Global Innovation Scholars program last year, in partnership with UG business professor and SOU alumnus Martin Pantoja – who also led last week’s Guanajuato delegation to Ashland, along with UG professor Lari Arthur Viianto.

“This program is truly unique, in that it brings together students from two communities and cultures to learn from each other while providing valuable insights to business owners,” Fretwell said.

The Global Innovation Scholars program includes international, online coursework for participating students during each year’s winter and spring terms, in addition to the opportunity for immersive social and cultural experiences. Global Innovation Scholars was developed last year by the two universities’ business schools as part of the “100,000 Strong in the Americas” program, sponsored by the State Department, the U.S. Embassies and the nonprofit organization Partners for the Americas.

The SOU-UG partnership received a $25,000 grant last year from the 100,000 Strong program, which serves more than 500 higher education institutions in 25 Western Hemisphere countries and 49 U.S. states. This year’s program was funded by the SOU Institute for Applied Sustainability – established last fall through a generous gift from Lithia Motors and GreenCars – and through the support of  Barbara Tyler and Tom Curran.

SOU and UG have initiated a variety of exchange and cooperative projects since they became sister universities in 1969. The link between the two schools has led more than 1,000 students, faculty members and others to participate in exchanges – and has resulted in more than 80 marriages that have tied people from Ashland and Guanajuato over three generations.

The current Global Innovation Scholars project grew out of a previous partnership between the two schools – the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program – which brought together classes of upper-division business students to work on the development of international business relationships.

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Arbor Day volunteers at SOU

Arbor Day celebrated at SOU

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A team of volunteers came together to help the SOU landscaping crew to celebrate Arbor Day on Friday, April 28, by doing tree maintenance and planting a variety of trees and shrubs on campus.

Arbor Day is observed each year, as part of SOU’s certification as a Tree Campus, to help maintain the current health of the trees on campus, while planting additional trees to further develop the green spaces across campus. Trees are integral to environmental stability, including helping to combat climate change, purify the air and prevent soil erosion and water pollution. Trees also have many mental health benefits for students and cool streets and cities.

Arbor Day tree plantingThe trees and shrubs planted on Arbor Day were purchased from the local Shooting Star Nursery and Plant Oregon, and included several native varieties, including pollinator plants.

The shrubs included 10 native redtwig dogwoods, along with five autumn brilliance serviceberries. With some solid teamwork, five young giant sequoias were planted, along with several Heritage River birch and spire oak trees. The new plants are all located outside the Music Building on the SOU campus.

Another team worked on maintaining other trees on campus, with a focus on pruning several established trees and removal of any dead wood to keep the established trees healthy.

Volunteers for the event included students, faculty and staff from IT, facilities, sustainability and the vice president for finance and administration. The yearly involvement in Arbor Day celebrations helps to involve students in service learning projects, encouraging physical activity, promote sustainable practices and encourage a healthier campus environment.

Arbor Day was originally celebrated in 1872, and marked the planting of more than a million trees Nebraska. Arbor Day was proclaimed as a legal state holiday in Nebraska in 1885. By 1920, more than 45 states joined the tradition and today, Arbor Day is celebrated in all U.S. states.

The holiday is focused on hope for the future, representing the belief that the hard work now will grow to provide clean air and water, cooling shade and wildlife habitat that will overall promote healthier communities.

Special thanks went to Zack Williams and the SOU landscaping team for organizing the event. The team works hard to maintain the beauty of SOU’s campus, developing green spaces and pollinator habitats that benefit the environment and community.

Alec Arellano lectures on democracy in Campus Theme series

Occidental College professor to lecture on identity of American democracy

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Occidental College political scientist Alec Arellano will visit SOU this week as a guest speaker in the 15th anniversary edition of SOU’s “Campus Theme” lecture series. He will lecture on the identity of American democracy.

Arellano’s lecture, “Continuity and Change: John Dewey on Navigating Democratic Identity,” will be at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 4, in Room 124 of the Art Building. It is free and open to the public.

SOU’s Campus Theme lecture series aims to create opportunities for students, faculty, staff and community members to engage in intellectually stimulating conversations. Each theme in the annual series – which began in the 2009-10 academic year focuses on a specific concept and addresses big questions, enables deep understanding and broadens the intellectual horizons of participants. This year’s theme is “identity.”

Arellano says that the United States faces a myriad of challenges, many of which go to the core of American democracy’s identity, as the country enters the 21st century’s second decade. The challenges concern the balance between holding fast to custom and tradition on the one hand, and innovating in response to new circumstances on the other.

The philosophy of John Dewey, who characterized democracy as not just a system of formal political institutions but also as a way of life requiring the possession and continual use of certain attitudes, furnishes a resource for thinking through this issue, Arellano says. Though Dewey’s short 1934 book, “A Common Faith,” is on its surface a proposal for a post-Christian spirituality that he wants to inaugurate, it also can be productively read as an account of some of the habits of character he regards as necessary for life in a modern democracy.

The SOU Campus Theme presentation will examine some of Dewey’s strategies for promoting those habits of character and consider their relevance for contemporary life.

Arellano is a political theorist specializing in Ancient Greek political thought, contemporary American political thought, and liberalism and its critics. He teaches courses on constitutional law and society, American politics and political theory in the Department of Politics at Occidental College.

Arellano received his Ph.D. in 2019 from The University of Texas at Austin. His work has been published in top journals in political science, and his current research examines Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill and John Dewey’s views regarding the conditions under which critical, independent thought can be a salutary force for democratic politics. He is also the nephew of Bobby Arellano, a professor in SOU’s Department of Emerging Media and Digital Arts.