Author: Devin Gallagher

In a circle roughly the size of a small classroom, six people are walking along a circular path at a snail’s pace. Some have their heads lowered and some seem to have their eyes closed as they walk the winding path. Suddenly a bell rings, and a kneeled figure stands up and joins the circle. These people are walking the labyrinth, an opportunity provided every month by the PSU Spiritual Life Center and the student group Growing Roots. Lydia Child currently serves as the student labyrinth coordinator.

They sat by the phone, waiting for the good or bad news for three hours. The Lives of Famous Men–a band comprised of two Portland State students and others from the area–had just played for about 5,000 people in an outdoor amphitheater in Philadelphia, Pa., for the finals of the mtvU Campus Invasion Tour Contest. It was May 3, they and two other bands were competing for the top prize–$10,000 and the opportunity to host the mtvU program, Dean’s List. After the show, fans began voting for their favorite. The band was told to wait by the phone for word.

This Friday, get ready to dance, learn about many cultures and sample food from across the globe at what could be the biggest International Night yet.

When Yoshini Gunawardena was hired by Portland State Campus Recreation in June of 2006, she thought she might end up being “the person who flips numbers at a basketball game.” On April 16 of this year, she was chosen from over 50 nominees to be the 2008 Student Employee of the Year for her work as Campus Recreation marketing coordinator.

A team of scientists from Portland State and two Montana-based universities have been awarded a $142,000 grant from NASA to study how life on other planets could live in extreme environments, such as a volcano on Mars.

Pedro Ferbel-Azcarate has studied many race-related issues since he started teaching in 1998, but it was his family that inspired him to delve into the topics further. “My family is multiracial and multicultural, and this has motivated me as a person who is usually defined by society as white to be involved in issues of racism on multiple levels,” Ferbel-Azcarate said.

Elizabeth Burke spends hours every week writing essays and studying, but she doesn’t get graded and she doesn’t receive credits. As a PSU senior auditor who graduated many years ago, Burke, 71, is back in school. Not for a degree, but because of a love of learning. “I believe in life-long learning,” she said.

As Philip Metcalfe struggled through the final stages of brain cancer, he worked to complete the book that had dominated much of the last decade of his life. Then, just a few months before his death in 2002, the Oregon-raised historian and writer–with many close ties to PSU–finished his book, Whispering Wires: The Tragic Tale of an American Bootlegger.

The North American Handmade Bicycle show rolled into the Oregon Convention Center in Portland this weekend, drawing over 6,800 bike enthusiasts from all over the Northwest–the show’s highest attendance yet.

The state legislature began its first-ever special session this week to help manage budget issues such as increased health insurance coverage for children, improvements to water sources and more funding for state troopers.

Roger Hughes and Daniel Russel have been together for 13 years. They own a home in Beaverton where they both work in the human resources field. “We are those life-long, committed partners that you keep hearing about,” Hughes said. Russel and Hughes are one of many couples affected by the temporary injunction placed on Oregon’s domestic partnership law, which was set to go into affect Jan. 1, but was blocked by a judge for a month so opponents can make a case as to why it should be voted on. The “Hussels,” as Hughes jokingly referred to he and his partner, joined hundreds of Oregonians in the Terry Schrunk Plaza at Southwest Third and Madison for the Rally to Defend Equality, Wednesday night.