Portland State Magazine, Spring 2021

38 // PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE ALUMNI IN THE NEWS (CONTINUED) Mary Lee ’20 , Anthony Rhodes MA ’11 MS ’13 MS ’19 PhD ’20 , and Linda Akagi ’91 were awarded Topics in Language Disorders’ inaugural 2020 Katharine G. Butler Trailblazer Award for their co-authored article titled “AAC and Artificial Intelligence (AI).” Robert Raschio ’97 was sworn in as Oregon Circuit Court Judge for the 24th Judicial District (Grant and Harney counties) on Jan. 4. Chris Schweizer ’16 , a teacher at Roosevelt High School in Portland, was awarded a Knowles Teaching Fellowship for promising, early-career high school mathematics and science teachers. Erin Stammer MPA-HA ’09 published “Unassisted,” a memoir centering around 18 months when she ran an assisted living facility and medical clinic in Portland. Learn more at erinstammer.com . Jennifer Tenorio MS ’14 presented “The Toolbox for Bystander Intervention,” for Tedx Portland State. Tenorio works as a U.S. Customs broker and serves on the Oregon Mediation Association Board of Directors. She is an active member of the Portland Peace Team. Ellis Torrance ’18 , a biology doctoral student at UNC Greensboro in North Carolina, was awarded a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. Torrance uses supercomputers to process massive amounts of bacterial data, tackling tough questions about how they evolve. Jacob Wilson ’20 published a revised version of his PSU honors thesis in peer-reviewed journal Young Scholars in Writing: Undergraduate Research in Writing and Rhetoric. Wilson is pursuing his PhD in English language and literature at the University of Washington. Darlene Zimbari ’10 MEd ’14 premiered “A Window into Elder World,” a theatrical reading about elder advocacy, at the Fertile Ground Festival in February with help from a grant from Portland’s Regional Arts and Culture Council. LOSSES Tucker Childs , professor and chair of applied linguistics; Alexander “Xander” Davies , assistant professor of education; Chik Erzurumlu , founding dean of the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science; Derek Ott ’20 . Read tributes at pdx. edu/magazine/remembrances. Have news you’d like to share? Email alum@pdx.edu or submit your own alumni news online at pdx.edu/alumni/contact. ON AIR WITH BLACK EXCELLENCE WHEN COVID-19 HIT, Rashad Floyd ’00 found himself grounded. Usually, the former PSU football star and professional football player crisscrossed the country with his production company, Heart and Hustle, creating videos for clients like Nike, the NFL and the NBA. Now, they needed to pivot to stories close to home. He drew inspiration from the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. “We needed stories that were relevant and right now to the community,” he said. “Te narrative was stuck on the oppression and the systemic racism and the inequalities we were facing and fghting. I didn’t want that to be the only narrative.” Te result was “Expressions in Black,” a series of short videos that aired weekly on Portland’s KGWTV during “Te Good Stuf ” through March 22. (Watch episodes at expressionsinblack.org . ) Te people featured in these 10 documentary-style portraits come from a range of professions— Nike VP, Oregon Supreme Court justice, winemaker, vegan restaurateur—to present a stereotype-shattering view of Portland’s Black community. Floyd’s concept took of after a meeting with Portland mayor Ted Wheeler, who connected Heart and Hustle with KGW. “It’s the community that made this happen, because of the collective efort that everyone put out to try to create a diferent Portland,” Floyd said. “Tat inspired more doors to be open to us than have ever been open before.” Each “Expressions in Black” episode explores what drives the person and makes them unique.Tis is how you learn that Jordan Carter, co-founder of the retail store Produce Portland, started to see himself as TIP: Recent graduate? Your pdx.edu email address will stop working one year after you finish your last class or stop working for PSU. That’s also when you lose access to the Google Drive associated with your campus account. a role model as a top high school student; or that vintner Bertony Faustin didn’t even drink alcohol before he started making wine; or that NBA veteran and University of Portland head basketball coach Terry Porter considers himself a dad and a teacher frst. It’s not that far from what Heart and Hustle usually does, Floyd said. As an on-air commentator for the NFL network, ESPN and Fox, “I really got tired of talking about the x’s and o’s,” he said. As he transitioned toward journalism, humanizing athletes became his production company’s specialty. “We’ve been built to dive deeper,” he said. “Even if I’m with LeBron James, I’m interested in documenting him as more than an athlete, just the way I would be documenting Adrienne C. Nelson as more than just a judge. It was a natural ft for us to transition from projecting the voice of the athlete to projecting the voice of a culture.” Floyd credits PSU for helping him learn to connect with a broad range of people. “My eyes were wide open and my ears were wide open,” he said. “Tere were so many languages, cultures, beliefs and perspectives.” With an additional 10 episodes of “Expressions in Black” funded and scheduled to air beginning this June, Floyd refected on Heart and Hustle’s quick pivot. “We all run the marathon toward equality by playing our role,” he said. “Tis is ours.” —SCHOLLE McFARLAND