THE RAPS SHEET SEPTEMBER 2010 Retirement Association of Portland State Portland State University Post Office Box 751 Portland OR 97207-0751 Koinonia House, second floor SW Montgomery at Broadway Campus mail: RAPS Web: www.pdx.edu/raps Office hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Officers Clarence Hein President Joan Shireman President-elect / Program Chair Larry Sawyer Past President / Membership Chair Robert Lockerby Secretary Robert Vogelsang Treasurer / Regional Retirement Association Ad Hoc Committee Chair Dawn White Editor Board Members-at-Large Priscilla Blumel Susan Jackson Dawn White Committees Pat Squire Alumni Association Steve Brannan History Preservation Committee Chair Mary Brannan Pictorial History Book Committee Chair Beryl and Vic Dahl Social/Friendship Committee Co-Chairs Office Manager Maya Burton 503/725-3447 / raps@pdx.edu RAPS hikers pause at Mirror Lake to take in the view on their August hike. Pictured (l to r) are Karen Vogelsang, George Lohse, Leif Terdal, MargeTerdal, Laureen Nussbaum, Rudy Nussbaum, Robert Vogelsang and Larry Sawyer. Photo by Larry Sawyer. Tour the Oregon Garden Sept. 16 It has been almost 10 years since RAPS visited the Oregon Garden, and in those years the Garden has been extensively developed. There are many new plantings, and whole new areas have been created. We are going to visit again on Thursday, Sept. 16. We will explore some of the 80 acres and 20 themed gardens. There are water features, quiet wetlands, unique garden art, and always a diversity of color and texture in the plantings. RAPS members will meet at 11:30 a.m. at the Visitors Center, where a group admission will be purchased. There will be time for lunch and a ride on the trolley before a 1:30 p.m. walking tour. The trolley ride offers an extensive tour of the Garden, allowing passengers to get on and off at any stop. Cost for admission as part of the group is $8 per person—group tickets have to be purchased at a single time. If you wish to arrive at a time other than 11:30 a.m., you can purchase a senior admission ticket for $9. Members are welcome to stay as late into the afternoon as they wish. Quick lunches are available at the Visitors Center. There is also a resort at the Garden now, and it offers an extensive luncheon menu—and the food is excellent (or at least it was this summer when I ate there). The Oregon Garden is at 879 Main Street, Silverton. This meeting is at a greater distance than is usual for us. If members want help in organizing carpools, Maya Burton in the RAPS office (503-725-3447) will be happy to assist you. The Garden can be reached either from Interstate 5, where you turn off at the Woodburn exit and follow 214, or from route 213 from Oregon City. It is well marked with numerous signs on both routes. We hope to see everyone there. --Joan Shireman, President-elect
2 President’s Message Here it is September already. On campus, September is a time for welcoming students, faculty and staff back for the beginning of a new year and for RAPS, it marks the beginning of another year of interesting and informative programs and activities. Actually, you could say the RAPS year started on August 19 when more than 50 of us gathered for our annual picnic in Willamette Park, a wonderful opportunity to catch up with colleagues and friends. The weather cooperated and, if I may be permitted a cliché, a good time was had by all. On behalf of everyone in RAPS I want to thank Vic and Beryl Dahl for their excellent work on organizing that event. I also want to thank Vic for his important and sensitive work on the RAPS memorial articles. As we begin our monthly programs for 2010-11 we welcome our new officers. Joan Shireman, who served so ably as Board Secretary, has taken on the position of President-elect and Program Chair. She and her committee are developing a series of programs and events to keep us all involved throughout the year. Bob Lockerby has stepped into the Secretary position and Robert Vogelsang will continue as Treasurer. We also welcome Susan Jackson to a full term as Board Member-at-Large. RAPS owes a major debt of thanks (no cash, just thanks) to Doug Swanson, who edited the RAPS Sheet so ably for over three years, and we welcome our new Editor, Dawn White, who inherits the challenging task of keeping us informed and up to date through our publication. Finally, we welcome Maya Burton, our new Office Manager/Graduate Assistant. Maya, a graduate student in Public Health, comes to us from Corvallis. And thank you to MiMi Bernal-Graves for keeping us in line and on schedule during her two years in that post. I’m sure Maya will do a great job for us as well. As President, I’m looking forward to an interesting and busy year. I hope you’ll all take advantage of the many programs and activities available to RAPS members. ---Clarence Hein An invitation from PSU’s Alumni Association PSU Weekend is celebrating 20 years! Join us Oct. 22-24 for PSU Weekend 2010 featuring keynote speaker Nicholas Kristof. Breaking from tradition, Friday, Oct. 22 will feature the keynote address in the newly renovated Lincoln Hall, with an exclusive VIP sponsor