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ABOUT Vanguard, established in 1946, is published weekly as an independent student newspaper governed by the PSU Student Media Board. Views and editorial content expressed herein are those of the staff, contributors and readers and do not necessarily represent the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. Find us in print Wednesdays and online 24/7 at psuvanguard.com.
We have revived our “Letters to the Editor,” a recurring Opinion feature that publishes and spotlights voices from around PSU, as well as the larger community of Portland, Oregon. This is a section devoted to spotlighting the opinions and feelings of our readsers, rather than the writers and contributors in our newsroom, and we welcome submissions from anyone. We’re particularly interested in perspectives related to current Portland events and community issues, as well as circumstances that impact the Pacific Northwest overall. We’d also love to hear your thoughts on stories we’ve covered—if you have a strong opinion about something we’ve reported, write us! We’ll happily read your submissions.
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Changes are happening inside Portland State’s student body government, with the proposal of a new governmental system intended to promote growth within the organization. New positions, including new titles, duties and a rewritten system for ASPSU’s current operations are proposed for fall of 2024. In the new system, the most notable difference is that the current eight generalized committees that make up the majority of ASPSU roles will be narrowed down to just two: a Student Life Committee and a Student Advocacy Committee. Instead of eight directors each overseeing four senators, there will be one chair for both committees, five ASPSU coordinators and one senate speaker for each committee.
“Aside from just being coordinators of these different areas, having more people on the committee and having a more solidified function of their committee, we also want these roles to act as advisory boards for fee-funded areas,” ASPSU President Kierra Wing said. “This is a really exciting part that allows for more student representation and more input of the student voice.”
Currently, ASPSU oversees 31 areas across campus which are funded by the Student Incidental Fee. Under the new system, programs in these areas which do not currently have an advisory board with a student representative would be able to present budget adjustments, such as change in salary pay or allocation of funds, to one of the two ASPSU student committees. Organizations such as the Helen Gordon Child Development Center and resource centers like the Women’s and Queer Centers are required to have separate advisory boards, as they are led by professionals.
Wing said that the conversation to reimagine a better structure for student government began in fall when they chose to cut board member positions to cope with budget cuts. Due to lower student enrollment numbers, there isn’t a need for a student body cabinet of 41 members, Wing explained. Thus, senator positions went down from 16 to 10, and directors were reduced from eight to five.
“Because of the cuts we had to rewrite the way the [jobs] were going to be written,” Wing said. “So we thought now would be a good time to do an organizational restructure.”
Under ASPSU’s current structure, there are eight different committees, each made up of one director and four senators. There is also a judicial review board made up of five members, a student fee committee with seven, and an executive council. The executive council includes all eight directors, the chair of both the judicial review board and student fee committee and the leadership core team.
Wing and Vice President Dominique Chen met one-on-one with every member of ASPSU, along with posting two feedback forms where members could submit their thoughts. What they found was a sense of confusion on what exactly their job entailed—broad, unclear positions along with a general lack of connection to campus.
“We’re constantly seeing sort of the same issues,” Chen said. “The senators at the end of it are the ones who are paid less, who have the most ambiguity when it comes to their job, and that happens literally every year.”
The new structure will also change the titles of positions. What is currently called the Executive Cabinet will be renamed the Operations Board, and those titles previously featuring the “Director” label will be retitled “Coordinator.”
“Our overall goal is to lower power dynamics between all positions,” Wing said. “Our goal is to take like, the role I have or the VP has, and share that with the different areas of ASPSU so that it’s not just all on the ‘Executive Cabinet’s’ decision.”
The new governmental structure will be put to the vote during campus elections come spring term. In order to pass, it must be voted on and approved by the student body.
“This is something that’s never been done before,” Chen said. “Truly, this was a structure that was completely made up by the current leadership core team just based off feedback and what we think would be actually best for the people in these positions.”
Associated Students of Portland State University (ASPSU) Children’s Center will be moving into the Helen Gordon Child Development Center building come fall 2024. Jose Coll, Ph. D., interim dean of the College of Education, made the decision in response to campus-wide budget cuts due to low enrollment.
