PSU Magazine Winter 2005

Top Japanese prize won For the first time ever, the prestigious Jiro Osaragi Prize for Commentary– Japans equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize-has been awarded to a foreigner, Kenneth Ruoff, history professor and director of PSUs Center for Japanese Studies. Ruoff won for the Japanese trans– lated version of his 2001 book, The People's Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy, 1945-1995. The prize comes with an award of 2 million yen or about $19,000. He will travel to Tokyo Jan. 27 Lo accept the prize, named for a famous postwar writer and sponsored by Asahi.Shimbun, one of Japans largest daily newspapers. Ruoff is recognized as a leading expen on the contemporary Japanese monarchy. In the book he analyzes the remaking of the once-sacrosanct throne into a "monarchy of the masses" embedded in the postwar culture of demo racy. He interviewed right-wing Kenneth Ruoff won for his book on Japan . nationalists for the book, an action that few Japanese academicians would undertake. His book is partic– ularly pertinent given the prob– lems in Japan's imperial family. Crown Princess Masako is thought Lo be suffering from a nervous breakdown brought on by the pressure to produce a male heir. She and Crown Prince Naruhito have a three-year-old daughter, but women are barred from ascending to the throne. The current issues have left Japan's younger generation questioning the thrones relevance, says Ruoff. The Center for Japanese Studies, which Ruoff directs, is considered one of the best on the West Coast. More than 500 students have taken Japanese language, literaLUre, and linguistics courses each year since 1986. The cen– ter brings internationally known schol– ars of Japanese culture, literature, history, and economics Lo Portland. Ruoff, who came to PSU in 1999, speaks Japanese. Invaders of our beaches and our water lf you are walking the beaches of Oregon in the next year and find a bright yellow card with Spartina Dis– persal Study primed at the top, please do what the card asks-you'll be help– ing PSU scientists better understand the spread of invasive species through ocean currents. The drift cards are a project of the PSU Center for Lakes and Reservoirs to identify likely locations for invasion of Spartina, commonly known as cord– grasses. Released monthly al the mouths of Willapa Bay in Washington and Humboldt Bay and San Francisco Bay in California, the biodegradable wooden cards Ooat on the water sur– face and are carried by the ocean cur– rents, much as seeds or plant fragments would travel. Those who find a card are asked to call or email the program with its location and identification number. There are large-scale popu lations of Spartina in both Washington and Cali– fornia , but only one small population is known to exist in Oregon waters– on the Siuslaw River near Florence. lt is being treated . Spartina was brought to the West Coast for erosion control and local animal habitats as its dense root systems trap sediments. Spartina is just one of a long list of non-native invasive species threatening the environment and economy of the West Coast. Center for Lakes and Reservoirs scientists recently helped complete a survey of the lower Colum– bia River, which identified a total of 81 non-native species, including fish, aquatic plants, crustaceans, and wonns that have been introduced since the mid-1800s. The research revealed that a new introduced species was discov– ered about every five years from the 1880s to the 1970s. However, in the past decade, a new introduced inverte– brate species was discovered about every five months. The University is taking its focus on aquatic invasive species to a national level through a recent partnership with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center ( ERC). The partner– ship will create a new Aquatic Bioinva– sion Research and Policy Institute at PSU Lo assist in the understanding and management of biological invasions in coastal marine and freshwater ecosys– tems from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts. The research institute will be Non-native Spartina alterniflora has taken over many estuaries and bays in California and Washington. (Plwto by Daniel Civco, U11iversity of Co1111ecticut) unintentionally in ships' ballast water and in oyster packing material. Over the past few decades scientists have recognized that the exotic plant poses a huge threat LO Oood channels and jointly administered by Gregory Ruiz, director of SERC's Marine Invasion Research Program in Edgewater, Md., and Mark Sytsma, director of P Us Center for Lakes and Reservoirs. D WlNTER 2005 PSU MAGAZINE 3