SOU receives grant from Ashland Community Health Foundation

SOU receives behavioral health care grant

Southern Oregon University has been awarded a $110,000 grant from the Ashland Community Health Foundation to fund a faculty position for the 2024-25 academic year in SOU’s master’s degree program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.

The SOU grant is the first undertaking by the ACHF that will be paid for with a $1 million grant that the nonprofit community health organization received from CareOregon. The grant to ACHF is intended to be used over the next three years to help boost the Rogue Valley’s behavioral health care workforce.

In addition to the $110,000 grant that will fund the SOU faculty position, the ACHF money will be used on paid internships for local behavioral health counseling students, scholarships for second-year students in counseling programs, continuing education for those who offer peer support in behavioral health settings and an endowment to support future behavioral health workforce needs. All of the grant-funded efforts are being administered in partnership with Jackson Care Connect, and are meant to help those serving low-income and vulnerable populations, such as Medicaid clients.

The CareOregon grant to ACHF is in response to the 2023 Oregon Health Care Workforce Needs Assessment, in which the Oregon Health Policy Board and Oregon Health Authority prioritized expansion of the behavioral health care workforce

SOU’s master’s degree program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling prepares its students to serve as behavioral health counselors in both public and private settings. The accredited program, which meets both state and federal standards, offers small classes, supportive student-faculty connections and hands-on, experiential learning opportunities.

The ACHF has administered more than $1.5 million in scholarships for nursing and allied health students during its 22-year history. The 501(c)(3) organization promotes innovative and equitable approaches to community health and wellness in Ashland and the Rogue Valley.

SOU's Kelly Szott awarded post-doc fellowship

SOU faculty member earns research fellowship on substance abuse

(Ashland, Ore.) — Kelly Szott, an associate professor of sociology at Southern Oregon University, has been awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at New York University’s Rory Meyers College of Nursing to study drug use and addiction issues during her sabbatical year at SOU. The fellowship is funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Her 12-month fellowship through NYU’s Behavioral Sciences Training in Substance Abuse Research program began June 30 and will be her first step in studying the effects of climate change on drug use, drug markets and treatment.

“My main aim with this fellowship is to work toward developing a grant proposal for a research project that examines the impacts of climate instability (including wildfires, drought and smoke) on drug use risks, such as overdose,” Szott said.

She is one of 16 pre- and post-doctoral researchers from around the country who were awarded fellowships in the NYU program to study a variety of drug use and abuse issues ranging from drugs among college students to politics in drug policy. The fellows meet each Monday to collaboratively review their work, listen to speakers and participate in training.

The Behavioral Sciences Training in Drug Abuse Research program at NYU has been funded by the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse since 1984, making it the largest and oldest such training program. It awards fellowships to researchers from a variety of academic disciplines, including public health, social work, psychology, criminal justice, sociology and nursing.

Szott is a medical sociologist who uses qualitative methods to study drug use and harm-reduction responses. She received her bachelor’s degree in social science from the University of Michigan, and her master’s degree and Ph.D. in sociology from Syracuse University.

Her past research has focused on fentanyl use and harm-reduction responses in rural contexts. Her more recent research has examined wildfire’s impacts on the health and social support networks of rural, older adults – which she is now expanding to the impacts of climate crisis events on drug use. Szott’s research has appeared in publications including the monthly International Journal of Drug Policy, and the Critical Public Health and Human Organization quarterly journals.

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SOU's Worth Harvey Pipe Organ is 50 years old.

SOU’s 50th anniversary celebration of its pipe organ

(Ashland, Ore.) — There will be cake. There will be festivities marking a half-century milestone. And most certainly, there will be music.

Southern Oregon University will observe the 50th anniversary of the SOU Music Recital Hall’s Worth Harvey Pipe Organ – and the history behind it – with a celebration and concert at 2 p.m. on Friday, August 23. The massive and much-celebrated pipe organ itself will be at center stage.

