Author: Chelsea Villareal

One of several potential changes to the Dean of Students’ Educational Stipend Program and Policy is raising the stipend cap for student government to $200,000, a recommendation from the Educational Stipend Policy Committee.

Portland State professor L. Rudolph Barton is no stranger to the Big Easy. He completed his undergrad education in New Orleans and went on to do research with the city afterwards. Being a past local, Barton wanted to figure out a way to help rebuild the city. “Every city needs an infrastructure of institutions like libraries, schools and churches. That’s one of the difficult things to rebuild after devastation,” Barton said.

“Legal,” Joseph LeBaron jokingly said as he signed himself into becoming the new U.S. ambassador to Qatar. The mood was high as old friends, classmates, alumni and family showed support to LeBaron during his oath. LeBaron was joined by his wife and daughter as interim PSU President Michael F. Reardon delivered presiding remarks to the anxious crowd. Paul De Muniz (PSU class of ’72), chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, administered the oath of office to LeBaron.

After attending Portland State University as an undergraduate during the 1960s, Joseph LeBaron joined the United States Air Force and was sent to Turkey. The cultural experiences he had there reawakened LeBaron’s early childhood interest in the Middle East. “It had the religious significance of the Middle East, Jerusalem, to the world history, which I learned about at church and through, eventually, Portland State,” LeBaron said. “It got me very interested.”

This Friday, July 18, PSU Alumnus Joseph LeBaron will be sworn in at the Simon Benson House patio at 4 p.m. as the U.S. Ambassador to Qatar. Interim President, Michael F. Reardon, will deliver presiding remarks while Paul De Muniz (PSU class of ’72), Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, will administer the oath of office.

In last spring’s student government elections, ASPSU President Hannah Fisher and Vice President Kyle Cady ran on a platform promising to pay student senators, a body of student government members that have previously been unpaid. Fisher and Cady recently said raising ASPSU’s stipend cap would allow them to compensate the senators, giving student government the opportunity to establish a stronger checks-and-balances system. “ASPSU Senators must be paid for the Senate to be an effective third branch of the government,” Cady said.

By fall 2009 the new TriMet MAX Green Line and its two light rail stops on campus will connect Clackamas Town Center and Portland State University. The completion of the Green Line will correspond with a fully redesigned and refurbished PSU Bicycle Cooperative. The reconstructed bicycle co-op is in part a collaborative project between TriMet and Portland State University.

President Bush signed a new GI Bill on Monday aimed at providing the full cost for college or job training for those who served after Sept. 11, 2001. The GI Bill will extend to activated reservists and National Guardsmen with benefits paid proportionally to the number of months in active duty. Jacob Meeks, the president of the Student Veteran Association (SVA) at PSU, an organization recently responsible for helping to raise money for scholarships for veterans and a summer retreat for new association leadership, has spoken with both Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Senator Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) about the GI Bill.