Early learning consortium receives grant

SOU and early learning consortium awarded $1.75 million grant

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(Ashland, Ore.) — The Early Childhood Development program at Southern Oregon University will receive a $1.75 million grant from the Oregon Department of Education’s Early Learning Division to lead and expand a collaborative effort to provide education and support for early-learning professionals in the region.

SOU will become the fiscal agent and lead institution for the Southern Oregon Early Learning Professional Development Consortium – a collaboration between SOU, Rogue Community College, Klamath Community College, Umpqua Community College, Southwestern Oregon Community College and several child-care resource and referral agencies in southern Oregon.

This year’s grant – the largest in the consortium’s nine-year history – will support efforts to provide comprehensive financial and academic assistance to early learning professionals throughout the region. The consortium’s offerings include zero-cost courses, mentorship opportunities and financial assistance.

RCC has served as the fiscal agent and coordinated projects on behalf of the consortium over the past several years, but agreed to pass the leadership role to SOU’s Early Childhood Development team, beginning with the 2023-25 biennium that starts July 1.

“We are dearly and deeply grateful to Eileen Micke-Johnson of RCC, whose unwavering dedication and high-quality leadership has helped this project flourish, year-after-year,” said Younghee Kim, an Education professor at SOU and coordinator of the university’s Early Childhood Development program. “We hope to follow in her footsteps and look forward to consulting with her, in her continuing roles at RCC and beyond.”

Kim will share consortium leadership duties with Kayla Rapet, an instructor, advisor and navigation coach for SOU’s School of Education.

The new round of grant funding will enable the Southern Oregon Early Learning Professional Development Consortium to expand its services and create new and innovative professional development opportunities. New projects that SOU’s ECD team will work to initiate include:

  • Scholarships and other financial assistance for early learning students
  • Micro-credentials in Infant Mental Health and Early Childhood Education, created in partnership with community agencies
  • Hiring a bilingual (Spanish/English) navigation coach for ECD online students who are first-language Spanish speakers
  • A potential Bachelor of Applied Science degree in early childhood education that streamlines pathways for transfer students and aligns with SOU’s newly designed general education courses

The grant is also expected to support peer-mentoring professional development workshops for ECD students, continuation of the ECD Student Leadership Club and expansion of ECD Saturday workshops to advance regional collaborations.

Students in SOU’s ECD program graduate with a solid knowledge base of child development, play-based curriculum and teaching, and best practices for working with young children and their families. They also learn advocacy skills to support the children and families they serve, and the profession of early childhood education.

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President Rick Bailey at SOU Commencement Ceremony

SOU’s 97th Commencement Ceremony

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(Ashland, Ore.) — More than 1,300 degrees were conferred when Southern Oregon University celebrated its 97th Commencement Ceremony at Raider Stadium on Saturday, June 17. The ceremony was also livestreamed on Rogue Valley Community Television.

This year’s SOU Commencement featured three student speakers – graduating seniors Morgan Ulu of American Samoa, Aiki Deguchi of Japan and Blake Jordan, who came to SOU by way of Clovis Community College in California, Minneapolis Community and Technical College, and Fresno City College. Each spoke about the insights they have gained during their academic journeys.

SOU President Rick Bailey addressed this year’s graduates and the Commencement audience, and Susan Walsh, the university’s provost and vice president for academic affairs, presided over the ceremony. Recipients of SOU’s 2023 student and faculty awards, and retiring faculty members, were also recognized before graduates were introduced one at a time to receive their diploma covers from President Bailey.

A new SOU tradition – the 2nd annual Commencement Street Fair – was held following the ceremony, south of the stadium near the Lithia Motors Pavilion. It featured global cuisine stations and a beer garden for those over 21.

