Student affairs candidate at PSU Thursday

The first of three candidates vying for the position of vice provost of Student Affairs, Peg L. Blake, will be at Portland State for a forum open to students on Oct. 4 at 4 p.m., in Room 236 of Smith Memorial Student Union.

The vice provost of student affairs, which is the top position in the Office of Student Affairs, oversees all parts of the university related to student involvement and success such as the Women’s Resource Center, new student orientation, all student groups, tutoring centers and the Center for Student Health and Counseling.

Blake currently works for Southern Oregon University as the dean of enrollment management and has worked in higher education for 25 years. She worked for Boise State University before moving to Oregon, but resigned from her position there as vice president for student affairs after she was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in April of 2005.

Blake was recorded as having a blood alcohol content of over .20, more than twice the legal limit. At the time, she was a finalist for a similar spot at the University of Texas at Austin but was pulled out of the race because of her arrest.

She was convicted of driving under the influence a year later on April 5, 2006, but that conviction was converted into a withheld judgment, according to Ada County Court’s records. A withheld judgment means that she is required to fulfill two years of probation from the date of her conviction–in April 2008–so that the conviction will be taken off her record.

Blake was pulled over after driving the wrong way down a one-way street, according to The Daily Texan, school paper for the University of Texas at Austin. At the time, she was charged with an additional misdemeanor for having her 8-year-old daughter in the car. That charge was dismissed, according to the court records.

Blake said she has fulfilled all requirements of her probation, including community service and $78 in fines. She said she regrets the incident and that she made a bad decision when she drank more than she should have.

“It’s history,” Blake said. “It will not happen again.”

Marvin Kaiser, dean of the college of liberal arts and sciences and chair of the vice provost search committee, said the committee believes Blake handled the situation “in a very responsible fashion.” Kaiser said Blake informed the search committee of the arrest.

“All of us in our lives do some things we regret and that may have been a mistake,” Kaiser said.

The other two candidates will be announced on Friday and will visit the university next week.

Dan Fortmiller has been the interim vice provost of student affairs since late 2005. He started after Douglas Samuels, who filed a lawsuit against Portland State last Thursday, left the position in Oct. 2005.