The move came to the attention of ASPSU Center families and staff by way of a premature announcement in the College of Education newsletter sent to faculty and staff the last week of February. The announcement detailed that the change of physical space would occur in spring of 2023. Families and staff at the center immediately expressed concern regarding the lack of involvement in the decision-making process, along with the short notice, drafting a petition which as of March 10 has received over 320 signatures from PSU staff, alumni and students.
Dr. Coll later followed up with an email detailing in more specificity the goals and desires behind the decision, along with an apology for the lack of transparency.
“It was an unfortunate miscommunication that, as dean, I take full responsibility,” Coll said. “In order to respond, like we did with our letter, it takes time to think about one: what are the concerns by our community, or the concerns of faculty and staff? What are the concerns of students?”
Dr. Coll, with assistance from Lynn Green, director of the Helen Gordon Center, pushed the move date back after staff and family concerns arose regarding the effects of a mid-school year disruption on the children. The move date for the ASPSU Center is now set for fall 2023, with the transition happening over the summer while kids are out of school.
The ASPSU Center is currently located in the Smith Memorial Student Union (SMSU) building. The Helen Gordon
Center oversees the ASPSU Center, though each has their own program coordinator and operates with a different system. No changes will be made to the structure of the ASPSU Center’s program with the move, which will allow families to continue under the lower cost of the ASPSU Center and the open-door policy that welcomes parents to check-in and spend time with their kids throughout the day.
The relocation would move it inside the same building as its parent organization the Helen Gordon Center, which is six blocks east of SMSU, on the corner of Southwest 12th Avenue and Market Street.
“I made the decision based on the data that was collected by Lynn Green to help me process,” Dr. Coll said. “This is one of those moments that I had an opportunity to say, this is the best way for us to create sustainability. The best way for us to serve a larger community is by bringing these two units together, instead of continuing the kind of separation even though they’re within the same umbrella.”
For some, however, the change of location will make a difference. Adriana Garcia, a PSU Honors College student and mother of four with one kid at the ASPSU Center, said that moving locations will make an already tricky schedule increasingly difficult.
“It’s a big leap for me to be back in school again,” Garcia said. “I’m juggling one in college, one in high school, one in preschool, and, you know, without ASPSU in Smith—like, that’s the central location. I’m able to drop them off, I’m able to run to class. It’s just perfect.”
Martín Alberto Gonzalez, an assistant professor at PSU in Chicano Latino Studies, and his partner Jessica Ramirez, an adjunct professor in Social Work, take their daughter to
the ASPSU Center. Gonzalez expressed concern over the structural differences in regards to race between the ASPSU Center and the Helen Gordon Center. He recalled first walking into the ASPSU Center and noticing right away that a majority of teachers were people of color, and feeling an overwhelming sense of support for his Chicana daughter to be there.
“How is it that an already marginalized center with predominantly teachers of color and students of color is further being marginalized?” Gonzalez said. “For us, that is a very important point of contention that hasn’t been taken into consideration. What happens when you put these teachers of color into a predominantly white space? If a space appears diverse, how does that space operate?”
Other parents expressed similar concerns, stating a conscious choice to join the ASPSU Center because of its racially affirming makeup. The Helen Gordon Center has a predominantly white staff, though its director Green has a background in diversity, receiving the President’s Diversity Award during the 2019–2020 academic year. Green did not respond to Portland State Vanguard in time for comments before the article’s publication date.
Green set up two Zoom meetings to discuss changes with ASPSU Center families and staff—though many were unable to attend because of conflicts in schedule and the times occuring during the center’s open hours. Families are currently working with staff to propose a selection of dates to Green for discussing the move that works with both family and staff schedules.
“This is the time for us in leadership and as a community, to make very difficult decisions and to be able to reshape the university to meet the needs of our students and our community at large,” Dr. Coll said.
In a progressive move, Portland State has announced the launch of a tuition-free degree program which aims to make higher education accessible to all.
Beginning in the fall of 2023, the new program will reinforce the Four Years Free and Transfers Finish Free degree programs, covering the remaining tuition and most mandatory fees after financial aid is applied. Portland State Vanguard had a conversation with Chuck Kneplfe—the Vice President for Enrollment Management who oversees admissions, financial aid and orientation for the university— to talk about the new program.
