SOU Academic Stories

SOU expands online master’s degree programs in education

(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University has expanded its selection of online advanced degrees in education by adding seven new concentrations or certificates to the three master of science in education options that were launched two years ago. The education programs, designed primarily for working adult learners, provide pathways for career advancement and leadership roles […]

Piano performers Tiffany Fung and Declan Tse

SOU graduate student wins prestigious international piano competition

Tiffany Fung, a graduate piano student at the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University, has won first prize in the 5th edition (2021) of the Best Rachmaninoff Performance contest – part of the London-based Great Composers Competition series for young performers. Fung’s winning entry was for her performance of the Rachmaninoff piece “Variations on […]

Archeological work on the Buck Rock Tunnel

SOULA archaeological project receives national BLM recognition

The Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology (SOULA) has been honored for partnering with the federal Bureau of Land Management’s Ashland Field Office on an archaeological exploration of the Buck Rock Tunnel southeast of Ashland. The collaborative project received one of three nationwide Heritage Heroes awards this year from the BLM. “SOU held an archaeological field school […]

Local Innovation Lab trains SOU interns as leaders

Local Innovation Lab prepares SOU interns to address disaster issues

(Ashland, Ore.) — If you’re looking for a silver lining somewhere deep within the dual catastrophes of COVID-19 and last fall’s southern Oregon wildfires, look no further than the Local Innovation Lab. The collaborative project of Southern Oregon University and the Humane Leadership Institute is finding student interns and training them as leaders to tackle […]

Cherstin Lyon, SOU Honors College director

SOU Honors College director leads the Democracy Project and more

Cherstin Lyon is the director of Southern Oregon University’s Honors College, organizes the Democracy Project with Philosophy Department chair Prakash Chenjeri and mentors students. And she has been at SOU for just a year. “Coming to SOU I was immediately impressed by how welcoming the campus is, and by all of the people who reached […]

SOU's Dustin Walcher discusses insurrection and history

Notes on a day of insurrection: SOU’s Dustin Walcher

“Yesterday the President of the United States incited an armed insurrection against America,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explained on the afternoon of Jan. 7, calling for President Donald Trump’s removal from office for sedition either through the 25th Amendment or by way of impeachment. On Jan. 6, the president had called on his supporters to […]

SOU's Amber Reed publishes book on apartheid

SOU anthropologist’s book: Black South Africans wary of apartheid reforms

(Ashland, Ore.) — Post-apartheid reforms in South Africa have failed the country’s rural Black citizens and led to a longing for some aspects of life under the system that once oppressed them, according to a newly published book by Southern Oregon University anthropologist Amber Reed. “Nostalgia After Apartheid” examines the reluctance of teachers and students […]

SOU's Chacon studies representations of violence in Latin culture

SOU’s Enrique Chacón researches representations of violence in Mexican music

SOU Assistant Professor Enrique Chacón enjoys teaching Spanish language classes, but his focus is on teaching how violence is represented in Latin culture – and how those representations have changed. “I’m teaching this course on the representations of violence in Latin America and I think those kinds of topics are quite interesting, because they’re directly […]

Student Sustainability Center Director Luis Berrios-Hayden wins scholastic award

Student Sustainability Center director, McNair Scholar wins Scholastic Achievement Award

Luis Berrios-Hayden – an SOU Environmental Science & Policy major, director of the Student Sustainability Center and McNair Scholar – has received the Northwest Association of Educational Opportunity Program’s Scholastic Achievement Award. The NAEOP Scholastic Achievement Award is a $1,500 scholarship given annually to students in the federal TRIO programs who exhibit outstanding scholastic achievement […]

Pavlina McGrady

Pavlina McGrady’s journey to teaching sustainable tourism

Pavlina McGrady, an assistant professor of business at SOU, has practiced what she teaches. Sustainable tourism first caught McGrady’s attention as she worked on her master’s degree program at the University of Hawaii. “I have always loved the outdoors and traveling, but I was introduced to the field of sustainable tourism, specifically, during my studies […]