Behavioral Health Initiative dialogue session

SOU embraces Behavioral Health Initiative

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University took a step toward “Creating a Culture of Care” through a well-attended dialogue session with that title earlier this month. The wide-ranging discussion – with more to come – is one of the projects currently included in the university’s Southern Oregon Behavioral Health Initiative, funded last spring with a legislative allocation intended to address a statewide shortage of behavioral health providers and programs.

“During the dialogue, we dove deep into behavioral/mental health and well-being, and what that looks like on campus,” said Robin Sansing, SOU’s Behavioral Health Initiative director. “We had great group discussions focusing on critical behavioral health issues including topics like supporting gender-affirming care and appreciating neurodiversity. Across all groups, there was a strong call for more accessible resources, inclusive conversations and community-driven solutions.”

About 40 students, faculty and staff attended the Feb. 10 “Culture of Care” discussion in Hannon Library’s Meese Room, and the next such session is being planned for Tuesday, April 15.

Topics at this month’s session included the need for more conversations and curriculum integration to support gender-affirming care; strategies including youth-friendly Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, a speakers bureau and “party mentors” to help prevent addiction and overdose; supporting undocumented people by addressing their fears and offering tangible help; embracing neurodiversity with access to affordable diagnoses, stronger accommodations and faculty awareness; and using storytelling to address climate anxiety.

The on-campus dialogue series is one of the first projects of the new Southern Oregon Behavioral Health Initiative, an SOU program that advances behavioral health education, workforce development and community collaboration. SOBHI is taking the lead in creating the Rogue Valley Behavioral Health Employment and Career Opportunity Network, offering professional development programs in behavioral health, expanding on-campus behavioral health opportunities and support, and maintaining the “Culture of Care” dialogue.

The SOBHI mission is to create partnerships that impact behavioral health, mental wellness and early childhood development at SOU and around the Rogue Valley through education, action and scholarship.

Behavioral health addresses the connection between behaviors and well-being, and how support through prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery may impact overall health. It encompasses mental health, lifestyle and health behaviors, substance use, and crisis and coping strategies.

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SOU interns help grow Rogue Buzzway map

Rogue Buzzway gardens grow with SOU partnership

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The Rogue Buzzway – an interactive map that represents southern Oregon’s pollinator corridors – has bounced back following a steep decline caused by the 2020 Almeda Fire, under the leadership of recent SOU Environmental Science & Policy graduate Leo Helm.

Helm, who graduated last fall and is the latest in a succession of SOU interns to work on the Buzzway, has collaborated with the Pollinator Project Rogue Valley to create the Rogue Buzzway StoryMap, which celebrates nearly 120 self-certified pollinator gardens from Ashland to Grants Pass.

The Buzzway map helps visualize pollinator habitat connectivity – a vital element in helping native pollinators such as butterflies, bees and moths to navigate the urban landscape. The map also encourages people to create new gardens by showing areas with no certified pollinator habitat, and shares stories about how existing gardens were created.

“We made the Buzzway StoryMap to better communicate what the Buzzway is about,” Helm said. “It takes you through the map and really shows the kinds of gardens that are on there. It’s pretty inspiring.”

Gardens on the map include organic farms, city parks, front yards and gardens planted by PPRV as a part of its “From Fire to Flowers” pollinator garden program, which brought pollinator gardens to people affected by the 2020 Almeda fire.

Colorful pollinator plantings on the SOU campus are not yet included on the map, but Helm and others at the PPRV plan to work with the university and city of Ashland to fill in the map with existing local gardens.

The Rogue Buzzway was created after the PPRV approached SOU associate professor Jamie Trammel in 2016 about mapping the Rogue Valley’s pollinator gardens. Trammel and then-SOU student Ollie Bucolo and Dr. Jamie Trammell created the map, whose scope and capabilities have grown over the years with the contributions of other Environmental Science & Policy interns.

Helm said he hopes more interns will step forward in the future to help the Buzzway continue to grow.

“It’s really cool to be a part of a long-standing project like this,” he said. “We keep finding new uses for the Buzzway and ways to improve it. It’s been a valuable experience for me and I’m excited to see what happens to the Buzzway map once someone else inherits it.”

Students can also volunteer with the Pollinator Pals educational program or in PPRV’s demonstration garden in Phoenix, or put their knowledge to work with videography, photography, social media, graphic design, writing newsletters or helping to maintain and update the organization’s website.

Freshman Ryan Goodrich named to SOU Board of Trustees

SOU freshman joins Board of Trustees

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University freshman Ryan Goodrich, a business administration student from Medford, has been appointed by Gov. Tina Kotek and confirmed today by the Oregon Senate to serve on the university’s Board of Trustees.

