Oregon Quarterly Spring 2016 by UO/Oregon Quarterly

Oregon Q U A R T E R LY

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About the Future . . . THE

MAGAZINE

THE

UNIVERSITY

OREGON

Cheer in Style.

This striking “O” is hand made at Skeie’s Jewelers in Eugene Oregon, the home of the Ducks! Please Call for price and availability. 10 Oakway Center Eugene, OR 97401 541-345-0354 www.skeies.com

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EDITOR’S NOTE

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Uncertainty … and Optimism T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S IT Y O F O R E G O N S P R I N G 2 01 6 • VO LU M E 9 5 N U M B E R 3

EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Ann Wiens

awiens@uoregon.edu | 541-346-5048

MANAGING EDITOR Jonathan Graham

jgraham@uoregon.edu | 541-346-5047

SENIOR WRITER AND EDITOR Rosemary Camozzi

rcamozzi@uoregon.edu | 541-346-3606 ART DIRECTOR JoDee Stringham

jodees@uoregon.edu | 541-346-1593

ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Susi Thelen

sthelen@uoregon.edu | 541-346-5046

PUBLISHING ADMINISTRATOR Shelly Cooper

scooper@uoregon.edu | 541-346-5045

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Charlie Litchfield, Dustin

Whiteaker

PROOFREADERS Sharleen Nelson, Scott Skelton INTERNS Chloe Huckins, Natalie Miano, Gina M. Mills EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

Mark Blaine, Betsy Boyd, Kathi O’Neil Dordevic, Kathleen Holt, Alexandra Lyons, Kenneth O’Connell, Holly Simons, Mike Thoele WEBSITE OregonQuarterly.com MAILING ADDRESS

5228 University of Oregon Eugene, Oregon 97403-5228 Phone 541-346-5045 EDITORIAL 541-346-5047 ADVERTISING SALES Ross Johnson, Oregon Media

ross@oregon-media.com | 541-948-5200 E-MAIL quarterly@uoregon.edu

OREGON QUARTERLY is published by the UO in February,

May, August, and November and distributed free to alumni. Printed in the USA on recycled paper. © 2016 University of Oregon. All rights reserved. Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the UO administration. CHANGE OF ADDRESS

Alumni Records, 1204 University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-1204 541-302-0336, alumrec@uoregon.edu ADMINISTRATION

President Michael H. Schill, Senior Vice President and Provost Scott Coltrane, Vice President for University Advancement Michael Andreasen, Vice President for University Communications Kyle Henley, Vice President for Enrollment Management Roger Thompson, Vice President for Finance and Administration Jamie Moffitt, Vice President for Institutional Equity and Inclusion Yvette Marie Alex-Assensoh, Vice President for Student Life Robin Holmes, Interim Vice President for Research Brad Shelton, Associate Vice President for Advancement and Executive Director of the UO Alumni Association Kelly Menachemson UO INFORMATION 541-346-1000

Universities are inherently optimistic places. Students devote years to immersing themselves in learning. Professors spend their careers educating the generations that will succeed them. Even the researchers and scholars who study the past do so to gain a deep understanding that will illuminate the future. On college campuses around the world, there’s a shared conviction that our work can help make the future brighter. “The future is what will happen in the time after the present,” states Wikipedia, matter-of-factly. “Its arrival is considered inevitable.” Inevitable perhaps, but uncertain all the same. Which brings us to the theme that connects many of the articles in this issue, “About the Future…” In the pages that follow, our writers address this elusive, unknowable apparition that awaits us all, and how the University of Oregon is helping to prepare for it. These preparations may be strategic and practical, like the UO’s Incident Management Team’s efforts to help other campuses overcome disasters ranging from power outages and disease outbreaks to mass shootings (“Ready, Willing, and Able,” page 14). They may be intellectual, as in the work of John Markoff, MA ’75, whose writing has examined up-and-coming technologies from “something called the Internet” in 1992 to intelligent robots providing human companionship today (“Robots Among Us,” page 45). Or scientific, as explored in “We Are All Pigpen” (page 32), a look at research on campus involving the unique microbial clouds that surround each of us, and their implications for our health. And they may be educational—our core mission, after all—such as the study-abroad programs led by journalism professor Ed Madison and his colleagues (“A Passport, a Camera, and Lots of Fresh Batteries,” page 38) or the plans our new president, Michael Schill, outlines in his note, “Vision for the Future” (page 6). So pour a cup of tea or a glass of wine, settle into your favorite chair, and contemplate the future with us. We’re not sure quite what it holds, but we’re feeling good about it.

***

And now, a personal note. That incongruous cocktail of optimism and uncertainty that is so endemic to “the future” can lead one down unpredictable yet interesting paths. I moved to Oregon four years ago to edit this magazine, drawn, as I wrote in my first Editor’s Note, by “the mountains … the rivers, the mud, and the trees,” by a place I’d known as “home” as a child, which I wanted my own children to know as well. My daughter is now a freshman at the UO, a true Duck, and my son has become as at home on trails through fir forests as he is in the streets of Chicago. Over the short time I’ve been here, the University of Oregon has seen significant changes—new leadership, surging enrollment, significant increases in diversity and academic preparedness (and some pretty sweet football seasons). Most importantly, it’s seen a growing determination to secure its place among the nation’s top universities in terms of academic rigor, faculty research, and an outstanding experience for our students. That’s a future I’m eager to support in whatever way I can. To that end, I’ll be shifting my focus to leading the UO’s marketing and visual communications efforts, helping to convey and articulate what’s special about this place. This is my last issue as editor of Oregon Quarterly. I’m sad about that—it’s been a true privilege to be a part of so many good stories the past few years. But I couldn’t be more optimistic about this publication’s future. It’s in great hands with Jonathan Graham, who has been a wonderful managing editor and will now take the reins as editor, and the team: JoDee Stringham, art director; Rosemary Camozzi, senior writer and editor; Susi Thelen, advertising director; Shelly Cooper, publishing administrator; and Chloe Huckins, intern extraordinaire. If I’m lucky, they’ll let me write a story now and then. Ann Wiens, Editor

The University of Oregon is an equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This publication will be made available in accessible formats upon request: 541-346-5048.

awiens@uoregon.edu T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

contents DEPARTMENTS

The problem is, someone saying ‘I’m offended’ tends to be the end of 19 the conversation. But that should really be the beginning.

DIALOGUE 1 1 Editor’s Note 4

Letters

From the President

INTRO 9 10 Campus News 14 Ready, Willing, and Able 19 Best Practice

—ERIC BRAMAN, GRADUATE STUDENT AND MEMBER OF REHEARSALS FOR LIFE

22 The Best . . .

24 ON THE COVER

24 Fungus Foray 26 Ducks Abroad 28 Profile: Stephanie LeMenager 29 Bookmarks

OLD OREGON 49 50 Sugar Beets: Alive at 25 52 Research Geology in Action 54 Class Notes 64 Duck Tale

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When we chose “Preparing for an Uncertain Future” as a theme for this issue, the OQ team was concerned that our pages might become a little too grim. After all, the unknown does cause worry. So we stewed and fretted about how we would create a cover that would connect to this serious theme, yet encourage readers to open the magazine. And then JoDee Stringham—our art director —thought of the Magic 8-Ball. Brought to market by Mattel in the 1950s, this fortune-telling toy traces its origin back to the 1940 Three Stooges short, You Natzy Spy, in which a billiard ball was used to foretell the future. All of which is to say that we know the future is serious business, but we are prepared to have a little fun.

The Magazine of the University of Oregon Spring 2016 Vol. 95 No. 3

OQ ONLINE OregonQuarterly.com WEBSITE EXCLUSIVE Watch a student-produced video about creative professionals in Cuba at cubacreatives.uoregon.edu. TALK TO US Comment on stories and share your favorites with others via e-mail and social media.

FEATURES

WE ARE ALL PIGPEN

Each of us is surrounded by a microbial cloud of our very own. UO researchers are exploring how buildings affect these clouds, and what they can tell us about human health. BY ROSEMARY HOWE CAMOZZI, BA ’96

A PASSPORT, A CAMERA, AND LOTS OF FRESH BATTERIES

Students in the School of Journalism and Communication are gaining a broader perspective—not to mention some pretty great résumé lines—by traveling and reporting on emerging stories in such places as Cuba, Ghana, Nepal, and Alaska. BY ED MADISON, PHD ’12

MORE TO LOVE See additional materials—including video—related to stories in the print edition, and read stories not found in the pages of this publication. LEARN MORE For more stories about the university, and to explore the research, discovery and innovation happening on campus, visit around. uoregon.edu. JOIN IN Submit letters, class notes, and photos for our “Ducks Afield” section.

ROBOTS AMONG US

They’re in our homes and on our phones. All of a sudden, “artificial intelligence” is getting real, and it’s hard to know what to make of it. New York Times science writer John Markoff, MA ’75, has some thoughts to share. BY BEN DEJARNETTE, BA ’13, MA ’15

PHOTOGRAPH BY ED MADISON

T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

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LETTERS

5-6 inches

step

2 1 3 YELL “O”! R

Hold left and right hands opposite each other in a vertical position, as if to applaud.

step

“O” Throwing 101 Welcome to “Making an ‘O’ with Your Own Two Hands 101.” Some of you will be photographed, some will be on video at a national sports venue, so let’s get this right! Touch your fingertips plus your thumb tips together. Now create a circle; yes, an O is a circle. Well, some of you need to work on that. You’re making a triangle and some of you a pyramid. You will be tested soon! If you can’t accomplish the task, please keep your hands to yourself! Class dismissed. Go Ducks! Don Hansen, BS ’72 Hermiston, Oregon

O R E G O N Q U A R T E R LY

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Curve fingers and thumbs toward each other— maintaining an arc shape through palms—until they are touching.

Change Agent

Luther Cressman and Howard Stafford surveying Oregon’s indigenous rock art, 1932. Image courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society.

Have Gun, Will Research The Winter 2015 Oregon Quarterly made mention of Professor Luther Cressman. I recall a photo of Cressman in the Quarterly some years ago. He and another professor are standing in front of a 1920s automobile, both dressed for field work in eastern Oregon, looking like Indiana Jones and Hiram Bingham, and packing serious large pistols. Please find some excuse to print that photo again. Best regards, James W. Eyres, BA ’66 San Francisco

I was impressed with the article regarding Aisha Almana, BS ’70 (“Driving Change,” Winter 2015), instigating the protest allowing women to drive and working on the women’s right to vote—I love her audacity, bravery, and courage in Saudi Arabia, which denies some of the best minds to bloom (many thanks to her father). I want her to know that America was just as backwards in the early 1900s; our right to vote changed in August 1920 when the 19th Amendment was finally ratified. Her perseverance will change the world and maybe, just maybe, raise the consciousness of some of the men in that part of the world. Peggy Speight, BA ’73 Lake Havasu City, Arizona

We want to hear from you.

Please submit your letters at OregonQuarterly .com, to quarterly@uoregon.edu, or by mail to Editor, Oregon Quarterly, 5228 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403-5228. You may also post comments online at OregonQuarterly.com. Published letters may be edited for brevity, clarity, and style. ILLUSTRATION BY JODEE STRINGHAM

*Valid Feb 1 – Mar 15, 2016. Use code OQFS16 at checkout. Some restrictions may apply—see website for details.

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FROM THE PRESIDENT

Vision for the Future

am honored to lead the University of Oregon as it approaches its 140th anniversary. Back in 1876, when our founders’ dream of creating Oregon’s flagship university became a reality, the five faculty members who taught the first UO students out of a single building could not have imagined what the UO would become. Faculty research in fields such as sustainable chemistry, digital humanities, childhood obesity prevention, and zebrafish genomics would have sounded like fiction of a genre yet to be defined. But some realities remain the same: then and now, the university focused its mission on teaching and research; faced financial challenges; and continually pursued excellence. As the 18th president of the University of Oregon, I take seriously the responsibility of carrying our school’s legacy forward, and improving upon it. My job would be much easier if I could peer into a crystal ball and know all of the challenges of tomorrow. But in our rapidly changing world, what the future holds is uncertain. As we prepare for the next 140 years and beyond, the one constant we can count on is change. It is preparing our students for the change that certainly awaits them that makes our mission of creating and transferring knowledge so exciting and important. We are hiring faculty, investing in research, and expanding scholarship and advising, all with an eye on ensuring our students, state, and nation are ready for the challenges of tomorrow.

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This issue of Oregon Quarterly is focused on how the UO is preparing students, society, and itself for an uncertain future. Our mission—to produce knowledge for the betterment of society and to create citizens who can question critically, think logically, reason effectively, communicate clearly, act creatively, and live ethically—requires us to strive for the very best. I call this excellence. And excellence matters. A colleague recently told me “excellence” does not really mean anything anymore. But I disagree. It may mean different things in different disciplines, and metrics may vary, but excellence always means working to reach your fullest potential. Striving for excellence drives curiosity, innovation, discovery, creativity, and the production of knowledge. The pursuit of excellence prompts a writer to edit and revise until his prose lifts the spirit and moves the heart. Excellence inspires a scientist to mobilize all of her resources in iterative processes of theory and experimentation. Excellence pushes a journalist or historian to ask more and dig deeper. This constant seeking and striving is how scholars help cure diseases, ease pain, end conflicts, feed the hungry, build cities, provoke debate, prepare leaders, reveal beauty, and create a better society. The university, faced with persistent public defunding, escalating costs, and churning internal leadership, has not grown and nurtured its research and academic enterprise as it should. Today, with a new board of trustees, permanent leadership, a $2 billion fundraising campaign, an

ambitious faculty, eager alumni and supporters at our side, and the strongest and most diverse student body in the university’s history, we have a plan and a path forward. I am more optimistic than ever that we will realize our vision of achieving eminence. The university is actively investing in expanding our research and academic enterprise; improving access and success; and enhancing the student experience. These are a few of the initiatives we have launched in the last year to help achieve these goals: • Hiring 80 to 100 diverse and outstanding faculty over the next four years who are great researchers and teachers • Increasing the number of doctoral students by 40 in the next year as a “down payment” toward growing our graduate program • Creating plans to update or build new academic facilities and research labs • Expanding scholarships, counseling, tutoring, and timely graduation programs to improve student access and success These aspirations are expensive. We will need every dollar we can lay our hands on to build our academic program—including state resources, philanthropy, and tuition. We are extremely pleased to be approaching the halfway mark of our $2 billion fundraising campaign. As we proceed, we will ask our loyal supporters (and those who do not yet financially support us) to dig deeper, to provide us with our margin of excellence to invest in the future of our students and our state. And as we ask our alumni to give more and the state to invest more, we have an obligation to spend every dollar wisely. This is another prerequisite for excellence. Oregon’s higher-education pioneers 140 years ago could only imagine what the future would hold, but they knew that teaching and research would be integral to that future. Today, the University of Oregon is investing in its future, striving for excellence, and helping our students and society prepare for an uncertain tomorrow. Because one thing is certain—whether the year is 2016 or 2156—excellence in teaching and research will continue to drive our future.

Michael H. Schill President and Professor of Law PHOTOGRAPH BY CHARLIE LITCHFIELD

Who cares about that ‘A’ you earned in Math 457? You do. Your grad school does. Your employer. Maybe even your mortgage lender. And your alma mater cares, too. That’s why the University of Oregon’s Office of the Registrar has made the transcript request process quick, easy, affordable, and green. Students and graduates since 1986 can request secure electronic transcripts at duckweb.uoregon.edu.

