PSU Magazine Spring 1989

At a Crossroad New leadership and a proposed study of Portland's higher education needs will shape PSU for the '90s and beyond. By John R. Kirkland A group of Portland State professors may have summed up a complex, controversial , political problem in the most simple and eloquent statement to date when , in January, in an open letter that appeared in the Vanguard, they wrote: " Every parent knows the difficulty of accepting the child that they have known, as the adult the child has become." Their focus in the student newspaper was not fam ily problems, but Portland State University itself. Dealing on one side with its past - its "childhood" - as an undergraduate col– lege, and reconciling it with the multifaceted research institution it has become, Portland State finds itself at a crossroad. The word "crossroad" becomes even more apparent when one considers that the university is likely to have a new president within the next 18 months, that the state has a new chancellor of higher education, and that there will be a blue ribbon study of the higher education needs of the Portland area which will mold PSU's future in ways previous studies have not. "Never has there been such an oppor– tunity for change," said Robert Wise, PSU's director of planning. PSU 4 Exactly what road the university takes is the subject of speculation and rumor throughout the campus and the community. The social research professors who wrote the open letter did so in response to an editorial in The Oregonian that called Portland State "at once ... ambitious and insecure." Rather than simply having "aspirations" of being a first-rate research institution, they wrote that in certain areas - especially urban issues, human services, aging concerns, population studies and ur– ban education - it already is. At the same time, a study titled "A Future of Growth" urged PSU to expand its graduate programs in engineering and hard sciences, not just for its own sake, but to attract and nurture high tech in– dustry in the Portland metropolitan area. Those kinds of businesses need a universi– ty in their back yard for research, continu– ing education, and to draw a well-trained work force, the report said. Without it, business might go elsewhere, and the metropolitan economy - and the state's - will suffer. Some social researchers saw that pro– posal as a change in emphasis away from the programs they fought to build . With limited dollars to go around , could PSU afford both? " Social science is an important area. We ought to go with these strengths, especially since it's cost effective to do so," said Dr. Arthur C. Emlen , director of the nationally respected Regional Research Institute for Human Services at Portland State. Ironically, some rumors among faculty in the hard sciences say that the state wants to pull all graduate programs at PSU and return it to its pre-l960s status as an undergraduate college. " I think that's inane," said interim PSU President Roger Edgington . "I think we are on the threshold of greatness. We are destined to be a great university in the state of Oregon." Edgington has the utmost confidence that the proposed study of higher educa– tion in Portland will set the stage for that greatness. So has Mark Dodson, member of the State Board of Higher Education's Executive Committee. " I think anyone who looks at this area is going to see that the need for higher education is here, and that Portland State should be the centerpiece," he said. And if the study calls for a major new boost in programs, " I expect (Gov. Neil Goldschmidt) to be the first in line to get it done." The State Board has recommended the Governor appoint by executive order a