“Come and hear the organ sing for this glorious occasion,” said SOU professor emerita Margaret Evans, who will perform on the instrument that has framed her career. “The organ is truly the ‘King of Instruments’ and we hope the audience will enjoy the joyous sounds of organ music.”

The concert and golden anniversary reception – with cake and punch – will be hosted by the SOU Foundation and the SOU Music Department. The performance, parking and reception are free and open to the public.

The performance by Evans, who continues to serve as an adjunct professor of organ at SOU, will showcase the unique qualities of the university’s powerful and complex Worth Harvey Pipe Organ. Evans will play the organ’s multiple keyboards, with feet flying across the pedals to cover bassline notes. The instrument’s various “stops,” or controls, will also create different “tonal colors,” allowing Evans to produce sounds on a spectrum from bright and piercing to warm and mellow.

SOU’s Music Recital Hall was still being planned in the late 1960s, when the chair of the Music Department lobbied for performance space to accommodate a pipe organ – even though the state of Oregon’s appropriation for the building did not include funding for the instrument. The new Music Building and Recital Hall opened in 1972 with space for an organ, and Medford philanthropist Agnes Flanagan agreed to co-chair an organ fund-raising committee.

Flanagan, who was known as a tireless letter writer, immediately began tapping friends and acquaintances for contributions – and didn’t hesitate to remind those whose pledges had not been paid. Donors who paid $50 or more were promised the opportunity to sign one of the organ’s 2,000 pipes, – and 250 contributors qualified.

Worth Harvey, a Eugene and Cottage Grove banker, led the way by donating $40,000 of the instrument’s total cost of $67,000. It was created by Seattle-based organ builder Balcom and Vaughan, and its console was updated in 2000 at a cost of $20,000. The SOU instrument would cost about $1 million if built today.

The organ was dedicated to Harvey, who was a 1906 alumnus of what was then Southern Oregon State Normal School, at a pipe-signing party on October 26, 1974. Initial recitals on the instrument were performed in December 1974 by Portland organist John Strege – the first in a long and ongoing string of renowned organists to play at SOU.

The Worth Harvey Pipe Organ served as the “host” instrument for the Northwest Regional Convention of the American Guild of Organists in 1997, and has been used in church choir festivals, ensemble concerts and as a study instrument by many students.

Margaret Evans, who is SOU’s fourth organ instructor since 1974, is currently dean of the Southern Oregon Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and a trustee of the SOU Foundation. She has played recitals and presented workshops throughout the country and has had a nearly 50-year career as an organist and choir director for a variety of churches.

Evans will open this month’s anniversary concert with “Praeludium in G Major” by Nikolaus Bruhns, and will also include Bach’s “Schmüke dich, o liebe Seele” and “Prelude and Fugue in D Major.” The performance will continue with Kerensa Briggs’ “Prelude on Pange Lingua” and “Variations on a Theme by Paganini for Pedals” by George Thalben-Ball, and will conclude with Louis Vierne’ “Clair de Lune” and “Carillon de Westminster.”

All upcoming 2024-25 SOU events, music and theatre performances are listed on the OCA website at https://oca.sou.edu/events.

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Travis Campbell's research on family support for transgender youth

SOU economist’s research paper stresses importance of family support for trans youth

(Ashland, Ore.) — SOU economist Travis Campbell is the lead author of a research paper that highlights the critical role of family support during the “identity development” of transgender youth. The study was published in this month’s issue of JAMA Pediatrics, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Medical Association.

The paper, “Mental Health of Transgender Youth Following Gender Identity Milestones by Level of Family Support,” concludes that transgender youth who live in unsupportive families are at significantly increased risk of suicide attempts and running away from home when they initiate any of four gender identity milestones: feeling that their gender is different, thinking of themselves as transgender, telling others that they are transgender and living full-time in their gender identity. By contrast, for those who live in supportive families, “there were no statistically significant associations between gender identity milestones and adverse mental health outcomes,” the research found.

