The RAPS Sheet The newsletter of the Retirement Association of Portland State SUMMER 2020 Retirement Association of Portland State Portland State University—RAPS Post Office Box 751 Portland OR 97207-0751 Campus Public Safety Building Second Floor, Room 212 SW Montgomery at Broadway Office Manager Samantha McKinlay Telephone: 503-725-3447 Email: rapsmail@pdx.edu Office hours: To be announced Campus mail: RAPS Web: www.pdx.edu/raps Board Members Co-Presidents Steve Brennan Pat Squire Secretary Brian Lewis Treasurer Ansel Johnson Members-at-Large Steven Brenner Nancy Eriksson Pati Sluys RAPS Sheet Editor Doug Swanson Website Editor Larry Sawyer RAPS Representative to Regional & National Retirement Associations Larry Sawyer Committees Awards Steve Brennan, Chair History Preservation Eileen Brennan, Chair Membership/Program Dawn White, Chair Scholarships Joan Shireman, Chair Social Nancy Eriksson, Chair RAPS MEMBERS will finally have their opportunity to hear directly from President Steve Percy. The man who was chosen in July 2019 to serve as interim president and was selected in May 2020 as the University’s 10th president is scheduled to meet with RAPSters Friday, September 11, from 2 to 3 p.m. The meeting will be held on campus in a room to be announced. Percy was to have hosted the President’s Annual Luncheon for Retired Staff and Faculty in April, but RAPS programs from March through August were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The campus is currently undergoing preparations to make meeting rooms, classrooms, and common areas as safe as possible for limited gatherings under strict social distancing protocols. Percy joined the University in 2014 as dean of the College of Urban and Public Affairs and professor of political science. He came from the University of Baltimore, where he was founding dean of the College of Public Affairs and a professor of public and international affairs. He holds a B.A. degree in government from Hamilton College in New York and a Ph.D. in political science from Indiana University. The venue for Percy’s talk and any other updates related to the scheduling of the September meeting will be communicated to RAPS members via email. New president will address RAPS members in September Steve Percy will speak to RAPS on September 11. In May he was selected as the 10th president of Portland State. Photo courtesy Office of University Communications
2 The RAPS Sheet Summer 2020 CO-PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE The summer of COVID-19: how are we doing? I HAVE BEEN WAY too focused on the novel coronaviruspandemic for the last few months. Cases, hospitalizations, deaths counts, hot spots, behavior guidelines for staying healthy, etc., are getting too much of my attention for my own mental health. I do not want to get COVID-19; I want to stay healthy for my family’s sake. How is Oregon holding up? Where are new cases showing up? How safe are activities which used to be routine before April 2020? We watched New York and its neighboring states go through dark times as hospitals, ICU beds, and ventilators seemed as if they would not be available to treat all COVID19 patients in April and May. Shutting down all but essential businesses while ordering folks to mostly stay home worked to “flatten the curve.” State governments joined an international competition to acquire testing capability. The new case counts declined. These early states were able to reopen their economies very gradually. They could test sufficiently to identify new cases, quarantine the sick, and do contact tracing to stop further spread of the virus. Graphs of cases in New York showed a steep rise, followed by a leveling, and weeks into the pandemic a decline to very few new cases. Most European countries showed similar graphs for COVID-19 cases: flat in the beginning with few cases, then sharp increases, eventually mitigation steps, then a decline to low levels. Central governments in some other nations (e.g., South Korea, Japan, New Zealand) took quick action to shut down spread of the coronavirus (and never did experience the sharp spike in cases). Many of our states (e.g., Florida, Texas, Arizona) currently show a different graph of COVID-19 cases: initially low case counts, then a spike, then level case counts for a while, and, in recent weeks, steep spikes in cases. This pattern is in sharp contrast to what we see in most countries. Why does the United States have so many places with community spread and coronavirus out of control? At least part of the answer is: too many folks in our country are not wearing masks. “To mask or not to mask?” seems to be a question with an obvious answer. Mask-wearing to protect one’s fellow citizens is the norm in some cultures. Japan, for example, is a country which seems to mask up as a reflexive action. Japan has had good control of coronavirus. Our citizens never developed the norm: wear a mask to protect others. Our country has such poor control of coronavirus that Europe will not let us travel to their countries. A couple of days ago I heard the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state that four to six weeks of mask wearing (by all of us, not just some of us) would stop the current steep increase in new cases (over 70,000 per day now). I just do not see that message reaching a big enough set of people who believe it is what should happen. Somehow we need “young people” and “I have a right to not wear a mask people” on board with wearing masks “to protect grandma.” I am sad and angry that our country has done such a poor job controlling COVID-19. Thank you all for letting me vent my feelings. I miss RAPS gatherings. I miss dining in restaurants. I miss travel. My daughter is rightly risk adverse, but she has recently allowed my wife, Eileen, and me into her “family bubble,” so we are having contact with our two grandchildren. That helps a little. I hope you are staying safe and virus free. Remember your mask. —Steve Brennan ‘To mask or not to mask?’ seems to be a question with an obvious answer . . . We need ‘young people’ and ‘I have a right to not wear a mask people’ on board with wearing masks ‘to protect grandma.’
