Portland State Magazine, Spring 2021

4 The Spirit of the Student Body Te frst issue of Portland State’s newspaper was prepared in a student’s apartment—not unlike what’s happening 75 years later during the COVID-19 pandemic, as student journalists continue to report on the news from their homes. Don Carlo, an Army veteran who lost his sight in combat, prepared the frst issue of what was then called Vet’s Extended in his apartment on Cottonwood Avenue. It was published on Nov. 15, 1946, with a welcome letter from Vanport Extension Center founder Stephen Epler.Te frst editorial was titled “Te Spirit of a Student Body,” and declared: “We, as students, are helping to start a new idea for colleges.…We have within us the insatiable search for knowledge that was born while 3 A Kind Gift Vanport Extension Center librarian Jean Black was giving a presentation at the American Library Association conference in Atlantic City when the infamous 1948 food ripped through Vanport. A telegram reassured her that her family and other residents were safe, but brought the hard news that the college’s library was destroyed.Te story traveled around the conference, fnally reaching Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck, another speaker at the event. Buck found Black and started a conversation with her, which ended with Buck donating a selection of her published work to help rebuild the library’s collection. After decades on the shelves for students to read and enjoy, Buck’s signed copies now live in the Library Special Collections. — JENNIFER LADWIG waiting for the end of the war. Many of us waited years so that we might have an opportunity to attend such a school.” Te paper was soon renamed the Vanguard at the suggestion of faculty adviser and English professor Vaughn Albertson. Te frst issue of the paper under that name appeared on Jan. 14, 1947. It would be another seven years before photographs graced the pages.Te weekly newspaper was given free rein by the administration, but was not without its controversies. In 1967, the paper went on strike over the Dean of Student Life’s handling of its fnances.Te strike was settled, but within a month the paper’s choice of photos in back-to-back issues caused an uproar. First, a photo of beat poet Allen Ginsberg nude from the groin up appeared before his campus visit. Next, a publicity photo for the musical Archy and Mehitabel showed a rear view of a woman in tights bending over a garbage can with the caption, “Touching Bottom.” President Branford Millar—hard at work to gain university status for Portland State and sensitive to public perception— felt the editors were out of hand. He suspended publication until further notice, a decision that drew both support and criticism from the campus community. A radical faculty group, the Society for New Action Politics, ofered its ofce and equipment, and philosophy professor Donald Moor organized support from 80 faculty members for an Independent Vanguard. It published two editions before Millar reinstated the ofcial Vanguard with a mutual agreement for organizational changes and publication standards. Today, the student-run paper publishes a weekly print edition and daily stories online. It’s been the recipient of many awards over the years, including 22 in the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association’s 2020 Collegiate Newspaper Contest. — CRISTINA ROJAS SPRING 2021 // 23