In their study, Campbell and his co-authors – Yana Rodgers, a professor in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University; Samuel Mann an associate economist at RAND Corporation; and Nathaniel Tran, an incoming assistant professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, Chicago – analyzed data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, the largest-ever assessment of transgender people with more than 27,700 respondents across the U.S. The collaborating authors analyzed the responses of 18,303 of those survey respondents, all of whom were transgender adults who had initiated at least one gender identity milestone between the ages of 4 and 18 years.

“These results demonstrate that without a supportive family environment, gender identity development increases the risk of transgender youth attempting suicide or running away from home,” the paper in this month’s JAMA Pediatrics said. “Social services and community resources to establish supportive relationships between transgender children and their parents are essential.”

Gender identity milestones are common and important steps in identity development for transgender youth, the paper said, and “may result in changes in internalized and externalized stress because of exclusion, rejection and violence,” which can contribute to “gender dysphoria” – a sense of distress for those who feel their assigned sex at birth does not match their gender identity. But the authors also said that achieving those milestones “is one way transgender people achieve self-actualization.”

The paper said the mental health of transgender people can improve with medical procedures that reduce gender dysphoria and interventions that lessen any gender-related stigma they may experience. On the other hand, limiting the options of transgender people can negatively affect them, the authors said.

“Antitransgender legislation is associated with worsening mental health outcomes among gender minority individuals, which is of particular note given the recent rise in antitransgender legislation, including bills that establish criminal charges for providing gender-affirming care to transgender youth,” the paper said, citing new laws in Oklahoma and Wyoming that ban gender-affirming care for minors.

Campbell joined the SOU Economics faculty as an assistant professor after earning his Ph.D. in economics in 2022 from the University of Massachusetts. His research applies microeconomics to social justice issues, including economic inequalities based on race, gender and sexuality. His classes at SOU include Micro and Macroeconomics, Quantitative Methods and Application, Healthcare Economics, Labor Economics and Gender Issues in Economics.

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SOU sociology and anthropology group at Maxville

SOU receives grant for archaeological project at African-American logging town of Maxville

(Ashland, Ore.) — A recent $20,000 grant from the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office will enable staff and students from the Southern Oregon University Sociology and Anthropology Program to conduct archaeological investigations at the northeast Oregon town of Maxville – a logging town that was home in the early 20th century to both African American and white loggers.

SOU will collaborate on the project with the Maxville Heritage and Interpretive Center of Wallowa County – a museum established and run by descendants of Maxville’s inhabitants, and dedicated to the history of African American, Indigenous and immigrant loggers in the Pacific Northwest.

The Maxville townsite was acquired by the museum in 2022 to be developed as an interpretive, educational and communal space. SOU anthropology professor Mark Axel Tveskov was the lead author on a nomination that led the National Park Service to place Maxville on the National Register of Historic Places.

Those efforts led the Maxville project to earn a 2024 Oregon Heritage Excellence Award from the State of Oregon.

The grant will allow students from the SOU Sociology and Anthropology program to gain professional experience in archaeological survey, excavation and analysis through field work that will take place this September, and through laboratory work that will occur over the coming academic school year.

“This project will allow our students to engage in practical work on one of the most significant heritage projects currently underway in the Pacific Northwest,” Tveskov said.

Oregon’s State Historic Preservation Office offers matching grants for rehabilitation work that supports the preservation of locations listed on the National Register of Historic Places, or for work that helps to identify, preserve or interpret archaeological sites.

SOU students will work with Maxville Heritage personnel on geophysical survey and traditional archaeological excavation that will identify significant features of the Maxville townsite and gather a representative sample of artifacts to better understand the lived experiences of Maxville’s inhabitants.

