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Super Tuesday results indicate Mitt Romney leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination. While Romney won six key state primaries on March 6, Rick Santorum won three key primaries and still garnered enough support to remain a viable candidate.

There’s a lone smoking shelter between Smith Memorial Student Union and Cramer Hall, but despite the “no smoking” signs posted on the bench next to it, some people still sit there to have a cigarette between classes. The current Portland State smoking policy mandates that certain areas remain smoke-free and prohibits smoking within 25 feet of doorways, building entrances and exits, operable windows and other areas. Signs are posted all over campus, reminding the PSU community of the rules and regulations. Despite the signs, some designated smoke-free areas remain problematic. Soon, however, this could change.

With the identity of the city as a mecca of hipness and forward thinking, it sounds like fiction to hear that before the 1970s, Portland—the land of hipsters, urban farming and bicycles—was characterized by a relatively provincial conservatism. To locals who can claim more than a 30-year residence, though, it puts Portland’s historical trajectory from conservative to hip in perspective.

When David Springer received his doctorate in social work from Florida State University in 1997, he became a wanted man. Kevin Corcoran, professor in Portland State’s School of Social Work, remembers something of a bidding war between universities who wanted to hire Springer. “When you bring a guy like Springer to your college,” he said, “you improve your reputation.” Corcoran, who has taught at PSU for 20 years, added, “We wanted him then, but we knew we couldn’t afford him.”

March 1 was a day of celebration for six Portland-area students and for the programs that mentored them. In a ceremony held at the Native American Student and Community Center, students, family members, PSU faculty and staff gathered in recognition of National TRiO day.

Right now, a student who walks into the Campus Public Safety Office may think that it looks more like a construction zone than a public safety office. New renovations are part of a larger effort to restructure and rebuild how Portland State’s CPSO office functions.


“I have one of the most fun jobs on campus,” said Shannon Timm. A faculty member of the Student Activities and Leadership Program, Timm wears many hats, but her primary role as coordinator of Student-Led Services brought her to the six-member Speakers Board. “I get to stay really plugged in to what’s happening on campus,” Timm said.

Sustainability, feasibility, longevity, leadership—all major roles in determining the 2012 Portland State Solutions Generator student-grant program winners. These grants give students the chance to make their sustainable projects a reality. Approximately 40 proposals were submitted this year, and their overall high quality pushed the original number of group awards from 10 to 13. In total, about 50 students were chosen for awards.

Colossal expansion of academic material into online territory, both at Portland State and in general, has made research more accessible, but not necessarily easier to navigate. The library reports that as of November 2010, PSU had 62,108 accessible electronic journals and currently has an online subscription for about 80 percent of its journals. The sheer number of articles and databases might intimidate some students.

Chelsea Pfund is a graduate student in the master’s of writing and book publishing program, which runs the university’s publishing house. Portland State’s Ooligan Press publishes print books and has a website and blog. It also has a Twitter account and a Facebook page. But Pfund was at the university’s latest social media event, the Tweetup on Feb. 29, to promote another university social media site, the College of Liberal Arts and Science’s Facebook page.