Ghana's Palm University College is collaborating with SOU Ashland

SOU takes first steps in Ghana relationships

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University and a pair of universities in Ghana took the first steps in their cooperative relationship with shared online courses earlier this year, and the connection is set to expand during the 2026-27 academic year to become part of SOU’s Global Innovation Scholars program – which includes reciprocal opportunities for community-based projects in each country.

The initial joint undertakings included a pair of communication courses, conducted online with students from SOU and Palm University College in Kordiabe, Ghana. The two universities will participate next spring in a shared business course that will include two-week student exchanges – either in-person or online – to work with faculty, universities, community organizations and business owners on projects in both Ghana and southern Oregon.

“Our work with Ghana has developed quite intentionally over time,” said Dee Fretwell Carreon, director of both SOU’s Center for Professional Development and the university’s Global Innovation Scholars (GIS) program.

“In partnership with our Ghanaian colleagues and donors, we began by using COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) as a way to build relationships and test meaningful academic collaboration between SOU and our partner universities before moving toward a larger immersive program,” Carreon said.

It was COIL, a teaching methodology used by various institutions around the world since 2006, that led to a unique spring term course that was taught online to two very different groups of students in southern Oregon and Ghana. For SOU students, it was COMM 460F – an upper division offering that focused on the intersections of communication, fashion, media and culture. That class connected online with Palm University’s Communication Skills course – a lower-division, first-year college course that introduced the fundamentals of communication.

“Even though our collaboration with Palm University was unlikely – our class being an upper division class on fashion, textiles and communication and Palm University’s class being a lower-division, first-year fundamentals of communication course – we used our differences as a catalyst for curiosity,” said Precious Yamaguchi, the professor of communication who taught the SOU course.

“The students were different ages, they were in different countries, time zones and from different cultures, but we did not face these challenges with discouragement,” Yamaguchi said. “Instead, we approached these obstacles with enthusiasm and curiosity.”

Yamaguchi gave a presentation on the SOU-Ghana collaboration in August at the 13th annual Focus Conference, an international forum in South Africa that spotlights academic issues. She addressed “Overcoming Division: COIL Connections Between Ghana and the United States.”

 “I received a lot of positive feedback on my presentation because other African countries such as South Africa have been enthusiastically participating in COIL as well,” Yamaguchi said. “They enjoyed seeing the U.S. and Ghana collaborate, as SOU and Palm University did through COIL.”

The next SOU-Ghanaian collaborations, planned for early 2027, will be part of SOU’s Global Innovation Scholars program and also will receive funding from an Essieh Family Foundation grant that is intended to cultivate SOU’s relationships with both Palm University and Catholic University of Ghana, in Sunyani. The foundation was created by Portland business leaders Matt and Emmanuella Essieh, who met as international students at SOU.

Senior instructor Erica Knotts will take students from a Communication class to Ghana, and the School of Business will launch a Ghanaian version of the hybrid exchange program it launched in a 2022 partnership with the business program at Universidad de Guanajuato – SOU’s sister university in Mexico. That business development initiative enables nine students from each university to spend a total of 20 weeks researching, analyzing and assisting three businesses each in Guanajuato and Ashland. The course includes international, online coursework during each year’s winter and spring terms, and week-long site visits to each city.

“Rather than being solely a traditional exchange, the (Ghanaian) program is being designed around sustained, project-based collaboration between students, faculty, universities and community organizations in southern Oregon and Ghana,” Carreon said.

The collaboration with Ghanaian universities will start with two business projects in southern Oregon and two in Ghana. There is also some uncertainty around the Ghanaian visit to Ashland due to current restrictions on visas for students coming to the U.S., but the program will go forward with that portion of the reciprocal exchange conducted online, if necessary.

“We are continuing to build the program in ways that allow the academic and community collaboration to move forward even as we navigate those external variables,” Carreon said.

This spring’s COIL collaborations that made online Communication courses possible for students in both countries were not part of the Global Innovation Scholars program, which features in-person exchanges, but those classes laid a solid cooperative relationship for what is to come.

“Those experiences helped us learn how students and faculty could work together across institutions and countries, and they ultimately helped create the foundation for what has now developed into the Ghana-based Global Innovation Scholars (GIS) program,” Carreon said.

“COIL has been much more than a series of individual courses; it has provided a really valuable pathway for building trust, experimenting with international collaboration and ultimately creating something much more ambitious together.”