The Office of the Registrar is part of our Office of Enrollment Management, which guides Ducks through the processes of admissions, registration, matriculation, and financial aid. And we’re still here to help even after you graduate. Learn more at oem.uoregon.edu.

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14 Ready, Willing, and Able 19 Best Practice 24 Fungus Foray 26 Ducks Abroad

intro Dreams Preserved

This portrait of the writer Alice Walker is part of a collection of photos by the late Brian Lanker that were recently donated to the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. The celebrated series, I Dream a World: Portraits of African American Women Who Changed the World, was featured in a book published in 1989. The images were exhibited at the Cocoran Gallery in Washington, DC. Lanker, who worked for a number of years at the Eugene Register-Guard, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist. A retrospective of his work, “From the Heart: Photographs of Brian Lanker,” is on exhibit at the museum through April 24.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JORDAN SCHNITZER MUSEUM OF ART

T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

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CAMPUS NEWS

A Marvelous Mutation ll it took was one genetic mutation more than 600 million years ago. With that random act, a new protein function was born that helped our single-celled ancestor transition into an organized multicellular organism. That’s the scenario—done with some molecular time travel—that emerged from basic research in the lab of University of Oregon biochemist Ken Prehoda. The mutation and a change it brought in protein interactions are detailed in a paper published in eLife, an open-access journal launched in 2012 with support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society, and the Wellcome Trust. The research helps address several important questions that scientists have had about evolution, said Prehoda, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and director of the UO’s Institute of Molecular Biology. It also has implications for studying disease states, such as cancer, in which damaged cells no longer cooperate with other cells in our bodies and revert back to a unicellular state where each is on its own. Mutations can lead to favorable or unfavorable results, or even to a combination of the two, said Prehoda, whose laboratory investigates how proteins work inside of cells. “Proteins are the workhorses of our cells, performing a wide variety of tasks such as metabolism,” he says. “But how does a protein that performs one task evolve to Fluorescence perform another? And how do micrographs of complex systems like those that choanoflagellates, ocean-dwelling allow cells to work together in an organisms used in organized way evolve the many the studies. different proteins they require? Our work suggests that new protein functions can evolve with a very small number of mutations. In this case, only one was required. “This mutation is one small change that dramatically altered the protein’s function, allowing it to perform a completely different task. You could say that animals really like these proteins because there are now more than 70 of them inside of us.” Grants from the National Institutes of Health to Prehoda and collaborators Joseph W. Thornton (of the University of Chicago) and Nicole King (of the University of California at Berkeley), as well as an early career award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to Thornton, supported the research.

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Toomey and Hooft

UNDERSEA SECRETS Near the Mediterranean island of Santorini, a team of UO scientists spent a month studying the plumbing system of magma formed by the largest supervolcanic eruption of the past 10,000 years. Faculty members Emilie Hooft and Doug Toomey led an expedition that also included six UO students as well as scientists from other institutions in the United States, Greece, and the United Kingdom. The group gathered data that, if all goes as planned, could allow scientists to map the magma system in

Skilled Workers

eafcutter ants, found in the southern United States and throughout much of South America, live in massive colonies that gather and process fresh vegetation to use as a base for cultivating a fungus that forms their diet. Their complex society, which relies on a strong division of labor, was investigated in a recent study by UO physics professor Robert Schofield and a six-member team, who documented the ants’ prehensile skills and the layers of

much more detail than has previously been possible. This information could help answer questions about a 1956 earthquake and tsunami in Greece. This study was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation and was based on the US research vessel Marcus G. Langseth.

Exhibit Update

he popular “Oregon—Where Past is Present” exhibit at the UO’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History is getting a makeover. The $500,000 project will add new interactive technology, a display devoted to Oregon’s Paisley Caves, an enhanced basketry display, and a duck sculpture of mysterious origin. The stone sculpture of a duck was uncovered in 1956 near Mapleton, west of Eugene. “The duck is unusual,” says Pamela Endzweig, director of the museum’s anthropological

A New Voice for KWAX

eter Van de Graaff, a nationally known radio host, has joined the UO’s classical music radio station as music director and morning program host. A Chicago native, Van de Graaff spent 27 years at WFMT, a fine arts radio station in Van De Graaff the Windy City. He is perhaps best known as a host and program director for the Beethoven Network, broadcast on 200 stations across the United States. He will continue in that role after he joins KWAX. Van de Graaff also performs as a bass-baritone, appearing with opera companies and orchestras worldwide. He was recently awarded the Karl Haas Prize for Music Education. He and his wife, Kathleen, also a professional singer, will relocate to Eugene at the end of February. “We are so excited for this opportunity,” says Van De Graaff. “My national show has aired on KWAX for many years, and I’ve been very impressed by the station and its listeners. This is an audience that really appreciates classical music and is interested in learning more. That is a big part of what attracted me to the job.” Around the time Van De Graaff arrives in Eugene, the entire KWAX team will move into a new facility on Chad Drive.

behaviors associated with cutting and gathering leaves, delivering them to the nests, and processing them to grow the fungus. “The ants are remarkably handy, often using three legs as a tripod to stand on and the other three legs to handle leaf pieces as they cut, scrape, lick, puncture, and chemically treat them,” the researchers reported. “When the processing is complete, the ants rock the leaf fragments into the comb, much like stonemasons building a wall.” The findings were published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

TICKET TO TRAVEL Five Oregon students have earned Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships to support their studies abroad. Each student will receive $5,000 to defray the costs of their international explorations in spring

collections. “It differs stylistically from typical Columbia River and Northwest Coast stone carvings, and it comes from an area where few stone representations of animals have been found.” An entirely new exhibit, “Paisley Caves and the First Americans,” will help tell the story of Oregon’s deep cultural past, inviting visitors to re-examine long-held ideas about when humans first arrived in North America. The interactive exhibit will feature 14,300-year-old coprolites (dried human feces) along with bone and wood artifacts that have never before been on public display.

A conical burden basket from the Museum of Natural and Cultural History’s “Oregon—Where Past is Present.”

TOP RIGHT: PHOTOGRAPH BY DUSTY WHITAKER

2016. The scholarship is intended to encourage more students from traditionally underrepresented groups to study or intern abroad. This year, the UO ranked ninth among 358 participating schools for Gilman Scholarship recipients.

Eyes on the Implant

ith a grant of $900,000 from the W. M. Keck Foundation, UO scientists hope to help those suffering from vision loss. With colleagues at the UO Materials Science Institute, Richard Taylor (physics) is developing a next-generation retinal implant that has the potential to help patients suffering from macular degeneration, a common eye disease among people age 50 and over. The new implant will mirror the structure of neurons related to the eyes and is intended to connect technology and the body as continued on page 12 T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

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CAMPUS NEWS

seamlessly as possible. Taylor’s interdisciplinary team includes Miriam Deutsch (physics), Darren Johnson (chemistry and biochemistry), and Cris Niell (biology). The grant will allow the team to support six graduate student positions—as well as other costs—as they explore connections between the artificial and natural worlds. The technology used in the retinal implant could someday address Parkinson’s disease and depression, and help those using prosthetic limbs.

The time has come to change the face of mental health care around the world. We’ll do this together!

mentalhealthexcellence.org 12

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Science Medal

eraldine “Geri” Richmond has been chosen to receive the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest award in science. She is one of a select group of prominent scientists and engineers who will receive medals from President Barack Obama during a ceremony at the White House this spring. Richmond has held the UO’s Presidential Chair in Science since 2013. She serves as a US science envoy to several countries in Southeast Asia, and is currently president of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. Her research focuses on materials science and the chemical reactions that occur on liquid surfaces. Also a longtime advocate for women in science, she is cofounder of the Committee on the Advancement of Women Chemists. PHOTOGRAPH BY CHARLIE LITCHIELD

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CAMPUS

Ready, Willing, and Able

The University of Oregon’s team of emergency-response specialists stands ready to help in times of crisis, both on our own campus and for universities across the nation.

ithin hours of the mass BY JONATHAN GRAHAM “Part of the leadership team at Umpqua shooting at Umpqua was in that building when the shooting took Community College last October, four place,” says Andre Le Duc, MS ’99, the UO’s chief resilience members of the University of Oregon’s officer. “No one can immediately bounce back from an experiIncident Management Team arrived ence like that and continue to function normally. That is why it on the UCC campus in Roseburg, about is so important that institutions are there to help one another.” 65 miles south of Eugene. This highly Le Duc is an expert on how to move forward in the trained team is coordinated by the UO’s aftermath of disasters. He founded the Disaster Resilient Emergency Management and Continuity Program and Universities e-mail list serve, a source of information and catstands ready to help when something goes wrong—either at alyst for conversation for his counterparts at other colleges and the UO’s own campus, or at another institution. Operating universities. The list has more than 1,400 subscribers. He has outside the media spotlight, Incident Management Team also put forward a plan to get educational institutions across members spent five days at UCC, providing logistical, busi- Oregon to help one another in preparing for and recovering ness, communications, and management leadership that from disasters. While government agencies often take the lead allowed the institution to continue to function. For much of in the minutes and hours following a shooting, severe storm, that time, 12 UO employees worked full-time at UCC. The explosion, flood, or other catastrophic event, there is no agency team then handed over operations to an executive team from designated to help get academic, research, and business operaLane Community College, which kept UCC running while tions up and running once the initial danger is over. Umpqua’s leadership focused on their community’s grief and In the case of UCC, logistical issues in the aftermath of trauma—and their own. the shooting needed to be addressed with professionalism,

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PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN LOCKER—CORBIS

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thoughtfulness, and care so that the college could eventually return to teaching and learning. And when things go wrong on campus, there are important details that are beyond the purview of first responders. For example, when law enforcement closed UCC after the shooting, more than 300 cars and countless backpacks, phones, and other personal items had been left behind on campus. An organized effort was needed to return those items to their owners—all of whom would have to return to a place where they had experienced trauma in order to retrieve their belongings. Also, more than half of UCC students had not yet received their financial aid for the term— funds that many needed in order to eat and pay rent. The college needed help from administrators who understand student financial aid and the business practices of higher education to keep things running. President Obama wanted to come and offer condolences, and UCC needed assistance with the protocols, logistics, and media inquiries related to the president’s visit. The UO Incident Management Team has experts who were able

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No one can immediately bounce back from an experience like that and continue to function normally. That is why it is so important that institutions are there to help one another. —ANDRE LE DUC

to help with all these details, and many more. “Smaller institutions generally don’t have the staff and experience to handle all these issues,” says Le Duc. “Without outside help, UCC might have lost an entire term.” UO trustee and Roseburg resident Allyn Ford notes that Le Duc and his team provided a “critical service” to UCC. “A small community college is not prepared to deal with a situation like that, nor do we expect them to be. But Andre and his team were able to step in and bring order and structure to the situation. I think we owe them a tremendous amount of thanks.” As it is, the campus has been able to continue its mission of educating students. And that’s exactly

what Le Duc is talking about when he speaks of making campuses more resilient. He has a vision for a future in which all schools in Oregon—kindergarten through graduate school—would have mutual aid agreements in place to help one another in the aftermath of emergencies and disasters. Le Duc is also hoping that other colleges, universities, and school systems in the state will follow the UO’s lead by training their employees so that they are better prepared to respond to crises on their own campuses or at other schools. At present, the UO is the only educational institution in the state that has an All-Hazard Type III Incident Management Team based on federal training guidelines. The team, which

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draws specialists from across the university, has completed more than 80 hours of training through the Federal Emergency Management Association. Team members meet monthly and regularly participate in practice exercises, and they are ready to drop their other work responsibilities to dedicate themselves to incident response. Many have also received training specific to the roles they would play in the event of an emergency. “In the case of Umpqua, our team was ready to deploy within a few hours, but unfortunately, UCC did not have a mutual aid agreement in place with us at the time of the shooting, so we needed to wait until we were asked to come to campus,” says Le Duc, noting that the protocol is that a team like his will not deploy at another institution until their help is requested. The UO now has such an agreement in place with UCC, as well as with several other universities nationally, and Le Duc is hoping that more schools in Oregon will soon sign these agreements. At the UO, Le Duc and colleagues plan responses to a myriad of scenarios that would take the university outside its normal operations—things like power outages, severe storms, fires, and even labor strikes. Their planning also helps the university prepare for major events like the US Olympic Team Trials in track and field, which will take place at Hayward Field in July. Le Duc’s team has been activated 18 times in the last two years, responding to such situations as winter storms and a meningitis outbreak. And the planning stems from the recognition that the university has very particular needs, and it needs to protect its academic and research activities. “Some of our labs have minus 80 degree freezers where sample genomes are stored. If those thaw, during a power outage, for instance, those materials could be gone forever. Through mutual aid agreements with other research universities we will be able to provide or acquire resources and staff to maintain academic and research continuity,” says Le Duc. “If we have a major earthquake, I may not be able to make a phone call right away, but I will know that my colleagues at other campuses on the National Intercollegiate Mutual Aid Agreement will be ready to support us when we ask. And if help is needed at another institution, our team will be ready to go.” Jonathan Graham is managing editor of Oregon Quarterly.

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STUDENT LIFE

Best Practice

With protests about free speech and diversity resounding on campuses across the country, a UO theater troupe offers a fresh approach to conversations about thorny issues. n the graduate student BY JONATHAN GRAHAM The scene brings to mind experiences— lounge in Susan Campbell at work, school, or social gatherings—when Hall, a group of about 30 people watches someone says something insensitive and we don’t know performers act out a scenario in which how to constructively reply. UO theater troupe Rehearsals one student makes insensitive remarks for Life (RfL) offers students, faculty, and staff members a about another’s weight and appearance. “It creative opportunity to talk about, and prepare for, these took a lot of guts to post those photos from uncomfortable moments. The troupe, founded in 2009 Halloween,” an actor says. “I wouldn’t have and sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Students and had the guts to wear that Wonder Woman the Graduate School, offers workshops and performances costume, if I was as big as you.” that encourage audiences to think about—and practice— All of us in the audience, it’s fair to say, problematic interpersonal interactions that relate to equity are wincing. and diversity. In recognition for their exemplary work, the

PHOTOGRAPH BY JACK LIU

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troupe recently earned a Gold Award from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA). “Rehearsals for Life creates a space where people can address issues that we don’t talk about very easily,” says drama therapist Abigail Leeder, who directs the group. RfL member Eric Braman, a graduate student in nonprofit management, says, “The problem is, someone saying ‘I’m offended’

tends to be the end of the conversation. But that should really be the beginning.” Audience members are encouraged to do more than passively watch the scenes that RfL acts out. Instead, spectators are asked to call out, “stop” and then take the place of one of the actors on stage. The group then acts the scene out again with the audience volunteer improvising responses that might lead to a happier ending to the scene. In the case of the

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cringe-inducing comments about weight and appearance, the audience member who interrupted the scene was particularly effective. A graduate student—who happens to research body image and health—was able to ad-lib a compassionate but firm explanation that a slim figure does not necessarily equal good health. She pointed out that feelings of shame about one’s body are also very damaging to a person’s health. In this approach, known as “forum theater” and developed by the Brazilian director and activist Augusto Boal, audience members become what Boal called “spect-actors.” They do not simply sit and watch a performance, but they are invited on stage to act out a scene and alter its ending. All of the exercises that RfL presents are based on the actual experiences of group members or spectators. So when the scenes depict racism or other oppressive behaviors, it is a powerful experience to see an audience member rewrite the script. Of course, these “rehearsals” do not always go smoothly, and members of the troupe emphasize that their goal is not to tell others specifically what to say or not say. Instead, the group simply wants the audience to think and talk more deeply about the potential harm that biased attitudes and remarks can have on others. Group members make clear that they don’t see their work as coddling students or protecting them from reality—two common criticisms of the current higher education environment. Instead, they believe their work provides students with the tools and confidence to speak up in situations in which they otherwise might be silent. Media commentators have lately been calling for more resilience among students and less hand-holding by colleges and universities—but they rarely offer specifics on how this might be accomplished. RfL, by contrast, offers actual tools to help people on campus enter into productive conversations about race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and other highly personal and often politicized issues. Another technique the group uses is “playback theater.” An audience member shares a personal story, and then the actors perform a brief improvisation based on that story. The audience member then has opportunity to talk about how it felt to see their story acted out. Such performances also often lead to conversations about how to address bias in classroom or work settings. “We find that by addressing these issues through theater,” says Leeder, “audience

