Finally official

The inauguration of Portland State President Wim Wiewel took place on Friday, May 1. The day saw clear, sunny skies and a procession and ceremony involving more than 500 officials, staff, faculty, students and local representatives.

Wiewel had accepted the presidency exactly a year before. The Portland State Constitution allows a window of six months to a year before the formal inauguration and investiture take place.

He was greeted by prominent state and local leaders, including congressmen Earl Blumenauer and David Wu and Portland Mayor Sam Adams.

School leaders turned out as well, including presidents of the Alumni Association, the faculty senate, the local Service Employees International Union chapter and ASPSU.

They expressed strong support for Wiewel and the future of the school.

“I have never been more excited, nor more optimistic, about the opportunities and challenges we face together,” said John Petersen, president of the PSU Foundation Board of Directors.

The phrase of the day for the policymakers was Doctrina Urbi Serviat, “Let Knowledge Serve the City”—Portland State’s motto.
Adams pointed to a partnership between Portland State and the city of Portland that was unprecedented.

As David Perry, associate chancellor for the Great Cities Commitment, put it: “the city is in the classroom, and the classroom must ultimately be in and part of the city.”

But community partnerships were only one of the five “guiding themes” Wiewel hopes to focus on as president. He also hopes to focus on the importance of improving student success, excelling globally and nationally, enhancing the educational opportunities Portland State offers and expanding the resources available.

These back-to-basics goals will be supplemented by the other major topic of the day: building Portland State into a sustainability leader.

Rep. Blumenauer pointed to the University as a key example of exploring ways to live in a world with limited resources.

After taking the oath and accepting the University Medallion—engraved on the front with the university’s logo and on the back with the names and dates of office of the eight presidents who have thus far held office—Wiewel himself took the podium.

Of the year between his first day of work and the inauguration, he joked that it “offer[s] the president a chance or the university a chance to reconsider their choice,” but that he hadn’t changed his mind.

Wiewel described the unique culture of Portland State as one that decried ivory towers.

“The university does not have a monopoly on knowledge,” he said.

Wiewel added that he preferred to think of it as a node in a network rather than weighing the community down as an anchor or going it alone as an engine.

Chancellor George Pernsteiner of the Oregon University System delineated Portland State’s long history, starting out as a vocational academy and evolving into Oregon’s largest university.

“He will lead us where we could not go,” Pernsteiner said of Wiewel. “He will bring us to new heights we could not even dream.”