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SOU Ashland's CRL Student Fellows program,

CRL Student Fellows program celebrates first year

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Southern Oregon University celebrated the success of its Community Resilience and Leadership Student Fellows (CRL) program in an event last week that brought together students, community partners, businesses, nonprofit organizations and elected officials to recognize what has been achieved in the program’s inaugural year and look ahead to what comes next. The evening’s keynote speaker, Jonna Papaefthimiou from Gov. Tina Kotek’s office, set the wider context for the importance of resilience across Oregon and the role that partnerships, leadership and community action can play in preparing for future challenges.

Dinner for the event was provided by Rogue Food Unites, an Ashland nonprofit that formed in 2020 in response to the Almeda and Obenchain wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The celebration highlighted the success of the Institute for Applied Sustainability’s CRL Student Fellows program, which provides students with learning opportunities beyond the classroom. Students in the initial cohort worked on real-world challenges alongside community partners, building leadership skills, professional connections and practical experience. Partnerships extended well beyond campus, including collaboration with the city of Coos Bay and engagement in Portland, Coos Bay, Butte Falls, Salem and across Oregon.

The experience provided the CRL student fellows an opportunity to take what they had learned and apply it in very different communities and settings.

“The last week of field school took us to the Oregon Coast, where we had the opportunity to apply what we had learned in a completely new setting with different constraints, risks and community priorities,” student fellow Liora Solomon said.

The experience also broadened students’ understanding of what community resilience can mean.

“I began to understand more about the wide variety of actions that fit into the mold of ‘community resilience,’” said CRL student fellow Finch Drake. “It isn’t just preparing for disaster, although that is an incredibly important aspect of it. Community resilience can also be the act of bringing people together and healing their souls.”

The success of the inaugural cohort demonstrated what is possible when universities and communities work together.

SOU Ashland's CRL Student Fellows program“What has been so exciting about this program is seeing students realize that they don’t have to wait until after graduation to make a difference,” said SOU Economics professor Bret Anderson, who is also the faculty and academic director of Institute for Applied Sustainability. “They can bring their ideas, energy and skills to real community challenges right now. That’s what applied learning should look like, and this program is just the beginning.”

The CRL program builds on the momentum created through SOU’s Institute for Applied Sustainability (IAS), established with the support of Lithia Motors & Driveway. That investment provided the foundation for bringing students, faculty, staff and community partners together around applied sustainability and resilience. U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden also supported the program by helping to secure federal funding that has enabled the Community Resilience and Leadership Student Fellows program to grow from an idea into an opportunity for students and communities across Oregon.

The one-year CRL fellowship is a cornerstone of the institute’s Living Laboratory concept, and offers a total of 12 credit hours plus monetary stipends to students who are selected for the program. It consists of a spring Local Innovation Lab course that meets two hours per week and offers four academic credit hours; a summer Field School that offers eight credit hours and meets for six weeks beginning in early August; and fall options that include internships, peer mentoring and capstone research projects.

Last week’s event was a celebration, but the broader message was that this work is just getting started. CRL is an invitation to students, businesses, community nonprofits, local governments and elected officials to work alongside SOU on the challenges facing the region’s communities. By connecting education with real projects, real partners and real needs, the program is creating opportunities for students to learn through doing – and developing southern Oregon’s future workforce. The next chapter is about expanding those partnerships, creating more opportunities for students and continuing to turn ideas about resilience into action.

Digital Cinema at SOU Ashland

SOU Digital Cinema on prestigious list for third consecutive year

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(Ashland, Ore.) —Southern Oregon University’s Digital Cinema program has been included on MovieMaker Magazine’s annual list of the “30 Best Film Schools in the U.S. and Canada” for the third consecutive year.

SOU Digital Cinema is the only program from Oregon, Washington or Idaho to be included in MovieMaker’s review. The Digital Cinema major – part of SOU’s Communication, Media & Cinema Department – was launched in 2019 and has enjoyed steady growth and increasing regional attention ever since. The department offers majors in Communication Studies and Media Innovation in addition to Digital Cinema.

Digital Cinema at SOU AshlandStudents in the program learn visual storytelling, creative problem-solving and professional collaboration using industry-standard production technologies, while developing essential skills in leadership, communication, adaptability, critical thinking, equitable and sustainable practices, teamwork and conflict management. In addition to bachelor of arts, bachelor of science and bachelor of fine arts degrees, the program offers regular student showcases and connections with local film professionals, and hosts an annual student film festival that is popular with the community.

