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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2013 • OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY CORVALLIS, OREGON 97331
DAILYBAROMETER.COM
Championship round of Who is the Face of OSU?
VOLUME CXVI, NUMBER 149
Student playwrights present works n
The Spring One-Act Festival to take place at Withycombe Hall Main Stage this week, starting Wednesday By Kyle Reed
The Daily Barometer
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Alex Johnston plays the role of Cerberus in the one-act titled, “Those Who Really Go to the Crossroads,” written by Megan Grassl and directed by Abbey Pasquini.
Walking from the dressing room, actor Alex Ries prepared to showcase at Tuesday night’s rehearsal the many weeks of labor that were put into his play. The Spring One-Act Festival will take place from June 5-8 at 7:30 p.m. and on June 9 at 2 p.m. on the Withycombe Main Stage. The Festival will feature four different plays: “Those Who Really Go to the Crossroads,” “The Unfortunate Case of Mr. Billner,” “La Vie en Rose” and “Future, Future, Dear God!” Each of the plays is written, directed and performed by students, and the genres range from comedy to historical drama. Alternating each year between studentwritten work and the work of professional playwrights, the focus of the program switches between the roles of the director and the writer. This year, the students were given the opportunity to create a short play from scratch. “One of the really unique things about this program is that students get the opportunity to produce an entire show by themselves,” said professor Elizabeth Helman. “The faculty members oversee some things, but really it’s their voice and their material that they want to produce. It’s really great to see people cultivate their own original, creative material.” Helman taught the playwriting class that this year’s performances stemmed from,
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Alycia Olivar, playing the role of Shax, Brittany Potter playing Botis and Jonathan Thompson playing the role of Jayden in “Those Who Really Go to the Crossroads.” taking an advisory role. Some of the students involved, including some of the writers, have not regularly involved themselves with theater before this or are new to the scene. “There are a lot of people here who aren’t your typical theatre arts [major], or they just regularly come into plays,” said Michael Beaton, director of “La Vie en Rose.” “It’s nice to hang out with them and be able to see their skills.” The plays are a culmination of many weeks of work.
“It’s very difficult to direct a show that starts on week 10, because that’s a lot on everyone’s plate. The actors especially just have a lot of stuff to memorize,” said Ries, who directed and will star in “Future, Future, Dear God!” “But the thing is the people we are working with are really dedicated, so for me it really hasn’t been that bad at all.” Tickets for students are priced at $4 and general admission is $8. Kyle Reed, news reporter news@dailybarometer.com
Simmons finds enjoyment in teaching, makes it 50 years at OSU Dale Simmons, psychology professor, has been at OSU since it was named Oregon State College with 4,500 students
community for 50 straight years. He is one of two of the longest working professors at Oregon State. Simmons started teaching at OSU in the fall of 1959 when he was appointed assistant professor of psychology and counselor in the counseling and testing center. By Greg Germano “I accepted the original appointThe Daily Barometer ment because I needed a job near the Some say if a person loves his or her job, that person will never work a day [University of Oregon] so that I could in his or her entire life. For Dr. Dale complete my Ph.D. degree,” Simmons Simmons, this statement could not be said. “I had never contemplated teaching as a career, but found that teaching more relevant. In July, Simmons will have been teach- was enjoyable.” ing and been a part of the Oregon State Simmons also noted that at the n
time of his appointment, the school was called Oregon State College and there were about 4,500 students. In the early 1960s, Simmons dropped from Oregon State to Simmons take a job as the director of the Lincoln County Mental Health Clinic in Newport, however, he still had his
residence here in Corvallis. After a year, he returned to Oregon State. “What I discovered from all of this was that I really had an extremely hard time sitting in an office [for] eight hours a day,” Simmons said. “So when OSU contacted me to see if I would come back to teaching, I accepted gladly. It was one of the best decisions I ever made because the position gave me so much more movement and I have loved my relationships with students, faculty, administrators, ‘techies’ and all the other folks at the University.” Simmons retired in 1994 and con-
tinued to teach correspondence courses for the extension division which then later turned to online web courses and now Ecampus. He reported that when the school incorporated Ecampus back onto campus, his status was demoted and now he is currently a web course instructor. Along with Robert Shultz, professor of civil and construction engineering, Simmons was recently acknowledged at the 25-year club banquet for his long devotion to Oregon State. Greg Germano, news reporter news@dailybarometer.com
Oregon State professors find entrepreneurs will stick with their ventures Robert Garrett, Jr., Daniel Holland discover that entrepreneurs are more likely to stay with current businesses
preneurship, while Holland’s focuses on individual entrepreneurs. This is the first paper published concurrently between the two. “In this study, we are trying to gain a better understanding of why people choose to persist with a business,” said Holland, the principal By Vinay Ramakrishnan investigator of the study. The Daily Barometer “This study looks at starting a business when A recent study found that entrepreneurs sur- you’re already an entrepreneur,” Garrett added. veyed were more likely to stick with their current Garrett contrasted this against previous studbusiness venture, rather than switch to another ies, which looked at starting a new business for one that may provide greater returns. the first time. Conducted by Robert Garrett, Jr., assistant The sample used in the study was 135 entreprofessor of entrepreneurship at Oregon State, preneurs in the Salt Lake Valley in Utah. Garrett and Daniel Holland, assistant professor of entre- and Holland focused on entrepreneurs in the preneurship at Utah State University, the study high-tech industry. is published online in the International Small “We [focused on high-tech entrepreneurs] Business Journal. because it is a dynamic industry and entreGarrett and Holland were officemates at preneurs are likely to be faced with choices of Indiana University. Holland initiated the study, considering new opportunities,” Holland said. and Garrett helped write it up for the International The data for the study was collected two years Small Business Journal. The study is titled, ago, and analyzed last year. Entrepreneurs’ Start-up vs. persistence decisions: Garrett and Holland looked at the decisions A critical evaluation of expectancy and value.” made by entrepreneurs when faced with the Garrett’s research focuses on corporate entre- decision to leave their current business for a n
more profitable venture. They gave the participants different hypothetical situations in the form of vignettes, and based on the hypothetical situation, asked them to rate the likelihood as to whether or not they would abandon their current business for a new business. “The vignettes were based on different probabilities that the new business would be successful as well as the value associated with that success,” Garrett said. The results of the study found that when entrepreneurs were faced with the tradeoff of staying with their current business or leaving for another venture that may provide greater returns, entrepreneurs were more likely to stick with their venture. “Most interestingly, entrepreneurs don’t make the decision to persist based on financial rewards,” Garrett said. “They make the decision more due to their emotional attachment to the venture.” “There are a number of factors,” Holland added. “Passion, self-justification, social norms, commitment, among other things, all play a role in persisting.”
The implications of this study on the U.S. economy are several. Garrett discusses two perspectives. “From a macroeconomic perspective, we’d want individuals to choose their best financial options,” Garrett said. “The other perspective is that we’d want entrepreneurs to be happy with what they’re doing, otherwise, they would abandon the entire entrepreneurial process.” Garrett cites the most important implication of this study for small business owners as having an “exit strategy” lined up from the get-go. “An exit strategy would do two things,” Garrett said. “First, [entrepreneurs] would have an exit plan before getting emotionally attached to the business, and second, the act of writing out an exit strategy would allow them to recognize environmental conditions indicating an attractive exit.” The study will appear in an issue of the International Small Business Journal later this year. Vinay Ramakrishnan, news reporter news@dailybarometer.com