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Faculty Spotlight: Erica Knotts

Faculty Spotlight Podcast: SOU’s Erica Knotts

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Off-season strawberries in Oregon likely came from Baja California

From SOU’s HON 319: The Reality of Strawberries from Mexico

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Imagine: Late last night you and your son arrived in Los Reyes, Michoacán, Mexico – Mexico’s top strawberry producer. You stayed with your cousin who lives in Los Reyes. He let you sleep in the living room, tomorrow you’ll have to find somewhere else to stay. You pretended to sleep so your son could do the same. Now it’s four in the morning, and time to go to work. Your cousin says there is work on a farm outside of town. Strawberries. You’ll pick for 10 hours with no break, for 11 pesos an hour. Your son, who is only 14, isn’t legally old enough to work on a farm, but as long as you don’t say anything, they won’t ask any questions. Together, you’ll make 220 pesos for the day. That’s $12.66 USD. That will be just enough to pay for a night in a cramped room, some rice and beans for dinner, and a little bit of money to send home to your family. Then tomorrow you’ll start it all over again. This is the life of the Mexican workers that picked your strawberries. This is the life of so many farmers in Mexico. How does that make you feel?

In Southern Oregon University’s class HON 319: Nature, Culture, Mexico, we dived into research articles about water quality, access to water, and the effects of agricultural practices on water availability throughout Mexico. In one such text, “Water Flowing North of the Border,” author Christian Zlolinski explores how agricultural production has led to the scarcity of water for Baja California locals. According to his findings, high quantities of water are exported to the United States and Canada inside fresh produce (Zloniski, 2011). This offers the convenience of fresh fruit and produce to other countries in exchange for water insecurity in rural Mexico. These communities have very little access to fresh, clean water because it is preferentially diverted to agricultural production. The Mexican government is influenced by big farming corporations to give institutionalized farmers better access to fresh water and restrict access for smaller, local growers, and domestic consumers (Zlolniski, 2011).

In addition to deliberately restricted water access, locals in Baja California encounter further difficulties as they face environmental degradation caused by the overconsumption of water by agribusinesses. Baja California is an arid region with around 7.8 inches (200 mm) of annual rainfall. Due to the low rainfall, there isn’t enough water to recharge depleting aquifers. Out of the 48 aquifers identified in the state of Baja California, 15 no longer have any available water and many others are so depleted that only brackish water can be extracted from them (Cortés-Ruiz et al., 2020; Daesslé et al., 2008). This makes water more expensive to clean, leading to increases in the cost of tap water. This overexploitation has caused a drop in the water table, causing desertification in the region as flora disappears from the landscape. Efforts to re-stabilize the water table have been made in order to bring back water security to the region. However, funding is limited and estimates have shown that it would cost $82 million USD in addition to much of the state’s cropland for Baja California’s water scarcity issues to be solved (Cortés-Ruiz et al., 2020).

Strawberries seem to be the source of a lot of grief for many Mexican citizens, and it’s also not doing any favors for the environment. So why is this still such a serious problem despite the obvious issues for it? Mexico makes up 14.83% of the entire world’s strawberry production, with 35% of Mexico’s strawberries being grown in Baja California. Because Mexico makes up more than 10% of the global strawberry production, it is a certifiably successful industry (Cossio & Flores, 2021; Wu et al., 2018). Mexico’s GDP and economy look incredible on paper because of the money they make off of export agriculture, specifically water-heavy horticulture (Cossio & Flores, 2021). Thanks to this extreme success, this business model makes the country lots of money and provides jobs for the rural population. The clear catch, however, is the sheer amount of water that goes into these crops. An estimated 76% of all water extracted goes to agriculture (Beta Aqueduct). Meanwhile, workers reap close to zero worthwhile benefits and have difficulty accessing clean water. Most of the wages earned from working in agriculture go into paying for basic human needs, the most outrageous being water. In some cases, locals may spend up to two-thirds of their monthly wages on potable water (Zloniski, 2011). So agribusiness in Mexico is a booming industry that supplies many people with jobs that pay livable wages. But those livable wages are just that. Livable. A citizen living in the rural areas of Mexico will spend most of their working life just making enough money to put food on the table until the next paycheck. The real benefits of the Mexican agricultural economy are really only visible in urban areas, such as Mexico City, and various tourist destinations around the country.

