Portland State Magazine Fall 2021

A TALE OF THREE CITIES RECYCLING RUDENESS park blocks WHAT’S SUSTAINABILITY-CONSCIOUS, transit-friendly, and known both for its hipsters and its progressive politics? The answer could be San Francisco, Seattle or Portland. But how much are these three cities, connected by I-5, really alike? Take a deep dive into the data with a colorful new cultural atlas by Hunter Shobe, geography faculty, and David Banis, associate director of PSU’s Center for Spatial Analysis and Research.Through essays, photos and more than 150 ingenious infographics—one is even stitched in needlepoint— Upper Left Cities compares everything from voting patterns and demographics to carless commuting and housing costs. (Think Portland is expensive? In 2019, its median home price was twice the national median at $416,000, but Seattle’s was $714,200 and San Francisco’s was $1,351,900.) The authors’ hope is to “bring academic research to people who don’t usually read geography and urban studies journals” and “storytelling and graphics to people who do.”More than 30 students and alumni contributed, including Zuriel van Belle MS ’15, Geoff Gibson ’13 MURP ’17 and Sachi Arakawa ’16 MURP ’18. —SCHOLLE McFARLAND A NEW PORTLAND STATE study found that not only is workplace incivility on the rise, but that employees who experience or witness it are more likely to be uncivil to others, a trend that could intensify as people return to in-person work. Uncivil behavior can range from overt rudeness, criticizing someone in public, or withholding important information to more subtle acts such as ignoring a colleague or checking email and texting during a meeting.The study, by Larry Martinez, industrial-organizational psychology faculty, and Lauren Park PhD ’21, was published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and is the first to analyze factors that predict uncivil behavior in the workplace. They found that employees who have more control over their jobs, employees whose immediate team or workgroup typically engages in civil behavior, and employees who are older are all less likely to reciprocate rudeness. How should employers respond when incivility takes hold? “Providing support is not only the right thing to do,” Park said, “but it stops that behavior from spiraling through the organization.” —CRISTINA ROJAS . LEFT: Residence assistants greeted students returning to PSU’s nine residence halls on Move In Day in September. CENTER: Victor Viking received his (ceremonial) shot at Portland State’s long-awaited on-campus COVID-19 vaccine clinic in Smith Ballroom. RIGHT: Stratford Hall was home to thousands of students between 1969 and 2017 before being demolished in August to make way for a major expansion to Science Building One. Here are some of our favorite PSU Instagram photos from the past few months. Tag us with #portlandstate , #portlandstatealumni , or #proudviks . INSTAWORTHY PSU In 2019, Portland had more retail marijuana shops than San Francisco and Seattle combined—a high achievement considering Portland has a smaller population than both. SASQUATCH BOOKS INFADEL, ADOBE STOCK