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.”
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