3 The RAPS Sheet Summer 2020 RAPS Group Reports Book Group THE RAPS BOOK GROUP met via Zoom on May 19 to discuss Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. We had some audio trouble and found it a complicated book to discuss remotely. Once again Eileen Brennan set up the ZOOM meeting for us, and provided some questions to focus the discussion. We were quite divided in our opinions of the book. We were intrigued by the author’s framing of events and issues, often in ways none of us expected. His history is indeed sweeping, from our history as hunter-gatherers to our present. And he offers ways to think about how the evolution of homo sapiens is going to continue. We used Zoom again to meet on June 16. In an abrupt turnabout, we picked a much lighter summer-reading book to discuss, Ann Patchett’s Dutch House. It is a novel about a family that separates and reunites; family values and sibling bonds are explored, and the house is a character in the story. Again Eileen Brennan set up our Zoom meeting and provided discussion ideas. We were more comfortable with the remote format and had a good discussion. On July 21 we met to discuss Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The book is a tour of a forgotten America, told partly through the kids who rode on Kristof’s old school bus in Yamhill, Oregon. A quarter are now dead, and others are homeless, in prison or struggling with drugs. However, some of the riders on that bus have had successful lives. The authors explore why some made multiple bad choices, and why some were able to build more successful lives. Brian Lewis led the discussion. On August 18 we will discuss The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel. This is the third in a series; the group has read the first two. Thomas Cromwell is the subject of this series, beginning with a hard childhood, continuing through service to Cardinal Woolsey, then as a minister to King Henry VIII, and finally to his execution as his increasing power led others to betray him. Again we expect to use Zoom to enable our discussion; Joan Shireman will lead this discussion. Our September meeting is either the final one of the summer or the first of the fall. It will be on September 15 and we will discuss A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell. This is the biography of a woman who became the head of a vast spy ring during World War II, and was important in the French Resistance. It has won multiple awards, and we expect it to be an interesting book to read and discuss. By September we might be able to meet in person again; if not, we will continue to meet through Zoom. The book group meets the third Tuesday of each month at 1:30 p.m. All RAPS members are welcome to join the book group. —Joan Shireman Bridge and Hiking Groups BRIDGE GROUP AND HIKING GROUP activities have been suspended due to the coronavirus. Upcoming RAPS events WELL BEFORE THE ARRIVAL of the coronavirus pandemic, RAPS had already scheduled a full complement of presentations for the 2020-21 program year. While the Board cannot guarantee that the meetings will occur as scheduled (meetings rooms on campus are still TBA), please save the dates in your calendars. We hope to hold the on-campus meetings in newly configured classrooms specifically set up to allow safe social distancing. If we cannot hold in-person meetings, we may be able to deliver them to the RAPS membership through a video conferencing platform such as Zoom. Please see page 1 for the article about the September meeting featuring President Steve Percy. The schedule for the remainder of fall term: OCTOBER Thursday, October 15 “Behind the Headlines: Reflections on PSU Magazine Cover Stories,” presented by recent PSU retirees Kathryn and John Kirkland. Kathryn is the former editor of PSU Magazine; John was a staff writer in the Office of University Communications. NOVEMBER Thursday, November 19 Bryce Henry, archivist for Capital Projects and Construction, offers a PowerPoint presentation that includes images of the PSU campus taken over several decades. DECEMBER Thursday, December 10 Annual Holiday Brunch, held at St. Augustana Lutheran Church in Northeast Portland.