The centerpiece of the Digital Cinema program is its 10-week production immersion course, The Crew Experience, in which students are assigned professional crew roles and produce a short film guided by the faculty and industry mentors.

“This third annual recognition is a real testament to the creative passion and energy of our faculty and students,” said Christopher Lucas, Ph.D., an associate professor and program lead. “I’m proud of the film and production culture we’ve been able to build here in Ashland.”

SOU President Rick Bailey praised the teamwork that has made the program a success.

“All of us at Southern Oregon University are thrilled to be named on the best film schools list for the third year in a row, and are grateful to everyone at MovieMaker for this prestigious distinction,” President Bailey said. “We also want to recognize the outstanding students, faculty and staff who make our Digital Cinema program such a standout academic and career-building pathway.”

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SOU Computer Science capstone students

Capstone students build energy dashboard

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Southern Oregon University buildings use thousands of kilowatt-hours of electricity each day to power classrooms, residence halls, offices, laboratories, lighting, and heating and cooling systems. While electricity meters across campus collect detailed information about energy usage, the information was not easily accessible until group of Computer Science students changed that with their senior capstone project.

The team developed the SOU Energy Dashboard, a custom interactive web application created for SOU’s Sustainability Office. The dashboard gathers electricity data from across campus and puts it into a single platform where students, faculty and staff can view building energy use and compare performance across campus.

SOU Computer Science energy dashboard map“The dashboard was designed to transform raw energy data into actionable information,” said Becs Walker, SOU sustainability director and the dashboard project’s client. “By making electricity use more visible and accessible, the dashboard can help the university identify opportunities to reduce utility costs, improve energy efficiency, lower carbon emissions and support long-term sustainability planning.”

The project also supports SOU’s Living Laboratory approach, where students apply classroom knowledge to challenges that face the campus and surrounding community. In this case, the capstone team created a tool that is both valuable to the university and creates new opportunities for teaching and experiential learning. The data can be incorporated into future coursework and student projects, as well as future sustainability initiatives.

For student David Trujillo, the project connected closely to a personal interest in sustainability.

“I have always felt that energy efficiency is something that should be a higher priority, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to make something that could have a positive impact,” he said.

Luke Wulf was drawn to the technical side of the project, especially the opportunity to work with databases and data visualization.

“I really enjoy working on storing data in databases, and this project interested me due to that reason,” Wulf said. “I thought storing information and needing to display it in a way for anyone was also a fantastic goal, and should be something we already had.”

The dashboard includes visual tools such as charts and a campus map page, which helps users interpret the information that previously existed mainly as numbers in spreadsheets. For Trujillo, the charts stood out because they addressed one of the main challenges that the Sustainability Office faced.

“(The charts) are a powerful tool that solves one of the core problems Sustainability was facing with all the data just being numbers in spreadsheets,” he said. “It was difficult and time consuming to derive meaning from the data, but now it can be understood at a glance.”

Griffin Greimes focused on the Electricity Dashboard map page, which was designed to be understandable and useful to anyone interested in learning more about the electricity usage across campus.

“I think I am most proud of the work that I’ve done on the Electricity Dashboard Map page,” Greimes said. “Making an easily accessible and understandable page that anyone is able to engage with, that looks good and is immediately useful to anyone interested in learning more about the electricity usage, is something that can always use additions and improvements.”

Behind the scenes, the project also included important software development infrastructure. Student Cory Short’s work included the team’s Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment pipeline, which automates website updates whenever approved changes are made to the codebase.

The group also worked closely with SOU Information Technology, giving the students experience that felt much closer to professional software development than a traditional class assignment. Wulf said that process taught him how software development works in the real world.

“(With) our work with IT as a third-party developer, our work was treated like a real thing, given tasks we had to complete to meet our goal,” he said. “This process made all of us learn how it will be like in the real world, where not everything can be updated with just some light persuasion, but instead, long hard hours of working on code.”

Short had a similar takeaway.

“I learned a lot about how a project can be run and a lot about GitHub infrastructure and cloud infrastructure,” he said. “The whole project ended up feeling a lot like it was closer to a job than a class we were doing for a grade.”

