The Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium recently was awarded a $3.5 million transportation sustainability grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
At the very least, the grant enables the OTREC to continue to operate for two more years. OTREC is a national University Transportation Center that partners Portland State University with the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and the Oregon Institute of Technology.
Dr. Peter Boghossian, in his view, is forgiven by most religious groups, embraced by realists and loathed by secular liberals. His most recent lecture, titled “Jesus, the Easter Bunny and Other Delusions: Just Say No!” will likely result in comments from all three factions.
Oregon will have a new attorney general in 2012. Citing personal reasons, John Kroger will vacate the current position and, so far, only three democratic candidates have emerged.
On Jan. 4, Ellen Rosenblum announced her intent to run for the state position, which supervises all legal matters in which the state plays a role. In 1993, then-Governor Barbara Roberts appointed Rosenblum to serve as an appellate court judge for Multnomah County.
There is a significant increase in tuition rates for Portland State’s 2012 summer term. The increase, up 9 percent from last year’s summer rates, is commensurate with rates that were approved for the full academic year of 2012–13.
The tuition review process is conducted every year and involves students, faculty and university administrators of the Tuition Review Advisory Committee. Robin Michell, the manager of budget planning and analysis at PSU, is heavily involved in the process.
At the beginning of 2012, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences welcomed its new dean, Susan Beatty. Beatty, who hails from Atlanta and taught at universities in California and Colorado, was originally concerned if Portland State would be the right fit. But during her first visit, when she met with students, faculty and people in the Portland community, she knew it was where she was meant to be.
Beatty began her undergraduate studies at Emory College in Atlanta then migrated north to upstate New York for her graduate degree at Cornell University. After receiving her degree, she headed west to teach history at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The Oregon University System will not appeal a court decision that allows guns on campuses.
The decision overturned decades of prohibition, but upheld a 1995 Oregon law intended to prevent cities from creating their own gun laws, giving that power instead to the state legislature. The OUS was challenged by gun rights advocates over its decision to disallow firearms being carried on campus even with a concealed weapons permit.
While the court decision represented a victory for gun rights advocates, the OUS intends to rely on internal policies to continue to promote the safety of students, according to Diane Saunders, director of communication for the OUS.
Finding work in a struggling economy is difficult, but if a law student were to believe the employment rates reported by their alma mater, finding high-paying legal work is a breeze. The problem is, those numbers might not be accurate.
Law schools have been under increasing pressure from outsiders to defend the claims they make with their post-grad employment rates and median salaries. In April of this year, 15 law schools faced class-action lawsuits for their allegedly inflated post-grad employment rate statistics. Among them were Villanova University, St. John’s University and the University of San Francisco School of Law.
On Monday, Nov. 1, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore visited the Occupy Portland movement at Terry Schrunk Plaza, telling listeners that of all the Occupy movements he’s seen, Portland’s is by far the largest.
While reminding the audience that he was just one of the 99 percent, Moore fired up the crowd by thanking them, and saying how inspiring the movement is.
There are three X’s marking the outside of the Sisters of the Road Café. For most, the letters have no significant meaning. For some, they symbolize a place of welcome, warmth and even home. Many years ago, impoverished Portlanders marked the café; now Sisters uses the ‘X’ as a badge of honor, not just a logo.
It’s just before 10 a.m. and 17 people are standing outside on a cold, sunny morning, waiting for the doors of Sisters to open for breakfast. For many of these people it may be their only hot meal of the day.
On Oct. 29, protesters from the Occupy Portland movement expanded their occupation into the Pearl District at Jamison Square, despite being warned by City Commissioner Randy Leonard that the Jamison Square occupation would not be supported by the city.
As promised, the protesters were met with police force, resulting in 27 arrests. However, those arrested were quickly released and were having breakfast back in camp on Sunday morning.
In the shadow of California’s landmark passage of the DREAM Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) lies Oregon’s dead Senate Bill 742, which would have granted resident tuition at Oregon University System schools to illegal immigrants who live in the state.