SRC open for smoke respite

SOU opens indoor track for smoke respite

/in ,

(Ashland, Ore.) — Campus Recreation at Southern Oregon University is continuing to help community members find refuge from the area’s wildfire smoke.

The Student Recreation Center (SRC) will offer free admission for the general public to its elevated, indoor walking and running track – a popular smoke-free haven ­– for two-hour windows Monday through Friday, from noon to 2 p.m. and from 6 to 8 p.m., when the air quality is at unhealthy levels (101+ AQI). Photo ID and a signed waiver will be required at check-in.

For those wanting full access to the SRC during regular operating hours, day passes can be purchased onsite. You can find more information on SRC passes and memberships at recreation.sou.edu/memberships.

The SRC will be closed for annual maintenance from Saturday, September 9, through Wednesday, September 20.

SOU has made its Student Recreation Center available as a community resource during local wildfire smoke events over the past five years. The facility features high-efficiency air filtration and air conditioning systems.

-SOU-

General education requirements at SOU will be pared down and refocused

SOU streamlines and refocuses general education requirements

/in

(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University will join a groundbreaking trend among universities across the country when fall term begins in September – the core, “general education” courses that students of all majors must take to earn their undergraduate degrees will be pared down and focused on six skills or “capacities” that students need and employers seek.

The total general education requirements each student must complete will range from 39 to 44 credit hours, down from the 64 that have typically been needed in the past. A total of 180 credit hours – including elective courses and the specific requirements of various majors – will still be required to earn a bachelor’s degree, but students will have more flexibility to choose electives that interest them, support their majors or enable them to pursue minors or add-on academic certificates.

“The truth is that our students have long told us they don’t know why general education courses are required,” said professor Andrew Gay, chair of SOU’s faculty-run General Education Committee. “In many cases, students have chosen their general education courses based on which were easiest, rather than which would interest them or be of the greatest benefit.

“Our goal in rethinking general education at SOU has been to focus on classes that will benefit all students by developing the human skills – or capacities – that help them think, innovate and engage.”

Students will meet their overall general education requirements by choosing classes that the General Education Committee has determined will prepare students to practice and apply one or more of the six “capacities” – Purposeful Learning, Communication and Expression, Creativity and Innovation, Inquiry and Analysis, Numerical Literacy, and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Eligible classes will be identified in the SOU Course Catalog as being “approved for general education.”

General education curriculum at SOU – as at most universities – has been largely based on academic disciplines in the past, with specific requirements for mathematics, sciences, humanities and social sciences. The old model, for example, required students to take three science classes for a total of nine to 12 credit hours, and two of the classes had to have laboratory components.

Under the new general education requirements, students will choose classes that offer them opportunities to practice skills such as critical inquiry and analysis, creativity and innovation or numerical literacy, rather than choosing, for instance, three science classes, one math course and two humanities courses. The classes would have to be on the approved list for those capacities, and provide students the opportunity to practice and apply a specific set of skills.

“The focus moves from learning for its own sake to learning in support of the student’s self-defined goals,” Gay said. “A skills-based general education program says to the student, ‘You have your own life and career goals, and these essential skills will help you achieve those goals, so we’re offering a lot of course options from various disciplines that will help you develop those skills.’”

The new general education model requires 12 credit hours to satisfy lower-division requirements for the Purposeful Learning capacity, and three or four credits each for the Communication and Expression, Creativity and Innovation, Inquiry and Analysis, Numerical Literacy and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion capacities. It also requires a total of 12 credit hours of upper-division coursework to satisfy requirements in various capacities.

The Purposeful Learning capacity will serve a foundational role in SOU’s new general education model, preparing students to be lifelong learners and developing the perspective and self-knowledge to connect the dots between learning and life goals. It is structured as a seminar – a sequence of three first-year writing and communication courses that emphasize writing, speaking, thinking, reading, researching and interacting in small learning environments.

All of the new general education capacities, or skill groups, focus on human skills – such as creativity, critical thinking and cultural understanding – that enable students to thrive throughout their academic and work careers.

Students who finish their general education requirements will automatically be awarded a new Certificate in Applied Learning & Essential Skills that serves as an academic endorsement even before the completion of their degree programs.

-SOU-

Britt Gardens archaeological dig

SOU Laboratory of Anthropology receives grant for Britt analysis

/in ,

(Ashland, Ore.) — The Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology has received a grant of about $16,000 from a division of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department to complete a “faunal analysis” of artifacts unearthed during 2010-11 digs at Jacksonville’s Peter Britt Gardens.

The excavations by SOULA were conducted as the city of Jacksonville prepared for a restoration project on the 4.5-acre Britt Gardens site. But due to changes in the project plans and a loss of funding the archeological findings were not immediately studied to develop a detailed picture of life at the 1800s homestead.

A later grant in 2019 from the state parks’ Oregon Heritage division, for about $15,000, enabled SOULA archaeologists to analyze, interpret and catalog thousands of artifacts from the Britt homestead. The current grant of about $16,000 will fund a faunal analysis, which will study the inhabitants’ food sources by identifying animal remains such as bones and shells.

Katie Johnson, who will lead the Britt faunal analysis“This type of funding is so important for the research that we conduct here at SOULA,” said SOU research archaeologist Katie Johnson, who will lead the project. “Specialized analysis like this is very time-consuming and there are relatively few people in our field with this type of expertise, which often results in these studies not being conducted.

“The ability to obtain funding to help offset the cost allows for these studies to not only be conducted, but also to provide opportunities for students and volunteers to be a part of research that is significant on a national level.”

The grant is one of 18 “Preserving Oregon Grants,” totaling $277,681, that were awarded this summer by the state parks’ Oregon Heritage division for historic and archeological projects throughout the state. Each was approved by the Oregon Advisory Committee on Historic Preservation.

About 30,000 artifacts were recovered during the 2010-11 excavations at the Britt homestead. Peter Britt – an early Rogue Valley settler – was a painter, photographer and horticulturist whose photos of Crater Lake were instrumental in creation of the national park in 1902. The 2010-11 SOULA excavations included the site where Britt built a log cabin upon reaching Jacksonville in 1852 and the later home that his family lived in until the 1950s.

The study of faunal materials found at the site will enable the archaeological team to further explore the Britts’ daily life as immigrants and how it changed over time. The findings can then be compared to those from excavations at Jacksonville’s nearby Chinese Quarter, which burned in 1888. The Britts interacted with the Chinese gold-mining community of Jacksonville and the surrounding region in various ways, and it is believed that a comparison of archaeological findings may offer insights into political and social climates during the late 19th century.

faunal material at Britt Gardens dig siteFindings from the excavation of the Chinese Quarter were analyzed with the help of a 2016 Oregon Heritage Grant. The data has been used in numerous studies of the Oregon Chinese Diaspora and is the subject of Johnson’s master’s thesis.

The current project will be a collaborative effort by SOU, the city of Jacksonville, the Southern Oregon Historical Society, the Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project and community volunteers.

Johnson, the project leader, is a specialist in faunal analysis and has completed work on two previous Oregon Heritage Grant projects during more than a decade of work in the state. She recently completed her master’s degree in applied anthropology and environmental studies at SOU.

-SOU-