Trujillo said the capstone project also gave him practical experience with the tools and processes used in industry.

“I really appreciate the insight gained from sprints, client and manager meetings, getting hands-on experience in GitHub, and all the other things I learned that will be applicable to working in the industry,” he said.

One of the biggest challenges came late in the process, when the team had to address ADA accessibility requirements. The requirement was introduced about a month before the end of the term, and the group had to work quickly to meet all 50 requirements in about two weeks.

When asked about the project’s obstacles, the team had a clear, collective answer:

“Absolutely ADA. It was a requirement given to us only about a month before the end of term, and we had to work through it extremely quickly. We managed to get through all 50 requirements in just two weeks, although we accidentally used the entire budget for GitHub Actions for the month by doing it.”

Despite this challenge, the team successfully brought the project to a point where it could function as an official university tool and website. For Wulf, one of the most exciting moments was getting the dashboard connected to its own SOU subdomain.

“When we started this, we had no idea we would have our own subdomain on the sou.edu pages,” he said. “But this term, we’ve done a huge amount of work on making it happen, and finally getting that up was easily the proudest I’ve been in this whole project. I think I’ve told everyone in my life about it at least a few times.”

The dashboard may also create opportunities for future student work. Because the energy data is now easier to understand and access, it could be used in various ways such as coursework, research or future capstone projects.

“Part of the point of this project was to build a way for people to view energy usage at SOU, using it to analyze and compare,” the team said. “Along with that, our client was excited about the idea of students possibly using it for capstones, now that the data is easily accessible.”

For the recent capstone students, completing the dashboard marked both the end of their undergraduate Computer Science experience and the beginning of something that may continue to serve the university for years to come.

“It feels fantastic to have a finished product that has been put to such official use by the school,” Wulf said. “I’m so proud to have something that I know people will use, as well as something I’m happy and excited to show to others.”

Trujillo said the experience felt like a climax of the CS program.

“It really feels like the culmination of everything we have learned across CS, where we get to finally put everything we learned together to build something real and tangible,” he said. “It’s been extremely satisfying.”

For Short, the most rewarding part is seeing six months of work become something real.

“It feels quite satisfying to see what we built over six months actually function and exist now,” he said. “And hopefully we can look back to see it still running in several years from now.”

The team also sees many possibilities for the dashboard’s future. With more time, they would have liked to add filtering options to the map page, which would allow users to view specific categories of buildings, such as classrooms. They also hoped to eventually incorporate live data readings, though that would require a larger-scale project with additional IT support.

“Part of the point of this project was to build a way for people to view energy usage at SOU, using it to analyze and compare,” the team said. “Along with that, our client was excited about the idea of students possibly using it for capstones, now that the data is easily accessible.”

Story by Felicity Johnson, SOU Computer Science Major

SOU Ashland archaeology artifact transfer

Cultural items transferred from SOULA to Tribe

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Members of the Coquille Indian Tribe met with SOU representatives on June 16 to commemorate the historic transfer of 11 archaeological collections to the Tribe’s new Me’-dn Mv-ne’ Curation Facility in Coos Bay, which was recently approved to serve as a regional repository for archaeological collections.

SOU Ashland archaeology artifact transferThe collections resulted from several collaborative archaeological excavations going back nearly 30 years between the SOU Laboratory of Anthropology (SOULA) and the Tribe. The excavated cultural items have been securely housed at SOULA’s on-campus curation facility, which carefully stores thousands of archaeological objects from around the state. Coquille Tribal members and staff can now care for the items at their new curation facility.

“We were grateful for the opportunity to celebrate this milestone with Chief Justin Futch, Bridgett Wheeler and the Tribal members that participated in the transfer, and look forward to continuing building opportunities for collaboration and support,” said Chelsea Rose, director of the SOU Laboratory of Anthropology.

SOULA bills itself as “an on-campus archaeological firm” that conducts grant- and contract-funded research in partnership with private, local, state, federal and Tribal organizations. Students in various majors connect with SOULA to learn through fieldwork, laboratory analysis, conference presentations, writing and more – at excavation sites as well as SOULA’s on-campus laboratory and curation facility.

SOU Ashland archaeology artifact transfer SOU Ashland archaeology artifact transfer SOU Ashland archaeology artifact transfer

SOU students win poster presentation at symposium for high performance computing

SOU students win best poster at high speed computing symposium

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Three seniors from the SOU Computer Science program won the best poster award at the 2026 Rocky Mountain Advanced Computing Consortium’s HPC Symposium, held May 12 to 14 at Boise State University.

