Author: Gwen Shaw

Dr. Berrin Erdogan, an associate professor in the School of Business Administration, sees being a professor as three jobs wrapped into one.

On July 1, the interest rate on student loans is set to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent unless Congress is able to extend the lower rate.

Portland State is known for being a school of nontraditional students—those that come from all walks of life to discover their place in Portland.

Students often have a hard time imagining their professors outside of the classroom, and many assume that teaching is their only gig. But the truth is, a lot of professors are engaged in a variety of pursuits beyond the classes they teach.

This spring, Portland State’s engineering students will be participating in several much-anticipated activities, as student groups have been working all year for upcoming competitions and events.

Gerald Sussman, a professor in Portland State’s Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, recently inherited a course that was developed about 10 years ago.

Clinical assistant professor in Speech and Hearing Sciences Jennifer Larsen has spent the last 18 years as a speech language pathologist and worked on and off at Portland State.

Michael Flower, a professor of interdisciplinary science studies, has been teaching some form of the class “Science: Power-Knowledge” for much of his career. Before coming to Portland State, he taught a less-developed version of the class at Lewis & Clark College, which he has since fine-tuned at PSU.

Alex Sager, an assistant professor in the philosophy department, is currently teaching a new course titled “Philosophy of Work and Leisure.” “We spend most of our lives either at work or engaged in leisurely pursuits, and it’s sort of a philosophical inquiry into what that means,” Sager said of the class.