Goodrich succeeds Mimi Pieper, who had served as one of two undergraduate student members of the 17-member board since spring of 2021. Goodrich said he comes from “a long lineage of alumni” from SOU, and grew up in Medford “attending SOU basketball games to watch North Medford alumni play.”

He is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis on accounting, and received an honors diploma when he graduated last spring from North Medford High School – where he played on the basketball team for three years. He works for a local nonprofit, coaching and refereeing youth basketball, and is a member of the SOU lacrosse club.

“We are happy to have Ryan join the Board of Trustees, where he can deepen his already strong connection to the university,” said Sheila Clough, the board’s chair. “He is a bright, talented member of the campus community, and I have no doubt that his contributions to the governing board will be valuable.”

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Bill Thorndike passes away unexpectedly

SOU loses friend and mentor with passing of Bill Thorndike

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Bill Thorndike – a member of the SOU Board of Trustees since its inception in 2015 and the board’s first chair – passed away unexpectedly while vacationing with his wife Angela last weekend at their family cottage on Whidbey Island, Washington.

“Bill was to SOU what each of us cherishes in our closest of friends – he was supportive to a fault, generous with his time and ready to lend a hand however it may be needed,” SOU President Rick Bailey and Sheila Clough, chair of the SOU Board of Trustees, said in a joint message to campus. “Above all, he understood us and helped keep us on track, always with a smile and an easy laugh.

“Our university benefited in countless ways from a decades-long relationship with Bill.”

He served as a member and president in the early 1990s on the SOU Foundation Board of Trustees, and as a member and president of the Jefferson Public Radio Listeners Guild. Before becoming the inaugural chair of SOU’s governing board, he served on the Oregon State Board of Higher Education. He was honored in 1996 with the President’s Medal, SOU’s highest tribute to community members who are distinguished by their actions and contributions. The Thorndike Art Gallery at SOU is indicative of the indelible mark he left on the university.

Bill was a 1972 graduate of Medford Senior High School and graduated in 1976 from Lewis & Clark College with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. After college, he began working at his family’s business, Medford Fabrication, a custom steel fabrication company that has been in operation for almost 80 years. He joined the family business in 1976, was elected president in 1987, and then chair in 2004. The MedFab team supplies multinational corporations across the globe.

It was his deep, multi-generational connections to the Rogue Valley – skiing at Mt. Ashland, hiking from his family’s cabin at Union Creek – that drove Bill’s unmatched  sense of volunteerism. His life was a tapestry woven with threads of business success, leadership and an unwavering dedication to community and service – he received at least a dozen prestigious awards for his professional accomplishments and community service. He was well known in southern Oregon and the Rogue Valley as a servant leader, serving on almost 60 boards and committees – many concurrently, and often as president or chair.

He was a strong advocate for education beyond SOU, serving with organizations including the SMART Oregon Children’s Foundation and the Jackson County SMART Advisory Committee. His civic engagement included service with the Chamber of Medford/Jackson County, where he held various leadership positions, the Jackson County Budget Committee, the Jackson County Community Service Consortium (JCCSC) and Rogue Valley Manor Community Services. His dedication to the region’s well-being was recognized with awards including “Person of the Decade” in 2000 from JCCSC, the “First Citizen Award” in 2007 from the Chamber of Medford/Jackson County and “the Imagine Award” in 2015 from Resolve (formerly Mediation Works).

Bill served the broader state through his appointments to governmental boards and committees including two Oregon governors’ Regional Solutions committees, the Senate Commission on Educational Excellence, the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, Port of Portland and Oregon Department of Transportation committees. He also chaired the Crater Lake National Park Trust, the Oregon Business Council, and the Oregon Community Foundation. His statewide impact has been acknowledged with awards such as Willamette University’s Glenn L. Jackson Leadership Award recognizing individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership, integrity and civic responsibility to the state and its people, and the Tom McCall Leadership Award from SOLV/ Bank of America for helping to preserve livability in Oregon.

His influence reached beyond Oregon’s borders, as well. His expertise in finance and economics led to his service, including as chairman, with the U.S. Central Bank’s Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (Portland Branch). He served on the boards of the Northwest Area Foundation, Philanthropy Northwest and Northwest Business Committee for the Arts. Bill was named “Exporter of the Year” in 1990 by the U.S. Small Business Administration (Oregon) to recognize his experience in international trade.

“We are certain that Bill will be missed within each of those organizations, just as he will be at SOU,” Chair Clough and President Bailey said in their joint message. “It is his friendship and genuine, caring nature that will leave the deepest void.