The SOU team – Brayden Stach, Laura Lovrien and Alec Clark – returned with valuable takeaways from the conference and the overall experience. They also won an all-expenses-paid trip to SuperComputing 26, an international conference for high performance computing that will be held Nov. 15 to 20 in Chicago.

“The networking was genuinely great,” the three SOU students said in their report on the Boise symposium. “There was a room with about 15 company booths (IBM, Intel, Amazon and others) open every day.

“We walked around, got some free merch and had real conversations with recruiters and engineers – everyone was really friendly and easy to approach, which made it simple to just walk up and start a conversation.”

The three said some specific examples of advice from recruiters included tailoring your resume to each job posting, including using AI to match the resume to the language in a listing; saying “yes” to extra work and projects early in your career, to gain experience; and making connections that will matter, by showing up and meeting people.

The high performance computing (HPC) symposium included a keynote address about the value of working across disciplines — such as computer scientists collaborating with environmental scientists, psychologists or others to produce results that matter.

The Rocky Mountain Advanced Computing Consortium (RMACC) is a collaborative group of academic and research institutions in the intermountain states whose mission is to enable the effective use of high performance computing – the use of computer clusters or parallel processing to perform complex calculations from massive data sets.

The organization’s annual symposium allows researchers, students and industry professionals to meet and explore how high performance computing is being used in research, AI and other work.

“If you ever get the chance to go to a conference like this, do it,” the SOU students said in their report. “The networking alone is worth it, the people are approachable and you don’t need to be an expert to get value out of it.”

SOU Ashland's Scott Kaiser has a new book on Shakespeare

SOU’s Kaiser releases book on Shakespeare’s canon

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Scott Kaiser, who regularly teaches and directs in Southern Oregon University’s Theatre program, has released his 24th book – “Conquering the Canon: A Life in Shakespeare.” The book chronicles his work in the production of all 38 of Shakespeare’s plays.

SOU Ashland's Scott Kaiser and his new book on ShakespeareKaiser served for 18 seasons as the head of voice and text at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, coaching actors in almost 100 productions. He served more than 10 additional years at OSF as director of company development, traveling the U.S. to recruit emerging acting talent and overseeing the festival’s Acting Company Trainee Program – which helped place SOU students in the company’s productions.

His new book draws on Kaiser’s work at OSF – “thousands of rehearsal hours, hundreds of productions and a lifetime of hard-won lessons,” says a summary on Amazon.com, where the 514-page paperback is available.

“Blending behind-the-scenes stories with scholarly insights, ‘Conquering the Canon’ is part memoir, part masterclass, capturing the devotion, skill and stamina required to bring the Bard to life onstage,” the Amazon description says.

Kaiser earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, his master of fine arts degree in the University of Washington’s Professional Actor Training Program and an advanced diploma in voice studies from London’s Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

SOU Ashland's Scott Kaiser has a new book on ShakespeareHis career has included work as an author, playwright, director, teacher and Shakespeare scholar. He has taught classes at SOU in acting, voice and playwriting since 2014, directing eight productions: “Arcadia,” “Hay Fever,” “Three Sisters,” “The Philadelphia Story,” “Anton in Show Business,” “Ghosts,” “Twelfth Night” and his own play, “Shakespeare’s Other Women.”

Kaiser’s previous books include “Harriman’s Ghost,” a novel about a movie star and his ghostwriter; “Tales from the Vomitorium,” a collection of stories about theatre people; “Albert’s Adventures in Willy World,” a satire of the Shakespeare industry; “The Tao of Shakespeare: A Book of Meditations;” and “Notes from the Back Row: A Voice and Text Director’s Journal.”

He has also written several original plays, including “Love’s Labor’s Won” and “Falstaff in Love.”

Kaiser is currently at work on another novel.

Microsoft competition: SOU Ashland sweep

SOU students sweep in Microsoft competition

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Students from Southern Oregon University have earned all of the top 10 placements in the Microsoft Excel category of the Oregon Spring Qualifier round for this year’s Microsoft Office Specialist U.S. National Championship.

Students from SOU School of Business computer applications courses typically take two or three of the top spots in Microsoft’s annual statewide competition, but this is the first time that SOU has swept the category.