4 The RAPS Sheet Summer 2020 New manager takes over RAPS office for 2020-21 RAPS’ NEW OFFICE MANAGER, Samantha McKinlay, is exchanging palmy and balmy Florida for chilly, coffee-swilling Portland. McKinlay, who will begin her pursuit of a Master of Social Work in fall, grew up in West Palm Beach, then moved to Gainesville, home of the University of Florida. There she completed a bachelor’s degree in family, youth, and community science, which “was as close as UF had to social work,” she explained. McKinlay focused on community access, child development, and family structure, and minored in sociology. She was admitted to Portland State’s MSW program in 2019, but deferred for a year to gain more practical experience. For the past 18 months she has assisted individuals with disabilities and their families in finding support services in their communities. Previously she worked in a crisis intervention center and a retirement home, and participated in a six-month internship at The Peace Foundation in Auckland, New Zealand. Although she’s a lifelong Floridian, McKinlay is not unfamiliar with Oregon. “My partner’s family is from Corvallis,” she said. “He would go to Corvallis for Thanksgiving every year, and I would go every other year.” She would make side trips into Portland, where she explored the PSU campus. “I was planning on applying eventually,” she said. “It’s beautiful.” McKinlay plans to arrive in Portland in early August, and she’ll be bringing a new family member with her. During the coronavirus quarantine, she fostered a terrier-cocker mix named Carson and eventually adopted him. She also enjoys soccer, and once settled, she hopes to join a recreational soccer league. NEW RAPS CO-PRESIDENT Pat Squire may be new to the board, but she is no stranger to volunteer organizations or the Portland State faculty. Squire retired from Portland State in 2011 after a quartercentury as executive director of the PSU Alumni Association. Since her retirement, Squire has served in a number of volunteer roles, including the Lake Oswego Branch of the American Association of University Women, which she served as president, Lake Oswego Reads, and the Lakewood Associates. And at every organization, she’s sought out Portland State faculty members as speakers. Squire became involved with the AAUW through the late Dawn Dressler, a PSU physics professor. “I was in charge of securing speakers, and I called up everybody I knew at Portland State,” Squire recalled. She also drew on the well of PSU faculty expertise when she joined Lake Oswego Reads. “Over the past five years, we’ve probably had 10 to 15 speakers from Portland State,” she said. Squire came to PSU in the late 1980s after an advertising career in San Francisco and serving as alumni director at Berkshire School, a private prep school in Massachusetts. One of her first offices was in the long-gone Mill Street Building. The RAPS office—then called REPPS, for Retired and Emeriti Professors of Portland State—was down the hall. “Talking to alumni over the years, I heard stories about favorite faculty—Charlie White and Steve Brannan and dozens of others.” Those stories and everyday interaction with the faculty inspired Squire to spearhead the creation of the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award, which was presented during PSU Salutes. “I felt really good about that,” said Squire. She also developed PSU Weekend, an annual continuing education program that featured lectures, many by Portland State faculty, and PSU Advocates, a volunteer group that promotes the University. Squire views emeriti professor as “the alumni of the Portland State faculty,” pointing out their continuing contributions, including their critical role in preserving PSU’s history. Squire acknowledged that the pandemic is a challenge for RAPS. She noted that Dawn White, chair of the Program Committee, has developed a compelling list of speakers for 202021, but many members, quite reasonably, have anxieties about attending meetings on campus. The challenge, she said, is engaging people while also addressing their safety concerns. Squire joins Steve Brennan as co-president, and succeeds Dave Krug (see story on page 5). Pat Squire and Prof. Craig Shinn in February at Lake Oswego Reads, where Shinn spoke on U.S. environmental policy. Squire joins RAPS board as co-president
Dave Krug steps down from RAPS presidency—again RALPH E. BUNCH, professor emeritus of political science, died July 4, 2020, at age 93. Professor Bunch was born April 11, 1927, in Portland, the son of Ralph E. Bunch and Ruth Cooper Rudolph. He attended Benson and Franklin High Schools before joining the Navy at 17. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in political science from Lewis & Clark College in 1951, he taught in public schools for 10 years. He received an M.A. in 1961 and a Ph.D. in 1968 from the University of Oregon. Professor Bunch served as an assistant professor of political science at North Texas State University, in Denton, from 1968 to 1970—where he founded a chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union—before he began his 24-year career at Portland State in 1970. While at Portland State, Professor Bunch served in the Faculty Senate, the American Association of University Professors, and Oregon Common Cause, and twice ran for Congress. After retiring from Portland State, Professor Bunch taught at the University of the Humanities in Moscow, Russia. There he met a computer programmer, Eleonora Andreevna. They married, and the couple’s romance was celebrated in a musical, We Met in Moscow, that was presented by Light Opera of Portland in 2019. Eleonora died in 2012. Professor Bunch is survived by a daughter, Lee, of Texas; sons Genji, of California, and Kenji, of Portland, and