VANGUARD: What is the PSU Tuition-Free Degree program? How does it work?
CHUCK KNEPLFE: Tuition-Free Degree is what we call a lastdollar financial aid program for PSU students who qualify
for the Federal Pell Grant. This means that after a student’s federal and state financial aid is applied to their tuition bill, Portland State will award our funds to ensure that the student does not have to pay tuition for their classes.
VG: What were the conversations leading up to the creation of the Tuition-Free Degree?
KNEPLFE: I believe in continuous improvement, both in how the offices under me operate and for the policies and procedures around our admission and financial aid programs. In that vein, I approached faculty and staff across campus to ask what was and was not working in the Four Years Free and Transfers Finish Free programs. As I engaged in those conversations some themes developed around common student concerns and suggestions. First and foremost was that we used the word “free” in both programs even though students still had
THE PROGRAM WOULD SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE THE COST OF EDUCATION FOR ELIGIBLE STUDENTSPIPPA MASSEY
responsibility to pay for books, transportation, food and housing. I also heard that students were sometimes struggling to maintain a full-time schedule, and that was required for them to stay eligible for both Four Years Free and Transfers Finish Free. And lastly, it was noted that not all students start in fall, and if they didn’t, they were not being considered. It was clear to me that we could make changes that would help us attract new students to PSU, and also to keep some enrolled who otherwise might have had to drop out.
VG: Who were the people behind the degree program?
KNEPLFE: The division of Enrollment Management led this effort, but we had significant and invaluable input from our colleagues in the Advising Center, the student-facing staff in the Office of Global, Diversity and Inclusion and in Student
Affairs. It was the definition of a team win.
VG: Do you think this will significantly increase student enrollment at PSU?
KNEPLFE: That depends on how you would define “significantly.” I believe it will have a positive impact on both new student enrollments and on student retention, but I’m hesitant to assign a number to it as it’s incredibly hard to predict.
VG: How is PSU able to afford this?
KNEPLFE: When Four Years Free and Transfers Finish Free were created, there was a budget set aside to fund those programs. However, since the Pell Grant has increased over time at a pace higher than Portland State’s tuition has gone up, we have seen
that we have not needed all of the funding that was initially budgeted. We still wanted that funding to go to students in the form of need-based aid, so we made the decision to increase the number of fees that we could cover with university grants.
VG: Have you received any feedback or questions from the students or the communities since the announcement?
KNEPLFE: A lot of positive feedback! We even had over 150 students join us for an information session webinar about the new program. Their questions were primarily focused on general eligibility questions.
Readers who are interested in learning more about the program can do so by visiting PSU’s Tuition-Free Degree Webpage.
MILO LOZA
Find it at 5th is a recurring column that reviews, previews and explores running and upcoming films at PSU’s independent movie theater, 5th Avenue Cinema.
This weekend, Portland State’s 5th Avenue Cinema will be screening Careful (1992), a Canadian film directed by Guy Maddin.
Careful is a thought-provoking film exploring repression, guilt and desire in a remote mountain village where a community lives in fear of triggering a catastrophic avalanche. The residents have strict rules that they follow in order to avoid disaster. However, when two young lovers, Johann (Brent Neale) and Klara (Sarah Neville), dare to break these rules to give in to their passions, they set off a chain of events threatening to unleash the disaster the village has been trying to prevent. As the tension builds and secrets of the past are revealed, the visually stunning Careful becomes a haunting meditation on the consequences of suppressing one’s true desires.
Careful will be the final film presented by the five staff of 5th Avenue Cinema for the winter 2023 term. It was chosen for screening by Cadie Godula, a projectionist at the theater. She found Maddin while looking for movies on Reddit. “I was trying to find more weird movies,” she said. “I found someone that said, ‘try Guy Maddin, he’s kind of a Canadian David Lynch.’” Her interest in Lynch pushed her to try a few of Maddin’s films. “Is that weird?” she said. “No. A lot of people find movies on Reddit, okay?”
