Author Judy Fong Bates spoke about her life and work Thursday at the culmination of 2007’s Everybody Reads program, a month-long project featuring various events to promote reading throughout the Portland community. Bates spoke to a full room in the Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom Thursday night, explaining the inspiration behind her novel Midnight at the Dragon Caf퀌�.
As construction on the new Portland Mall moves into its first stages, the mall’s designers discussed the impact the mall could have on the University District at Portland State Friday. Officials from TriMet and the architecture company working on the bus mall say that the mall will have unique differences in each of the districts that the mall runs though on Southwest Fifth and Sixth avenues downtown.
The Portland State Extended Studies department is partnering up with Oregon Public Broadcasting to raise funds that help OPB provide their free radio and television broadcasts. For the past few years, the School of Extended Studies has gathered student volunteers to participate in OPB fundraising activities.
An expert on urban planning and transportation spoke Friday at Portland State about reducing the cost of street parking and using the revenue from parking meters in the local neighborhoods. As part of the Winter 2007 Transportation Seminar Series, Dr. Donald Shoup said that free parking comes at a high cost, and that the city of Portland is not approaching its parking situation, which he called poor, adequately.
An expert from the Oregon Department of Geology spoke at Portland State Wednesday about the fault lines in Portland being a possible earthquake threat to the city. Although the majority of Portland’s faults are minor dead faults, it is uncertain which of the minor faults could be an earthquake threat to Portland, according to Ian Madin, chief scientist at the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.