Alumni Spotlight: Cathleen Cavin Class of ’74, B.S. in Geology Cathleen Cavin’s interest in geography was sparked by National Geographic Magazine and a childhood book about the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton. She was inspired to be in the sciences from a young age, and was supported in this pursuit by her family in a time where women hardly worked in scientific fields. After stints at Portland Community College and Oregon Technical Institute, Cathleen landed at Portland State University, where she took her first Physical Geography surveys with Dale Jolly, a professor whose enthusiasm motivated her. She did coursework in geomorphology and climatology, developed a lively interest in the Polar Zone, and joined the Friends of the Pleistocene organization and the Columbia River Basalt group. Cathleen remembers the emerging environmental awareness of the era: the theory of plate tectonics, the celebration of the first Earth Day, the city’s first glass recycling program. Cathleen recalls a bustling commuter campus and a competitive, bright student body, populated by many returning veterans, married adults, and older women pursuing their career goals after raising a family. She struggled with occasional sexism as one of only two women following her coursework, but Cathleen emerged from her program well-prepared for a long career in environmental science. She realized her dream of polar exploration as an employee of the US Arctic and Antarctic science programs, and later worked at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and at Bonneville Power. Cathleen remembers Portland State University as a place for serious study, where students prepared for careers. She also remembers—less fondly— those 8am classes at Cramer Hall. “I started drinking coffee at PSU,” she says, because the building “was so cold that I needed to wrap my hands around a warm cup (in those days, Styrofoam) so I could write notes.” Geology students study Mount St. Helens earthquake information. A student in the geology lab, 1976.
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