The first Maddin film that Godula saw was My Winnipeg from 2007. “It’s the one that makes the most sense out of his filmography,” she said. Godula called it a pseudodocumentary autofiction about Winnipeg, Maddin’s hometown. “It’s all very strange but good,” she said. She has
been a fan ever since, slowly getting through his filmography, coming across Careful last summer.
“Guy Maddin is a very strange director,” Godula said. “He makes a lot of movies that are—I don’t want to say ‘nonsensical’ but—kind of nonsensical, nonlinear, a little bit confusing. People get confused by them a lot, it seems.” As a result, many viewers may find themselves wondering what is going on in the story when they watch a Maddin film, but Godula thinks that this should not discourage anyone from watching his films.
“We played Archangel last spring, which is also directed by Guy Madden,” Godula said. “One woman—who used to come here all the time—saw that, and she said, ‘I’m not coming back.’” 5th Avenue Cinema is known for playing films that are incongruent with contemporary cinema, films that are experimental and intriguing. “She said, ‘I didn’t understand it,’” Godula explained, not expecting such a reaction.
Godula vehemently defended the films that they show.
“That’s kind of like a hallmark that you’re doing a good job, if somebody really just did not like what you played—I feel like that’s important to do because some people do like it,” she said. She implored viewers to break from contemporary cinema and encouraged students to seek out films that are difficult to predict.
“It’s fun to watch movies where you don’t know what’s going on sometimes in the narrative, but you’re having a good time,” she continued. “It’s not that it doesn’t make sense like they didn’t know what they were doing, but it doesn’t make sense in a very intentional and rational way, if that makes sense.” She knows these experimental filmmakers have specific intentions for the viewers and wants the viewer to trust the process.
“This is for people who like offbeat films,” Godula said. “For people that like films that aren’t like what was coming out at the time.” 1992 was not known for experimental films
like this one, so the audience of the time saw this as a fresh break from other movies. Godula encouraged people to come if they are open to alternative film and art.
“Guy Maddin has a very distinct style and way of writing dialogue,” Godula said. A fan of Maddin would easily be able to distinguish his film from another. “It just feels very much like a stream of consciousness,” she explained. She considers his films important because she appreciates the aesthetic qualities of formal filmmaking present in a Maddin film. “The visuals are just incredible, and I love them,” she said. “It’s inspiring for me and important in the zeitgeist of more experimental, weird stuff.”
“Not a lot of his films are in color, most are in black and white,” Godula continued. “He’s very much inspired by silent-era cinema and the formal qualities.” Careful is in color, but Godula thought that echoes of the silent era are still visible. “Everything has an oversaturated feeling, and it’s very cool, it’s very neat,” she said. “He uses a lot of intertitles and text slates to break up the movie with acts.”
She said that the saturation of the film is beautiful and struggled to figure out how it was achieved. “This one is emulating almost old-fashioned technicolor, like the hand-painted film of back in the day, when that was how you got colored film,” she said. The enchanting colors give the film an abstract quality. Godula called it a set from a play that is in between lands.
“In Careful, there’s a scene where Klara goes off to work in a mine, and she’s wearing this helmet—you know how old-timey miners have a little helmet with a light on it—instead, she’s wearing this helmet with a bunch of candles on it,” Godula said. The scene really stuck out to her as an imaginative, spectacular addition. “It looks great, it’s very visually stimulating.”
Students can watch Careful on the PSU campus at 5th Avenue Cinema—for free! The film will be screened Friday and Saturday at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., with a 3 p.m. showing on Sunday.
Bosnian-born, Portland-based artist and filmmaker Daniela Repas shines a spotlight on the experiences of refugees and other displaced people with her upcoming film Pour the Water As I Leave.
The film, which got its name from the Bosnian tradition of pouring water behind a guest as they leave to wish them a safe journey, is part fiction, part non-fiction animated documentary about the exodus of Bosnian refugees during the Bosnian War.
On March 3, 2023, the Pour The Water As I Leave team held an opening night at a gallery space at 220 SE Market Street in southeast Portland. They will be displaying an installation of photographs and drawings from the film until the end of the month to raise awareness and funds to animate Repas’ drawings into a 90-minute feature-length film.
