PSU Magazine Spring 1996

... Vanport was a differ– ent kind of college, and the students' pride in it was best expressed not in the traditional ways, but in admiration for its and their tenacity in cherishing educational opportunities in the face of enormous personal and institutional obsta– cles.... "Life was real and a heck of a struggle," [wrote one student's wife in a Vanguard letter-to-the-editor] and the students expressed their pride and spirit in satire, in irony, and in wryness. One wrote a poem about Oregon Ship [the SLu CITYU Students referred to their institution as the "U by the Slough, Where Culture Meets the Sea" and as the "College without a Future." Someone suggested that the school song, set to the music of "Sioux City Sue," be entitled "Slu City U." One alumnus's most vivid memory of Oregon Ship was "the sight of a skeletal carp stuck in a wire fence ... six feet up ... being gnawed by a cat." But he also remembered a "no-nonsense, purely educational institution that did unbelievable things in probably the school's informal name while housed in the former Oregon Shipyard building at Portland's industrial port]: "Most colleges have shrubs around, that get damaged by the freeze . But we have sturdy derricks here, Just swinging in the breeze. Most schools are made of bricks and stones, Of laths and lots of mortar. But ours is made of plaster-board, With tooth picks for supporters" (Vanguard, April 7, 1950). most sorrowful physical plant and surroundings possible" (The Oregonian, June 6, 1975). of Portland State to know it wou ld be interesting to learn more." I n time he turned to the University archives-723 cardboard boxes filled with files from every office going back to PSU's beginnings. Covered in a writable layer of dust, the boxes reside in a musty comer of a basement parking garage beneath the Ondine. "Not every interesting subject has original documents by which to pursue the subject," Dodds recently noted with satisfaction, brushing off boxes with a small cloth. 'This one doe ." Some of what Dodds found is well– known-the Vanport flood, the move into the former Lincoln High School. But captured in the dry recitations of administrative records, the minutes of Faculty Senate meetings, and other documents, Dodds also fo und the ou l of the University. 8 PSU MAGAZINE SPRING 1996 The true spirit of the students, in the end, was their pride and pleasure in the gift of educational opportunity that Vanport and Portland Extension provided. Excerpt from The College That Would Not Die, by Gordon Dodds "That the individual does have a chance to start over again is the central theme of United States history," notes Dodds. "Portland State reflects this in that students have opportunities to pick up threads they cast off earlier in their lives. The other major theme at this institution is one of overcoming adver– sity. It's always been an uphill struggle, whether against nature, politics, or the economy." As his research progressed to inter– views of people who participated in PSU's history, Dodds found an almost uniform memory of the early Vanport years. H is sources recalled high morale and enth usiasm for the fledgling insti– tution, a pirit of optimism that lasted into the early 1970s, when financial difficu lties affecting the entire state system of higher education began to erode hope. "People thought morale was h igher," says Dodds, "despite conditions that were worse-when there was a crush– ing workload and fewer facilities." A key source of information was the private diary of Stephen Epler, the man who almost single-handed ly founded and nurtured the early Vanport Extension Center (which became Portland State College ). Epler's diary provided a un ique perspective and immediacy of emotion. For instance, when Epler was passed over for the first presidency in 1955, he briefly considered leaving academic life and opening a motel. Fortunately he went on to an illustri– ous career in education in California. W hen the time came to launch into writing, Dodds accepted h is fa~e. For the first time he would compose