So far you have seen abysmal living conditions of Mexican farmers, caused by the agricultural practices in Mexico. The impacts this has had on farmers and the environment are atrocious. Once beautiful, lush landscapes are now dry and desolate because of the water shortage, and produce for export is given preferential access to water over people who lack fresh running water. All of this is possible because there is a market for cheap produce year-round. If there isn’t a market for it, then strawberries and other crops that are grown out of your local season will stop being produced. To make that a reality, consumers need to make the change. Instead of buying strawberries, tomatoes, and cucumbers from Mexico, buy them locally. Supermarket packaging doesn’t always say where produce is coming from, but farmers’ markets are always local. Not only are you not contributing to water shortages in rural Mexico, but you’re supporting local farmers and lowering fossil fuel usage in transporting crops. To top it off, locally sourced, organic produce tastes better and is better for you. As the summer continues and produce comes into season, spend your weekends wandering the aisles of a farmers’ market instead of a supermarket. Your local farmers will thank you.

Authors: Liam Jones, Sierra Garrett, Caleb Zinn, Dylan Hurlimann

Sources:

Beta Aqueduct. “Aqueduct Country Ranking.” n.d. https://www.wri.org/applications/aqueduct/country-rankings/?country=MEX&indicator=bws. Accessed: 06/12/2023

Cortés-Ruiz, A., & Azuz-Adeath, I. (2020). Estimating the future hydric needs of Baja California, Mexico. assessment of scenarios to stop being a region with water scarcity. Water Supply, 21(6), 2760–2771. https://doi.org/10.2166/ws.2020.198

Cossio, A. J. A., Flores, A. A. H. (2021, March 15). Competitividad de la Fresa mexicana en el Mercado Estadounidense de 1992 a 2017. Ciencia y Tecnología Agropecuaria. https://revistacta.agrosavia.co/index.php/revista/article/view/1414

Daesslé, L. W., Ruiz-Montoya, L., Tobschall, H. J., Chandrajith, R., Camacho-Ibar, V. F., Mendoza-Espinosa, L. G., Quintanilla-Montoya, A. L., & Lugo-Ibarra, K. C. (2008). Fluoride, nitrate and water hardness in groundwater supplied to the rural communities of Ensenada County, Baja California, Mexico. Environmental Geology, 58(2), 419–429. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-008-1512-9

Wu, F., Guan, Z., Garcia-Nazareiga, M., & Arana-Coronado, J. (2018). An overview of Strawberry Production in Mexico. University of Florida.  https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/FE1014

Zlolniski, C. (2011). Water flowing north of the border: Export Agriculture and Water Politics in a rural community in Baja California. Cultural Anthropology, 26(4), 565–588. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2011.01112.x

Fellowship recipients in new NAS-SOULA initiative

SOU programs collaborate to create fellowship opportunity

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(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University’s Native American Studies (NAS) program and the SOU Laboratory of Anthropology (SOULA) have created a competitive fellowship that promotes collaboration between the two programs and recognizes the research and learning that spans both.

This year’s inaugural fellowship – which is funded by SOULA – was awarded to SOU undergraduates Kayla Dumore and Charlie Zimmermann, and will support their work with the Shasta Takelma Learning Garden project. The fellowship covers 40 hours per term of a paid internship, which can be shared between two students – as is the case for this year’s inaugural round.

The Learning Garden project aims to turn the space around SOU’s Science Building into a biodiverse and culturally rich learning space, dedicated to celebrating the historical and modern presence of the lands’ original Indigenous occupants and caretakers.

Dumore and Zimmerman are using the fellowship to uncover the historical and archeological stories that lie within the space. The fellows will consolidate the stories and publicly present them prior the eventual construction of the garden.

“I am excited for this fellowship because I get the opportunity to broaden my academic horizons by working with anthropology, and because I get to be a part of a very special project with some great people,” Charlie Zimmerman says.

Charlie is a junior studying history and political science, with a minor in Native American Studies and research interests that include the history of Oregon and westward expansion. Charlie is pursuing a career in public history, copy editing, technical writing or historical society work.

Kayla Dumore is an enrolled Klamath Tribal member, with ties to the Klamath and Modoc peoples. She is working toward a major in Sociology and Anthropology, with a certificate in Native American Studies, and plans to graduate June of 2024. Kayla plans to have a career in research, with a focus on Tribal sovereignty, cross-cultural interactions and the Indigenous history of Oregon. Kayla always keeps her community close at heart in all of the work she does, and is passionate about honoring those of seven generations into the future.