The problem is, someone saying ‘I’m offended’ tends to be the end of the conversation. But that should really be the beginning. —ERIC BRAMAN, RfL MEMBER

members are able to connect with the stories and experiences of others in ways that they might not if we were just having a conversation. We can use humor, we can present a wide range of experiences, and audiences can find something of themselves in these stories.” During a recent workshop, actors performed a “story weaving” in which they shared personal stories in the form of monologues. Later, audience members recounted their own

stories—from experiences with bias, stereotyping, and racism to their uncertainty about how to intervene when they feel others are being mistreated. For members of Rf L, there are no pat answers—getting audience members engaged in deep conversations is the goal. “I find that in the Pacific Northwest, there is this air of social justice, but I worry that it often only exists on the surface level,” says Steve Livingston, a graduate student in counseling psychology. “But here we get the chance to go a lot deeper. Plus, I think acting in theater is a damn good time.” The 10 members of Rehearsals for Life receive only a small stipend for their participation in the group. They are graduate students from a variety of disciplines, mostly from outside the arts, and each must commit to weekly rehearsals and regular performances for three terms. While a few have a performing background, some bring no theater experience at all. Members say they reap considerable rewards from thinking deeply about how issues of social justice come into play in their daily lives, and from the feeling of contributing to the common

good. Surveys given to workshop participants suggest that those who attend do feel better prepared for difficult conversations after attending RfL sessions. And besides, we can all use more practice. Mariah Acton, a graduate student in both conf lict and dispute resolution and public administration, recounted an experience she had during Thanksgiving break. A relative was making statements that she found problematic and hurtful, but she could not figure out how to even begin a conversation about his comments. “I felt like I should call him out compassionately and respectfully, but I didn’t even know how to start that conversation.” She acknowledges that even for those who think about these issues all the time, it can be very difficult to know how to respond in the heat of the moment. As RfL helps students prepare for difficult conversations with family, friends, and coworkers, they are grateful that there’s always time for another rehearsal. Le a rn m o re at co d a c . u o re g o n . e d u /se r vice s/ re h e a r s a ls-fo r- life .

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THE BEST...

Lecture Hall on Campus

pril 26, 2015, felt like winter, but the calOnce our completed film was submitted, I was physBY ROSS KARAPONDO endar assured me it was spring. Two ically and emotionally depleted, had only gotten about colleagues and I had entered a competition called the five hours of sleep in the last 33 hours, and barely had any appetite even Adrenaline Film Project, in which you produce a short though I’d eaten very little. The question lingered—was this really what film over the course of a weekend and have it screened and I wanted to do? At 5:00 p.m., I finally went to sleep, with the screening judged the following Monday. It was 2:30 a.m. when we coming up in just a few hours. I left the door to my dorm room open so finished shooting for the night, about three hours behind my good friend could come wake me up in case I slept through my alarm. schedule, and at that point I think we were all grateful to Apparently, he had to shake me awake. I do not remember this. finally be leaving that seedy Eugene back alley. My arms As I made my way to Straub Hall for the screening, I found myself feelfelt like they were going to fall off from holding the boom ing relieved that Adrenaline was coming to an end. I wondered if it was microphone over my head for so long, and my fingers were numb from all worth it. I entered Straub and found that it felt nothing like a lecture grasping the cold metal rod to which it was attached. The only thing on my hall, but more like an upscale theater. The modern, refurbished look, mind was sleep. Unfortunately, we were to be back on location at 7:00 a.m. coupled with the two-story seating, made me feel like I was about to presthat same day. Once I finally made it to bed, mere hours from when I would ent my film before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. have to wake up, I began to ask myself, “Do I even want to be a filmmaker?” Suddenly, I felt like it was all really happening. The film was to be only five minutes, but it quickly felt like it was conThe screening of the film went quickly for me, as I was so familiar with suming our lives. We finished shooting at about 2:00 p.m., which was a it at this point, but at the exact moment the film ended, I felt an intense relief, but there wasn’t much time to celebrate; we were to be editing in the sense of euphoria creep up my spine. The applause that filled the room Cinema Studies computer lab by 4:00 pm. There we would spend the next was wonderful to hear, and, truthfully, I got a little teary-eyed. To me, this 24 hours. I am not exaggerating. was a surreal moment: a film that I helped create had just been screened There’s a certain madness that comes with editing a movie: Some shots in front of a hundred people, and it actually felt like the film resonated just don’t work, sometimes you have to rearrange scenes beyond recogniwith the audience. It was the happiest I’ve ever been. Right then, I knew tion, and something usually goes catastrophically wrong and you’re forced I was a filmmaker. to redo hours of work. It’s just the nature of the beast. At about 10:00 p.m., Straub Hall will forever live in my heart as the place where I met my two of us had to return to the previous night’s location with our lead actor resolve. I suffered that weekend and veered dangerously close to the brink to reshoot a couple of very specific shots, only one of which we ended up of giving up, yet today I remember it fondly. And it’s all thanks to a little using. Throughout the night, the three of us took turns editing while one lecture hall called Straub. would sleep. I couldn’t sleep, though, not with this looming over my head. Ross Karapondo is a sophomore cinema studies major from Tualatin, Oregon.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY NATALIE MIANO

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THE LIST

Fungus Foray

Hunting mushrooms with the UO Outdoor Program

ummer drought in the Pacif ic Northwest had finally succumbed to blessed rain. Salmon swished upstream, moss became turgid and green, and fungi burst from wet forest duff. The frenetic dampness of fall conjured Freudian notions of returnBY TOM ing to the wet paradise of the womb. But mushroom foragers usually aren’t psychoanalysts—they just love fungi. Six of us gathered on a gray, mid-November morning for a University of Oregon Outdoor Program mushroom foray. The Outdoor Program was launched as a cooperative in 1967 by students looking to share outdoor adventures. Members suggest and host activities ranging from skiing, hiking, and rafting trips to bike clinics, and the Outdoor Program Barn provides low-cost equipment rentals to students and community members alike. This damp November day, all of my companions were enthusiastic students, their majors ranging from biology to marketing. Our leader was Ed Fredette, a self-taught fungus fanatic with a quick smile and a bare head he calls “a thermoregulatory challenge.” Ed refers to himself as a mushroom enthusiast rather than a mycologist, and his enthusiasm burbles over like a bank-full stream. He and I are kindred spirits, with short attention spans for mushrooms that won’t end up in a sauté skillet. We piled into Mazama, a Mad-Maxian van with dual rear wheels and a gigantic rooftop gear rack, and headed for the Cascade foothills. A coming rainstorm exhaled warm humidity across the autumn landscape. We wound into steep, fir-covered hills, while yellow hands of thimbleberry leaves waved from the roadside. Ed inculcated us in proper foraging techniques. This day, the stated focus was on sampling fungal diversity rather than filling bags with edibles.

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We stopped for a 10-minute scramble in an open forest above the road. Back at the van, we spread our finds across an old blanket and squatted on the gravel shoulder while Ed helped us with identification. There were sulfur tufts, vivid orange and poisonous. The fried chicken mushrooms were brown and boring and edible, but they TITUS don’t taste like chicken. Actually, they don’t taste like much of anything, and we learned the important difference between edible and good. The rainstorm held its breath. Our road snaked upward to a pullout near the top of a ridge. On the other side of the ridge I found a modest patch of chanterelles, contorted golden funnels barely visible in thick green moss. Time vanishes when I’m foraging, yet I managed to return on schedule, smug about my chanterelles. But Ed had the real prize: a fresh American matsutake, round and white as a snowball, smelling of cinnamon red hots. After lunch we wandered through the dim afternoon amid second-growth fir. This was beautiful chanterelle habitat, but they were sparse. Occasionally we reconvened at Mazama, where Ed held forth on our finds: delicious orange hedgehog mushrooms, fishy-smelling shrimp russulas, and a tasty mocha-colored grisette. Light was just beginning to fade when I spotted a large shape bulging from the duff by an ancient stump. The fungus was a convoluted mass the size, shape, and color of a human brain. Cauliflower fungi are large, delicious, and uncommon. Carefully I cut it off and lifted it to my nose; my head filled with an aromatic prelude to mushroom soup. My day was complete. Tom Titus is a research associate in the Institute of Neuroscience, a herpetologist, and author of Blackberries in July: A Forager’s Field Guide to Inner Peace.

THE FUNGUS AMONG US

An incomplete list of mushrooms—edible and not—the author and his companions found on their fungus foray.

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CHANTERELLE Cantharellus cibarius Prized in culinary circles since the 17th century, and an excellent source of vitamin D. AMERICAN MATSUTAKE Tricholoma magnivelare Also known as the pine mushroom because of its symbiotic relationship with certain conifers. Highly prized edible, especially in Japanese cuisine. CAULIFLOWER FUNGUS Sparassis radicata Good, and good for you. The highlight of the foragers’ day.

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Ducks Abroad

International off-campus study is no longer a luxury for the few. With support from Global Education Oregon, more students than ever are gaining personal, professional, and academic benefits from studying abroad. BY CHLOE HUCKINS

UO student Sophie Lair worked at TV news station ORF during a studyabroad trip to Vienna.

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n a world where a bachelor’s degree is the minimum requirement for most entry-level professional positions, many college students are looking for other ways to distinguish themselves in the workforce. The most exciting—and some might argue, most rewarding—tactic is studying abroad. International study has long been considered a culturally enriching experience. Today, while those traditional values remain true, the corporate world has begun to place new emphasis on the personal and social skills that international experience cultivates. Global Education Oregon (GEO), the University of Oregon’s study-abroad hub on campus, hosts programs for the UO and other universities, sending students to 90 countries worldwide. GEO’s leadership team is acutely aware of the growing demand for job applicants with international experience and is making a dedicated effort to advance study abroad as a critical component of higher education. Bre Cruickshank, BA ’14, is an ethical fashion blogger and category information analyst at Nike, providing data support for the men’s sportswear category. During her junior year at the UO, she studied abroad in Angers, France, for five-and-a-half months. “I had the biggest love affair of my life with France,” she says. By the time she left she had tasted a snail, become conversationally fluent in a new language, and formed the opinion that she was not going back to the United States for as long as possible. She landed a job in London at a startup called Urban Times, an online magazine featuring user-generated content. Her title was eco-fashion editor. It was around this time that news broke of the collapse of an eight-story garment factory in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1,100 workers. A global human rights advocate with a great love of fashion, Cruickshank quickly realized that the marriage of her interests could help facilitate a safer and more equitable industry. After three months in London and a few too many nights eating canned corn for dinner, Cruickshank returned to the US. She credits her time abroad with opening up the world in more ways than one; in addition to gaining a broader cultural perspective, it launched her into the world of ethical fashion and likely played a role in the job offer from Nike. “There is so much we are capable of, if we were only able to recognize it and do more risky things. I don’t think I would have realized that if I hadn’t studied abroad,” she admits. “It was the push that I needed.” Journalist and UO professor Peter Laufer has dedicated much of his academic career to providing student journalists with opportunities to immerse themselves in foreign cultures. He has led UO programs to Austria, Spain, Cuba, and, soon, Argentina. He asserts that there is no question of whether international study creates career opportunities, particularly in the field of journalism. PHOTOGRAPH BY NEGINA PIRZAD

seriously calculating their return on investment. A round 2 5 percent of UO undergraduates study abroad, which is a significantly higher percentage than found in most public universities. However, as GEO’s institutional relations manager Lisa Calevi points out, “There are real—not perceived— barriers to going abroad.” These obstacles manifest in terms of cost, curriculum, and culture. GEO continues to make strides toward building unique programs, attracting diverse student groups, and providing financial resources.

BOOK AW AR DS

“After we have an experience where we’re working across languages and across cultures, we’re in a much better place to be able to communicate when we’re back home,” he explains. “You give me any job in this state and tell me that it isn’t going to serve that practitioner to be comfortable crossing culture and language.” Laufer describes the effects of living in another country as an “explosion of personal growth” that, once ignited, never ends. In one memorable instance, two journalism students spontaneously followed anti-Putin protests through the city of Vienna, and

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After we have an experience where we’re working across languages and across cultures, we’re in a much better place to be able to communicate when we’re back home.

ended up witnessing and reporting on the Russian president’s speech at Vienna’s Soviet War Memorial. “Their classroom was the streets, and that’s not replicable,” Laufer says. As the global business world expands, there is also a greater demand for individuals with cultural sensitivity and tact. “Too many Americans think we are number one,” Laufer says. “Going overseas allows us to see that we do have our f laws. A little humbling is good.” GEO executive director Kathy Poole has noted a shift in the way students select programs; they are often seeking shorter summer trips, led by UO faculty members, that offer credits counting toward their major. The promise of a transformational experience alone is not as compelling as it once was, and many students are

However, some things haven’t changed, including the department ’s overall mission. “We want to create better citizens,” Poole says, explaining that in addition to gaining skills such as resilience, language fluency, and adaptability, those who can step outside of their own culture and look back often gain invaluable perspective. Cruickshank powerfully articulates this phenomenon. “The best thing that people can do for themselves is to be uncomfortable. It’s when you are in those challenging, difficult, and uncomfortable situations that you change as a person and become better. I think comfort is death.”

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“Much of what I learned in graduate school was wrong. It’s wonderful.”

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PROFILE

IMAGINE CHANGE

Loosely translated from the French, Stephanie LeMenager’s last name means to manage, to be sparing with. While she’s a steward for the environment as a leader in the field of environmental humanities, she spares nothing as a cultivator of imaginations. Her students script and record oneminute audio stories about a climate-changed future, which are published on an internationally recognized website. Or, they might keep daily inventories of their interactions with products made of plastic. Easy classroom assignments? Not quite. While creating an atmosphere of play, LeMenager requires rigor and research. “They have to tell me the most complete, interesting story that they can, and develop a point of view both local and global,” she says. “I want to instill in my students an ethic of care.”

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LeMenager

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Stephanie

BARBARA AND CARLISLE MOORE DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES PROGRAM BY GEORGE EVANO

STUDENTS AS COLLABORATORS

Working with students to imagine the human dimensions of climate change has led to a new book, the edited collection Teaching Climate Change in the Humanities (Routledge, 2016), which grew out of one of her graduate seminars. The first textbook of its kind, it also marks the first time LeMenager has produced a book with students, advising coeditors and UO doctoral students Stephen Siperstein and Shane Hall.

LEARNING FROM EVERYONE

“We asked, how can we teach climate change in a way that complements the work of social and physical scientists? Working alongside artists and activists and just regular people, it struck me as an ideal example of just how hands-on and practical humanities teaching can be.”

WHAT SHE’S PONDERING

What does it mean to be human at a time of climate change? That’s a question LeMenager has been playing back in her head for some time. “I’ve begun to see being human as a set of practices to aspire to; an ethic, not a given biological or spiritual status.”

