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 To be announced Telephone: 503-725-3447 Email: rapsmail@pdx.edu Office hours: To be announced Campus mail: RAPS Web: psu-raps.org Board Members Co-Presidents Janine Allen & Bruce Stern Secretary Brian Lewis Treasurer Ansel Johnson Members-at-Large Alan Cabelly, Rick Hardt, Kris Kern RAPS Sheet Editor Doug Swanson Website Editor Steve Brennan RAPS Representative to Regional & National Retirement Associations Larry Sawyer Committees Awards Steve Brennan, Chair History Preservation Eileen Brennan, Chair Membership Dave Krug, Chair Program Pat Squire & Dawn White, Co-Chairs Scholarship Sherwin Davidson, Chair Social Nancy Eriksson, Chair The RAPS Sheet The newsletter of the Retirement Association of Portland State SEPTEMBER 2023 A GUIDED TOUR on Friday, September 8, of the current exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art kicks off the 2023-24 programming year for RAPS. The exhibit, “A Question of Hu: The Narrative Art of Hung Liu,” showcases the highly experimental painting, printing, and weaving techniques of the Chinese American artist Hung Liu (1948-2021). According to the museum’s website, Liu “made highly narrative images that foregrounded workers, immigrants, refugees, women, children, and soldiers in haunting, incandescent portraits that mingle Chinese and Western artistic traditions.” As Liu herself wrote, “I paint from historical photographs of people; the majority of them had no name, no bio, no story left. Nothing. I feel they are kind of lost souls, spirit-ghosts. My painting is a memorial site for them.” The tour for RAPS members and friends will be led by Anna Kienberger, education and communications coordinator for the museum. Her tour begins at 1 p.m. on September 8. Please plan to arrive at the entrance to the museum a few minutes before 1 p.m. Reservations are not required but please let Dawn White, Program Committee cochair, know if you plan to attend by emailing her at dawnwhitepdx@gmail.com. Schnitzer Museum exhibit tour begins 2023-24 year for RAPS Artist Hung Liu painted from historical photographs of people. “The majority of them had no name, no bio, no story left,” she wrote. “My painting is a memorial site for them.”
2 WELCOME TO A NEW academic year. Students and faculty are returning to campus after a summer hiatus. The campus is coming back to life. And the University has a new president, Dr. Ann Cudd, who comes to us from the University of Pittsburgh. She is the 11th president of PSU and will join us in a RAPS program in a couple of months so that you can meet her. In the meantime our September program will feature a docent-led tour of the current exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. If you have yet to visit this museum on the PSU campus, do yourself a favor and join us. It is a beautiful museum with both a permanent collection and featured modern works of art. As I begin my third (and final) term as co-president, RAPS SHEET n SEPTEMBER 2023 CO-PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE As 2023-2024 begins, RAPS is hitting on all cylinders I can honestly say how proud I am of our organization. We’ve formed a strong allegiance with the PSU Foundation, are financially solvent, have a good base for our annual scholarship, are working hard toward a new history preservation project in Smith Union, and are continuing to produce strong programming which caters to you, our valued audience. As I write this column our past office manager, Eben Yemoh, is now working in the medical education section of Legacy Health. Our search for Eben’s successor is in the final stages, and we hope to have that process completed soon. In the meantime our co-president, Janine Allen, is doing double duty. One of the reasons I have chosen to serve as co-president again is because of Janine. To work with her for another year will be a joy. We are indeed fortunate to have her at our helm. —Bruce Stern As I begin my third (and final) term as co-president, I can honestly say how proud I am of our organization. AFTER TWO YEARS as the RAPS office manager, Eben Yemoh is shoving off to begin his professional career. July 31 was his first day on the job with Legacy Health. During his time with RAPS he completed a Master of Public Administration/Health Administration, which led him to Legacy and a position as coordinator of graduate medical education. A native of Accra, Ghana, Yemoh came to the United States in 2014 and later graduated from the University of Oregon with a bachelor’s degree in general science and minors in chemistry and anthropology. Yemoh said he has always wanted to work in health care, and with Legacy he’ll be graduate medical education coordinator. Legacy will be a far different working environment than office manager for RAPS, a job he began in summer 2021, just as there were hints that the pandemic was on the wane. But it was hardly gone, and the RAPS office could leave a guy feeling isolated. “It was sometimes lonely not having co-workers in the office, not having anybody to bounce ideas off of,” Yemoh said, adding that being motivated and a self-starter are helpful attributes for a RAPS office manager. Maybe those traits are why he consistently won plaudits from members of the RAPS Board for his initiative and responsiveness. Yemoh and his wife, Aliana, enjoy the outdoors and hope to remain in Oregon. With their busy schedules, long interludes in the wilds weren’t in the cards, but they did get away this year to the San Juans, visiting Shaw, Lopez, and Orcas islands. “I do like the outdoors,” he said, “and if you like the outdoors, this is a good part of the country to live in.” After two years and a master’s, Eben Yemoh bids RAPS farewell
