News briefs

University service awards open for applicants

Applications are open for two awards that honor 24 junior, senior or post-baccalaureate students who have maintained a 2.5 cumulative GPA.

The Outstanding University Service awards are for students who work to enhance student life at Portland State, according to Dean of Students Wendy Endress. The Outstanding Community Engagement awards are for students who have engaged in ongoing community service off campus, according to Endress.

Students must submit applications to the office of the dean of students by e-mail at [email protected] by 8 a.m. on Thursday, April 26. Students can find applications and guidelines at http://www.pdx.edu/dos.

Winners will be selected and informed through e-mail by early May. Winners will receive a $100 award and will be recognized at a lunch with PSU President Daniel Bernstine on June 6, 2007.

For additional information, call the Dean of Students office at (503) 725-4422.

-David Holley

Bernstine opposes Ways and Means proposed budget

PSU President Daniel Bernstine has voiced misgivings over the cuts to higher education recommended in the House Ways and Means Committee Co-Chairs’ proposed budget, introduced in late March. The cuts would include substantial decreases in funding for capital construction as well as faculty salaries, opposite to Governor Ted Kulongoski’s proposed budget.

The co-chairs’ budget continues the disinvestment in higher education at a time when other states are backing their universities, Bernstine said in an April 2 press release.

Capital construction cuts could also have severe consequences on Portland State because renovation allocations for Lincoln Hall and Science Building 2 exceed the co-chair’s proposed allocation of $50 million.

“I am concerned about the substantial reduction in funding for capital projects,” Bernstine said in the press release. “These needs don’t go away. If we don’t pay for them today, it will cost more in the years to come.”

Bernstine said he is working closely with legislators in order to solve the problem.

“I will work with the Legislature to find a way to restore the funding proposed by Governor Kulongoski,” said Bernstine. “Higher education and specifically PSU are key to Oregon ‘s sustained economic vitality.”

-Steve Haske

MySpace pictures land adults in jail

After a kegger in his honor, police said, the 17-year-old birthday boy posted the photos a partygoer took on MySpace.com.

Whoops.

Tipped to the public evidence, Myrtle Creek looked into the popular youth Internet site and identified everybody in the photos, arresting three adults on suspicion of furnishing alcohol to minors and citing nine minors.

Adults living at a house had bought a keg for their son’s birthday party, Chief Don Brown said.

“They were partying with the kids,” he told the Roseburg News-Review.

Brown said he was surprised by the potentially incriminating evidence he found when he took a brief cruise of the website, which advises users: “Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want the world to know.”

“It’s amazing the stuff you can get off of MySpace,” Brown said. “You learn a lot about your kids and the community.”

-The Associated Press

Health department to offer HPV vaccine

The state health department said Monday it will offer a vaccine for females between the ages of 9 and 18 to prevent infection from certain types of human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted virus and a potential cause for cervical cancer and genital warts.

The Department of Health & Social Services will distribute more than 20,000 doses of Gardasil to public and private health clinics by early summer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil last summer for females ages 9 to 26.

Gardasil prevents infection from certain types of human papillomavirus, which can lead to cervical cancer.

The federal government is providing the funding for Alaska to cover the costs for girls, mostly from low-income families, who are eligible for a program called Vaccines for Children.

Unlike other states, where this immunization is highly politicized and is being put into law, the state department’s program is voluntarily.

Costs for the three-shot series is $288, and Wood estimates the program to cost $5 million this year, enough to provide the series for more than 17,000 females.

-Steve Quinn