ON BEING THE MOORE CHAIR

“Endowed faculty positions signal to everyone—students, faculty, alumni—that this is a university that seriously values research and mentoring,” LeMenager says, adding that the visibility of her endowed position helps attract graduate students to work with her and UO colleagues in environmental humanities, extending the school’s reach and influence.

WORTH DEFENDING

“I believe that art acts in the world in a very broad and powerful way. Some academics who shun the arts have pushed back very hard against these views. This strikes me as a crying shame, because the great lessons of climate change for me include that all kinds of experts and scholars and everyday people need to be coming together and bringing their knowledge to the table to work on this hugely complex problem.” PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MCDERMOTT

BOOKMARKS

Big Data, the semiotics of animals, 12-tone music, and navigating change in the workplace. Here are a few recent books by Duck authors that have captured our attention. Read more at oregonquarterly.com/bookmarks. NUMBERS AND NERVES: INFORMATION, EMOTION, AND MEANING IN A WORLD OF DATA (OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015), EDITED BY SCOTT SLOVIC AND PAUL SLOVIC

This collection of essays explores the quandary of humans’ response to quantitative information and offers compelling strategies to overcome our tendency to become overwhelmed by (and insensitive to) numbers. Contributors include Annie Dillard, Nicholas Kristof, Bill McKibben, and Terry Tempest Williams. Paul Slovic is a professor of psychology at Oregon.

SCHOENBERG’S TWELVE-TONE MUSIC: SYMMETRY AND THE MUSICAL IDEA (CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2014) BY JACK BOSS

This book is the result of 13 years of research and analysis of the music of Arnold Schoenberg, an Austrian composer who developed the dodecaphonic (Google it—you know you want to!) approach to composition that influenced many classical music composers from the second half of the 20th century to the present. Boss, a professor of music at the UO, won the 2015 Wallace Berry Award, the top national prize for writings about music theory and composition.

CHARTING CHANGE: A VISUAL TOOLKIT FOR MAKING CHANGE STICK (JOHN WILEY AND SONS, 2016) BY BRADEN KELLEY, BS ’93

A graduate of the Charles H. Lundquist College of Business, the author offers a detailed approach to help companies navigate organizational change by helping leaders and employees visualize changes that have occurred or will occur in the company. The book aims to help managers communicate plans to the employees who will need to implement the change. Kelly is also the author of the popular business title Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire (2010).

THE LOGOS OF THE LIVING WORLD: MERLEAUPONTY, ANIMALS, AND LANGUAGE (FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2014) BY LOUISE WESTLING

“A luminous and wide-ranging inquiry,” this book places the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty into dialogue with literature, evolutionary biology, and animal studies, and argues for evolutionary continuity between the linguistic and cultural behaviors of humans and other animals. Westling is a professor emerita of English and environmental studies at the UO.

T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

TIMING IS EVERYTHING! What does it take to capture the perfect summer at the University of Oregon? •

Find your timing this summer.

•

Surround yourself with friends, new and old.

•

Focus on graduation; it is so close.

•

2016 SUMMER SESSION UNIVERSITY OF OREGON JUNE 20–SEPTEMBER 9, 2016 Schedule available online March 4 Registration begins May 2

2016 Summer Schedule First four-week session: June 20–July 15 Eight-week session: June 20–August 12 Second four-week session: July 18–August 12 Third four-week session: August 15–September 9

uosummer.uoregon.edu facebook.com/uosummer 541-346-3475

PICK YOUR ANGLE AND FOLLOW THROUGH!

We Are All Pigpen SCIENTISTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON ARE STUDYING THE MICROBIAL CLOUDS THAT SURROUND US, HOPING TO UNLOCK THE SECRETS THEY HOLD ABOUT HUMAN HEALTH. BY ROSEMARY HOWE CAMOZZI ILLUSTRATION BY GWENDA KACZOR

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emember that “Peanuts” character perpetually engulfed in a cloud of dust? “I have affixed to me the dirt of countless ages,” Pigpen explained. “Who am I to disturb history?” As it turns out, Charles M. Schulz, Pigpen’s creator, was on the cutting edge of science. Even more ahead of their time were ancient East Indian mystics who spoke of an aura— healthy or unhealthy— surrounding every person. We know now that microbial clouds composed of bacteria, fungi, algae, and viruses surround all humans—clean or dirty. We also know that bacterial cells outnumber human cells in our bodies. Every hour, humans emit a million or so biological particles that can be transferred to other individuals and indoor surfaces (outdoors they are dispersed more readily) by direct contact. “As kids, we were freaked out by cooties,” says James Meadow, a former postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oregon’s Biology and the Built Environment (BioBE) Center. “Turns out we were right. And the image of Pigpen? That turns out to be true, too. We are all spreading microbes all over the place.” And that’s not all. Thanks to research conducted by the BioBE scientists, we now know that each of us emits a oneof-a-kind microbial cloud, consisting of trillions of microbes, into the surrounding air. “The microbes make a unique cocktail for each person,” Meadow says. When you are attracted to someone, your microbes may be communicating. When you smell body odor, good or bad, you are inhaling some of that person’s microbial cloud. When a family moves into a new home, it takes less than a day for the new house to look, microbially, just like the old

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one. “And when you stay in a hotel room, you change the microbiome in a matter of hours,” Meadow says. The BioBE Center is an interdisciplinary collaboration between biology researchers and architects from the university’s Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory (ESBL) who are working together to better understand how the indoor environment is shaped by humans—and how inhabiting buildings and other indoor spaces influences our health and well-being. Funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the center is headed by Jessica Green, associate professor of biology—also a member of the UO’s Institute for Ecology and Evolution—and Kevin Van Den Wymelenberg, associate professor of architecture and director of the ESBL. The ESBL has a natural connection to the BioBE, Van Den Wymelenberg says. “We need to understand the synergies between biology and the built environment so that we can create energy design strategies that are also healthy for people, and that add to health, comfort, and productivity.” With the growth of energy-efficient buildings, indoor environments have become a hot topic. Getting a handle on how to make them healthy requires understanding what types of microbes humans emit into their surroundings and how the design, construction, and ventilation of any built environment—whether it’s a home, office building, medical center, or vehicle—affects its microbial population. “The indoor environment influences not just health, but also our comfort and happiness,” says postdoctoral researcher Roxana Hickey. “We are beginning to understand that we don’t live in a bubble. What we are exposed to has a big impact on the bacteria and fungi in our bodies. Our goal is to understand the feedback loop between microbial communities and health and well-being.”

Measuring the Cloud

It’s not easy to measure the human microbial cloud because we are not the only microbe-rich occupants of buildings. We share that attribute with the dust in the corners. When we walk around, the dust gets stirred up and our microbes get mixed together. “We’re like an 18-wheeler going down a dusty road,” says Meadow. So the BioBE researchers needed to find a place where they could measure the human microbial cloud in a dust-free setting. The research took place in a tightly controlled climate chamber (affectionately known as the pickle box) at the UO’s White Stag Block in Portland. The chamber, with radiant-heated walls, ceilings, and floors, is primarily used by architects who seek to understand comfort and energy design in buildings. The BioBE researchers cleaned and sterilized the chamber. Each test subject sat alone in the room in a disinfected chair, dressed in a brandnew tank top and shorts, surrounded by air filters that were about a meter away. After several hours, the scientists collected the microbes filtered from the air and extracted and sequenced their DNA. This allowed them to see exactly what types of bacteria and fungi were present in each person’s “atmosphere.” While all the clouds contained common bacteria such as Streptococcus, which is emitted in our breath, and Staphylococcus and Corynebacterium, which are found on our skin, researchers found that women’s clouds contained bacteria that are specific to the human vagina, such as Lactobacillus. “Some microbes, mostly genitourinary-tract microbes, are only found when women are present,” Hickey says. “People think that’s gross, but these microbes are found in healthy humans, and it is nothing to be alarmed about.” Each person’s cloud was identifiable for hours after the person had left the chamber. “It’s like a fingerprint,” says Van Den Wymelenberg.

TOP AND BOTTOM: ESBL, CENTER: CLARISSE BETANCOURT ROMÁN

Top and bottom: The ESBL climate chamber at the UO’s Portland campus. Center: Postdoctoral researcher Roxana Hickey modeling typical test subject clothing (left), and research assistant Clarisse Betancourt Román wearing a Tyvek suit used when cleaning the chamber.

LACTOBACILLUS BACTERIA T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE The exploration of human microbial clouds has many implications for our health. “If we can figure out how we spread bacteria in environments, we can understand outbreaks of disease,” says postdoctoral researcher Roxana Hickey. “But we also seek to understand how we spread beneficial microbes and how we can expose children to good microbes.” The work also has great relevance to the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in hospitals, which, as former postdoctoral researcher James Meadow says, “remains unsolved despite so many ways of trying to eliminate it.” Perhaps, he suggests, we are taking an approach that is too narrow—and downright harmful—when we use antimicrobial chemicals to sterilize surfaces and hands. “We are thinking about one microbe instead of the whole ecosystem,” he says. “We need to think about the whole ecosystem.” Another way microbial signatures might be used in the future would be to test hospital workers for the presence of harmful bacteria before they go home. “In a hospital, doctors and nurses come into contact with many microbes that can be dangerous,” Meadow says. “To swab the people themselves might be an invasion of privacy, but you could check the surface of their cell phone [which reflects its owner’s personal microbiome] to make sure they weren’t carrying things home.” This technology, he adds, is years away from being put into use. Microbial cloud identification may someday also be used in forensics. Human DNA that is gathered from a location can show only whether a person has been in that particular place or not, but with microbial DNA, Meadow says, you can tell where the person has been. Identifiable microbes could show that a person had been in a different country than the one listed on their passport. It could show if they have been around certain other people, or a dog or cat. “This is years out, but the research has been moving exceptionally quickly,” Meadow says. STREPTOCOCCUS BACTERIA

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“Our study suggests that bacterial emissions from a relatively inactive person, sitting at a desk for instance, have a strong influence on the bacteria circulating in an enclosed space and on surrounding surfaces,” the researchers reported in the journal Plos One. “Our results confirm that an occupied space is microbially distinct from an unoccupied one, and demonstrate for the first time that individuals release their own personalized microbial cloud.” The researchers were so surprised by the strength of the results that they ran the experiment again. All in all, they generated more than 14 million sequences representing thousands of types of bacteria found in the samples of dust and air from the chamber. “The second time was even more clean, and very controlled,” Meadow says. “It was pretty astounding.”

Thinking Inside the Box

Ninety-three percent. That’s how much of their lives most Americans spend indoors. According to a study sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency, we spend 87 percent of our time in buildings and an additional 6 percent in some sort of enclosed vehicle. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for breathing fresh air. This is a relatively new phenomenon. We lived as hunter-gatherers for thousands of years and then transitioned to living in agrarian societies, interacting with our natural surroundings and other species in numerous ways. Then came the Industrial Revolution, followed by the technology revolution, and the dynamics of our lives changed radically. “In the scale of human history, this is a fascinating experiment,” Van Den Wymelenberg says. “What we’re seeing is that there are a lot more people with food and atmospheric allergies.” It’s not just that we are inside. It’s the buildings themselves. As concerns about energy consumption have grown ever greater, buildings have been constructed ever more tightly, to the point where the indoor atmosphere is often inhospitable to human health. “People thought that mechanical heating systems and fluorescent light bulbs could solve all our energy problems,” says Van Den Wymelenberg, “but we need to use strategies that are also healthy for people.” We know now that the more bacteria we have around us, the better. It turns out that it’s the process of trying to ultrasterilize everything that does us the most harm. “There has been a paradigm shift,” Hickey says. “Most microbes are not pathogens. We need them for our survival and our health. We need to learn how to enrich our environments to retain good microbes, through design, lighting, and the materials we use.” As a result, she says, the thought behind architectural design is changing from “Does it look good?” to “Will it create comfort, health, and happiness?” And that’s the focus of the BioBE Center.

Fresh Is Best

BioBE researchers hope to pinpoint how ventilation strategies, human occupancy patterns, and different types of surfaces affect indoor air quality and the composition of indoor microbial communities. Their first big study took place in the UO’s Lillis Hall. A 10-member team of biologists and architects investigated the microbes found in 155 rooms in the building, using specially filtered vacuum cleaners to collect dust in offices, classrooms, hallways, bathrooms, and storage closets. “The study showed how architectural features and operational systems can change microbes,” Meadow says. “We found that natural ventilation can drastically change—for the better—the microbes inside of buildings.” Lillis was a perfect study site because half of it is naturally ventilated and the other half uses an HVAC system. The HVAC side was found to

“Children who live in a house near where farm animals are raised, or who have a dog in the house, are less likely to develop allergies or asthma.”

— ERICA HARTMANN

have many more human-related microbes, and as might be expected, the rooms that are ventilated with windows have higher amounts of microbes, fungi, and bacteria from the outdoors. Different types of surfaces tended to have concentrations of different microbes, with desks collecting mostly microbes found on skin, chairs having more gut microbes, floors having mostly soil microbes, and walls mostly air microbes. As might be expected, restrooms contained bacterial communities that were highly distinct from other rooms. Within offices, the source of ventilation air had the greatest effect on bacterial community structure. “This was not a surprise, ” Van Den Wymelenberg says, “but what was troublesome was that even with one of the very best mechanical ventilation systems, which Lillis has, there was a higher incidence of human-related bacteria and microbes on that side.”

Dissecting Dust Bunnies

Postdoctoral research associate Erica Hartmann studies the microbial composition of dust, particularly how it relates to human health. “Clearly, there are bad things about dust, such as allergies and asthma provoked by mold, but there are also protective health benefits,” she says. For instance, children who live in a house that is on or near a farm where livestock animals are raised, or who have a dog in the house, are less likely to develop allergies or asthma, she says. “We don’t know if it is because of the dust from the animals, the soil, or some other factor.” Her studies are focused on how the use of antimicrobial chemicals found in soap, toothpaste, paints, carpeting, clothes, bedding, cutting boards, flooring, and other materials contributes to the growth of antibiotic resistance in dust microbes. “We use these products everywhere,” she notes. “What are they doing in the dust? How do microbes respond to these chemicals?” She has collected dust in one office building in Eugene (with more to come), analyzing its chemical content and how various microbes are reacting to the chemicals in the dust. The final results are not in, but she did find both antimicrobials and antibiotic-resistant microbes in the dust. However, it is not new for dust microbes to have antibiotic resistance, she says. “That’s not just from humans. Our goal is to establish a baseline for what is normal, and see where things are abnormal.”

She also hopes to determine whether bacteria in dust that contains high levels of antimicrobial chemicals have developed genes that make them resistant to the antimicrobial cleaning products, or to antibiotics we use to treat infections. “There are so many health implications worldwide,” Hartmann says. “If we can control the indoor microbiome using good design and maintenance practices, that would be huge.”