For the gallery’s closing night on March 31, attendees can catch the premiere of a two-anda-half minute clip of the film, plus participate in an online auction where—among other things— people can place a bid to have a custom selfportrait made by Repas in her signature style, with all proceeds going towards animating Pour the Water As I Leave into feature length.
When she was just 12 years old, Repas herself became a refugee. When the Bosnian War broke out in the early 1990s, Repas and her family were displaced and lived as refugees across several different countries for around 10 years.
Despite her circumstances, Repas’ passion for art never fizzled. While living in a refugee center in Geneva, Switzerland, Repas held her very first art show with the help of her sister and others who worked at the camp. She has now exhibited her art around the world.
After coming to the United States in 2000, Repas’ artistic career blossomed. She debuted as a film director in 2017 with her multiaward-winning film Mnemonics, in which a Bosnian refugee reflects on her home and brings drawings to life through stories of her past. Repas has since worked on a variety of films, including Blacktop Films’ documentary about Portland’s legendary artist Viva Las Vegas called Thank You For Supporting The Arts and an original short film, Dogs of Home, which uses both animation and live-action segments to display the “ripples of time through war.”
Repas began production for Pour the Water
As I Leave in early 2021 in collaboration with Jessica Daugherty, the film’s producer, photographer Simone Fischer, screenwriter, former Vietnamese refugee Vu Pham, and countless others. Early production of the film was an extensive process that included filming a dance sequence with Seattle contemporary dance company Whim W’Him, conducting and shooting seven interviews with Bosnian refugees (including Repas’ mother), and taking a trip to Bosnia where Repas and photographer
Simone Fischer captured stunning exterior and interior shots of the Bosnian landscape.
Alongside the interviews with real-life Bosnian refugees, the film incorporates a fictional love story told through the art of dance performed by members of Whim W’him. To help eliminate a language barrier and to push the film beyond Bosnian borders, Repas said choreographer and fellow Princess Grace Award winner Rena Butler was brought on to interpret the film’s fiction element through a series of choreographed dances.
“When I was a refugee, I remembered how many times we used gestures to communicate because, in the refugee center, there were people from all over the world,” Repas said. “And the dance [in the film] came as a heightened version of [these] gestures.”
Finishing the film remains a painstaking, intricate process. Though Repas animated a two-and-a-half-minute segment of the film herself, both Repas and Daughtery estimate that around 20 animators will need to come on board to create the final product.
As an artist, Repas said her main goal is to create a safe space for difficult discussions. She said that she hopes to create a space where “fear is weakened and where our understanding of each other is more emphasized. I understood that, for my audiences to be there too, I needed to offer my own heartbreak, my own vulnerability.”
Producer Jessica Daugherty said they are also doing an impact campaign along with the film to work with organizations that support refugee communities worldwide and hopefully fundraise for them.“It’s not just the film,” Daugherty said. “It’s what it can do in the world. These stories absolutely, desperately deserve to be heard and stand to make an impact on the general feeling towards refugees and understanding them as humans.”
Too often, Repas said, the conversation around refugees becomes distanced from the humanity of the situation, so much so that people get too caught up in numbers and statistics to remember the human beings behind the headlines.
Now, more than ever, it is imperative to remember the human beings affected by the breaking news stories we all read from the comfort of our homes. Repas said films like Pour the Water As I Leave “can be used as a tool to humanize again, to tell their stories.”
Pour the Water As I Leave is a film that not only should be made, but absolutely must be made. “This story, even though it is about this Bosnian experience, doesn’t mean that it won’t resonate with other people who have experienced displacement for many different reasons,” Repas said. “I’m hoping this film will create comfort for people going through that now.”
Many of us can probably remember those first few months of 2020—the weeks leading up to the widespread closures of seemingly everything in our lives. I worked at a shoe store at the time, and each day after the onset of the pandemic fewer and fewer customers came in until the store closed. Our globalized world had never faced a pandemic such as this before, and even to this day we continue to experience it. Our basic ways of life changed in the wake of these closures—social distancing, working from home and impromptu remote school.
