Author: Owen R. Smith

So you’re done with your last class, participated in your last sorry group presentation and completed that final annoying term paper. Now it’s time to graduate!

When Layton Borkan returned to work at the Center for Student Health and Counseling in 2006 after a stint away convalescing from a bout of cancer, she expected to work for perhaps six months and then retire.

KPSU Development Director Rachelle Schmid is in for a hectic time as spring term winds down. Not only is the Portland State student radio station in the middle of its annual pledge drive, but also Schmid is signed on as guest host of The Traveling Radio Show as it records around Portland next week.

KPSU launched its annual two-week pledge drive Monday, but donations started pouring in about a month ago when the student-run radio station sent out an e-mail asking faithful listeners to pony up.

Music by Persian singer Hameed blared and dozens danced to the hypnotic sounds as the second annual Persian Night took over the Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom Thursday night.

“I was high,” says Jake Meeks as Telling—the play by and about veterans—begins. “I was stoned out of my monkey ass.”

In the poorest student election turnout since 1998, Jonathan Sanford claimed the student body presidency while Johnnie Ozimkowski was selected as the next Student Fee Committee chair.

With just hours to go before polls closed for good Monday evening, candidates from all three slates patrolled the Park Blocks in front of the Smith Memorial Student Union encouraging students to vote.

After 48 hours of turmoil, the student government election is still on. The election was postponed Monday due to a faulty ballot that was missing several candidate statements and photos, among other problems, leaving the future of the annual contest to select new student government officers up in the air.

To longtime observers of ASPSU, the postponement of this year’s student government elections and the subsequent firing of Elections Board Chair Ingrid Castenella should not be surprising, nor is it anything new.

“I want to see students get engaged in the process of running the university, and that would be my dream—to see students who are directly engaged in the projects that we do and they have say in the planning of the university and the operations. That’s a really great learning experience and that’s what made me develop into a person that can work within a system.”