“Excel remains one of the most sought-after workplace skills employers want from college graduates,” said David Parker, a Senior Instructor II who coordinated this year’s entrants in the contest. “Here in the School of Business, we are preparing students with practical, marketable skills that help them stand out as they move into internships, jobs and long-term careers.”

Chase Barnes, a business student at SOU, earned first place in the Microsoft Excel (Office 2019) category and has been invited to represent Oregon at the 2026 MOS U.S. National Championship next month in Nashville, Tennessee. SOU’s Shiv Patel finished second in the Excel competition and was followed by Alexa Ibarraran, Stephanie Cortes, Simon Turquety, Kathryn Mack, Alana Albarran, Ryan McGinley, Katlyn Carnes and Zoe Manouvrier.

The clean sweep by SOU in the Spring Qualifier followed another notable effort in Oregon’s Fall Qualifier for the Excel category, when SOU students earned five of the top 10 spots – including the top three. SOU’s Paige Hoene won that competition, followed by Patrick Wooley in second place, Phoebe Knight in third, Zachary High in eighth and Mason Labow in 10th.

Students between the ages of 13 and 22 earn eligibility to compete in one of six competition tracks for the Fall or Spring Qualifiers by submitting a qualified passing score on the MOS Word, Excel or PowerPoint certification exams. First-place students from each competition track are invited to represent their state at the MOS U.S. National Championship. The winner of each track at the national competition will earn a trip to represent the U.S. at this year’s MOS World Championship in Anaheim, California.

“We have seen amazing results from the MOS program at Southern Oregon University as students learn and validate key workforce skills,” Parker said. “The MOS U.S. National Championship further motivates students to get certified, and we are incredibly proud of Chase Barnes for earning the opportunity to represent Oregon at the national level.

“We are also proud of all 10 SOU students who earned top placements in the state. This achievement reflects their hard work, technical skill and commitment to preparing for the modern workforce.”

The Microsoft Office Specialist certification is the only official Microsoft-recognized certification for Microsoft Office globally. The certification helps assess students’ skills and prepares them to apply Microsoft Office knowledge in academic, professional, and real-world settings.

Papers on computational thinking presented by SOU-led team

SOU-led “computational thinking” team presents papers

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(Ashland, Ore.) — An eight-member team – including two faculty members from the Southern Oregon University Computer Science program – presented five papers at this month’s annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, related to an SOU-led project to teach computational thinking skills to elementary school students.

Computational thinking refers to a set of thought processes traditionally used in computer science to identify and define problems and their solutions. Elementary teachers are finding it valuable for much more, including as a tool to teach core content.

The AERA conference drew more than 13,000 scholars and education researchers from throughout the world for five days of presentations, lectures and networking. AERA is a national research society founded in 1916 to advance knowledge about education and promote research to improve educational practices. Its annual conference is the largest gathering of education researchers in the world.

“It is a HUGE accomplishment that our local teachers presented at this conference,” said SOU Computer Science professor Maggie Vanderberg, who is leading the computational thinking project. “They are experts in the field!”

The presentation team included SOU Computer Science instructor Eping Hung and Vanderberg, chair of the  department, along with three teachers from the Ashland School District and one from the Phoenix-Talent School District. One collaborator each from Oregon State University-Cascades and the College of William & Mary in Virginia also participated.

The five presentations all are related to SOU’s ongoing project, funded by the National Science Foundation, to integrate unplugged computational thinking in elementary education. The papers highlight classroom-based work in which computational thinking is used as a tool for inquiry, creativity and justice-oriented learning in various subject areas.

Vanderberg and Ashland School District teacher Dylana Garfas-Knowles presented “Decomposition Demystified: An Exploratory Learning Progression for Integrating Decomposition in Elementary School Lessons.” Hung presented “Hidden Frameworks: What Summaries of Goldilocks Reveal About the Process of Abstraction.” Ashland teacher Kelly Martin worked with Gladys Krouse of William & Mary to present “Once Upon an Algorithm: Computational Thinking Through the Stories We Tell.” Ashland teacher Trish Dorr presented “Where is Everybody in the Everybody Books? Representation in K-5 Picture Books.” And Garfas-Knowles was joined by Phoenix Elementary School teacher Jennifer Mohatt to present “Lessons Learned: Integrating Computational Thinking in Multilingual Classrooms Across Contexts.” Jill Hubbard from OSU-Cascades led a discussion highlighting how computational thinking is used as a framework for teaching core content.