For students, this switch from in-person education to online learning was especially challenging. The transition impacted younger students even more, taking their formative years from them. It is only now that COVID-19 has decreased in severity that educational institutions are able to assess the damage the pandemic inflicted upon their students and begin working to catch those who were left behind. It is of the utmost importance that these solutions focus on bringing students back into the classrooms, engaging with academia in-person alongside their peers and teachers.
The true harm to the mental health of students came in the form of simultaneous stressors. Both isolated and overcrowded living situations disrupted students’ ability to focus. A lack of direct interaction with classmates left many feeling utterly removed from day to day lives. And the relentless negative news and increasing fatalities were among some of the strongest stressors reported by students. In one study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research , students repeated sentiments such as, “I just want to lay in my bed. Now no one is keeping me accountable. If I’m on my phone, I’m not paying attention to any of these lectures,” or “I’m sleeping a lot more now. I’m living at home. I don’t have to do anything. I just have more time to sleep.” Rates of reported depression and anxiety jumped nearly
71% in some cases, crippling students’ abilities to adapt to the rapid onset of online schooling.
Both teachers and students were forced by the pandemic to adapt to a brand new style of learning, completely foreign to many. The first time I ever took online courses was during COVID-19, and personally, it was extremely difficult to engage with the material effectively in an online format.
It has only been within the past year that institutions have been able to reopen their doors and hold regular, in-person classes, and the return from the quarantine has not been much easier. Younger students have been especially affected by this, many of them having last attended elementary school and now in middle school without any of the usual social and educational development. Many students are outright unwilling to attend school, with the number of chronically absent students in the United States doubling to 16 million, compared to about 8 million beforethepandemic,accordingtoNPR.Facultyshortagesprovided another layer of difficulty for schools, as districts dealt with not having enough teachers or bus drivers to ensure that all students had the ability to attend.
But schools are working hard to implement plans to encourage students back into the classroom and into a healthy social environment. Here at Portland State, there are a wide variety of resources to help students in the process of reintegrating into in-person learning, including Student Health & Counseling services like the Mind Spa . I have engaged with some of PSU’s resources myself, and it has really helped me stay focused on my schooling and transition back into the classroom. Across the board, educational institutions have been increasing the number of mental health resources for students as both incidence and awareness of these issues spiked during the pandemic: hiring more counselors, offering a broader variety of classes and offering more flexible modes of delivery, with
many classes allowing students to attend both remotely and in-person as they feel comfortable.
As school districts have more actively sought ways to increase student attendance, their reports uncovered a major issue in data collection—historically, the federal government only collects and releases information about attendance once per school year. This single annual assessment is unable to accurately represent the true behavior of students and their attendance throughout the year. Grand Rapids Public Schools has begun recording this data more frequently as well as making it more accessible to other institutions, per NPR. This information has greatly helped educators learn and understand their students’ needs, both within the classroom and outside of it. However, across the board, all educators interviewed wanted the same thing—to create a safe, engaging and healthy environment for students to learn and grow is ultimately the most important aspect of a well-rounded education.
As it has only been within the last year that schools have begun returning their students to the classroom, it is too early to say whether or not current programs are incentivising students to return to class. Despite the pandemic’s challenges—many of them ongoing—educational institutions have put great efforts into adapting programs that work with students and not against them. But it is not only up to institutions to dictate the manner or restructuring of our education. We PSU students can be a part of the solution, engaging with the support systems and resources available to us, as well as helping our peers get access to support of their own. For educators, their first priorities should be connecting with students, encouraging their growth and learning and curating a wholesome environment. If institutions maintain this goal and work cooperatively with their students, the only way to go is up.
Like police departments in many cities, Portland Police have considered the use of body cameras. The road to body cams in Portland has been long, and there are still many differences in opinion between the Portland city government and the Portland Police Bureau about what they would look like, per KGW. If and when Bureau officers do wear body cams, they need to be implemented transparently—the public should have more direct access to footage collected so they can see what really happens on police calls.