“Uncovering our hidden history has been a through-line within our mission and vision,” said Gwendolyn Trice, executive director of the Maxville Heritage and Interpretive Center. “Research, oral histories, journals and archives are some of the ways in which we uncover and discover our history.

“Archeology takes this uncovering to the next level, using scientific methods above and below ground to reveal our past in a way that established collection of information, textiles and artifacts cannot achieve,” Trice said.

Other partners in the Maxville project include the Anthropology/Sociology Program at Eastern Oregon University and the Anthropology, Art History and Environmental Studies programs at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.

Maxville, about 13 miles north of the town of Wallowa, was once home to about 400 residents and was the county’s largest railroad logging town from the mid-1920s to mid-1930s. Loggers and their families came to Maxville in the 1920s from the South and the Midwest in search of work, and the Bowman-Hicks Lumber Company – which owned the town – hired Black loggers despite Oregon’s exclusion laws of that period.

Maxville’s African American families lived in segregated housing, attended segregated schools and played on a segregated baseball team, but Black loggers worked side-by-side with their white counterparts.

Maxville’s eventual decline was due to economic conditions, including the Great Depression and a consequent downturn in the lumber market.

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SOU Valorant Esports team has successful season

SOU Valorant Esports team completes successful season

SOU’s Valorant Esports team recently completed its best year of competition by finishing its regular season with six wins and one loss and then making it to the semifinals of its post-season Nace Starleague Open + tournament. The SOU team won its quarterfinal match, 2-0, against Connecticut’s University of New Haven before losing in the semifinals, 2-1, to eventual tournament champion Carleton University of Minnesota.

The SOU team’s season extended through winter and spring terms.

Members of the SOU Esports team grew into a cohesive unit, bonded by their shared passion for Valorant – a team-based, first-person hero shooter video game set in the near future. Valorant is among the most popular games played by Esports teams, with characters based on various countries or cultures, and players assigned to either the attacking or defending five-person teams.

The SOU team was led by Hunter Miller and Bruno Weston, and also included fellow students William Doctor, Elliot Glenn, Ezra Fader, Angelo Padavana, Kyle Richardson, Spencer Miller and Ryan O’Pecko.

“I’ve always had a passion for competing in Esports and I’m glad that SOU has a place where I can do that,” Weston said. “The season as a whole was unbelievable, this team showcased that a team doesn’t need to have the best of the best, as long as the team chemistry is on point.”

Many of the players had never before experienced the intensity of competitive Esports tournaments, but adapted as their season progressed. Team members found their places within the team, and came to understand their roles and team strategies.

“I am a long-time gamer, but I am new to the competitive (first-person shooter) scene,” Glenn said. “Learning about the game and strategy alongside the high-ranking players of our team has been a great learning experience, but the best part has been the chemistry between our players. Every practice was fun and informative, and every tournament carried an energy that no one could deny.”

SOU is among the first institutions on the West Coast to offer both an academic program and a competitive team in Esports – a billion-dollar global enterprise. The university’s academic minor in esports management is one of just a handful that are offered nationally and its combination of programs positions students for future employment in the growing industry.

Courses in the SOU’s Esports minor offer structural principles for the world of Esports, addressing the industry’s ethics, focusing on diversity, eliminating toxicity and teaching efficient business management. The minor complements majors of all kinds, but has lots of double-dipping opportunities in the BusinessCommunication and Emerging Media and Digital Arts programs.

The SOU Esports team was accepted two years ago into the NACE StarLeague, the national league of college Esports. The association hosts tournaments in the spring and fall, in which schools from all over the country compete in various video game competitions.

The SOU Laboratory of Anthropology was awarded $500,000 by Congress

SOU Laboratory of Anthropology project rewarded by Congress

(Ashland, Ore.) — The Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology’s Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project – an ongoing, collaborative effort to research and document the lives of Oregon’s early Chinese immigrants – was awarded almost $500,000 in the spending bill approved by Congress this month. The federal allocation more than doubles the total funding that the archaeological project has received since it began in 2016.

