News
A new report by the U.S. Green Building Council recently listed the top 10 Leadership of Energy and Environmental Design states—Oregon was not one of them. Seven spots from where it finished last year, Oregon placed 12th on the list.
Portland State students interested in environmental preservation are highly recommended to attend the Feb. 1 Solutions Seminar hosted by the Institute for Sustainable Solutions. Titled “Getting what you pay for: tracking ecosystems in the Northwest,” the seminar will focus on how the Willamette Partnership contributes to the preservation of the Northwest’s many ecosystems.
Students stepping into the Millar Library for the first time since the end of fall term will undoubtedly notice the library’s newest addition: the Sandbox. Portland State’s new collaborative technology space, the Sandbox, is a component of the redesigned Learning Ground that opened in the fall. It is an enclosed space that connects to the bustling computer lab on the first floor. The Sandbox opened Jan. 10 and features adjustable tables, floor-to-ceiling magnetic whiteboards and LCD displays that are for use with laptops and tablets.
On Wednesday, Jan. 18, any student searching through Wikipedia for a homework reference would have instead found a blank black page and the words: “Imagine a world without free knowledge.”
Wikipedia, along with hundreds of other websites, shut down in protest against the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protection of Intellectual Property Act. Other high-traffic sites that participated in the protest included Reddit and WordPress. Facebook and Twitter declined to participate, but Google blacked out its homepage logo, urging internet users to sign petitions in solidarity with the protests for the 24-hour window that is now being dubbed “Internet Blackout Day.”
Portland State will launch a healthy vending machine pilot program on campus, which will run from February until the end of the academic year in June.
The program originated with the nutrition committee, a sub-committee of the Healthy Campus Initiative.
The Office of Institutional Research and Planning gained a new member in January. Jon Proctor came to Portland State from Colorado to work with the OIRP on general university research, student and faculty surveys, campus climate and assessing student learning.
A sexual assault is alleged to have occurred in the basement of Millar Library on or around Jan. 19, according to an email sent out to library employees on Wednesday, Jan. 25.
For reasons that remain unclear, the Office of the Dean of Student Life is investigating the matter. The Portland State Campus Public Safety Office said that no report has been filed with them, and that they have no details on the alleged incident.
The Student Fee Committee—the branch of the Associated Students of Portland State University in charge of the approximately $13 million in incidental fees collected from all PSU students—has come under scrutiny after its Jan. 15 meeting, a part of the annual deliberations phase of their budget process.
Recently the Vanguard published a report on the sexual assaults that occurred on the PSU campus in mid to late December [“Sexual assaults lead to increased security,” Jan. 10]. After the story was published, a student, who will remain anonymous, contacted the Vanguard. She had also been assaulted by a man whom she believes was the same assailant as the one involved in the incident on Dec. 7, 2011. When she later attempted to file a CPSO report she was turned away, so her assault was not immediately connected to the Dec. 7 incident.
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.