PSU Magazine Fall 1998

I AROUND THE PARK BLOCKS One sports program saved, another dropped The wrestling program at Portland State has survived, but baseball has not. President Dan Bernstine announced in May he would eliminate both sports in an effort to ease the Athletics Department's growing defic it and make continued progress towards gender equity. W ith a commitment to use no Un iversity funds, the wrestling program was allowed to continue. It will be financed by student fees and outside donations. This is the second year in a row that wrestling coach Marlin Grahn has had to fight for his program. The team is participating in the Pacific-10 Northern Division. Baseball, wh ich has been a member of Pac- 10 since 1982, was not allowed a similar funding plan, says Bernstine, because of gender equity issues and baseball field rental costs. The University was facing a $500,000 deficit in next year's Athletics Department budget-an a dded burden to the existing $ 1.3 million deficit. PSU spent $275,509 on baseball and $105,000 on wrestling last year. In addition to money worries, the Uni versity is required by the Big Sky Conference to add men 's tennis and must continue to make progress with regard to Title IX and gender equity. Bernstine rejected an option to cut all sports across the board , saying that such a cut would not aid the long-term structure of PSU athletics and would hurt the competitive levels of poten– tially revenue-generating sports such as men 's foo tball and men 's basketball. Dave Dangler was PSU baseball coach during the past four years. The team's best season ever was in 1984, when it tied Washington State for the Northern Division Championship under coach Jack Dunn. In 1962, under Roy Love, PSU went to the NAIA national championsh ip game. The wrestling program won NCAA Division II titles in 1989 and 1990, and 11 wrestlers have won a combined 27 national tides. 6 PSU MAGAZINE FALL 1998 We're on their list today Top executives at Fred Meyer Inc., including the CEO and the board chairman , pooled their resources to create a $1 million donation to PSU's Food Industry Leadership Center. The center provides business administration training to executives and managers in all aspects of the food industry. There are only six schools in the nation that offer this kind of cross– industry training, and Portland State is the only one located west of the Miss issippi. The largest donations came from Robert G. Miller, pres ident and chief executive office of Fred Meyer Inc., and from Ron Burke l, chairman of the board and an executive with the Yuca ipa Company, a Los Angeles– based investment firm. Many of the company's execu tives gave $25,000 each in stock transfers, which along with $200 ,000 from the company itself added up to $1 million and the launching of two major endowments for the center. Using the funds, the Food Industry Leadership Center has established the Fred G . Meyer Endowed Leadership Chair, which a nationally prominent professor will be hired to lead, and the Robert G. Miller Endowed Scholarship Fund, which will prov ide scholarships to persons interested in pursuing a food industry career. Violence counts Students collecting a scrapbook of violent messages in the media ended up with some heavy tomes this summer. For four weeks the students recorded or clipped violent messages appearing in telev ision newscasts, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, and mov ies. This ass ignment was part of G isele Tierney's Language of Violence class. "The exercise made the students aware of the prevalence of violence in our society," says Tierney. "And simply put, the number of violent messages we're exposed to is escalating, and it's normalizing violence in this coun try." Tierney has taught PSU courses and workshops since 1991 on issues of communication and gender. She teaches Language of Violence every summer, but this is the first time she's given students this particular assign– ment. The results were so powerfu l, the students tell her, that she plans to do it aga in when she teaches the class in January. By observing the pervasiveness of violent language in the media, students are able to see its diluting effects on the public's perceptions, says Tierney. She expects this will lead students to a better understanding of victims and victimizers. A new playing field Come December, the field will be leveled and ready for play-that is, the new community fie ld on the west side of campus. A vacant, grassy lot near the gym is being leveled, drained, fenced , ligh ted , and covered with artificial turf. Private funds are paying for the $2 million project, which will result in a play ing field that can take heavy use, even on the wettest days. The fi eld will be ava ilable to the Athletics Department, student intramu ral sports groups, sports clubs, and the community. Among the community users will be the 200 at-risk children attending the National Youth Sports Program on campus each summer. Big winners will be the foo tball and women 's soccer teams. They will practice on the new fi eld, sav ing the University more than $10,000 in annual fees prev iously spent on C ivic Stadium. PSU intramu ra l teams currently play off campus by renting parks for $300 to $400 each term. Some controversy arose this spring when a group of students objected to los ing the ex isting, casual-use field. Use of the remodeled fi eld wi ll be scheduled under the guidance of an advisory board . President Dan Bernstine met with the students to air their grievances; however, no agreement was reached . The PSU student-elected government has known about the project since April 1997. D