SOU is the only one of Oregon’s four technical and regional universities to receive congressional funding in the new spending bill.

“This is another example of our representatives at both the state and federal levels recognizing the important, innovative work that is coming out of our university,” SOU President Rick Bailey said. “Senators Merkley and Wyden supported this request through all the twists and turns of the congressional budgeting process, and the result will be a far greater understanding of the vital roles that Chinese Americans and immigrants have played throughout Oregon’s history.”

The new federal funding will allow the award-winning Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project to expand well beyond its original focus on 19th century mining and railroad settlements, to encompass areas throughout the state where Chinese immigrants have had a presence. The project will also incorporate “orphaned” collections from other archaeological efforts, and will result in a series of field schools, volunteer opportunities, exhibits, digital content and free, public talks and programs.

“We have investigated railroad and mining sites across the state, but these funds will be used to explore and document the history of Chinese Oregonians living in diverse geographical areas and working in a variety of industries, in an effort to better capture the full range of Chinese American heritage and experience in Oregon,” said archaeologist Chelsea Rose, director of the SOU Laboratory of Anthropology.

“While we have done amazing things working with our partners to date, this allows us to investigate some of the ‘bucket list’ sites we have encountered over the years, and implement some of our dream projects,” she said.

SOULA works on the Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project with agencies including the Medford District of the Bureau of Land Management, the Malheur National Forest, the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, Oregon State Parks, the Oregon Historical Society and the Portland Chinatown Museum.

Researchers have used local history and public archaeology to challenge dated stereotypes and highlight the transnational lives of the Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans that helped establish the early infrastructure and economic industries of Oregon. The project has included digging, interpreting and touring numerous archaeological sites around the state where Chinese immigrants worked and lived, and researching censuses and community records.

The effort has won several awards, including one last fall from the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) and a national Award of Excellence from the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) in June of 2022.

Sens. Merkley and Wyden submitted a “congressionally directed spending request” on SOU’s behalf to better enable students to assist with a comprehensive, statewide inventory of Chinese heritage sites. It will pay for archival research, targeted field visits and community outreach, and archaeological investigations at seven to 10 sites identified during the survey.

“These investigations would target sites that will fill in gaps in the documentary record, including industries or areas of the state that have been understudied,” the congressional request said. “This will consist of a mix of archaeological excavation, intensive survey, or analysis of orphaned artifact collections.”

About two-thirds of the $499,743 allocated by Congress will be used for fieldwork and reporting, with most of the remainder earmarked for travel, curation and supplies. The funding is part of the federal Labor, Health and Human Services budget for improvement of postsecondary education.

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SOU receives Tree Campus designation

SOU earns 10th Tree Campus designation

(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University has been honored by the national Arbor Day Foundation as a Tree Campus USA for the 10th consecutive year, in recognition of SOU’s commitment to the effective management of its urban forest.

Tree Campus Higher Education, a program that began in 2008, recognizes U.S. colleges and universities, and their leaders, for promoting healthy trees and engaging students and staff in the spirit of conservation. SOU, which first earned the distinction in 2014, is one of 411 higher education institutions nationwide to receive the most recent recognition.

“We are delighted to be awarded Tree Campus certification for another year at Southern Oregon University,” said Becs Walker, SOU’s director of sustainability. “This is very much a collaborative effort of faculty, students, staff and the community. Our trees are also facing increased stress from drought and disease, and our landscape department is working hard to minimize this impact.”

SOU earned the Tree Campus designation by fulfilling the program’s five standards for effective campus forest management: maintaining a tree advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance and a student service-learning project..

Trees on campus and in urban spaces can lower energy costs by providing shade cover, cleaner air and water, and green spaces for students and faculty. Trees can also improve students’ mental and cognitive health, provide an appealing aesthetic for campuses and create shaded areas for studying and gathering.