Light and Clouds

A third area of BioBE study is the interaction between dust and light. How are bacteria and fungi affected by ultraviolet radiation? The researchers are studying the effects of creating high levels of daylight inside buildings and have found that it makes a very positive impact on our microbial environment, which in turn affects our physical and psychological health. “Our advice is to put the people who are working in offices all day in natural light,’” Van Den Wymelenberg says. To see how dust reacts to sunlight, they created what they call “daylight boxes” (miniature rooms) and put dust in them. The boxes were put on the fourth floor of the UO’s Pacific Hall, where they could capture sunlight. The study will help show the impact of solar exposure on the populations of microbes, fungi, and bacterial compounds in the dust. Another climate chamber study is also underway, in which researchers will examine the clouds of three people at a time instead of one. The goal is to determine how far each person’s microbial cloud extends when they are sitting still and whether the clouds have a spatial structure. They will also experiment with different air circulation patterns and temperatures to see how the cloud is affected. The BioBE is also collaborating with the ESBL in conducting a study (funded by the Environmental Protection Agency) in which they are investigating the impacts of weatherization on indoor air quality. The study will sample homes, before and after weatherization, in Portland and Bend. “What does weatherization do to the indoor microbiome?” Van Den Wymelenberg asks. “It’s not all good or all bad. There can be benefits to a controlled ventilation system. But we also need to educate people about the value of fresh air.” None of this work would be possible without the huge advances that have taken place in DNA sequencing. “It took us 10 years to sequence the human genome, but now we can sequence DNA in an afternoon,” says Meadow, who is now working as a data scientist at Phylagen, a company that performs microbiome analysis for the commercial, food processing, health care, and transportation industries. “We are at a time when the technology is exploding, and we can ask questions that were impossible to ask. “We have been looking miles and miles into space and down deep in the ocean for new discoveries,” he adds, “but now we can look at things we have been carrying around throughout human evolution. There is so much we can learn about ourselves.” Rosemary Howe Camozzi, BA ’96, is senior writer and editor for OQ. T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

Above: Old Havana at dusk. Right: Fahmo Mohammed, BA â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15, captures scenic shots from a balcony in the Cayo Hueso neighborhood.

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A PASSPORT, A CAMERA, AND FRESH BATTERIES LOTS OF

Students in the School of Journalism and Communication are honing the craft of multimedia journalism by reporting from such far-flung places as Cuba, Nepal, Ghana, and Alaska. A professor explains what makes these trips such rich opportunities for learning.

BY ED MADISON

PHOTOGRAPH BY ED MADISON

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UO students docuou r n a l i sm , by de f i n it ion , i s about people and potential in developing nations, our stument work created informed by experience. Reporters dents build relationships by working alongside them each at Cuba’s University document events, interpret mean- of the Arts. summer in Ghana, West Africa—as they will during an ing, and provide context. They are upcoming trip to Sri Lanka. dutybound to help us make sense of the unfaStudents will tell you: these trips are nothing like vacations. They miliar, and tasked with challenging us to ques- are rigorous journeys, requiring long hours and challenging work. tion what we might otherwise take for granted. Participants must prepare for the unpredictable and anticipate inevitaYet presently, the journalism profession itself ble change. Capturing sunrise necessitates gathering gear and scouting has entered uncharted territory. Technological to find the best vantage point at least an hour before dawn. Learning advances continue to disrupt traditional busi- to “get the shot” demands patience, practice, and lots of fresh batterness models and enable anyone with a smart- ies. Student journalists learn to write in any setting and endure many phone and Internet access to produce and distractions. distribute media. Closer to home, undergraduate teams traverse the state each spring Beyond the core principles of ethics, fairness, to produce OR Magazine, which was acknowledged by Adobe in 2011 as and verification of facts, few things in journalthe first student-produced iPad magazine using the company’s digital ism remain certain and nearly everything seems publishing tools. Through OR Media, students develop strategy and up for grabs. Those of us who are charged with content for Travel Oregon, our state’s tourism commission. Other stutraining tomorrow’s journalists are also their dents explore the region producing “NW Stories,” our experimental partners in inventing what journalism will be. documentary series on intriguing people of the Northwest that airs on Our classrooms are becoming laboratories, and Oregon Public Broadcasting. What follows are field notes and photoour most rewarding experiments unfold in the field. graphs from some of our most memorable projects in Cuba and Ghana. So rather than asking them to conceptualize life inside a communist country, the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and FORBIDDEN CUBA Communication (SOJC) took students to Cuba just as the United States Until a year ago, Cuba was a whispered word among Americans who was renewing diplomatic relations. Instead of speculating about the effects desired to go but feared facing $250,000 in fines and 10 years in prison of climate change, students in our Science + Memory program document (just two possible penalties imposed by the US government), not to it each summer in Cordova, Alaska. Our students traveled to rural areas mention uncertainties about safety once they arrived. A small proof Nepal following that country’s recent devastating earthquake to report vision in the law allowed for education-based cultural exchanges. By firsthand on relief efforts. In lieu of settling for prevailing stereotypes this mechanism, two years ago my colleagues and I commenced plans

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to take 20 journalism students to an otherwise forbidden land. What to be easy. But I do believe we have to keep up the struggle, and maybe we didn’t know was that, simultaneously, President Obama, the Pope, that is why I am not afraid to do it.” and the Castro brothers were secretly working to ease a half-century Borbon’s words were a stark reminder of the courage and sacof strained relations between our two countries—nor that they would rifices often required for significant social change. His story is resolve their differences so close to our visit. presented with five other artist profiles on the student-created Our students and faculty members rendezvoused in Miami and website CubaCreatives.com. departed on a prop plane bound for Havana early Saturday morning on March 21, 2015—just four days after the first scheduled flight was allowed WEST AFRICAN ROOTS from New York since 1961. We were moved by the realization we would Historians estimate that Spaniards transported more than 600,000 African be witnessing Cuba as few would ever see it again: emerging from a veil slaves to Cuba over a period of three centuries. Many of their descendants of isolation and ready to share its wonders with the world. now practice Santeria, a religion that blends African and Roman Catholic The rich aroma of Cuban cuisine and the sight of 1950s-era classic rituals. While in Cuba we visited Cayo Hueso, a neighborhood in central cars made us acutely aware we were far from Havana where priests and priestesses welcomed home. Yet much was familiar: bakers brownus into their candlelit homes filled with ceramic ing loaves of bread at the crack of dawn; moms statues, sacred drums, colorful beads, and other shuttling kids off to school; people everywhere, artifacts. at every hour, relishing Cuban coffee. “I wasn’t Many Afro-Cubans trace their ancestry to expecting good things,” says Jake Charlson, BS Ghana, West Africa, which was a central hub of ’15. “I wasn’t expecting anything like what we the transatlantic slave trade. Formerly known found . . . a lot of really happy, amazing people as the Gold Coast, Ghana was the first African who are extremely proud.” nation to declare independence from British SOJC students tour a slave castle in Cape One stark difference was Cubans’ inattencolonial rule in 1957. Since severing its ties to Coast, Ghana. tion to screens. For most, the trappings of the UK, the country has emerged as a peaceful technology are neither accessible nor affordand relatively stable democracy. able. Smartphones are luxury items, and Each summer since 2004, the SOJC has taken American entertainment is considered contraThese practical learning opportuniapproximately 20 students to Accra, Ghana’s band. Life is simple, but far from ideal. Most ties are made possible by generous bustling capitol, to intern at newspapers, radio Cubans rely on meager wages and are just getgifts from alumni, grant funding, and television stations, ad agencies, public relating by. Lines for basic services are long, and and through several mainstream tions firms, and nongovernmental organizamany of the comforts we take for granted are media partnerships. To defray costs tions. Established by Professor Leslie Steeves, out of reach. Yet, there is joy among children, associated with traveling to Sri the annual six-week Media in Ghana program families, and close-knit communities. Lanka, the SOJC has raised funds for intentionally places students in positions where Our 10-day journey’s theme focused on scholarships through DuckFunder, a they are the only non-Ghanaians. The intent is universal expressions of art and music. In new crowdfunding initiative manto provide them with an unfamiliar, immersive, three-person teams, our students set out to aged by the UO development office. cross-cultural experience. Much like on MTV’s profile six Cuban artists and creatives, includMuch like Kickstarter, the platform, Real World, students live together in one large ing a restaurant entrepreneur, a dancer, a at duckfinder.uoregon.edu, provides house. However, after a brief acclimation period sculptor, a musician, a filmmaker, and an alumni, friends, and families with they are required to use public transportation to improv actor. “Our goal was to show a deeper a direct way to financially support travel to and from their internships. Taxis are human aspect to a country we’ve only known UO student- and faculty-based plentiful but expensive, so most students rely on about politically in the news,” says Melanie initiatives. trotros, which are privately owned minibuses Burke, BA ’15. commonly in disrepair. While we were bound by the Cuban govSee videos from our learning adventures at Traveling to Ghana was especially signifiernment to follow an agreed-upon itinerary, UOGlobalJournalism.com. cant for Juwan Wedderburn, BS ’15, who was we never encountered the Orwellian sura junior when he participated in the program veillance we anticipated. Cuban people were during the summer of 2014. He is a first genergenerally friendly, hospitable, and candid in expressing their views. ation Jamaican American, and traces his family’s lineage back to Africa. Carlos Borbon, one of our interview subjects, performs improv—but “I always wanted to go to Africa, so it gave me personal satisfaction to get rarely for laughs. His Spontaneous Theater troupe engages audiences more in touch with my roots,” Wedderburn says. through psychodrama, a form of participatory performance therapy. Julianne Parker, BA ’14, says that the trip provided an opportunity for Their work provides him with a way to express the struggles he encounpersonal growth, and not just an impressive résumé line. “We can say all ters in his own life. we want that we’re here for the internships and for the professional expeBorbon spoke candidly about being harassed by Cuban police because rience, which we are,” Parker says. “But I think no one would sign up for he is openly gay and HIV-positive. Without just cause, he was arrested a trip to Ghana if they weren’t looking for something more, whether we and jailed two nights before our interview. Before the cameras started know what that is—we may not. But I think we’re all searching for more rolling, we asked if he feared possible persecution for sharing his story on than just professional experience.” camera with American journalists. “Consciously, no, but unconsciously, Weekends provided opportunities for group excursions outside the a little bit, of course,” Borbon said. “I don’t think the future is ever going city limits to explore the country’s tropical diversity and rich culture.

A Lesson Abroad

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However, little prepares students for the experience of retracing the footsteps of slaves at two of the many remaining castles along Ghana’s coast. Our affable African guide led us through dark, dank cobblestone dungeons that are now shadowed by shame. Students who visit share a wide range of insights and emotions. Carson York, BS ’11, MS ’13, was deeply moved by his experience. “You can’t go through it, not just as a person of European descent, without feeling sort of overcome by guilt,” says the former Ducks offensive lineman, now a manager at Nike. “I feel guilty that someone within my lineage was probably involved in some way. More guilt as a person—that, for whatever reason, humanity was able to perpetrate something so horrendous with so little guilt or moral conflict.”

SRI LANKA AND BEYOND

Our classrooms are becoming laboratories, and our most rewarding experiments unfold in the field.

We will take a team of students to Sri Lanka during the first two weeks of the December 2016 winter break to document how a country comes together in the aftermath of civil war, tsunami destruction, and current This spring, I launched a smartphone-based video production course environmental threats to its rain forests. The UO’s Holden Center for called Media and Social Change, which is open to students across campus. Leadership and Community Engagement, known for its service-learning It teaches participants how to use their pocket devices to capture powerful alternative break trips, was our partner for the Cuba experience and will visual stories with meaningful themes. In fall 2017, our new Social Change be so again for our journey to Sri Lanka. in the Digital World Academic Residence Community will welcome its These experiences give students unique insights into the human first cohort of students, who will live and take some classes together. The condition and into the universality of diverse cultures, as well as an dormitory will be equipped with media production facilities and a screenadvantage when entering the job market. “I definitely think my trip ing room, allowing students to get an early start on their media careers. to Cuba gave me a competitive edge in my job search,” says Reuben These developments, taking journalism into a new era, are fitting as the Unrau, BA ’15, who graduated shortly after traveling with us to Cuba. SOJC celebrates its centennial anniversary this year. Albert Einstein once “Going abroad and interacting and interviewing people shows you said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.” Theory informs pracare open-minded and willing to step out of your comfort tice, and experience makes it real. Garrett Guinn, BA ’15, zone.” Unrau was recently hired as a production assistant and Sutton Raphael by WBEZ in Chicago, one of National Public Radio’s top Ed Madison, PhD ’12, is an assistant professor of multimedia (right), interview stations, on a show appropriately titled Worldview. journalism in the School of Journalism and Communication. Cuban boxers.

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Sutton Raphael shares photojournalism techniques with two Nepali children.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KYLE HENTSCHEL

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ROBOTS AMONG US BY BEN DEJARNETTE

A new book

by technology writer

John Markoff

looks at the rise of artificial

intelligence and ponders the ever-thinner line between humans and machines. ILLUSTRATION BY LINCOLN AGNEW

COME THE LATE-NIGHT HOURS IN CHINA,

millions of teenage boys across the country pull out their cell phones and spend a while—often a long while— exchanging messages with a friend named Xiaoice. Designed by Microsoft as an experiment in artificial intelligence, Xiaoice (pronounced Shao-ice) might conventionally be called an imaginary friend (she’s a chatbot with no physical form), except that her responses are remarkably real. When one of the app’s 20 million users texts her, Xiaoice scrapes the cybersphere looking for similar e-conversations between actual humans. It’s how she can respond with an update on the weather, sympathy over a breakup, or a clever pun. It’s also how idle companionship can inch toward something deeper. T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

“A quarter of Chinese users have typed ‘I love you’ to Xiaoice,” says John Markoff, MA ’75, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist for the New York Times and author of the new book Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground between Humans and Robots. “Because Xiaoice has seen almost every conversational loop before, it can respond to users in a relatively human way.” The story of Xiaoice, which Markoff explored in the Times last July, adds another layer to a modern dystopian vision—

advent of the personal computer to the growing threat of cyberwar. Glenn Kramon, who worked with Markoff as an editor at both the San Francisco Examiner and the New York Times, still remembers the phone call in 1992 when his star tech reporter pitched a story about something called the Internet. Met by Kramon’s puzzlement (“What’s an Internet?” he said), Markoff described a technology that would connect computer users globally, house information digitally, and retrieve data instantly. “It’s going to change your life,” Markoff promised his editor. “I’VE ALSO READ THE DEBATE ABOUT That prediction was one of many in Markoff’s ISOLATION OF ELDERS. THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE career that now seems prophetic. In 1993, when OVER 80 IN AMERICA WILL DOUBLE BY 2050, cell phones looked like bricks and Xiaoice was AND MANY OF THESE PEOPLE ARE LIVING APART still two decades away, Markoff wrote about a FROM THEIR NUCLEAR FAMILIES.” cutting-edge computer program that could hold coherent, if still somewhat limited, conversations with a human interviewer; in 1998, he told one in which the unraveling of human society doesn’t begin New York Times readers about the rise of automated airline reswith weaponized robots trying to kill us, but rather with ervation systems, detailing the advances of the same speech empathetic algorithms learning how to make us feel loved recognition technology that’s now standard on most mobile (think Her, the movie). devices; and in the early 2000s, Markoff pulled back the curSome glumly label this trajectory as “the death of conver- tain on Apple’s secretive development of a new product that sation” or “the smartphone apocalypse.” Others herald it as would blend the mobility of a cell phone with the power of a “innovation” and “progress.” But in a style that has made personal computer. Inside the company, Markoff learned, the him one of the most trusted science and technology writers new prototype was being called an “iPhone.” in America, Markoff offers a more balanced perspective. “He’s a visionary,” Kramon says of his long-time col“I watched as a generation of young men in America dis- league. “If you want an accurate depiction of what life will appeared into video games, and I’ve seen the research on be like in 10 years, read John Markoff.” the decline of face-to-face interaction. It’s a huge concern,” In his new book, Markoff turns his attention to the future Markoff says. “But I’ve also read the debate about isolation of robots, asking whether increasingly autonomous and of elders. The number of people over 80 in America will dou- intelligent machines will coexist with humans as slaves, ble by 2050, and many of these people are living apart from masters, or partners. The answer, he argues, isn’t located their nuclear families.” in the plot of a dystopian sci-fi thriller, but rather in Silicon Imagine, then, an intelligent machine, enclosed in the Valley’s labs and meeting rooms, where human designers body of a soft robotic pet, capable of carrying on a conver- are making conscious decisions either to enhance human sation with an otherwise lonely senior citizen. It wouldn’t capabilities—or replace them. be the same as true companionship, of course. But in These competing philosophical approaches—intelligence today’s rushed, fragmented world, it hasn’t been the same augmentation (think Apple’s personal assistant Siri or iRofor a long time. Would robots aggravate that trend, absolving our sense of familial duty and IN HIS NEW BOOK, MARKOFF TURNS HIS weakening the bonds that make us human? Or ATTENTION TO THE FUTURE OF ROBOTS, ASKING could robots soften the blow, providing lateWHETHER INCREASINGLY AUTONOMOUS AND life companionship that never wavers or turns INTELLIGENT MACHINES WILL COEXIST WITH grumpy? “This would horrify some people,” HUMANS AS SLAVES, MASTERS, OR PARTNERS. Markoff says. “I’m torn about it.” Charting the complicated, nuanced relationship between humans and technology has been a career-long pursuit for Markoff, who will deliver the bot’s “smart” vacuum cleaners) and artificial intelligence Centennial Johnston Lecture at the UO School of Journalism (known colloquially as “AI”)—provide the framework for and Communication’s “What Is Media?” conference in Markoff’s book, which skillfully details how today’s intelPortland on April 14. Since launching his journalism career ligent machines are informed by human values. There are at the Pacific News Service in 1977, Markoff has covered the moments when that narrative isn’t particularly comforting biggest tech stories in Silicon Valley and beyond, from the continued on page 48

