Portland State Magazine Spring 2013

4 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE SPRING 2013 Park Blocks A big, big barometer AFTER THE REMODEL of a science building several years ago, a pile of discarded glass pipes—two inches in diameter and up to 10 feet long—caught the eye of Tom Bennett, a civil and environmental engineering instrument technician. “What,” he wondered, “can you do with long pieces of thick glass pipe?” His answer: Build a really tall barometer. Bennett (right), colleague Kyle Lutz, and a group of grad students installed the 47-foot instrument in the atrium of the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science. Barometers measure air pressure, and the taller they are, the more sensitive they are. “I’m kind of expecting that when someone opens the building’s door,” says Bennett, “we’ll see a little blip from the pressure change.” Relating the history of Russia’s Jews A handful of consultants from around the world helped conceptualize and design a historic, new Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center that opened this fall in Moscow, Russia. Among the group was PSU’s Natan Meir—the first academic called on to fill the huge museum with information and exhibits from Russia’s Jewish history. Meir’s expertise is especially evident in the rooms dedicated to Jewish migration, the shtetl, and late Imperial Russia. These and all the special exhibits rely heavily on technology, such as interactive video screens and simulated fog and earthquakes. “It’s one of the most exciting new museums to open in Russia in a long time,” says Meir, who is the Lorry I. Lokey Chair of Judaic Studies in PSU’s Harold Schnitzer Family Program.