“Trees not only play a vital role in the environment but also in our daily lives,” said Dan Lambe, chief executive of the Arbor Day Foundation. “Having trees on college and university campuses is a great way to show a commitment to students and faculty’s overall wellbeing.”

The Arbor Day Foundation is a million-member, nonprofit conservation and education organization with the mission of inspiring people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees. The foundation, launched in 1972, has helped to plant nearly 500 million trees in more than 50 countries.

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Travis Campbell recognized by American Economics Association

SOU economist’s research recognized by American Economic Association

(Ashland, Ore.) — SOU economist Travis Campbell and a co-author from Rutgers University have been recognized by the American Economic Association for writing the best research paper over the past year on LGBTQ+ economics.

The award for Campbell, an assistant professor of economics at SOU, and co-author Yana Rodgers of Rutgers was announced at the AEA’s annual meeting this month in San Antonio, Texas. Their paper, “Conversion therapy, suicidality and running away: An analysis of transgender youth in the U.S.” was nominated for the award from the AEA’s Committee on the Status of LGBTQ+ Individuals in the Economics Profession.

The research paper by Campbell and Rodgers was published last year in the Journal of Health Economics. Their study is based on data from the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, and found that the controversial practice of “conversion therapy” increases the risk of suicide attempts among transgender youth by 55 percent, and increases the likelihood of running away from home by 128 percent. Conversion therapy is the practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation – or gender identity or expression – to conform with heterosexual norms.

Campbell and Rodgers analyzed data from U.S. Transgender Survey, which is the largest-ever assessment of transgender people with more than 27,700 respondents across the U.S. participating.

Campbell has also authored an article for The Conversation website that summarizes the paper he co-authored with Rodgers, and a few related papers he has written.

Campbell joined the SOU Economics faculty after earning his Ph.D. in economics in 2022 from the University of Massachusetts. His research applies microeconomics to social justice issues, including economic inequalities based on race, gender and sexuality. His classes at SOU include Micro and Macroeconomics, Quantitative Methods and Application, Healthcare Economics, Labor Economics and Gender Issues in Economics.

The AEA’s Committee on the Status of LGBTQ+ Individuals in the Economics Profession presents its award annually to the best paper, published in a peer-reviewed journal or academic press, on topics “especially relevant to or about LGBTQ+ populations.”

The AEA committee was created to help build an economics profession that is open to all, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, race, religion, family status or disability. The committee is based on the belief that a diverse profession encourages the highest quality scholarship.

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SOU's Neil Woolf to become president of New Mexico Highlands University

SOU VP named president of university in New Mexico

(Ashland, Ore.) — Southern Oregon University Executive Vice President Neil Woolf, who has served at SOU for the past five years, has been selected to become the 19th president at New Mexico Highlands University, in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

The NMHU Board of Regents voted unanimously at a special meeting today to hire Woolf as the successor to President Sam Minner, who is retiring at the end of June after nine years as the university’s president. Woolf is expected to continue in his role at SOU until beginning his job at NMHU next summer.

“I am grateful for the opportunities I’ve had at SOU, which I feel have prepared me well for this next chapter in my career,” Woolf said. “SOU and the communities of southern Oregon hold a special place in my heart.”

Woolf began work at SOU in January 2019 as Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs. He previously led enrollment efforts at higher education institutions in Wisconsin, Washington and Nevada.

“A couple of his many achievements include helping SOU to coordinate with the Oregon Health Authority and others throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and initiating data sharing with school districts throughout Oregon and beyond – an effort that has already had a significant positive effect on our enrollment,” SOU President Rick Bailey said.

Woolf received his bachelor’s degree in government from Eastern Washington University, his master’s degree in public administration from the University of Utah and his Ed.D. in higher education administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

New Mexico Highlands is a public university just east of Santa Fe in Las Vegas, New Mexico, and has satellite campuses in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Farmington and Roswell.

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