Author: Katie Kotsovos

When Dan Adler attended his first competitive debate as a spectator five years ago, he had never guessed he’d be a finalist in a national forensics competition some day.

In this age of chick lit, Da Vinci Code-esque thrillers and books about wizards, it can be difficult to find a piece of good, solid fiction.

The Portland State Food Industry Leadership Center (FILC) was awarded $210,000 in grant money to provide scholarships for students interested in pursuing careers in the food and retail industry.

In the greater half of a century, Charles Deemer has produced over 40 plays, served in the Army, dropped out of school three times, published numerous short stories and essays, and had six screenplays optioned. And those are just the highlights. Now, as a professor at Portland State University and editor of the Oregon Literary Review, Deemer is being recognized for his recent novel, Dead Body in a Small Room.

It’s hard to find talent these days, and apparently Portland State has a stash of it in Lincoln Hall. Among things not to miss in this busy last week of classes is the theater department’s festival of one-act plays. The pieces were all hand selected and directed by students in the directing II class as part of PSU’s annual one-act play festival.

The Portland State Graduate School of Social Work has plans to expand its Reclaiming Futures initiative, which provides aid to youths in the justice system struggling with drug and alcohol abuse, after receiving a $6.5 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in February.

Administrators, faculty and individuals concerned with Oregon Senate Bill 342 met last week to discuss the bill, which directs colleges and universities in the state to coordinate more effective transfer among institutions. Senate Bill 342, which has been in effect since the state Legislature passed it in spring 2005, works to improve the ease of transferring lower division general education credits between schools.

The People’s Monthly Rag is all about making statements: shocking, explicit, in-your-face statements. The publication, headed by an anonymous group of self-proclaimed radical feminists on campus, is scheduled to print its first issue in mid-March. The Rag accepts submissions of writing, art and images that relate to radical feminism.

Dancers, singers and scholars filled the Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom last night for Portland State University’s third annual celebration of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The event was originally scheduled for Jan. 18 to coincide with MLK Day, but was canceled due to snow.

The small town of The Dalles, Ore., will play host to a public conference in March commemorating the 50th anniversary of the flooding of Celilo Falls, a former Native American fishery and trading spot on the Columbia River. Celilo Falls, a natural waterfall that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark passed on the Oregon Trail, was flooded when the U.

Portland State signed an agreement with the Chinese government Jan. 19 to establish a Confucius Institute at PSU, a nonprofit public center aimed at promoting awareness of Chinese language and culture at the university and in the broader community. Confucius Institutes are headed by the Chinese government and the China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, which is headquartered in Beijing.