Portland State University Magazine Fall 1991

The University has also received a $25,950 grant from the W . K. Kellogg Foundation to support the Minority Mentoring Leadership Program for Freshmen. The program will recruit upper-division minority students, train them in leadership and problem solving, and match them with incom– ing freshman minority students. The Hatfield-Packwood Minority Scholarships, which provided twelve $2,000 scholarships to minority students last year, has received addi– tional funds for three new scholar– ships this year. The program, named for Senators Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood, awards scholarships based on the student's need and potential to succeed in higher education. The scholarship's donor is William R. Reesman, CEO of National Con– sumer Credit Guarantee Assoc iation and CEO of Agents Information Bureau, both national companies which he founded. A neighborly thing to do For 20 years Steve Johnson has given his time and expertise to Portland neighborhood groups, most recently on the job at Portland State as manager of Community Research and Services through the Center for Urban Studies. Johnson's hard work was honored May 9, when he rece ived the Mayor's Spirit of Portland Award for Out– standing Neighborhood Participation. Tracing his involvement back to the early '70s when he was on the board of the Northwest District Association, Johnson says citizen involvement has grown substantially since then. Today he is helping to develop a computer information network that ties together the seven district neighborhood offices, several city bureaus, and other nonprofit organizations. A grant from Apple computer and Johnson 's work through the Center for Urban Studies is making the network possible. The neighborhood offices have learned to use the computers to develop databases, spreadsheets and newsletters. The communication network provides access to crime data from the police department and infor– mation sharing between offices. Plans call for expanding the network to include other government bureaus and nonprofit associations, and to develop a Neighborhood Information Profiles Geographic Database. "Technical assistance enhances the ability of these groups to exist and endure," says Johnson. Portland concerns are also a matter of the heart for Johnson. He is cur– rently involved with issues surround– ing southeast Portland's Johnson C reek, a family namesake. Portland's gay men Gay and bisexual men in Portland are incorporating safer sex practices in their lives, according to findings released this summer from a joint project of Portland State and the Cascade AIDS Project. Psychology Professor Kerth O'Brien is conducting The Portland Gay Men's Study in co llaboration with Cascade AIDS Project. The long-term goals of the study are to understand how the personal relat ion-· ships of gay and bisexual men are influenced by the AIDS epidemic, and in tum, to understand how those relationships can help men respond to the epidemic in ways that benefit them. The study's pilot project fo und 84 percent of the men were engaging in safe sexual practices. However, a sizable minority, 44 percent, still engage in sex without condoms an average of two to three times a month. Unprotected sex has been shown to be a chief cause of passing the human immunodeficiency virus which can lead to acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or AIDS, according to researchers. Based on this initial sampling, O'Brien launched the large-scale phase of the project-a quest ionnaire to be completed by 500 gay and bisexual men in Portland. The study's finding will be shared with the men of Portland's gay community and with professional audiences, including people who work in hea lth education organizations. Managing technology "Technology Management: The New International Language" is the theme of PICMET '91, the Portland Interna– tional Conference on Management of Engineering and T echnology to be held Oct. 27-31 at the Marriott Hotel. Conference co-sponsors are the PSU Engineering Management Program and the Oregon Center for Advanced Technology Education (OCATE). "This conference underscores the importance of engineering and technology management to the inter– national community," says Dundar Kocaoglu, director of the Engineering ~anagement Program at PSU. Management of resources, knowledge, and personnel is crucial to our chang– ing world, he says, and it requires strategic planning and education to effect responsible policy decisions worldwide. More than 400 people from 30 countries, including China, India, Japan and several European nations, will converge on Portland to attend PICMET '9 1. Subj ects will range from "Internat ional Business and Emerging T echnologies" to "Govern– ment/University/Industry Coopera– tion" and from "Environmental Technology Management" to "Artifi– cial Inteligence/Knowledge Based Sys– tems." The conference will involve loca l companies such as Intel, Tektronix, Bonneville Power Administration, NEC America, Portland General Electric, Boe ing, and CH2M Hill. National and international agencies and companies also will be involved, including National Science Founda– tion; Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd., and University of Saitama, Japan; University of Berne, ASEA Brown Boveri Ltd., Germany; and Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. For more informat ion on the conference or the Engineering Management Program at Portland State, contact Dundar Kocaoglu, the program's director, at 725-4660. D PSU 9