~Jl ~ Courtesy appointments bring talent to campus by Cltff JohMon James DePreist One of the many bonds linking PSU with the surrounding community is the harmoniOus partnership PSU has enjoyed with James DePreist since 1980, beginning soon aher he was named resident conductor of the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. When Or. John Trudeau, dean of PSU's new School 01 Pertorming Arts, asked DePreisl if he would continue the artistic collaboration PSU musicians formerly enjoyed with DePreist's predecessor, Lawrence Smith (BS '57), DePreist readily assented. Recalling the interchange recently, he remarked, "\ think that overture immediately told me there was a university that was accessible which felt the necessity - and the responsibility, indeed - to be connected with the professional performing arts organizations." PSU's connections in this realm are many, but few are as visible as the musical partnership which flourishes whenever the busy symphony conductor is able to come to the PSU campus several times each year. To give life to his courtesy appointment to the laculty, he presktes during rounds of rehearsals with the PSU Sinlonietta and the PSU Chamber Choir. Some rehearsals are thrown open to students and members of the publlc DePreist thinks the informality of the open rehearsal is an important James DePrellt Jed 8 rehursal with the PSU Chllmber Choir lut month. part 01 the educational process: "A university setting lends Itself to .... discovery in a variety of ways," he noted. These rehearsals permit people - regardless of their musical training - to "leisurely eavesdrop" Dr. Philip King Another cooperative venture between PSU and the community involves a small group of top students Irom PSU's School 01 Health and Physical Education (HPE) and the Veterans Administration medical cenlers in Portland and Vancouver. For three years, students have completed their "clinical affiliations" in the VA's Rehabilitation Medicine Service under the supervision of Dr. Philip King, director. PSU's VA interns, each seeking a degree of professionalism and a better understanding of the many problems of the disabled, are selected from students taking HPE classes in neurology and pathology which are taught on the PSU campus by Dr. King. Dr. King, who serves a courtesy appointment on the PSU laculty, Is no stranger to the Park Blocks campus. He attended the old lincoln High School during the late 30's and early 40's before it became lincoln Hall on the PSU campus. Also, his daughter, Nancy Elizabeth King (BS 78) was graduated with a degree in psychology. Typically about hall 01 Dr. King's classroom students are working toward career goals involving some 6 area of rehabilitation medicine, such as nursing or physicallherapy. Others may just be interested in taking a look at the field, he says. But three or four student~ per year. he estimates, "come through the whole program" and do internships with the VA, in order to obtain the proficiency necessary to pass the national certification examination for corrective therapists. The internship approach works, says Dr. King. "A number of the PSU graduates of our program are currently working in VA hospitals. As a maHer of fact. J have one of them working in our hospital here, at the Vancouver Division, and some are working in the private sector." Dr. King, on the VA staff for the past 19 years, currently fields a staff of some 30 professionals, including four certified corrective therapists who hold master's degrees. Represented in King's division aTe patients "who have spinal cord injuries, are paraplegics, quadraplegis, amputees, those who have had strokes, traumatic brain injuries. significant arthritis, and a number of other greatly disabling problems of this nature," according to Dr. King. Student internships at the VA on the music-making process. "Uncoln Hall is small enough so that my comments to them, as we begin the work and stop and start again, are perceivable by anyone there." The process allows everyone, he continued, "to recognize that music is a communicative art that involves human beings making it. We are so often distanced from the creators and from the performers," he lamented. Due to the current proliferation and broadcast of musical recordings, "music has a tendency in this society to become 'audio wallpaper...' DePreist's chief regret is that there aren't more times during the year when he can stage open rehearsals on campus. Beyond his work with the Oregon Symphony, his demanding schedule regularly takes him as guest conductor to the orchestras of Helsinki, Stockholm, Israel, and also to Toronto, where after seven years at the podium, he currently is in his next-Io-last season as music director. Nevertheless, DePreist places great value on his work with PSU musicians, considering it a logical extenskm of his guest conducting proficiency. In DePreist's mind, the goals of professional musicians and university musicians are much the same: "...to render as faithfully as possible the music, with the highest degree of individual musicianship." Happily enough, conducting open rehearsals at PSU proves to be an Medical Center usually extend over a two-month period, on a five day a week basis, and the PSU students "are actually participating very actively in the treatment programs, under the direct supervision of our registered therapists," reports Dr. King. With most of the classroom lecture material already behind them, "the primary thing they get here is the practical, hands-on experience of working with patients," he enriching experience for DePreist as well. "Very often," he says, "it's the questions asked in the course of these sessions that are more iT)'lportant than the answers found at the session itself. It stimulates thinking about how to achieve a goal that may perhaps be unattainable within the context of that rehearsal. And," he added with. a smile, "in the course of the contact with students, you always learn from them." But the driving lorce behind DePreist's desire to work with PSU music students, and the quality he hopes is transmitted to them, is a passionale interest in music-making. It is this quality which, by his own admission, has inspired DePreist's career in music. It is a trait he first admired in his high school Englislt teacher's consuming love of Shakespeare. and in the man who headed high school music departments during the 1950's In Philadelphia, where young DePreist grew up. "It's the paSSionate commitment to your work - whether it's architecture, scenic design or microbiology - that is perceivable and palpable by those around you," DePreist emphaSized, "and you beCome a catalyst." "Ithinf\ that is \he bestth~t can be hoped of any of us, that we become catalysts in our field, and that what we do can touch others in a way that makes them want to join the procession ." Dr. King diacu.... _ of ptullc _ with former PSU Intern Stephanie Ritzert .. patient Fronk Ullie Iooko on. Rlt%ert II now 8 certified corrective theraplat and It lit Involved wtth the VA Medical Center. emphasizes. "We have a very full caseload, and there's plenty for them to be busy with here." Bearing name-tags identifying them as "Corrective Therapy Trainees," as they circulate in the building, they begin occupying a unique niche in patient care. Although Dr. King Irankly admits that his normal staff could handle the case load if no PSU interns were around to help, he leels something tangible would be missing without them. "The work would lose a lot of the fun that it has now, because we find that educating and teaching is very stimulating to us personally. Answering questions and anticlpallng questions keeps us on our toes. The amount of time that we spend In preparing and training students is compensated for by the amount of time that PSU students save us during some of their interactions with patients." "It's certainly very interesting to have them up here," he concludes. "We enjoy them,"
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