James; and a step-daughter, Dasha, of Moscow. Another daughter, Renata, died in childhood. PSU Archives Digital Gallery 1982 In memoriam: Ralph E. Bunch, 1927-2020 DAVE KRUG COMPLETED his first tour of duty as RAPS co-president in June, although it was his second turn at the helm of RAPS. Krug served as president during 2012-2013, before the co-president model was established in 2016. With the various responsibilities of the presidency, the old system made it very close to a full-time job. And that’s not the kind of volunteer position that many retirees want. “This is much superior,” Krug said of the new model. Last year he shared responsibilities with Steve Brennan, who continues in the role this year with incoming co-president Pat Squire. A professor emeritus of education, Krug became involved with RAPS about 15 years ago, when fellow education professor Steve Brannan encouraged him to serve on the board as treasurer. “Several years later, someone asked me to run for the presidency,” Krug recalled, “and then two years ago Dawn White (a former co-president) explained that the presidency wasn’t as onerous as before, so I said yes again.” After two terms as president and co-president, Krug is particularly appreciative of the RAPS board. “I’ve been quite impressed by the professionalism of the board—it’s amazing the work they put into it,” he said. Krug will continue his involvement with RAPS through membership on the History Preservation Committee. Legacy interviews—recorded discussions with retired senior faculty and administrators—are a central focus of the committee. As for the future of RAPS, he would like to see more younger retired faculty involved with the organization. “It’s a positive activity for the retired faculty,” he said, citing the bridge, hiking, and book clubs, as well as the monthly general meetings. He acknowledged, however, that the pandemic will make it a challenge to get people back on campus. Krug would like to see more younger retired faculty involved with RAPS. ‘It’s a positive activity for retired faculty.’ 5 The RAPS Sheet Summer 2020
6 The RAPS Sheet Summer 2020 In memoriam: Nan-Teh Hsu, 1925-2016 NAN-TEH HSU, who served Portland State for 30 years as a professor of mechanical engineering, died May 3, 2016, in Portland. He was 91 years old. Professor Hsu was one of the pioneering members of the present-day Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science. He joined the Department of Applied Science in 1958 and played an integral part in the department’s accreditation and growth into a college. He retired in March 1988 as professor emeritus. Professor Hsu was born February 6, 1925, in Rangoon, Burma (Yangon, Myanmar), one of nine children. He traveled with two of his brothers to Guangzhou, China, in 1936 to study at LingNam University, which ran a special language program for children of overseas Chinese; it was equivalent to an elementary school curriculum. In 1938, as the war with Japan raged, the boys returned to Burma, where Professor Hsu attended high school until 1941. The next year he returned to China to attend Southwest Associated College in Kunming, China. After his first year, however, he—and most of his classmates—left to join a group of interpreters who worked with Chinese and U.S. military personnel. Fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, Burmese, and English, Professor Hsu served as an interpreter from 1943 to 1945. He returned to Burma to work with two American engineers on a connection from the Burma Road, which had been cut off by Japanese forces, to the Ledo Road from India, which the Allies used to supply the Chinese. In 1945, with the war winding down, he was one of 100 interpreters chosen to join the Foreign Affairs Bureau and work with the U.S. Army. He arrived in Washington, D.C., in June 1945. In 1946 Professor Hsu resumed his education. One of the American engineers on the Burma Road project had promised Professor Hsu that he would help him get into an American university. He was true to his word, arranging a meeting for Professor Hsu with the dean of engineering at the University of Wisconsin. Three years later he received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. While at Wisconsin, he also met his first wife, Fung-Haan Fung, who was completing her Ph.D. in nutrition. They married June 27, 1953, and had two children: a daughter, Loh-Ying, born in 1957, and a son, Loh-Kun, born in 1958. After working for the Tennessee Valley Authority, in Alabama, and Seagram’s Whiskey Company, in Kentucky, Professor Hsu enrolled at the California Institute of Technology, from which he received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering in 1956. He worked at Smith-Emery, a materials testing company in Los Angeles, then accepted an offer from Portland State in 1958. But as the family drove to Portland that September, another driver lost control of his vehicle and collided with the Hsu car near Harrisburg. Mrs. Hsu died at the scene. With his two young children living with relatives in California, Professor Hsu began his Portland State career and became good friends with Pastor Charles Lum and his wife, Lorene, of the Chinese Baptist Church. Professor Hsu became a Christian in 1958. When he was reunited with his children a year later, the Lums spent much time caring for the Hsu children. Ten years later, in 1968, Charles Lum died suddenly, and in 1970, Lorene and Professor Hsu were married. After nearly 45 years of marriage, Mrs. Hsu died in 2015. Professor Hsu died 11 months later. Reminder: RAPS picnic nixed THE SUMMER PICNIC, the annual August event that signals the beginning of the programming year for RAPS, was cancelled by the RAPS Board. The decision was prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.