reception prior to Nicholas Kristof's lecture. Sponsorships begin at $125 and include the VIP Sponsor Reception and preferred seating. Individual lecture tickets go on sale Sept. 1 at the PSU Box Office (503-725-3307) or Ticketmaster. Tickets are $25 for general public and $22 for all PSUAA members. Celebrate lifelong learning with PSU Weekend’s free Saturday Seminars (Oct. 23). Twelve captivating speakers will focus on health and aging, unique Portland, fine and performing arts, and human advocacy. Back by popular demand are the Sunday tours. We have several educating and entertaining tours with PSU connections. Please visit www.pdx.edu/alumni or call 503-725-4948 for complete details on keynote lecture tickets, Saturday seminars and Sunday tours. --Sarah Haley, Alumni Association
3 In memoriam: Theodore Carl William Grams, 1918-2010 Theodore “Ted” Grams, Emeritus Professor and retired Director of Millar Library Processing Services, was born in Portland September 29, 1918 and died in Tucson, AZ May 22, 2010. On July 11 the Zion Lutheran Church congregation conducted a brief memorial at its Sunday service. His remains were interred at Riverview Abbey in Portland. During 1936-37 Ted attended a local business college. While employed at the Veterans and Bonneville Power Administrations, he pursued coursework (1941-43) at the Portland Extension Center. From 1945 to 1947 he attended the University of Washington, earning a B.A. in economics. After a year of study (1947-48) at Harvard Law School, Ted resumed BPA employment. In 1950-51 he underwent Library Science training at the University of Southern California, completing an M.S. degree in 1951, and returned to work as a Bonneville Power technical reference librarian. In August 1952, Professor Grams took an appointment to provide technical services for Portland State Extension Center’s fledgling 60,000-book library collection housed in two remodeled classrooms that could seat 170 persons. That limited facility served the institution until 1959 when an annex to Smith Memorial Center added expanded library space with 700 seating spaces and doubled book shelving capacity. In every respect, Theodore Grams’s career paralleled and contributed significantly to the institution’s steady growth and scholastic development. When the legislature redesignated PSEC as Portland State College in 1955, Ted was one of the new institution’s four professionally trained librarians. As the modest college transformed into a major research based university, his competent library technical services management fulfilled complex and changing needs. Library science experience substantially supported Professor Grams’s longtime valuable contributions to faculty governance through constitutional committee service, faculty senate membership, and appointments to community and interinstitutional bodies. He actively participated in state, regional and national library associations. His achievements gained high levels of recognition from colleagues throughout the University, and on several occasions he served as interim Director of the Library. As a native Portlander, Ted found many opportunities to support community outreach. An active Zion Lutheran Church member, he participated in the Northwest Lutheran Welfare Association. Highly esteemed qualifications prompted appointments to various community groups, notably those dealing with issues related to aging and information science. Emeritus Professor Robert Westover joined the PSU library faculty in 1971 and under Ted’s leadership and guidance he advanced to positions of chief acquisitions and humanities librarian. According to him, “Ted was a most patient and generous teacher--exacting as befitted the discipline--but kind and always available to assist a floundering novice with advice based upon his rich accounting background . . . always helpful and willing to keep up with the many changes (in automation) we were ‘encouraged’ to make . . . a great mentor and a true gentleman.” Theodore Grams contributed significantly to this institution’s success until his retirement in 1986. He and his library colleagues enabled hundreds of faculty members to carry out the institution’s scholarly mission. For that all of us owe him a debt of profound gratitude. --Victor C. Dahl, Emeritus Professor of History, with assistance from Emeritus Professor Robert Westover RAPS welcomes new members Retiring faculty and staff receive a free first year of RAPS membership. RAPS welcomes the following individuals who retired in the spring of 2010. Joel Arick, Professor, Special Education James Binkley, Instructor, Computer Science Joanne Clancy, Benefits Manager, Human Resources Walton Fosque, Professor, Art Glenn Huntley, Assistant Director, Child Welfare Partnership, Social Work Patricia Long, Development Director, Liberal Arts/Sciences Leonard Shapiro, Professor, Computer Science Dee Thompson, Director, Career Center Cheer on the Viks at home opener PSU’s Athletics Department is making free tickets available to RAPS members for the first Vikings home game Tuesday, Oct. 5. Those wishing a ticket should contact Maya in the RAPS Office, 503-725-3447.