“I am deeply honored to be working on this Indigenous-led project,” Kayla says. “I am passionate about advocating for the inherent sovereignty of Native American peoples and the Indigenization of spaces within higher education. This project does both in a collaborative and meaningful way. I am beyond excited to be working with fellow students, alumni and tribal partners.”

The Native American Studies Program at SOU is an interdisciplinary field that blends social science with humanities. Though Indigenous peoples have always been engaged in theoretical and conceptual activities, the physical presence of NAS as a distinct discipline in academia is an outgrowth of American Indian activism of the 1960s and 1970s.

NAS is a problem-solving, Native American-centered and applied field, which seeks to examine experiences that unify Indigenous peoples in ways that work in service to Native American communities’ contemporary challenges and aspirations. All students are welcome.

The SOU Laboratory of Anthropology connects culture, history and place in a meaningful way. The program conducts grant- and contract-funded research that includes archaeological surveying, excavation and analysis; GIS mapping; and oral history and ethnohistoric research. It serves the interests of the university and community, selecting projects in partnership with private, local, state, federal and Tribal organizations in ways that meet collaborators’ needs and provide data for expanded research and public education.

Students from a wide range of disciplines benefit from SOULA’s hands-on experiences in fieldwork, laboratory analysis, conference presentation, writing and career networking.

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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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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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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.

Precious Yamaguchi in Faculty Spotlight Podcast

Faculty Spotlight Podcast: SOU’s Precious Yamaguchi

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Nicole Waehner receives tourism award

Recent SOU business grad earns tourism award

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Nicole Waehner, who earned her bachelor’s degree in business with a concentration in tourism management last June from Southern Oregon University, was awarded the Rising Star Award at this month’s Oregon Governor’s Conference on Tourism in Portland.

The Rising Star Award recognizes an individual who is new to the tourism industry within the past five years and has shown leadership, commitment and a passion for Oregon tourism.

Waehner is currently the Sustainability and Accessibility Project Manager at Columbia Gorge Tourism Alliance. Her boss, network director Emily Reed, nominated her for the Rising Star Award.

“Don’t let her calm demeanor and professionalism keep you from missing her drive and passion, which you can also see early most mornings on the river in a rowing crew,” Reed said in the nomination.

“In addition, I would say that she has single-handedly battled the red tape and complexity of our visa system to fight her way to work another year here in Oregon (with all of our digits crossed in hopes of winning the visa lottery for next year).”

Waehner, in her first three months at the gorge alliance, promoted a new, coordinated transit pass – the Gorge Pass – at numerous live events, supported the “Ready Set Gorge” campaign on social media and helped to coordinate the Waterfall Corridor Accessibility Audit, turning the findings into a visitor-facing brochure and a formal report. She spearhead the creation of the Accessible Gorge website this winter, gathering information from visitor-facing businesses so travelers with disabilities know what to expect before arriving.

SOU business professor Pavlina McGrady, Ph.D., who worked with Nicole in a few courses last academic year, recognized Waehner’s passion for tourism management.

“Nicole proved to be an outstanding student in all of (the courses),” McGrady said. “She was intelligent, ambitious, hard-working and a leader in group projects. After graduation (or even before that), Nicole was eager to find an internship and apply her knowledge and passion.

“I know that she has put her heart into the work for the Columbia Gorge Tourism Alliance. She joined one of my classes as a guest speaker, sharing her professional journey and the amazing work she has done for a short period with the alliance, being an inspiration for the students in the class. She truly is a rising star, and I can’t wait to see what else she will accomplish!”

The Rising Star Award was presented to three recipients as part of the Oregon Travel and Tourism Industry Achievement Awards at the Oregon Governor’s Conference on Tourism, at Portland’s Oregon Convention Center.

The Oregon Tourism Commission (Travel Oregon) is a semi-independent state agency with a mission to inspire travel that uplifts Oregon communities. The organization collaborates with stakeholders to align as stewards of Oregon, working to optimize economic opportunity, advance equity, and respect the ecosystems, cultures and places that make Oregon unique. The organization supports the state’s $13.8 billion tourism industry and more than 117,360 tourism-related jobs.