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ROBOT RESEARCH LOVE AND ROMANCE IN THE AI AGE MARGARET RHEE, Women’s and Gender Studies

KINOLORBER.COM

uring Her, the 2013 film about a depressed writer who falls in love with his computer’s operating system, there’s a moment when the screen goes black and the main character, Theo, shares baited breath and erotic whispers with his OS lover. “A lot of my students said that was the most charged sex scene they’d ever watched, even though they couldn’t see anything,” says Margaret Rhee, a visiting assistant professor and author of the poetry collection Radio Heart; or, How Robots Fall Out of Love. “It speaks to imagination, and how technology changes our conceptions of intimacy and love.” Rhee’s fall term course explored representations of female robot characters in films and television shows. While “the fembot” is no newcomer to the silver screen (one of the earliest depictions came in the 1927 German film Metropolis), Rhee says the popular fascination has been reborn in recent movies like Her and Ex Machina, which grapple with increasingly practical questions about the qualities that distinguish humans from robots. “Artificial intelligence is so present in our lives,” she says. “A lot of what was once considered fantasy has become reality.” That’s especially true in the sphere of love and romance. As young adults swipe right on The robot Maria, from popular dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, Fritz Lang’s 1927 fillm Metropolis. searching for human connection by interacting with an algorithm, experiences that were once fundamentally human are now mediated by machines. “A cell phone might be the most intimate object in some people’s lives,” Rhee says. “That creates all kinds of questions around difference and desire.”

RADICAL RESTRUCTURING MARK THOMA, Economics

n theory, human workers in a capitalist economy are compensated according to their contribution to the final product. So what happens when robots can extract raw materials from the ground, transport them to a factory, manufacture them into consumer goods, and stock those goods onto shelves—all with very little oversight? “You’re going to have this hugely unequal distribution of income based on the ownership of robots,” says Mark Thoma, UO professor of economics. “And that can lead to huge social problems.” Those problems are already unfolding, Thoma says, as machines and artificial intelligence extend

their reach from manufacturing and clerical work to transportation and fast food, displacing both blueand white-collar labor in the process. Thoma predicts that “I CAN SEE THE OWNERS technology will eventually disSAYING, ‘WE’RE EITHER rupt almost every major sector GOING TO LOSE EVERYof the economy, leaving mass THING IN A REVOLT, unemployment in its stead. OR WE ARE GOING TO “Should those people just be HAVE TO MAKE SOME thrown out into the streets and COMPROMISES.’” told ‘too bad?’” Thoma says. “When people work hard their whole lives and then a machine takes them over, we as a society need to think about how they should be treated.” One solution, Thoma says, is to create a more robust public-sector economy to employ displaced workers. Another is to redistribute wealth through new social insurance policies, such as a guaranteed minimum income. These socialist reforms would face stiff political resistance, of course. But Thoma says there might be cause for optimism. “I can see the owners saying, ‘We’re either going to lose everything in a revolt, or we are going to have to make some compromises,’” he says. “Many of the Depression-era’s social insurance policies were brought about for the same reason. Bernie Sanders is a sign we’re moving there again.”

OUTWITTING SPAMMERS DANIEL LOWD, Computer and Information Science

omputer viruses, Trojan horses, and other forms of malware cost the US economy billions of dollars every year. Daniel Lowd, UO assistant professor of computer and information science, says there’s a “whole economy of criminals” carrying out these predatory schemes—and they’re forever getting smarter. Stopping the constant evolution of malware requires developing intelligent algorithms that use past data and trends to predict future adaptations, Lowd says. This field, known as “adversarial machine learning,” tries to stay one step ahead of the criminals by effectively forecasting their next move. Last year, Lowd received the Army Research Office’s Young Investigator Award for a proposal to develop an even smarter algorithm. The three-year, $360,000 award will fund research on how to weed out spammers by triangulating their social connections. The research could be applied to challenges like identifying networks of terrorists, Lowd says, but his team will start by targeting spammers on Yelp and YouTube. “If we can do that,” Lowd says, “it won’t be too hard to adapt and apply it to other settings. T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

(like when AI researcher Shane Legg matter-of-factly predicts years at the Pacific News Service. But by 1978, his career that technology will probably contribute to human extinc- was beginning to pivot. “I woke up one day and realized tion), but for the most part, Markoff delivers a message of tem- that there really wasn’t a movement left in the United States, pered optimism: the future of human-robot coexistence is still and I just hadn’t got the memo,” he says. “And my views on being decided, but it’s humans who hold the keys. things were changing. I still have a critical view of society, “John has a sense of history, and he’s committed to a kind but I’ve become less certain of the solutions.” of calm perspective,” says G. Pascal Zachary, a veteran sciIn the nearly four decades since, Markoff has embraced ence and technology writer who befriended Markoff while complexity in issues that don’t invite easy answers, such as working at a rival San Francisco newspaper in the 1980s. “He embodies the old-school journalGLENN KRAMON STILL REMEMBERS THE PHONE istic ethos of the neutral spectator.” CALL IN 1992 WHEN HIS STAR TECH In an ironic turn of events, Markoff’s penREPORTER PITCHED A STORY ABOUT SOMETHING chant for balance and neutrality emerged out of CALLED THE INTERNET. early years that were decidedly activist. Raised in Palo Alto during the height of 1960s counterculture, he attended Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, where he eventually became the editor how robots and artificial intelligence will affect the workforce. in chief for the student newspaper. “We were the trouble- It’s a question that has sparked increasing public concern. In makers,” Markoff says. “It was 2013, a study by the McKinsey Global Institute predicted that JOHN MARKOFF WILL APPLY HIS a fun kind of highly politicized by 2025, robots will produce an output equivalent to 40 to 75 PROPHETIC POWERS TO HIS OWN journalism.” million workers—the kind of alarmism that has sent books DISCIPLINE—JOURNALISM—IN He came to the University like Jeremy Rifkin’s The End of Work and Martin Ford’s Rise A FREE LECTURE AT THE UO’S GEORGE of Oregon to pursue a mas- of the Robots soaring to the top of bestseller lists. S. TURNBULL PORTLAND CENTER ter’s degree in sociology in Markoff acknowledges in his book that Keynesian logic— ON APRIL 14 AT 5:30 P.M. TITLED “THREE 1974, during a period of rad- which predicts that employment levels will hold steady in REPORTING CULTURES: DESIGNING ical Marxism and fierce anti- the long run even as technology replaces workers in the HUMANS IN AND OUT OF THE FUTURE war resistance on campus. He short run—might no longer apply in an economy where “AI OF JOURNALISM,” THE SCHOOL OF describes his politics then as systems can move, see, touch, and reason.” But he also says JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION’S democratic socialism—“the the future of labor can’t be understood through technology CENTENNIAL JOHNSTON LECTURE B e r n ie S a nd e r s w i ng of alone. Consider the Starbucks barista, for example. In a techWILL EXPLORE HOW TECHNOLOGY IS the Democratic Party,” he nology-driven economy, that job would have been replaced RESHAPING AN INDUSTRY IN FLUX. explains—an orientation that, years ago with machines that could whip up a frothing latte by the standards of 1970s just as skillfully as any minimum-wage college student— student activism, barely qualified him as a left-leaning and probably a good measure faster. Nevertheless, barismoderate. tas have survived in the modern economy. “A Starbucks It meant that, as many of his classmates were writing without baristas would probably be less popular,” he says. “You’d then have an automat, and for sociological reasons as much as technological ones, I “I WOKE UP ONE DAY AND REALIZED don’t think automats are about to take over the THAT THERE REALLY WASN’T A MOVEMENT restaurant or coffee business.” LEFT IN THE UNITED STATES, AND I JUST For Markoff, all this thinking about the HADN’T GOT THE MEMO.” future has also made him reflect on the past. Thirty-odd years ago, when he broke into the San Francisco Examiner, computers were cutfor the Insurgent Sociologist, Professor Al Szymanski’s left- ting-edge technology and tape recorders still used tape. “I was ist journal, Markoff was charting his own course of polit- part of the first generation of reporters who went to the gym ical resistance. With the Vietnam War finally grinding to after work instead of the bar,” he says. Indeed, at Markoff’s a halt, Markoff joined the progressive Pacific Northwest first job, phrases like “web analytics” and “search engine Research Center in Eugene, where his research supported optimization” were as good as gibberish. “And now I sit in the nationwide Stop the B-1 Bomber Campaign and other a newsroom surrounded by kids who wear headphones and efforts to weaken the military–industrial complex’s grip on write code,” he jokes. “That’s the arc of my career.” the US economy. Markoff also wrote political op-eds for the Oregon Daily Emerald and the Northwest Bulletin, sharpen- Ben DeJarnette, BA ’13, MA ’15, is a Portland-based freelance ing an edgy style of journalism that continued into his early journalist.

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50 Sugar Beets: Alive at 25 52 Research Geology in Action 54 Class Notes

Oregon OLD

64 Autzen: From Dream to Reality

Old School

The campus radio station KWVA broadcasts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, as it has since its launch in 1993. While its equipment, including the board shown here, has a timeless feel, its sound is totally 2016. Keep up to date on what students are into these days—both music and studentproduced news— streaming live at kwva.uoregon.edu.

PHOTOGRAPH BY NATALIE MIANO

T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

Old Oregon

ALUMNI

At the McDonald Theater, 2015. Facing page: Willamette Hall, 1996.

Sugar Beets: Alive at 25

A popular UO band from the ’90s is still rockin’ after all these years. n the fall of 1989, freshmen bass, drums, banjo, violin, mandolin, keyBY LEEANN DAKERS Marty Chilla and John boards, and occasionally sitar and sarod, Shenon were sitting on a bench outside the UO a stringed, lute-like instrument from India. And although dorms when Tanya Voxman (now Bunson), BA their musical roots are in bluegrass, country, and folk, they ’93, BA ’98, walked by carrying a violin case. also play Motown, pop, Hindi rock, and even disco. “Hey, why don’t you open up that case and “Pageantry has been a piece of the Sugar Beets thing since play?” Chilla remembers one of them hollering. the beginning,” says vocalist Megan Bassett, BA ’92. The Voxman was on her way back from orches- band started out doing themed shows, like Hat Fest, but that tra practice at the time, and had never con- grew into appearances by belly dancers, a marching band, sidered playing anything but classical music, or their mascot, a green alligator in a red tutu, being carried Chilla says. But they convinced her to jam with them, and in on a sedan chair. the very next weekend the trio went down to the sidewalks In their first year, the band grew from the founding three of the Eugene Celebration to play their first gig. to seven members. Scott Herron, a banjo player they met Shenon and Chilla had been playing as the John and at the Eugene Celebration that first day, keyboardist and Marty Experience, but when they added Voxman to their guitarist Scotty Perey, BMus ’94, bassist Matt Keenan, BS group, they needed a new name. “Sugar Beets was the name ’92, and Bassett, Keenan’s girlfriend (and eventually wife)— that sounded the least ridiculous,” Chilla says. Shenon wrote all UO students—rounded out the original seven. All but the name on a cardboard sign, propped it up in an opened Herron are still involved with the band. guitar case, and a band was born. Guitar, mandolin, and sitar player Jeremy Wegner, MS More than 25 years later, the Sugar Beets are a Eugene ’90, saw the Sugar Beets perform at the Fishbowl and institution. The eight-piece band plays mostly original made his first appearance with the band in 1992 at their music. Their songs feature an eclectic mix of vocals, guitars, second anniversary show in the EMU Fir Room. Brianna

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PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF THE SUGAR BEETS

Get Your Duck On! The UO Alumni Association is sponsoring these regional events this spring. For detailed information, visit: uoalumni.com/events e-mail: alumni@uoregon.edu call: 800-245-ALUM March 2 ART TALKS Eugene Bassett, BA ’00, joined her sister, Megan, on vocals when she came to the UO in 1995. When Voxman got married and moved away, David Burham, a UO student in the ’80s and an accomplished violinist with the Eugene Symphony, took over on the fiddle. In the early days, the Sugar Beets performed at coffee shops, in the EMU Fishbowl, and outdoors—on campus sidewalks and at festivals such as the Willamette Valley Folk Festival, put on by the UO Cultural Forum every spring. “It was a great time to be here in town,” Wegner says. “There was a real musical renaissance happening.” By 2001, the band was touring throughout the West. “There was a period between 2000 and 2003 when we were playing up to 80 shows a year and trying to get bigger and bigger,” Chilla says. But they eventually burned out on that, plus Bassett and Keenan’s first child was born in 2002. “So that made touring a lot less possible,” Bassett says. “Living in a van was losing its appeal as well,” Chilla adds. Eventually Brianna Bassett moved on. Now Halie Loren (Smith), BA ’07, an internationally known singer and songwriter, shares the lead vocal position. Brian West, BMus ’92, a former drummer with the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, joined in 2007. Some band members have maintained strong connections to the UO. Wegner has worked as a genetics and molecular biology researcher at the university for 25 years. Keenan, a civil engineer who works for KPFF Consulting Engineers, has worked with the UO on construction projects that include the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex and PK Park. And West, the drummer, worked for many years as the musical director for Dance Africa, a UO dance company. Although he’s

March 15 DUCK BIZ LUNCH AND SAFECO FIELD TOUR Seattle

I think that it would be a difficult day if this band ever decided to call it quits. It would be like running away from home.

