Portland State Magazine Fall 2014

FALL 2014 / VOL. 29 NO. 1 EDITOR Kathryn Kirkland WRITERS Chris Broderick, Harry Esteve, Sara Hottman, Suzanne Pardington PHOTOGRAPHERS Kelly James, Edis Jurcys, Peter Simon COPY EDITOR Martha Wagner DESIGN Brett Forman, Katie LaRosa LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 810 Market Center Building PO Box 751 Portland OR 97207-0751 503-725-4451, fax 503-725-4465 psumag@pdx.edu ADDRESS CHANGES Please email psuupdates@pdx.edu or call 503-725-4948 ALUMNI RELATIONS OFFICE Tom Bull, Executive Director Simon Benson House 1803 SW Park Ave. PO Box 751 Portland OR 97207-0751 503-725-4948 psualum@pdx.edu PSU BOARD OF TRUSTEES Pete Nickerson, Chair Swati Adarkar Erica Bestpitch MS ’12 Pamela Campos-Palma ‘14 Gale Castillo MA ’74 Sho Dozono MS ’69 Maude Hines Thomas Imeson Margaret Kirkpatrick Irving Levin Fariborz Maseeh ’80, MS ’84 Rick Miller MBA ’91 Peter Stott HD ’11 Christine Vernier Wim Wiewel Portland State Magazine is published three times a year, during fall, winter and spring terms. Contents may be reprinted only by permission of the editor. The magazine is printed on recycled paper. Portland State University is an affirmative action / equal opportunity institution. 2 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE FALL 2014 WHEN I ARRIVED at Portland State six years ago, I laid out an ambitious plan for improvement based on five themes: • Providing civic leadership • Improving student success • Achieving global excellence • Enhancing educational opportunity • Expanding resources We—meaning faculty, students, staff and alumni—have made tremendous progress on each of those fronts. I’ll mention a few examples in a bit. Now it’s time to take the next step to stay in front of the head-spin- ning changes that all universities face on a daily basis. To be clear, I see no need to revamp our fundamental mission as a research university rooted in access and excellence. We are doing some truly remarkable work, and the value of a PSU degree continues to grow. But so do the challenges. We need to think about the steady reduction in state support com- bined with mounting pressure to graduate more students. We need to respond to the intense competition among universities for new students and the explosive growth in online education. We need to readdress PSU’s evolving role in Oregon’s recovering economy. In that context, we have embarked on a new round of strategic planning that builds on the themes stated above. By fall 2015, I expect to announce a refined and refocused set of guidelines to ensure that PSU remains competitive and vital for decades to come. THE BEST WAY to plan is through a broad-based and transparent exchange of ideas that wraps the entire PSU community. This is a grassroots exercise, not a top-down effort. My hope is to not only tap the creativ- ity of our huge alumni base, but also to bring the campus closer as we determine our destiny. In the coming weeks and months, look for a variety of ways to participate, whether through a focus group on a specific topic, a campus forum or a chance to interact on my web page, pdx.edu/president . It all starts with a list of questions: Are we meeting the needs of our students—current and prospective—who must contend with an increasingly complex post-college environ- ment? Do we offer the right mix of classes, work experience and research opportunities? When and how do we engage students online? How do we showcase PSU’s success stories to encourage better state support and to broaden philanthropy? From there, we zero in on the difficult but thrilling task of declaring what PSU wants to be and how we can accomplish that. As we plan for the future, it doesn’t hurt to look over our shoulder and take some pride in what we already have accomplished. We conferred more than 6,000 degrees this year, more than any other Oregon university. We opened the Collaborative Life Sciences Building in Portland’s South Waterfront area—a spectacular new home for PSU health and science students and faculty that represents a unique partnership with Oregon Health & Science University and Oregon State University. Seven of our students won Fulbright Scholarships for international research—a record for PSU. Those sorts of achievements help point the way as we develop our next strategic plan. It’s a serious, high-stakes endeavor, and I anticipate a robust, enlightening and even fun colloquy. I hope you will be part of the conversation. Wim Wiewel PRESIDENT, PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY Rediscovering the future of PSU F R O M T H E P R E S I D E N T