When police are called to a crime scene, what proof do we have that the police report accurately represents what happened? This is a question that our city government and the police union have engaged in tense negotiations over. “The city of Portland and the Portland Police Association have, once again, come to a familiar sticking point over the use of body-worn cameras: pre-review of video footage by cops,” according to Willamette Week “On Friday, the two parties released their final offers. There was no middle ground. The police union wants officers to be able to review the camera footage in instances of potential excessive force before they write reports, and city attorneys have argued that
pre-review by cops could negate the intended effect, which is holding cops to a higher standard of accountability.”
It is because of the need for this higher standard of accountability that body cams for Portland police should not be viewed by police first. If the police have control over body cam footage, they have the ability to give any report they want—even if that report is not necessarily the truth.
According to current Bureau policy, “videos can only be released when it is in public interest.”
The police are the ones who decide if release is in the public’s interest, so effectively the police still have the ability to decide what the public can see—that’s especially relevant in cases where footage might reflect poorly on the department.
One way to address this problem is by posting the footage from Bureau body cams directly to the department’s website. For less serious crimes or suspected crimes—like traffic stops, theft, etc.—the footage should be posted automatically. If this footage was immediately available to the public, the police wouldn’t be able to submit contradicting or false reports of what happened at the scene.
The American Civil Liberties Union has suggested exactly that, “so that people who have
encounters with police know what to expect, how long they have to file a complaint, and how to request access to footage,” according to their Recommendations for Oregon Law Enforcement Body Camera Policies posted to portlandoregon. gov. If this was so, then the public would have video of exactly what happens when police are on the scene, unfiltered.
With the footage out in the hands of the public, the police would be motivated to be more careful with how they handle certain situations. This would also not give officers the opportunity to give false reports, and provide a disincentive for misconduct or use of deadly force.
Overall, having body cameras at all would
be a step forward. “Professor Jens Ludwig, head of the [University of Chicago] Crime Lab, says the findings show the key benefit of body-worn cameras is the reduced use of police force,” NPR reported. “For example, among the police departments studied, complaints against police dropped by 17% and the use of force by police, during fatal and non-fatal encounters, fell by nearly 10%.”
Giving the public access to body cam footage would be a big step in the right direction. With the threat of exposure causing fewer police officers to use force or give false reports, the department can be held accountable for police violence and other misconduct that they may want swept under the rug.
Dear Vanguard,
After the events that transpired last month at ASPSU, I received an immense amount of ostracization, and some of my closest friends were targeted on social media from the account @PSUTimes. Perhaps you’ve heard or know of the person behind that profile, but their behavior merely mirrored the ASPSU President’s. Obviously, the entire I&A committee is gone—rather ironically, if I may say so (as we called in the meeting for greater accessibility). I just want to encourage readers, since this coming election season is just around the corner—that this administration hurt us as a community. Valentine’s Day, and just five days later, after trying to advocate for changes (since this year’s motto is “create the
change”)—at least five representatives in ASPSU quit or are going to resign. I expect to see an overhaul of representation in ASPSU, and none of it equitable. How is that showing love to our community?
Perhaps this brief letter can be treated as evidence, but also support for your future place in ASPSU, or as an informed bystander. ASPSU’s racial prejudice, emotional battery, underrepresentation and oppression towards people of different backgrounds (race, ability, age) is hurtful to the culture of PSU, and should not, in my opinion, continue.
I implore you to stand in solidarity.
MILO LOZA
CHRISTOPHER BROWN QUARTET
THE 1905
7 P.M.
$15
JAZZ MUSICIAN, COMPOSER, BANDLEADER AND EDUCATOR ADVOCATING FOR INTEGRATING BUSINESS PHILOSOPHIES INTO MUSIC
CARRIE UNDERWOOD
MODA CENTER
7 P.M.
$50+
COUNTRY MUSIC STAR, FEATURING JIMMIE ALLEN
TANK AND THE BANGAS REVOLUTION HALL
8 P.M.
$25
A GRAMMY-NOMINATED FUNK AND SOUL BAND FROM NEW ORLEANS
SZA
MODA CENTER
8 P.M.
$198
A GRAMMY-NOMINATED R&B SINGERSONGWRITER KNOWN FOR HER SOULFUL VOICE AND INTROSPECTIVE LYRICS
OREGON SYMPHONY: RETRO THEMES FOR GROWN-UP KIDS
ARLENE SCHNITZER HALL
7:30 P.M.