3 RAPS SHEET n SEPTEMBER 2023 PDXScholar: A repository of history and academic resources FOR THOSE RAPS MEMBERS who have retired in the last several years, Portland State Library’s repository of scholarship, PDXScholar, may sound familiar and, in fact, be actively employed by some RAPS faculty. However, this addition to the Library’s research resources is worth knowing about for all of us fans of Portland State. In addition to providing global access to faculty and staff scholarship, the PDXScholar repository holds open access textbooks, journals, conference proceedings and course materials; student projects, theses and dissertations; and other creative works including webinars and interviews. Taking a look at the home page, https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu, the range of content origin is evident: Selected works and faculty profiles; Schools and Colleges; Centers & Institutes; Special Collections & University Archives; Dissertations & Theses; PDX Open Textbooks; Conferences; and Journals. Be sure to check out the interactive Digital Commons Readership Activity Map located at the bottom of the Home Page. The map shows PDXScholar’s activity in real time: where in the world a reader is located and what has been accessed. You will see that over 13 million downloads have been transacted since PDXScholar’s inception, and over 2 million in the last year. Of special interest to RAPS members is a PDXScholar collection entitled Historical Reflections and Personal Perspectives on Portland State. According to the description on the homepage of the collection, “This collection gathers articles, essays, personal remembrances, oral histories, and commemorative events that contribute to the collective history of Portland State University. It includes collaborative projects between University Archives and the Retirement Association of Portland State (RAPS).” The collection and its contents can be found at https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/rememberpsu/ The first link to contents of the collection reveals Historical Articles and Essays including several written by Clarence Hein, who retired in 2001 having served as public communications director for the University, among other positions. He continued to assist the University Archives as a volunteer in retirement. His contributions cover Judith Ramaley’s presidency of PSU, the GE College Bowl, and more. An article on the Division of Continuing Education/School of Extended Studies was authored by several PSU retirees, including Nancy Goldman and Robert Mercer, and RAPS members Sherwin Davidson and Cheryl Livneh. For direct access to the articles, link to https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/rememberpsu_essays/ The collection’s second link includes columns, entitled Past Tense, devoted specifically to notable developments in Portland State’s history that were incorporated in the RAPS monthly publication. The Past Tense columns from the fall of 2007 through 2013 are available in PDXScholar. Examples of topics addressed are the establishment of the School of Social Work, The Florestan Trio, the beginning of Geology at PSU, Speech and Hearing, the early years of Engineering, and so much more! These fascinating snapshots of PSU’s beginnings are accessible at https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/rememberpsu_past/ The third, and final, section of the Historical Reflections and Personal Perspectives on Portland State collection is dedicated to oral histories. There are interviews of two past presidents: Judith Ramaley and Wim Wiewel; administrators and faculty: Michael Reardon, W.T. “Bill” Lemman (2010 and 2019), Margaret Dobson, Charles Le Guin; and an interview of five faculty about the School of Health and Physical Education conducted by University Archivist Cris Paschild. These University Archives and RAPS collaborative interviews with past faculty and administrators are streaming videos which have been transcribed. As mentioned above, PDXScholar includes the scholarship of faculty, staff, and students. Currently employed faculty and staff, and emeriti faculty, are encouraged to add their publications and presentations to the repository. Emeriti faculty who have contributed to PDXScholar after retirement may have noted a resurgence of interest in their work. For more information on PDXScholar, its goals and how to contribute your research and/or join the expert gallery, please see https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/about.html On a personal note, I started contributing to PDXScholar in the fall of 2013 by setting up an account and submitting my publications. Since then I receive a readership report nearly every month detailing the number of downloads of my papers and the cumulative total of downloads. I am able to discover where readers are located, what type of institution they represent, commercial or educational, and the number of total downloads for a particular paper. PDXScholar has demonstrated that the institution’s historic, creative, and scholarly achievements can remain accessible and available worldwide, reinforcing the University’s mission to pursue collaborative learning, innovative research, sustainability and community engagement. University Archives also welcomes comments, questions and suggestions from RAPS members: specialcollections@pdx.edu. —Kris Kern, History Preservation Committee ;