March 16 PDX DUCKS HAPPY HOUR Portland March 25 NETWORKING SPRING BREAK DUCK BIZ LUNCH Bellevue, WA

stepped down from that role, he’s still involved at the UO with recitals, lecture and demonstration classes, and youth music camps. To celebrate their 25th anniversary last fall, the band played three shows, including one at Eugene’s McDonald Theatre. “It wasn’t a reunion show,” Chilla says. “It wasn’t a finale. We’re still writing music and playing songs.” They also put out a new album, Live and 25!, a compilation of their live performances over the last five years. There’s something about performing with this band that’s unlike anything else, says Loren. “I have so many musical hats that I wear, but this is just pure unadulterated fun,” she says. “You can’t have a bad day and either perform in a Sugar Beets concert or listen to a Sugar Beets concert.” But it’s more than just fun that has kept the Sugar Beets together all these years, West believes. “The band has probably hung together because of one word—family,” he says. “I think that it would be a difficult day if this band ever decided to call it quits. It would be like running away from home.”

March 26 CELEBRATE OREGON Seattle March 31 DUCK BIZ LUNCH Denver April 16 WINE TASTING Denver April 21 TAKEOVER OF PAC-12 STUDIOS San Francisco April 30 TASTE OF OREGON San Diego May 13 DUCK BIZ LUNCH AND GOLF Denver May 19 CONVERSATIONS WITH DR. POOP Pendleton

LeeAnn Dakers, BS ’96, is a freelance writer in Eugene. T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

Old Oregon

ALUMNI

Research Geology in Action Circe Verba wants kids to to love science as much as she does. She hopes Legos can help.

irce Verba, PhD ’13, is pasBY ANN sionate—really passionate—about science. Her voice becomes animated and her excitement is contagious as she talks about her work as a research geologist at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Albany, Oregon, where she studies the interactions between engineered media—materials like cement—and natural geological systems. That enthusiasm continues as the topic turns to encouraging and supporting kids, especially girls, who are interested in science. And don’t even get her started on Legos. But more on that in a moment. Verba currently works on four major research projects at the NETL, one of 17 United States Department of Energy labs across the country. The projects concern safety and efficiency related to fossil energy sources, such as examining

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SPRING 2016

methods of extracting rare earth elements (used in the production of cell phones, among many other things) from coal byproducts, and the geochemical processes that occur when cement—a surprisingly complex engineered medium—is used in wellbores, the holes drilled to extract resources, such as natural gas or oil, from a mile or more underground. This research represents a logical progression from her doctoral work at the UO, where she studied under professor of geological sciences Mark Reed. She earned her PhD in just three years while holding a full-time internship at NETL, which supported her education through Career Pathways, a National Nuclear Security Administration program designed to help women and minorities pursue higher education and careers in science. Previously, she spent two years as an image analyst at NASA, working with HiRISE (HighResolution Imaging Science Experiment), a large-aperture camera that is on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. “I went from looking at something from a large scale, where it’s on another planet, to a microscale, using a scanning electron

WIENS

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF NETL

Facing page: Circe Verba operates the electron scanning microscope (SEM) at the National Energy Technology Laboratory. Left: Verba, her lab, and the SEM as rendered in Legos.

microscope to look at the structure you can’t see with the naked eye,” she says. Whether the scale is macro or micro, an intense curiosity is the common thread throughout Verba’s work—and life. “I have a fascination with learning how something works,” she says. “It’s that fascination that has always pushed me.” She decided she wanted to be a scientist— an astrophysicist, specifically—at 14, inspired by a teacher “who was just so excited and passionate about the planets,” she says. “It was exciting to know there was something much bigger than us here on Earth, and to wonder what more there is out there that we don’t know.” Verba grew up in Pendleton, Oregon, a town of about 17,000 that is best known for its annual rodeo and namesake woolen mill. There weren’t many opportunities there for kids to get involved in science, but in high school, she participated in Oregon State University’s Science and Math Investigative Learning Experiences program (SMILE), which provides precollege learning opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. That paved the way for her to earn a BS in geology and earth science from OSU, studying a mixture of astronomy, geology, and atmospheric sciences. “That was my dream for a really long time.” Verba was the first in her family to attend college, and encouraging kids to go into science, helping them understand the breadth of geology as a discipline, is a passion for her. “I really love going to the high schools,” says “Dr. Verba,” as she’s known to the kids around Albany. “I’m excited when I see somebody have a spark of interest in science.” Which brings us back to Legos. “We didn’t have a lot growing up when I was a kid,” she

says, “but my mom used to go to garage sales all the time, so I had this big, red bucket of Legos.” She’s still an enthusiast. A year or so ago, she took “a bunch of random Legos” and built a geological field site with rock layers, crystals, and a little blond Lego minifigure representing herself. Then she added the lab, including what is likely the world’s first Lego scanning electron microscope, a research partner, and a lab dog.

I’m excited when I see somebody have a spark of interest in science.

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At the urging of friends, she dubbed the set Research Geology in Action! and submitted it to Lego Ideas, a website where fans of the tiny plastic bricks propose projects for public voting. If an idea gets 10,000 votes, the company will consider manufacturing it. Verba’s set, as featured on the site, “shows research geologists discovering minerals in a limestone rock formation and the characterization of the minerals in the laboratory.” She’s hoping it might help more kids envision themselves working in such a place. “We’ll see where it goes,” she says. “I want to find avenues to show little girls that they can do anything that they want to.”

LTD.org/Air

Want to see—or support—Research Geology in Action! as interpreted in Legos? Visit ideas.lego. com/projects/93813. T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

Old Oregon

CLASS NOTES

Class Notes 1930s

INDICATES UOAA MEMBER

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Force veteran OTIS

taking time away from her

DAVIS, BS ’60, received

hoverboard production

the UO’s Distinguished

company to nurse him

Alumni award, for both

back to health.

his athletic and philan-

NORMA LOBAUGH,

thropic achievements.

BA ’31, celebrated her

celebrated his 80th birth-

107th birthday on October

JOE M. FISCHER,

day with a major exhibi-

29 at the Golden Empire

BS ’60, MFA ’63, recently

tion of more than 100 of his

Nursing and Rehab Center

completed paintings of

drawings and paintings

in Grass Valley, California.

two primates with ties to

in a downtown Silverton,

Chimps Inc., a rescue pro-

Oregon, storefront during

gram in Bend: Snowflake

June and July.

1940s

(an albino gorilla, now

WANDA BURCH GOINES,

deceased) and Thiele (a

LELAND JOHN, BA ’63,

28-year-old chimp).

will exhibit his paintings

BA ’43, stirred hearts and

at the In Bocca al Lupo

made headlines after she

An early member of UO’s

Fine Art Gallery in Ore-

starred in a viral YouTube

creative writing program,

gon City this April.

video, in which she recites

BARBARA DRAKE , BA

a self-authored poem about

’61, MFA ’66, published a

After six years on the

inner beauty titled “The

collection of essays, Morn-

alumni board of the Grad-

Giftwrap and the Jewel.”

ing Light: Wildflowers, Night

uate School of Journalism

Skies, and Other Ordinary

at Columbia University,

Joys of Oregon Country Life

MARGARET MCBRIDE

(Oregon State University

LEHRMAN, BA ’66, was

Press, 2014).

asked to represent the

1950s The Oregon Grand

university on the Alumni

Master of Masons

ERNEST AEBI, BS ’62,

Trustee Nominating Com-

bestowed a 60-year medal

MD ’64, was delighted

mittee, where she will help

on BILL RUSSELL, BA

to hear that his brilliant

select future trustees.

’56, acknowledging his

10-year-old grandson had

enduring commitment to

gotten a geography ques-

RON WIGGINTON,

the fraternity, which began

tion wrong—when asked to

MFA ’68, exhibited eight

during his college years, at

name the capitol of Texas,

artworks at the Fresno

the McKenzie River Lodge

he responded “Autzen.”

Art Museum, all of which

in Eugene. He served in the

Medal of Freedom he late Minoru “Min” Yasui, a UO-educated attorney and tireless civil rights advocate, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last November. Yasui spent his life petitioning for the redress of restrictions imposed on Japanese Americans during World War II. He challenged the constitutionality of a military curfew order, spending nine months in solitary confinement as the case went through the courts. At the time of his death in 1986, a trial court had vacated his conviction and his challenge of the law’s constitutionality was before the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals. Yasui earned both an undergraduate degree and his law degree from the UO, becoming one of the first Japanese Americans to graduate from the school. A documentary, Never Give Up! Minoru Yasui and the Fight for Justice, narrated by the actor George Takei, is in production: minoruyasuifilm.org.

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JAMES SHULL , MFA ’63,

were completed while he

Air Force until 1977, when

ALABY BLIVET, BS ’63,

was an artist-in-residence

he retired as a major.

was hit by a PedalPub

at the Morris Graves

Mobile while crossing the

Studio in California.

1960s

street and reading about himself in the latest OQ.

JOAN C. GRATZ, BArch

At press time, his

’69—who was mistakenly

Two-time Olympic gold

dutiful granddaughter,

absent from our previ-

medal winner and Air

KIMBERLY, BA ’09, was

ously published article

F L A S H BAC K

2006

The UO chapter of College Republicans celebrates “Second Amendment Day” with a trip to a shooting range in Springfield. “We had a blast, pardon the pun,” quips the group’s chairman. He notes happily that the shooting group included both women and men. UO LIBRARIES—SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

F L A S H BAC K

1986

To mark the centennial of Villard Hall, a time capsule representing 1986 has been added to the cornerstone of the landmark building. Items preserved for posterity include: essays by local schoolchildren forecasting life in 2086, fused sand from the first atomic test blast, Neil and Norma 1986 Oregon gubernatorial campaign buttons, a floppy disk of computer games, videotapes depicting life on campus and in Eugene, and large vials of water and fresh air. “Hollywood Ducks”—was

arts, social studies, and

an accomplished film-

leadership. Last year she

maker who received an

published ABC of Middle

Academy Award nom-

Level Activities (CreateSpace,

ination for her 1981 ani-

2015), a compilation of activ-

mated short The Creation,

ity programs based on more

and later won Best Ani-

than a decade of columns

mated Short Film in 1993

that she wrote for the Lead-

for Mona Lisa Descending a

ership for Student Activities

Staircase.

magazine.

1970s

DUCKS AFIELD

Signs point to Poland

JERRY GABAY, JD ’75, paid a visit to Arctowski—the Polish antarctic research station in the South Shetland Islands off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The sign he is posing with displays the distance to various Polish cities but, strangely, not to Eugene. We love to track Duck migrations! Send us your favorite photos of yourself, classmates, family, and friends showing your Duck pride around the world. Attach high resolution JPEG or TIFF files to an email and send to quarterly@uoregon.edu, or submit them online at OregonQuarterly.com.

Former assistant professor

chapter of Random Acts of

Exemplifying his biting,

of Utah and University of

MBA ’92, joined Cali-

and director of the Wid-

Flowers, an organization

satirical style is his latest

Portland, respectively. He

fornia-based computer

owed and Family Grief

that recycles bouquets to

creation, a comic series

and his wife Lori are bat-

hardware company Ora-

After 25 years in the

Counselor Program at the

surprise hospital patients.

titled Bumf.

tling empty-nest syndrome

cle Corp., on the board of

nonprofit world, MARC

Center for Gerontology,

while test-driving the

technology services.

LEVY, BS ’70, will head up

DELPHA JEANNE CAMP,

Questa Education Foun-

MS ’77, retired after 33

dation in Fort Wayne,

years in the education and

1980s

Indiana. The foundation’s

counseling field.

goals are to increase access

JOYCE REYNOLDS-

condo lifestyle.

WARD, BS ’81, published

Brigadier General TAMMY

two books this winter;

Elementary school math

SMITH, BS ’86, will

JESSE W. BARTON,

Netwalk’s Children (Peak

and science teacher JOHN

assume command of the

BA ’80, published his arti-

Amygdala, 2015), a third

A. HELDT, BS ’85, moon-

98th Training Division, a

to postsecondary educa-

FRANK E. ADEN JR.,

cle “Home Free: Combat-

installment of her cyber-

lights as an author; he has

Reserve unit at Fort Ben-

tion and help students

BS ’77, published a new

ting Veteran Prosecution

punk series, and the first

published his seventh

ning in Georgia. She will

complete degrees with

book titled Boise (Arca-

and Incarceration” in the

volume of a high fantasy

novel, titled Mercer Street

be taking over for Briga-

reduced debt and become

dia Publishing, 2015) that

fall 2014 edition of Justice

series, Pledges of Honor

(2015), the second in the

dier General Michaelene

contributing members of

chronicles the Idaho

Policy Journal.

(CreateSpace, 2016).

American Journey Series.

Kloster, the first female

the 21st-century economy.

city’s rise.

He lives with his wife

general at Fort Benning.

JOE SACCO, BA ’81, has

A loyal Duck, CHRISTO-

CHERYL HELDT, BA ’86,

The subject of a previous

in Alabama.

OQ feature, Smith is cele-

SUE AHO DOWTY,

Nonprofit executive

spent his career working

PHER GAY, BS ’82, could

BS ’74, retired in 2014 after

JOANIE BAYHACK, BA

in a combined medium

not convert his son John

40 years of teaching middle

’78, was named executive

of investigative journal-

or daughter Alison, who

Former Intel President

gay general in the US

school students language

director of the Chicago

ism and graphic novels.

attended the University

RENÉE JAMES, BA ’86,

Army.

brated as the first openly

T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

Old Oregon

CLASS NOTES

MARIANNE SZLYK,

communications at the

MA ’89, published her

media company Condé

second book of poetry, I

Nast. Previously, she

Dream of Empathy (Flutter

spent 20 years at NBC

Press, 2015). A professor

Universal.

at Montgomery College, she lives with her husband

Former chief of the crimi-

in Washington, DC.

nal division at the Seattle

1990s

Attorney’s Office CRAIG SIMS, BA ’94, has joined

the law firm Bergman Draper Landenburg,

KENDRA CAUDLE ,

where he will represent

BA ’90, published her

families affected by can-

eighth suspense novel

cer caused by asbestos

Known (Montlake, 2006)

inhalation.

under the penname Kendra Elliot. She has sold two

MATT CASHION, MFA

million books since her

’96, won the 2015 Katherine

debut novel in 2012.

Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction for his story “Last

CAMERON

Words of the Holy Ghost,”

BLANCHARD, BA ’91,

published by University of

recently became executive

North Texas Press.

vice president of corporate

continued on page 58

DUCKS AFIELD Ducking for Joy

LILLE YOUNGBAUER, age 13, shared a laugh with the Oregon Duck during a UO softball game. Thanks to her grandmother, GLORIA YOUNGBAUER, for the photo.

Will Power

“Thank you!” Elizabeth Lytle, BA ’14, MEd ’15 Wilbur M. Watters Education Scholar Walker Educator Diversity Scholar

Is the UO in your Will? giftplan.uoregon.edu

More than a dozen scholarships, all funded by gifts, helped Elizabeth Lytle achieve her dream of becoming a high school English teacher. Find out how including the UO in your estate plans can help students like Elizabeth transform their lives.

O R E G O N Q U A R T E R LY

SPRING 2016

DUCKS AFIELD

Cold Enought for Ya?

RICHARD MIRON, BA ’00, shown at work in the Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska. On this particular day, the temperature was 77 degrees below zero.

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Old Oregon

CLASS NOTES

F L A S H BAC K

1956

The great American poet Robert Frost makes a threeday visit to campus, meeting with students in an informal coffee hour, touring a sawmill in Springfield, and presenting a public lecture before a packed ballroom in the Erb Memorial Union. The Spring 1956 issue of Old Oregon records several quips from the bard, including, “Saying a poem in the morning is like having a drink for breakfast.” Cheers!