$54+
FEATURING SONGS FROM SHOWS LIKE JAMES BOND, THE FLINTSTONES, AND BATMAN
ITAMAR BOROCHOV THE 1905
7 P.M.
$20
A WORLD-RENOWNED JAZZ TRUMPETER AND COMPOSER WHO BLENDS TRADITIONAL JEWISH MUSIC WITH MODERN JAZZ
THE MASTERS OF PERCUSSION ARLENE SCHNITZER HALL
7:30 P.M.
$29+
SEVEN GUITARS
BRUNISH THEATER
7:30 P.M.
$25+
A PLAY ABOUT A BLUES MUSICIAN’S LIFE AND DEATH
AVOID PERFORMATIVE MESSAGING
PDX SUITE SPOT
6 P.M.
$30
LEARN HOW TO EFFECTIVELY COMMUNICATE ABOUT EDI TOPICS AND AVOID PERFORMATIVE MESSAGING IN THIS WORKSHOP FOR MARKETERS
EVERYBODY READS 2023
KELLER AUDITORIUM
7:30 P.M.
FREE
RUTH OZEKI TALKS ABOUT HER NOVEL A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING
COMMON GROUND
PATRICIA RESER CENTER FOR THE ARTS
7:30 P.M.
$48+
A DANCE CELEBRATING DIVERSITY AND CONNECTION
CAREFUL
5TH AVENUE CINEMA
6 P.M.
STUDENTS: FREE, GENERAL: $7
A VISUALLY STUNNING FILM BY GUY MADDIN, KNOWN FOR ITS SURREAL IMAGERY AND DARK HUMOR
THE AMAZING BUBBLE MAN
ALBERTA ABBEY
2 P.M.
$10+
LOUIS PEARL COMBINES COMEDY, ARTISTRY AND SCIENCE TO ENTERTAIN AUDIENCES WITH SPELLBINDING BUBBLE TRICKS
COMEDY OPEN MIC
CHEERFUL TORTOISE
9 P.M. FREE COMEDY ON CAMPUS AT PORTLAND STATE, WITH FIVE-MINUTE SETS
COMEDY OPEN MIC MONTAVILLA STATION
7 P.M. FREE
TAPROOM NIGHT MARKET
SWIFT CIDER
5 P.M.
FREE SHOP FROM OVER 40 LOCAL VENDORS AND ARTISTS
ST. PATRICK’S DAY FESTIVAL PADDY’S BAR & GRILL
11 A.M.–2 A.M.
$20
A FUN CELEBRATION WITH LIVE MUSIC, A RAFFLE AND FOOD
SIDE QUEST EXPO
DOUBLETREE HOTEL PORTLAND
11 A.M.
$10
A WEEKEND OF RETRO GAMING AND AWESOME COLLECTIBLES
PORTLAND ROADSTER SHOW PORTLAND EXPO CENTER
12 P.M.
$20
A SHOWCASE OF STUNNING CARS, TRUCKS, AND MOTORCYCLES CRAFTED BY SKILLED ARTISTS AND ENTHUSIASTS
SET DANCING
SELLWOOD COMMUNITY HOUSE
12:30 P.M.
FREE
LEARN THE IRISH DANCE THAT INVOLVES FOUR PEOPLE IN A SQUARE
PROFESSIONAL HEADSHOTS & PHOTO PORTRAITS
GALLERY GOGO
5 P.M.
THAT FOLLOWS THE CHANGING SEASONS
ZAKIR HUSSAIN, THE TABLA VIRTUOSO AND FATHER OF WORLD MUSIC, LEADS
A PROGRAM WITH DIVERSE MUSICAL HEAVYWEIGHTS
FOUR-MINUTE SETS OF COMEDY, HOSTED BY LUCAS COPP
$40
ELLE HYGGE OFFERS PROFESSIONAL HEADSHOTS OR PORTRAITS FOR INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES
