PSU Magazine Spring 1989

Voice student wins award Portland State senior Kelley Nassief, a vo ice student of music professor Ruth Dobson fo r the last four years, won first place in the Eleanor Lieber Awards Audi– tions held in Portland during January. The soprano competed aga inst 31 other Northwest singers for the award, which included a $2,000 cash pnze. Nassief, who plans to make a career of opera performance, will be featured in the Music Department production of Bedrich Smetana's opera "The Bartered Bride" during May. This is not the fi rst year a PSU student has placed in the highly competitive Lieber Awards Audition. Christine Medows, now with the New York City Opera, won the award in 1985; Cynth ia Rein placed third in 1983; and Ralph Wells pl aced second and Michelle McFadden placed thi rd in the 1987 competition. London actors on stage A touring ensemble of professional ac– tors from the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre of Ore.at Britain appeared in public performances and took part in a week- long artistic and academic residency on campus during February. Actors from the London Stage pre– sented "Tom Stoppard This Evening," an anthology program, and a special five– actor performance of Shakespeare's "King Lear." All public performances were sold out. PSU 18 I CAMPUS NOTES I The Five members of the ensemble, all with extensive stage experience in England as well as film and television credits, were Geoffrey Church, Vivien Heilbron, Bernard Lloyd, Patti Love, and Cli ffo rd Rose. The actors spent the bulk of their time in Portland working with PSU students in lectures, workshops and informal sessions teaching about acting and about Shakespeare and his works. The res idency, in the University's School of Fine and Perfo rming Arts, was supported with a grant from the Lorene Sail s Higg ins Charitable Trust. Uses found for old chemicals Cutting hazardous waste by recycling usable chemicals is a principal goal of the " Portland Chemical Consolidation and Recycling Consortium" (PCCRC), a new program launched by the PSU Department of Chemistry. The PCCRC operates as a chemical clearing house fo r consortium members. Surplus chemicals are shipped to PSU, where they .are ente red in a computerized inventory. When needed , a chemical is sold to another consortium member at a reduced price. The consortium is considered unique in this region, according to Bruce Brown , department chair, in part because it is des igned to served the needs of area hospitals, schools and public agencies without competing with the private sector. Brown stressed that trained chemists will handle receiving, cataloging, and any needed reprocessing or short- term storing of chemicals before they are made available to other consortium members. "Surplus chemicals and what to do with them is the kind of problem everyone would like someone else to worry about ," said Brown. " By establishing this consor– tium, PSU's Chemistry Department has offered to perform a public service by serving as that worrier." "Who owns the child?" Symposium at PSU Baby M. Lisa Steinberg. Dayna Broussard . The media has been full of the names of children whose li ves have been dramatically altered at the hands of adults. Recent headlines have raised difficult ques– tions about what is best for children and who should be deciding their welfa re. A special symposium at PSU on May 18 will focus on the ethical issues that arise when society or the family mistakes responsibility for ownership of the child . The free forum , " Property or Person: Who Owns the Child?", will bring a philosopher, a lawyer and a soc ial historian together for an evening of discus– sion and debate, starting at 5 :30 p.m., May 18, in 75 Lincoln Hall on campus. Dav id Johnson, PSU professor of American soc ial and intellectual histo ry, will moderate the event , which is spon– sored by the Oregon Committee for the Humanities, Oregon Health Decisions and the University Honors Program at PSU. Featured speakers also include Margaret Rosenheim , a lawyer and fo rmer dean of the School of Social Service Administra– tion at the University of Chicago, and Laurence Houlgate, professor and chair of the philosophy department at Califo rnia Polytechnic State University. New student dean Morris K. Holland has been named the new dean of student affairs at Portland State Uni versity. He will be on campus in early April , leav ing a pos ition as assistant vice chancellor for student development at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). "We have searched across the nation for someone with the necessary profes– sional and personal qualifications we re– quire to help us with our own campus growth issue during the 1990s and