Liebman. He regularly rep-

’09, are cocreators of the

resents management and

five-installment horror

owners in employment law

series Hunt for Oregon’s

matters across all indus-

Door to the Dead, in which

tries, with a focus on hos-

two documentary film-

pitality and engineering

makers investigate the

clients. He also serves on

sinister origins of a dis-

the Multnomah Bar Associ-

turbing VHS tape. The

ation’s CLE committee.

series premiered Halloween weekend at the

KIMBERLY BLIVET,

Hollywood Theater in Portland.

A former MySpace exec-

library sciences from Lou-

for the 2016 edition of Best

She will be honored at the

BA ’09, is on leave from her

utive, MICHAEL JONES,

isiana State University and

Lawyers in America. He

Fashion Accessories Bene-

hoverboard production

BS ’97, founded startup

a certificate of paralegal

works at Brandi Law Firm

fit Ball in May.

company due to technical

ALISON ALTSTATT,

studio Science Inc. four

studies from Duke Uni-

and lives in San Francisco

difficulties. She is caring

PhD ’11, is the group vocal-

years ago, which helped

versity. She was recently

with his wife.

JOHN J. CHRISTIAN-

for her elderly grandfa-

ist and bass player of Burn-

launch Wishbone, a new

hired as assistant law

SON, JD ’06, was named

ther ALABY BLIVET, BS

ing Palace, a four-piece

poll-based social network-

librarian for the Washing-

A buyer for Kroger Co. and

a shareholder of Gevurtz

’63, who was injured in a

art rock group operating

ing app that targets teens

ton State Supreme Court.

Fred Meyer Inc., JEANIE

Menashe, a family law and

PedalPub mobile accident.

out of Cedar Falls, Iowa.

NGUYEN, BA ’06, was

estate planning firm based

inducted into the Accesso-

in Portland.

with the simple boast,

LAURA EDMONSTON,

2000s

BA ’98, went on to receive a master’s degree in

“compare anything.”

O R E G O N Q U A R T E R LY

Through a trial-and-error

Hall of Fame in recogni-

SEAN RAY, JD ’07, made

2010s

Best Lawyers selected

tion of her retailing exper-

partner at the Portland-

JOSH MCHALE , BS ’09,

land more live gigs in the

BRIAN MALLOY, BA ’01,

tise and business acumen.

based law firm Barran

and JOHN ROSMAN , BA

future.

SPRING 2016

ries Magazine Merchants

process of recording, the band has finally released their first EP in an effort to

IN MEMORIAM

HOLLY WILLIAMS,

BAER , MBA ’14, created

BS ’13, was promoted to

Apply101, a free college

aviation planner within the

application management

KATE ROGERS

Portland Aviation division

tool that allows students,

MCCARTY, MA ’42, died

of WHPacific, the larg-

parents, and counselors

on November 3 at age 98

est engineering company

to keep track of every

in Parkdale, Oregon. She

entirely owned by Native

step of the process in one

was passionate about pro-

Americans.

place.

tecting the land she had grown up on, and devoted

NATALIE MILLER ,

her life to conservation

MBA ’14, and STEVE

continued on page 60

Serving as trusted advisers to UO Alumni and families for nearly 50 years.

541-762-0300 www.sapientpwm.com

101 E Broadway, Suite 480 Eugene, OR 97401

C L A S S N OTA B LE

Making Waves in Seismology

BRANDON SCHMANDT, PhD ’11, has earned the Donath Medal (for outstanding achievement by a scientist age 35 or younger) from the Geological Society of America (GSA). Schmandt is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. “I am honored to receive an award from GSA because the main motivation for my research in seismology is to address geologic problems,” he says. Schmandt received the award at the 2015 GSA Annual Meeting and Exposition in Baltimore, Maryland. In accepting the award, he thanked his UO mentor, GENE HUMPHREYS, and the Ducks with whom he shared an office: LELAND O’DRISCOLL, PhD ’12, HAIYING GAO, PhD ’11, and MAX BEZADA (a former postdoctoral researcher at UO). T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

Old Oregon

CLASS NOTES

F L A S H BAC K

1996 No tests, no grades— just learning for the joy of it! Explore, discover, and share with others who know that learning has no age limit. At the University of Oregon

ENJOY THE do-nothing -all-day SEASON

Oregon Quarterly looks back at George Streisinger’s groundbreaking zebrafish research during the 1970s and describes how the UO has come to lead the world in an increasingly important area of genetics research. Scientists trained at the Institute of Molecular Biology have gone on to start zebrafish labs around the world. advocacy. She founded

independently, making

was an active commu-

the Hood River Valley

major oil and gas discov-

nity member, and loved

Residents Committee

eries in the US and Papua

to spend time paint-

and Friends of Mount

New Guinea. A great

ing landscapes of his

Hood, helped charter

believer in hard work and

surroundings.

1000 Friends of Oregon,

high ethical standards,

and was an active mem-

he is remembered for his

MITCHELL P. SCOTT,

ber of countless other

great generosity.

class of ’64, died on Octo-

organizations.

ber 22 in Charbonneau, ALBERT MARTIN, BA ’53,

Oregon. During school he

BILLY “GENE” NOLAND,

died at age 83 on October

was an Alpha Tau Omega

BS ’49, MS ’51, died on

15 in Portland, Oregon.

brother and a sports writer

August 28 at the age of

A member of Beta Theta

for the Daily Emerald.

91. He served in the Air

Pi, he was coached by Bill

He enjoyed a successful

Force as a B-24 pilot and

Bowerman and lettered in

career in marketing, and

then married his wife Jean

track and field. He served

was eventually elected

before attending the UO.

in the Navy and later

first national officer of the

He spent 34 years teach-

worked as a sports editor

American Advertising

ing in Oregon schools, and

for several years before

Federation.

after retirement devoted

becoming a financial advi-

much of his time to

sor. He loved life, golfing,

THOMAS W. MARTIN,

creating art.

and spending time with

PhD ’66, died on June 15

his family.

at age 81 in Lafayette, Col-

ALEXANDER BRUCE

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O R E G O N Q U A R T E R LY

SPRING 2016

orado. He served with

CLEARY, BBA ’50, died on

GAIL (WEST) MCLAREN,

the Air Force in Korea,

May 22 at the age of 89 in

BS ’56, died on November

and worked as a sociol-

Bay Pines, Florida. A dec-

26 at the age of 81. She met

ogy professor at Temple

orated colonel, he served

her husband Richard at a

University, Southern

in World War II, Korea,

university dance, and they

Illinois, and Colorado

the Philippines, and Viet-

married one year after her

State. Fondly termed a

nam over the course of 28

graduation. She is remem-

“renaissance man,” his

years. A beloved father

bered as a loving mother,

intellectual curiosity was

and grandfather, he was

wife, and philanthropist.

boundless.

Arlington National Ceme-

ROBERT ALLEN KEAR,

MARK JEROME

tery in Washington, DC.

MArch ’59, died on

MALINAUSKAS, PhD

January 3 at age 80 in

’70, died on December

ROBERT ALVIN DOAK

Doylestown, Pennsylva-

8 at age 76 in Murray,

JR., BS ’52, MS ’53, died

nia. A well-known local

Kentucky. He taught in

on May 16 at age 87. He

architect and painter, he

England, worked as an

began his career as a

also worked nationally

entertainment direc-

petroleum geologist for

on building projects for

tor for the Third Army,

Texaco. He later worked

Xerox and Monsanto. He

and served as director of

interred with honors at

theater at Murray State

ROSAMUND “ROBIN”

age of 45 in Dallas, Texas.

University for 15 years. He

JAQUA , MEd ’71, PhD ’75,

At age 14, she became

was a distinguished pro-

died November 9 at age

the first Malaysian to be

fessor at MSU, received

94. Well known for her

accepted to the prestigious

the Suzanne M. Davis

work as a Jungian pyscho-

Yehudi Menuhin School of

Memorial Service Award,

analyst, she was also a

Music in Surrey, England,

and wrote several theater

high profile philanthro-

where she majored in

studies textbooks.

pist in the Eugene area,

piano performance. A

supporting family welfare

celebrated musician, she

EDWIN C. CADMAN ,

programs, environmental

performed throughout

MD ’71, died on Septem-

protection, and the arts.

England, Wales, Malaysia,

ber 23 at age 70 in Corval-

She and her late husband

and the US.

lis, Oregon. He served as

JOHN JAQUA , BS ’49,

chair of the Yale School

BL ’50, were also leading

ANGELA UYS, BS ’14,

of Medicine’s Depart-

supporters of the UO. The

died in November at age

ment of Internal Medi-

law library, an academic

26 while rock climbing at

cine for almost 10 years,

center for student athletes,

Yosemite National Park.

and ended his career as

and a library for Jungian

A South African native,

dean of the University of

studies in the College of

she is remembered as a

Hawaii’s School of

Education all bear the

bright student, a great

Medicine. In addition to

Jaqua name.

friend, and happiest

earning numerous

when in nature. She had

awards for his research

PAULINE KUNG

planned to attend medical

and teaching, he was a

BJOREM, DMA ’05, died

school.

competitive runner.

on November 15 at the

continued on page 62

F L A S H BAC K

1966

The art museum is offering more than 400 paintings by 100 different artists for rent by businesspeople, doctors, faculty, and even students. The supervisor of the operation says many students are particularly drawn to abstract paintings, “mainly because of the wild color combinations. Some paintings just can’t miss. They go with everything.”

Join Us at the Pioneer Awards! The University of Oregon Pioneer Award recognizes individuals who have been willing to lead rather than follow, take risks rather than see opportunities pass. Inaugurated in 1979, the Pioneer Award has been presented to individuals who lead their communities and states in business, philanthropy, communication, politics, and the arts. A few select individuals in our society embody the vision to recognize a new path ahead and the pioneering spirit, courage, and perseverance to follow that path. The dedication of these individuals is contagious, as it must be. It is not enough to simply have vision; others must be convinced if society is to move forward. Proceeds benefit the Presidential Scholarship Endowment at the University of Oregon, enabling the state’s brightest students to excel in their pursuit of higher education.

Thursday, May 19, 2016 The Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Avenue For more information call 541.346.2113 giving.uoregon.edu/pioneeraward T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

Old Oregon

CLASS NOTES

F L A S H BAC K

1976

DUCKS AFIELD

Who Has Two Thumbs?

It’s all blue skies and lapping waves at the Hilton Bora Bora. We agree with BRUCE BERG, BS ’75—thumbs up!

check off your adventure list

An article in Old Oregon recounts campus shenanigans from the first two decades of the 20th century. One memorable tradition involved heating an iron cannonball in a furnace, and then rolling it noisily down the stairs from the top floor of Friendly Hall. At the bottom floor, an indignant, night-shirted instructor who lived in the building grabbed the hot metal ball, “then a sharp yell and a final thud put a period to the night’s symphony, and filled some miscreant with silent glee.”

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O R E G O N Q U A R T E R LY

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IN THE HEART OF DOWNTOWN PORTLAND

DUCKS AFIELD

Duck Meets Penguins

SAM MILLER, MEd ’75, PhD ’84, took a break during a kayaking trip in Antarctica to show a little school spirit. He tells us those are gentoo penguins in the background.

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FACULTY AND STAFF IN MEMORIAM Professor Emerita of

and raised in a tight-knit

geography SUSAN

Orthodox community in

HARDWICK died on

New York, he graduated

November 11 at age 70. She

from Columbia University

received her PhD from the

and later worked at Ore-

University of California,

gon State University before

Davis, and became a UO

settling at the UO. He was

professor in 2000. The

a two-time winner of the

recipient of many awards,

Oregon Book Award, in

including the George J.

1999 and 2008.

www.EugeneAleTrail.org

Miller Award for Distinguished Service and the

A former director of ani-

Outstanding Professor

mal care at the University

Award for the entire Cal-

of Oregon Medical School,

ifornia State University

now known as OHSU,

System, she was also a

ALLAN LESLIE ROGERS

well-published scholar

died in October at age 93

and a leading member of

in Wilsonville, Oregon.

multiple professional orga-

He received a degree in

nizations in the field of

animal husbandry from

geography.

the University of Connecticut, where he met

An accomplished author

his wife Dorothy. They

and beloved writing

spent many years raising

teacher, EHUD HAVA-

dairy goats, thoroughbred

ZELET died on November

horses, and perennial

5 at age 60 in Corvallis,

plants, in addition to their

Oregon. Born in Jerusalem

five children.

Don’t duck out on us now. Wherever you are, whatever amazing things you’re doing, we want to hear about it. Submit class notes to Quarterly@uoregon.edu or by mail to: Oregon Quarterly 5228 University of Oregon Eugene, OR 97403-5228

Place your ad here for Summer: OregonQuarterly.com/advertising T H E M AG A Z I N E O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F O R E G O N

Old Oregon

DUCK TALE

Autzen: From Dream to Reality

Marshall O. Bessonette, a contractor and avid Ducks fan, helped design Autzen Stadium and suggested some of its most distinctive features. His daughter offers this remembrance.

n 1953, the Oregon State Beavers hammer, showing that the roof could be suspended BY NANCY BESSONETTE debuted a new football facility, with literally no anchor. He’d then laugh and say, “Of Parker Stadium, and just a few years later, in 1956, the course, no engineer would approve of the ‘no anchor’ idea.” At one point he Beavs reached the Rose Bowl. The Ducks were still play- also advocated for putting parking spots on the bowl so that donors could ing their home football games either at Hayward Field watch the game from their cars. This was discarded as impractical, but or at Multnomah Stadium in Portland, a commute not Dad would remain a faithful tailgater throughout his years. enjoyed by Coach Casanova. This led to talk of a new staAfter lots of research, reviewing, arguing, and figuring, Dad drew dium for the UO. Trips to the 1960 Liberty Bowl and the some blueprints, and along with my brother, Lynn, built a large tabletop 1963 Sun Bowl gave “Cas” the bankroll to start planning model of their ideas for the stadium. I wondered why Dad could not be in earnest. the contractor as he had on other buildings. He would say, “Because I My dad, Marshall O. Bessonette, was both a contractor and an avid have no degree in architecture or engineering.” Ducks fan, and he volunteered to conduct research on the new stadium The model and the ideas for the stadium, along with ideas for financat his own expense. He and his good friend Leo Harris (then UO athletics ing, were formally presented at a University of Oregon program attended director) began traveling across the country to visit college stadiums. A by many dignitaries. Later, “Cas” Casanova and Leo Harris would travel couple of times I heard my father interviewed in the press box of some the state trying to raise funds from donors using Marshall’s model as an distant stadium, as they watched games and took notes and photos. important prop to demonstrate their ideas. No matter where he was traveling, Marshall always took note of the The stadium, designed by Portland architectural firm Skidmore, design and construction of buildings. I remember him visiting me (now Owings & Merrill, opened on September 23, 1967. grown and with a family of my own) in Salt Lake City in the mid ’60s. Dad kept his seats on the 50-yard line even after his beloved wife, Joy, Dad visited a construction site for a theater-in-the-round, where a large passed away, attending games until he couldn’t climb the steps to his earthen bowl had been constructed with the intent of placing a stage at seat. He passed in 1993. the bottom and covering it with a roof. This, as I recall, prompted his idea for the bowl shape that became Autzen Stadium. Nancy Bessonette worked in the insurance business in Eugene for many years. Dad also designed a cantilevered roof for covering the reserved seatDuring that time, she volunteered in the UO ticket office and officiated at ing section, offering demonstrations with a hinged wooden ruler and a various track meets on campus. She is, of course, a lifelong Ducks fan.

O R E G O N Q U A R T E R LY

SPRING 2016

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