4 RAPS SHEET n SEPTEMBER 2023 Book Group THE BOOK GROUP met on August 15 and discussed Pacific by Simon Winchester. The scope of the book is best described by its subtitle, Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers. Each of these topics makes an appearance as the book explores the many facets of the cultures surrounding the Pacific Ocean. Beyond the introductory chapter each of these topics has its own chapter, allowing an increasingly complex picture of the Pacific and its cultures to emerge. The author’s opinion is clearly stated as he reviews what has happened and is happening to the people of the Pacific. For the most part book group members agreed with him. This is a beautiful book, full of intriguing maps. A world map drawn with the Pacific Ocean at its center looks quite different from the usual map focused around the Atlantic— and makes the point that history is increasingly going to be centered among these Pacific countries. As readers searched the maps for a particular island where the author had focused, our limited knowledge of this part of the world became apparent. A splendid book full of new information, the group agreed. During July we planned for our fall reading, building on suggestions from group members: in September—The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea; in October—Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott; and in November—The Music of Bees: A Novel by Eileen Garvin. The Book Group meets on the third Tuesday of the month. We are still using Zoom for our meetings, and it has worked well for this group. Any RAPS member is welcome to join the group. —Joan Shireman Bridge Group THE BRIDGE GROUP is in need of additional players; do you want to join us? We really could use some more players. We are a friendly group and we promise to welcome new players warmly. I would like to hear from any interested RAPS members or others you know who might want to play in our group. The Bridge Group does not require RAPS membership. Your friends and relatives would be welcome to join us. Please rattle your social and family networks to see if you RAPS Group Reports might be able to shake loose a bridge player or two. Please contact Steve Brennan, 503-889-0146. My email address is: the.steve.brennan@gmail.com. —Steve Brennan Hiking Group THE SEPTEMBER 20 hike will be to the Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Washington. The October 18 hike will be a segment of the Wilson River Trail off Highway 6 in the Oregon Coast Range. The November 15 hike is planned for the Newell Creek Canyon in Oregon City. In August, two RAPS hikers tackled the Salmon River Trail, in the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness, a week after the hike had been postponed due to 100-degree air temperatures. We admired the ever-riffling river and the neverlogged forest, with its random-aged mix of western red cedar, western hemlock, and Douglas fir, including some giants. We snacked on red huckleberries along the way. To be included on the hiking group mailing list, please contact Tom Dieterich at tgdieterich@earthlink.net.. —Tom Hard RAPS hikers Tom Hard and Mary Lane Stevens stop at Salmon River Viewpoint to take a selfie during the Hiking Group’s hike in the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness last month.
5 RAPS SHEET n SEPTEMBER 2023 Three new, but familiar, faces join the RAPS Board EVERY NEW PROGRAMMING year sees some turnover on the RAPS Board, and this year three new members join, two of them new to RAPS and one a veteran board member. Dave Krug returns to the RAPS Board as chair of the Membership Committee, succeeding Pati Sluys, who stepped down after two years at the helm. He’s a longtime RAPS member, and served as president in 2012 and co-president from 2018 to 2020. A professor emeritus of education, Krug retired from the University in 1999. He served in the Department of Special Education, and spent his last 12 years at PSU as associate dean. Among the Membership Committee’s goals is encouraging new retirees to join RAPS. Noting that the membership fees bring in relatively little income—about $450 annually— Krug would like the board to consider dropping them altogether to remove a barrier to new members. So what does the new Membership Committee chair think are the biggest attractions that RAPS offers to new members? Krug cited the bevy of events and activities—the monthly programs, the annual President’s Luncheon, and the hiking, book, and bridge groups among them—to be the biggest draws. New at-large board member Alan Cabelly joined the PSU School of Business in 1980 and spent the next 38 years teaching leadership and human resource management. Although new to the RAPS Board, Cabelly has served on many boards over the years, and he is presently a member of the boards of the Portland Human Resource Management Association and the Oregon Road Runners Club. “The important thing is that I know so many of the (RAPS) people,” Cabelly said. That shouldn’t be surprising: he served more than 20 years on the Faculty Senate, two years as secretary to the faculty, and nearly 15 years as area director—equivalent to a department chair in the School of Business—of Management/Human Resource Management. As an at-large member of the board, Cabelly sees his role as giving advice, offering suggestions, asking questions, and doing whatever is needed. “That’s what I’ve spent my career doing—asking questions and spotting opportunities,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of creative ideas. I just ask the questions and everyone else comes up with the ideas.” RAPS’ membership is its greatest strength, said Cabelly. “The members are totally committed to PSU,” he said, “and they and the board members will continue to give to the University. You cannot ‘build’ that—it either is or it isn’t, and in the case of RAPS, it is.” Rick Hardt comes to the RAPS Board with a significant record of service to the University, both as an active faculty member and as a retiree. Hardt, who was elected to the board as an at-large member, came