7 The RAPS Sheet Summer 2020 Exploring Dependent Care, Work, and Family As higher percentages of employees with primary responsibility for the care of children and adults needing special assistance entered the workforce in the 1970s and beyond, research initiatives explored the ways in which they managed work, family, and dependent care responsibilities. Employee surveys of work and family issues were the medium for at least three decades of Portland State research that took place from 1982 to 2000 (and beyond) in several separate projects or stages of development. Two early employee surveys were for Kaiser Permanente in Portland and the Greater Washington Research Center in Washington, D.C.: When Parents Are at Work: A Three-Company Survey of How Employed Parents Arrange Child Care (1982). This opportunity was made possible by Atlee E. Shidler, president of the Greater Washington Research Center. Atlee was assisted by Joan Maxwell, and I by Paul Koren. Our project initiated a return to research on childcare, work, and family issues—research based on employee surveys. The method provided detailed demographic data from the entire workforce, thus allowing comparison of employees having diverse jobs, incomes, difficulties, and family responsibilities. All of this research was done in partnership with my PSU colleagues Paul Koren and Katie Schultze. In 1983, at the Regional Research Institute, we received a generous grant called “Employer-Based Child Care Information and Referral.” Ironically, we enjoyed the support of the Reagan White House, which wanted to shift childcare financing away from government onto the corporate sector. This grant supported an employee survey of more than 8,100 employees of 33 corporate and agency employers. The 1984 report to employers on the findings, Hard to Find and Difficult to Manage: The Effects of Child Care on the Workplace, launched a methodology and established our reputation for continuing work with employers. The report that Paul and I wrote, with a marvelous series of tables and original findings, put us on the map— both with employers and with scholars in the emerging field of Work and Family. A confirming replication survey of 21 employers and 8,083 employees was conducted in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1985, in collaboration with Sue Vartuli of the University of Missouri, and administered by Kyle Matchell, Sarah Hendrix, and Carol Scott of the Metropolitan Council on Child Care, at the Mid-America Regional Council. For her Ph.D. at Harvard, Pia Divine (Patricia Divine-Hawkins) used our data for a study of employees whose children were reported as looking after themselves, which was a source of higher time missed from the job. Pia’s dissertation, Latchkey in Context: Family, Community, and Self/Sib Arrangements for the Care of School-Age Children, was approved by the Harvard University School of Education in 1992. Pia’s doctoral committee consisted of Bob LeVine, Dick Light, and me. Another major initiative at PSU was the study of work and elder care from 1986 through 1989 directed by Margaret Neal from the Institute on Aging. Our format for employee surveys was expanded to include employees with either elder care, child care, or both (the Sandwich Generation). This broader focus on dependent care produced an excellent book: Balancing Work and Caregiving for Children, Adults, and Elders by Margaret Neal, Nancy Chapman, Berit IngersollDayton, and Arthur Emlen (Newbury Park, California: Sage Publications, 1993). Finally, our PSU team conducted major dependent care surveys for individual employers: Good Samaritan Hospital & Medical Center (1985); Chemeketa Community College (1986); Boys and Girls Club of Escondido, California (1986-87); employees of Sisters of Providence in all 20 of their hospitals from Alaska to Burbank (1987); Bonneville Power (1988); Tri-Met (1989); and US Bancorp (1989-90). —Art Emlen Note: The RAPS Historical Preservation Committee has edited this article. The full text is available in the Portland State University Archives. PAST TENSE: Looking back at PSU’s early history Cynthia D. Stowell photo Art Emlen
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