Portland State Magazine Spring 2013

SPRING 2013 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 23 college mostly for the 18- to 21-year-old set, society should embrace the idea that people attend periodically throughout their lives. A big goal of the Aging Matters Initiative is to make universities relevant to older people. “We need an ageless society where starting college at 45 is no different than starting at 20,” says DeShane, adding, in a nod to the IFC television show Portlandia , “We want Portland to be a place where old people go to unretire.” The DeShane Wilson Scholarship, which the couple established in 2007, is helping students in their 20s, but is open to those of any age. The scholarship is for students who complete two years at Clackamas Community College and then transfer to PSU to earn a bachelor’s degree. Preference is given to health studies and social science students. So far, eight DeShane Wilson scholars have graduated from Portland State, three others attend the University, and several more attend Clackamas Community College. “We invest in scholarships because we believe they have the power to change lives and because we derive pleasure from returning the investment others have made in us,” says Wilson. “Most of us have benefited from someone’s kindness at some point in our lives.” FOCUSED KINDNESS is a good descriptor for Wilson, who now spends most of her days running the Jessie F. Richardson Foundation. She established the foundation in the mid 1970s and later named it after her mother, whose nursing home experience of no door locks or independence prompted her to ask her daughter, then a graduate student, “Why don’t you do something to help people like me?” The foundation works with PSU as well as Concordia and Pacific universities on student service learning projects to help poor and elderly people in Nicaragua. At PSU, students take a spring course and then spend two weeks in Nicaragua building Michael DeShane MA ’71, PhD ’77 and Keren Brown Wilson PhD ’83 have done a lot for older Oregonians, including funding the Aging Matters: Locally and Globally Initiative at the PSU Institute on Aging.