“So we ask you, as members of our loving and compassionate campus community, to hold Bill and his family in your thoughts. Please do your best to keep his spirit alive through your own kindness with each other, with our university, and with our community.”

Drs. Roy and Barbara Saigo

SOU’s Saigo Multicultural Alcove rededicated

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Southern Oregon University recognized the importance of providing a diverse perspective with its recent rededication of the Drs. Roy and Barbara Saigo Multicultural Alcove in SOU’s Hannon Library.

The collection, near the library’s third-floor lobby, was originally established during Roy Saigo’s tenure as SOU’s interim president and then president, from 2014 through August of 2016.

Drs. Roy and Barbara SaigoBoth Roy Saigo, who currently heads a consulting business, and his wife, biologist Barbara Saigo, were present for the rededication ceremony, which was attended by about 50 people. The Saigos live in Ashland, and both spoke at the event about the importance of examining issues through multicultural lenses.

SOU President Rick Bailey also addressed those in attendance, recognizing the Saigos’ continuing contributions to the university and the southern Oregon region.

“We were thrilled to honor the Saigos for their service to our students, our university and our community,” President Bailey said. “They continue to be great assets and friends to SOU and we are grateful for their leadership, mentorship and friendship.”

The multicultural alcove “contains books that celebrate, support and recognize the diversity of the Southern Oregon University community,” according to a plaque at the site. The books on multicultural topics – including “well-reviewed” children’s books – are intended to reflect the life experiences and research of SOU’s African-American, Latinx/Hispanic American, Native American, Pacific Islander, Asian American and LGBTQ communities.

Roy Saigo came out of retirement in 2014 to lead SOU as interim president, and his role was later was changed to president. He had previously served as president of Minnesota’s Saint Cloud State University from 2000 to 2007, and as chancellor of Auburn University-Montgomery from 1994 to 2000. Barbara Saigo served in faculty positions at those institutions and at the University of Northern Iowa and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Roy Saigo received his bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from the University of California, Davis, and his Ph.D. in botany and plant pathology from Oregon State University. Barbara Saigo received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Willamette University, her master’s degree in zoology from Oregon State University and her Ph.D. in science education from the University of Iowa.

Snow storm causes postponements and cancelations

SOU campus weathers snow storm

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This week’s snow and freezing temperatures have resulted in all SOU classes, events and activities being canceled for two consecutive days, and also for a variety of events later in the week being postponed or canceled.

Affected events include the women’s and men’s basketball double-header that has been moved from tonight to Wednesday night; the indefinite postponement of the Campus Theme lecture “Peeking Behind the Veil” that had been scheduled for Wednesday night and the “Creating a Culture of Care” behavioral health dialogue that was scheduled for Thursday; and the first-ever cancellation of a Preview Day for prospective students and their families, which was planned for Friday.

As much as six inches of snow has accumulated on and near the SOU campus this week, with driving and walking conditions remaining hazardous. The National Weather Service is forecasting additional snow at times throughout the remainder of the week, although precipitation amounts are expected to decrease and temperatures are predicted to rise somewhat.

Additional updates on the status of classes at SOU are likely as information becomes available. The Hawk Dining Commons has operated as normal during the inclement weather.

The basketball double-header against Oregon Tech is now scheduled to be played on Wednesday at Lithia Motors Pavilion, with the women’s game at 5:30 p.m. and the men’s game at 7:30 p.m. Those who purchased tickets for tonight will be able to use them for the rescheduled games.

This week’s Campus Theme lecture, “Peeking Behind the Veil,” is expected to be rescheduled for a later date. Dr. Fred Grewe, a recently retired chaplain, will share his thoughts about how religion helps shape people’s experiences of reality.

The behavioral health dialogue, “Creating a Culture of Care,” had been planned for Thursday in the Hannon Library and is also expected to be rescheduled. Participants in that event will have opportunities to join breakout groups on a variety of topics.

Friday’s previously scheduled Preview Day has been canceled, but another Preview Day is planned for April 11. The SOU Admissions Office events occur a few times each year and are opportunities for prospective freshman and transfer students, and their families, to experience the SOU campus, tour the residence halls, explore facilities and meet with faculty members.

SOU leaders have emphasized throughout the current weather event that the safety of students and employees is the university’s top priority. Maintenance crews are working to reduce hazards, but those who must be on campus have been urged to be cautious.

Students and employees are encouraged to sign up for weather and other emergency notifications through both the city of Ashland’s NIXLE alert system and SOU Alerts, which allows users to manage and customization notifications. Southern Oregon radio and television stations can also be monitored for up-to-date weather conditions.