4 In memoriam: Ladis D. Kristof, 1918-2010 Ladis “Kris” Kristof, Emeritus Professor of Political Science and longtime RAPS member, died June 15, 2010, at his farm home. His family and many friends gathered on June 23 for a funeral mass of Christian burial and a reception at St. John’s parish church in Yamhill. Professor Kristof was born Nov. 26, 1918--two weeks after the World War I armistice--on his Armenian-Polish family’s extensive estate near Cernauti, capital city of the Austro-Hungarian imperial duchy of Bukovina. In 1919 the victorious Allied Powers assigned that province to Romania; in 1945 at the conclusion of World War II the Soviet Union annexed it to Ukraine. Those historic sovereignty transformations heavily influenced the course of Ladis’s life. Already fluent in several languages, Ladis studied forestry at the University of Poznan in Poland from 1937 to 1939. The Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 launched warfare that lasted until 1945 and ushered in the nightmare of Soviet Russian domination of Eastern Europe. In the welter of those events, the Kristof family lost its properties and suffered equally at the hands of Nazi and Communist regimes. In a recent RAPS presentation Ladis shared his life experiences. He described escaping from his homeland in 1948 with a perilous nighttime swim across the Danube River, seeking refuge in Tito’s Yugoslavia, which had recently broken out of the Soviet orbit. After two years of forced labor in Serbia’s forests, Ladis managed to join an exile community in Paris where in 1952 he obtained sponsorship for resettlement in Oregon to be employed as a logger. Ladis completed a political science baccalaureate degree at Reed College in 1955. Encouraged by the late Professor Frank Munk, he next pursued graduate studies at the University of Chicago, earning masters and doctoral degrees in 1956 and 1969. During the ensuing years Ladis held various specialized teaching, research, and administrative positions at the Hoover Institution, Hunter College, and five major universities: Chicago, Temple, Stanford, Santa Clara, and Waterloo in Canada. In 1971 Kris joined PSU’s Political Science Department as an associate professor. He actively promoted this institution’s Slavic studies offerings provided through its Central European Center and overseas extension at the University of Zagreb in Yugoslavia. Service as associate director of the Central European Studies Center (197274) and as interim department head (1979-80), as well as continuous participation in university governance committees, brought him into contact with academic units across the campus. Likewise, his engagement in curricular and program development added an important and enduring dimension to the university’s international studies offerings. Professor Kristof’s tireless research activities produced many scholarly books, monographs, and journal articles, and prompted regular invitations to present papers and lectures at international universities and scholarly conferences. He actively participated in significant academic organizations and regularly contributed reviews of books published in various languages. To support ongoing research projects, the Fulbright Commission awarded him fellowships at the University of Bucharest in Romania in 1971 and again in 1984-85. After retiring from PSU in 1990 he held part-time teaching positions at various Oregon academic institutions. As a young man in Chicago, Ladis met Jane McWilliams, an art historian, and they married in 1956. After moving to Oregon, they settled on a farm near Gaston. Jane earned a doctoral degree from Columbia in 1972, joined the PSU Department of Art in 1973, and is now a professor emerita and RAPS member. On their farm home the Kristofs reared their son Nicholas (born 1959), a Pulitzer Prize winning author and New York Times editorial columnist. His moving tribute, “My Father’s Gift to Me,” appeared in the New York Times on June 16, 2010, and was republished in the Oregonian on June 20, 2010. The Oregonian also presented an in-depth account of Professor Kristof’s life career on June 18, 2010. These articles can be downloaded on the Internet, and hard copies may be examined in the RAPS office files. Ladis is survived by his wife, Jane; his son, Nicholas, and daughter-in-law, Sheryl WuDunn; and grandchildren, Gregory, Geoffrey, and Caroline. To them, the RAPS executive board extends its heartfelt sympathies. Throughout his lifetime, this honorable, caring and generous colleague actively supported causes that defend human rights and justice, and worked to ensure peace for all mankind. --Victor C. Dahl, Emeritus Professor of History
5 RAPS club reports Book Club: ‘The Help’ The RAPS Book Club will meet Tuesday, Sept. 21, at 1:30 p.m. at the home of Marge Terdal, 997 SW Westwood Drive in Portland. Contact her at terdalm@ pdx.edu or 503-244-5714 to RSVP and ask for directions. We will discuss The Help by Kathryn Stockett. The book is described as follows (©2009 Kathryn Stockett Site by AuthorBytes.com): Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step. Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken. Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed. In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't. Come to the next meeting with recommendations for future book selections. --Mary Brannan RAPS Bridge Group: Deals on Sept. 9 The RAPS Bridge Group meets at Willamette View at 1:00 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 14. For further information, please call Colin Dunkeld, 503-292-0838. Please call no later than Friday, Sept. 3. --Colin Dunkeld RAPS Hikers: Bound for Banks Six hikers ate lunch at Mirror Lake on Mt. Hood Tuesday, Aug. 24. (See photo on page 1.) There was a slight breeze preventing the reflection in the lake, but it made a pleasant hike while the temperature in Portland was in the 90s. The next hike is Tuesday, Sept. 28. We will meet at 9:00 a.m. at the Cedar Hills Shopping Center near the DMV office to carpool to milepost 8 of the Banks to Vernonia linear trail. This is the location of Horseshoe Trestle. Sack lunch will be at approximately milepost 12 in Stub Stewart State Park. Confirm with Larry Sawyer by Sept. 27 at larry_sawyer@comcast.net or 503-771-1616. --Larry Sawyer PAST TENSE Portland State College’s first president John F. Cramer, 1899-1967 In 1955, when the Oregon State Board of Higher Education chose John Cramer to lead the school, he was a veteran of the Oregon public school system and well known statewide as Dean of the General Extension Division. He had also served as senior administrator in overseeing the formation of Vanport Extension Center, Portland State Extension Center, and Portland State College. But Cramer, presumably tired of administrative challenges, served only three years, stepping down in 1958 to become a professor of education. Cramer found teaching to be enjoyable, was passionate in his instructional role, took his new position seriously, and gladly assumed various administrative responsibilities when called upon by his successors. Cramer resigned in 1967 due to ill health. State Hall--Portland State’s first new building-- was renamed Cramer Hall in his remembrance in 1969. PAST TENSE features glimpses into Portland State’s history. To submit a story (or an idea for one), email the RAPS History Preservation Committee at raps@pdx.edu
6 In memoriam: David Kelmer Roe, 1933-2010 David K. Roe, retired Professor of Environmental Sciences and Chemistry, was born Jan. 9, 1933 in Gig Harbor, WA and died July 2, 2010 in Portland. Family members and friends gathered for a memorial service celebrating his life at the Finley-Sunset Hills Mortuary on July 16. Professor Roe prepared for his distinguished career in chemistry by earning a B.A. degree at Pacific Lutheran University in 1954, followed by graduate studies at Washington State University (M.S. 1956) and the University of Illinois (Ph.D. 1959). After holding a yearlong postdoctoral fellowship as a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, West Germany, he worked as a research chemist for the Shell Development Company in Emeryville, CA from 1960 to 1962. He launched his academic career in 1962 as an assistant professor of chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1968 he opted to return to the Pacific Northwest, taking an appointment as an associate professor at the Oregon Graduate Center. At that juncture Portland State was expanding its science curriculum and initiating innovative graduate programs. For the 1969-70 school year college officials had devised an interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences and Resources (ESR) doctoral program encompassing several science disciplines. The burgeoning ESR program recruited highly qualified science specialists to serve as core faculty members, which led to Professor Roe’s appointment in 1972 as an associate professor of Environmental Sciences and Resources/Chemistry. He advanced to full professor rank in 1977. Throughout the ensuing years Professor Roe contributed significantly to the ESR program’s development through excellence in teaching and research. Students and faculty colleagues alike highly respected his intellect and achievements. One of his students earned the first chemistry Ph.D. degree awarded through the ESR program. Early on, collaboration with a fellow chemistry department member on fuel cell research generated a Department of Energy grant. Over the years, Professor Roe achieved a record of distinction through ongoing research and publications, all of which added strength to PSU’s stature as a comprehensive university. Major funding agencies supporting his significant scientific investigations included the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and Pacific Northwest Laboratories. He provided professional consulting service for Tektronix and Sunset Laboratories in Oregon and for Alza Incorporated in Palo Alto, CA. Community service activities included vicechairmanship of the citizens review panel for the Portland Bureau of Waterworks in 1980-82. His career featured an important international dimension that denoted an abiding intellectual inquisitiveness. In 1973 and 1975 he held month-long National Academy of Science exchange fellowships in Bulgaria, followed by a Fulbright senior professorial fellowship (1978-79) in West Berlin, and four subsequent summer visiting scientist fellowships at West German institutes between 1979 and 1987. At PSU several international students pursued graduate work under his supervision. Dave actively participated in numerous national and international professional associations. In 1980 he presided over the Oregon section of the Electrochemical Society and during 1975-83 served as divisional editor for the organization’s journal. The American Chemical Society appointed him to serve on several committees. Professor Roe contributed significantly to the institution’s academic mission at a crucial time in its development. All of those faculty members who shared in that undertaking owe him a lasting debt of gratitude. His pleasant personality and charming wit gained a wide circle of friends. In 1956 Dave married Janet Claire Olsen of Eugene and they reared three children: Natalie Ann Roe, of Oakland, CA; Steven Nelson Roe, of San Mateo, CA; and Erik Olsen Roe, of Portland. In addition, survivors include three grandchildren and a sister, Naomi Nothstein, of Mercer Island, WA. To them our organization extends its heartfelt sympathies. --Emeritus Professor of History Victor C. Dahl, with assistance from Emeritus Professors of Chemistry Gary L. Gard and David W. McClure
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