The SOU-led team also shared resources that its teachers have created, including almost 200 computational thinking lessons that are available on its website. More lessons are expected to be added soon.

SOU was awarded a grant totaling nearly $1 million from the National Science Foundation in 2022, to help K-5 teachers develop computational thinking skills in the Ashland and Phoenix-Talent school districts. The work has built upon a $299,000 grant that SOU was awarded in September 2019 to launch the collaborative research project.

Both grants are part of the NSF’s former Computer Science for All program, which was intended to extend computer science and computational thinking opportunities to K-12 students nationwide. The CT curriculum developed by local teachers, in partnership with university researchers, addresses barriers associated with implementing computing curriculum in early grades – where it is incorporated into core subjects and introduced in an “unplugged” manner, without computers or technology.

The project has included about 25 elementary teachers from the Phoenix-Talent School District (Orchard Hill, Phoenix and Talent elementary schools), the Ashland School District (Bellview, Helman, Walker and Willow Wind elementary schools) and the Lincoln County School District (Yaquina View Elementary School). The teachers engaged in professional development and peer-to-peer coaching to integrate computational thinking processes into existing curriculum. They worked together to deliver and refine those lessons before making them publicly available. The goal is to empower students with skills necessary for success in middle and high school computing curriculum and university studies, and eventually in technologically-rich careers. Elementary teachers have also seen benefits for learning the core content.

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Moriah Doepken returns to SOU to direct "Crew Experience" course

SOU Digital Cinema alum directs “Crew Experience”

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Los Angeles-based filmmaker Moriah Doepken, a 2020 graduate of Southern Oregon University’s Digital Cinema program, has returned to Ashland this spring to be guest director for the Digital Cinema program’s innovative “Crew Experience” course.

“I’m super excited to return to SOU and help make a film back in Ashland,” Doepken said. “Having been in the first graduating class of the Digital Cinema major and missing the first iteration of Crew Experience, which was canceled because of COVID, it’s a very full-circle moment for me.”

Doepken received a master of fine arts degree in Film Production in 2024 from Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University in Orange, California. For this year’s Crew Experience, she will direct a script written by Charlie McCabe, a junior screenwriting student at SOU.

SOU Ashland's Crew Experience in 2025The production-intensive Crew Experience course is taught by Nora Zubizarreta, an assistant professor in SOU’s Digital Cinema program, a filmmaker with professional experience in Los Angeles and New York City, and producer of the film “Umama,” which won gold at the Student Academy Awards.

“I’m delighted to collaborate with Moriah and the Crew Experience students to make this film,” Zubizarreta said. “This kind of project and collaboration adds so much to the learning process. It’s wonderful to see our students really get rolling on Charlie’s script.”

The “Crew Experience” course, launched in 2022, gives SOU’s Digital Cinema students a chance to work on and complete a full-fledged short film project. Students assume professional film crew positions under the guidance of professional mentors.

The Digital Cinema program was recognized by MovieMaker Magazine in 2024 and 2025 as a “Top 30 Film Program in North America,” in large part due to innovative course offerings such as “The Crew Experience.”

The SOU Digital Cinema program sets itself apart as a hub for creative innovation and experiential learning. With the guidance of industry professionals, students hone their craft and make meaningful contributions to the world of cinema.

Moriah Doepken
Doepken is  an Alaska native, who made the trek down the West Coast to attend SOU, where she earned a dual bachelor’s degree. She later attended graduate school at Chapman University. As a filmmaker, she is dedicated to creative collaboration and diving into the depths of the human condition.

Nora Zubizarreta
Zubizarreta is an assistant professor in SOU’s Digital Cinema program. She received her master of fine arts degree in Experimental and Documentary Arts at Duke University and her bachelor of fine arts degree from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She produced “Umama” while at Tisch, and has since worked professionally in film and television production management in New York and Los Angeles.

About Southern Oregon University
Southern Oregon University is a medium-sized campus that provides comprehensive educational opportunities with a strong focus on student success and intellectual creativity. Located in vibrant Ashland, Oregon, SOU remains committed to diversity and inclusion for all students on its environmentally sustainable campus. Connected learning programs taught by a host of exceptional faculty provide quality, innovative experiences for students. Visit sou.edu.

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