to Portland State in 1974 after completing his doctoral studies at the University of Oregon. A professor of language arts and reading in the College of Education, he retired in 2002. “I haven’t felt very ‘retired,’” said Hardt, who credited a “very persuasive” Janine Allen, RAPS co-president, for convincing him to join the board. During his retirement, Hardt has served on several doctoral committees, continued his involvement with the Friends of the College of Education, which he organized in 1999, and is in his 34th year of chairing the annual College of Education Oregon Writing Festival, which brings nearly 1,000 students from fourth through 12th grades to the Portland State campus every spring. Hardt also established the Eleanor Hardt Memorial Endowed Scholarship in Teacher Education in memory of his late wife. More than 40 scholarships have been awarded since 2002. Off campus, Hardt is co-editor in chief of the Oregon Encyclopedia of History and Culture, a project of Portland State, the Oregon Historical Society, and the Oregon Council of Teachers of English. He also serves on the board of the Friends of Chamber Music. Hardt said the at-large RAPS Board position “mirrors my work at PSU—working across campus in the Faculty Senate and faculty governance, and with a wide range of colleagues across departments in teacher education.” During his Portland State career, Hardt served on dozens of committees on the departmental, college, and university levels. He was also a department head, associate dean, presiding officer of the Faculty Senate, and, for 13 years and under five presidents, secretary to the faculty. His duties also took him overseas, where he served as resident director of OSSHE’s exchange program with Baden-Wuerttemberg. Four years after German reunification, Hardt became the first U.S. professor to work with the universities of Leipzig, Dresden, and Magdeburg, arranging student and faculty exchanges. “I hope that RAPS will be a group actively consulted by administrators, not as an afterthought,” said Hardt, noting that it’s especially crucial with the University under new leadership. “If we can make that happen, RAPS will stay relevant.”
6 Upcoming RAPS events OCTOBER 8TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17 Book Group: Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott. Contact Joan Shireman at joanshireman@gmail.com 8WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18 Hiking Group: Wilson River Trail off Highway 6 in the Oregon Coast Range. Contact: Tom Dieterich/Cilla Murray, tgdieterich@earthlink.net 8THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19 Presentation by Tom Potiowsky, professor emeritus of economics: “‘The Recession is Coming! The Recession is Coming!’ Or Is It ‘Waiting for the Godot Recession’? What’s a Forecaster To Do?” NOVEMBER 8WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15 Hiking Group: Newall Creek Canyon (Oregon City). Contact: Tom Dieterich/Cilla Murray, tgdieterich@earthlink.net 8THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 16 (date subject to change) Presentation by Ann Cudd, Portland State’s new president. 8TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21 Book Group: The Music of Bees: A Novel by Eileen Garvin. Contact Joan Shireman at joanshireman@gmail.com. DECEMBER 8THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14 Annual Holiday Brunch, held at Augustana Lutheran Church. RAPS SHEET n SEPTEMBER 2023 In memoriam: Robert Tufts, 1940-2023 ROBERT (BOB) TUFTS, who served Portland State University as registrar from 1978 until his retirement, passed away July 26. Mr. Tufts was born on November 5, 1940, to Robert and Dora Mae Tufts in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended John Marshall High School in Cleveland. After his graduation he entered the U.S. Army and was stationed in the demilitarized zone of Korea where he worked as a cryptographer. When he finished his military service, he enrolled at Cleveland State University and graduated with an economics degree. He furthered his education at Case Western Reserve University, where he obtained a master’s degree. Mr. Tufts began his career as a university registrar in Ohio, then moved to Oregon. He moved his family to Portland when he began to work at Portland State as its registrar in 1978. He also co-founded the Oregon Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (OrACRAO), a chapter of the national organization. The executive board of OrACRAO honored Mr. Tufts with a permanent membership for his longstanding service to the organization. Current PSU registrar Cindy Baccar reported that OrACRAO established the BobTufts Rising Star Award in honor of his outstanding service. This award is given to rising professionals who have made significant service contributions to the profession. After retiring from Portland State, Mr. Tufts served as registrar for the Art Institute of Portland. During his retirement he traveled extensively and served as an urban tour guide. He was also an active member of RAPS, serving as president in 2007-2008. He also chaired the Awards Committee. Mr. Tuft’s death was preceded by the death of his wife, Ellen Tufts, and brother, Daniel. He is survived by his daughter, Terri, of Beaverton; son Kevin, daughter-in-law, Resa, and granddaughters Sofia and Sera, of Portland; brothers, Fred and wife, Kim, of St. Charles, Missouri; and David and wife, Karen, of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Remembrances may sent to the Portland Rescue Mission (https://portlandrescuemission.org) or a charity of your choice. An online guest book is available at www.oregonlive.com/obits. 1991 PSU Digital Archives
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