Portland State Magazine Winter 2017

WINTER 2017 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 7 P A R K B L O C K S Portable classrooms like you’ve never seen them PORTLAND’S Lincoln High School recently added four new classrooms in bright, spacious-feeling portable buildings designed by PSU architecture students and faculty. The SAGE (Smart Academic Green Environment) classrooms were designed by professors Margarette Leite and Sergio Palleroni and their students, as a healthier alternative to the ubiquitous portable classrooms installed at schools across the country. They feature large windows, vaulted ceilings and efficient energy-recovery ventilators that provide fresh air. A total of 59 SAGE portable classrooms have been installed at 32 schools around the Pacific Northwest since 2014. Local manufacturers and contractors are responsible for building and installing the structures. New paths toward a law degree LAW SCHOOL and Portland State may not seem to go together, but they will, starting in fall 2017. Thanks to new partnerships with Lewis & Clark Law School and Willamette University College of Law, ambitious students can earn a bachelor’s degree from PSU, plus a law degree from either school, in a total of six years rather than the traditional seven. PSU and Lewis & Clark have also launched a four-year program in which students can earn an MBA and JD at the same time—the only program of its kind on the West Coast between a public and private institution. The JD/MBA Joint Degree program is expected to save students more than $25,000 in tuition. For information on this program, visit pdx.edu/sba/jdmba . For information on the accelerated baccalaureate and law programs, visit pdx.edu/history/3plus3 . PSU OPERA director Christine Meadows struck up a conversation with California composer Mark Lanz Weiser, saying she was looking for ideas for a fall 2016 production. Before she knew it, Weiser offered to compose an entire opera just for PSU performers. He teamed up with librettist Amy Punt to create The Place Where You Started , a modern opera about a frustrated writer who rediscovers her creativity while talking to her gardener, an exiled Latin American intellectual. “Mark and Amy allowed us to be a part of their creation every step of the way,” Meadows says. “What a gift to our students, to have roles written for them!” After a successful run on campus, the cast, crew and directors traveled in December to Suzhou, China—Portland’s sister city—to perform it at two universities. The Confucius Institute at PSU arranged the trip.  Opera composed for PSU singers