• STATE NAME AND AFFILIATION W/PSU
• SUBMISSIONS ARE UNPAID, NOT GUARANTEED AND CHOSEN BY THE EDITOR
• SEND THOUGHTS, STORIES AND OPINIONS TO EDITOR@PSUVANGUARD.COM
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
SEND US YOUR LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
PSU PRESIDENT STEPHEN PERCY’S TERM IS ENDING
P. 6-7
SPORTS INSIDE THE WORLD OF PORTLAND’S DRAGON BOAT RACING CULTURE
OPINION
STEPHEN PERCY DOESN'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON
COMICS
EVENTS CALENDAR
SCIENCE & TECH CONVERSATION WITH A SCIENTIST: THE REALITY OF BIKE ACCIDENTS
EDITORIAL
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Tanner Todd
MANAGING EDITOR
Brad Le
NEWS EDITOR
Zoë Buhrmaster
ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR
Macie Harreld
SCIENCE & TECH
Kat Leon
SPORTS
Laura Kowall
OPINION EDITOR
Nick Gatlin
PHOTO EDITOR
Alberto Alonso Pujazon Bogani
ONLINE EDITOR
Christopher Ward
COPY CHIEF
Nova Johnson
DISTRIBUTION MANAGER
Nick Gatlin
CONTRIBUTORS
Isaiah Burns
Amber Finnegan
LeeAnn Rooney
Milo Loza
Isabel Zerr
P. 8-9
PRODUCTION & DESIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Whitney McPhie
DESIGNERS
Neo Clark
Mia Waugh
Zahira Zuvuya
TECHNOLOGY & WEBSITE TECHNOLOGY ASSISTANTS
Rae Fickle
George Olson
Sara Ray
Tanner Todd
ADVISING & ACCOUNTING
COORDINATOR OF STUDENT MEDIA
Reaz Mahmood STUDENT MEDIA ACCOUNTANT
Maria Dominguez
STUDENT MEDIA TECHNOLOGY ADVISOR
Rae Fickle
To contact Portland State Vanguard, email editor@psuvanguard.com
MISSION STATEMENT
Vanguard’s mission is to serve the Portland State community with timely, accurate, comprehensive and critical content while upholding high journalistic standards. In the process, we aim to enrich our staff with quality, hands-on journalism education and a number of skills highly valued in today’s job market.
P. 10-11
P. 12-13
P. 14
P. 15
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. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @psuvanguard for multimedia content and breaking news.
We look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
In 2020, Stephen Percy took over as the 10th president of Portland State, easily stepping into the role after serving as acting and interim president in spring and summer of 2019 respectively. With the end of this academic year marking the conclusion of his term, it’s time to look back on some of the goals Percy set and how he employed his presidency to meet them.
Perhaps the loftiest yet most crucial of goals that Percy advocated for he presented early on in his term at PSU.
“We must confront and eliminate racism,” said Percy at the Fall 2020 Convocation, a public assembly of faculty and staff that takes place at the beginning of each academic year. This was Percy’s first convocation ceremony as the elected president of the university.
Percy has had a long career focused on civil rights and equity, having written two books on the subject and co-authored four more.
During his term as president, Percy initiated the Time to Act program. This is an ongoing, comprehensive initiative consisting of 46 actionable steps intended to improve the ubiquity of racial equity within PSU as a community and professional environment.
Of the 46 items on the checklist, 15 have been completed, 28 are in-progress, and three of them have not yet begun. Many of the items that have not been completed are tied up in administrative processes, or are temporarily halted due to various circumstances. For example, one step on the list is to hire a Director of Diversity Education. This has been temporarily halted due to a hiring freeze announced in Nov. 2022 due to low enrollment causing budget issues.
“[We have] a long way to go, but we’ve also come a long way,” said Dr. Ame Lambert, the vice president of Global Diversity and Inclusion.
The Time to Act initiative is crucial in PSU’s long-term goal
of bringing forth an actionable process to confronting racism, relaying a central part of Percy’s promise.
Criticisms of the recent policy update to the Campus Public Safety Officers (CPSO) made by the President’s office, however, have led some students and faculty to question how this allegiance to equality is manifesting in real time.
Percy sent out a campus-wide email on April 11 publicly announcing that the CPSO had recently rearmed—after having announced that officers did not have arms on campus patrols in 2021—and would continue to remain armed on patrols until further notice.
The criticisms against Percy and PSU Police Chief Willie Halliburton arose on how student voices were not consulted in the decision process, a decision which carries additional weight considering CPSO officers’ record of using lethal force.
On June 29, 2018, a campus security officer fired 17 gun shots at Jason Erik Washington due to him carrying a firearm, despite having a valid concealed carry permit. The incident compelled PSU President Percy to form a memorial committee, which first met in Jan. 2021. The committee will erect a two-piece artistic memorial for Washington, set for next year.
Disarm PSU is an ongoing initiative that has been attempting to get guns out of CPSO officers’ hands since 2018. Katie Cagle is a member of the movement, as well as a behavioral health project assistant at the university. Percy did not impress Cagle with the memorial’s delayed process.
“Even with the university time curve, it’s really disrespectful,” Cagle said. “I’m really grateful to Percy for his commitment to racial justice—but also, it’s the bare minimum.”
In addition to protecting students, the decision to rearm campus officers is also for the safety of said officers, according to Percy.
“Our Campus Public Safety people are the most diverse
people, the most diverse unit on campus, and they’ve really committed to an unarmed patrol,” he said. “I think we’ve got a really good group of people that really care. They definitely believe in de-escalation, they’ve had de-escalation training, we’re going to give some more of that. But I also need to keep these folks safe.”
The decision came in the midst of an uptick in weapons-related incidents on campus.
“The number of incidents in the previous two or three years involving weapons of any kind was about less than five…” Percy said. “Last year, it’s been three or four times that.”
Percy proposed another goal at the Fall 2020 Convocation, to “ensure student success by innovating new responses to challenges we face.”
The controversy over the decision has prompted Percy to
continue to ponder over the issue of transparency between administration and the student body.
“One of the things we’ve heard a lot about in the last year is transparency, transparency, transparency,” Percy said. “As President, I’ve tried to be as transparent as I can be… but whatever we’re doing isn’t quite enough.”
Some alternative solutions have been raised to confront the issue of campus safety, such as increased de-escalation training and non-law enforcement responders to behavioral crises.
With Percy retiring, these new goals of transparency and alternative solutions to rearming campus safety officers will be left up to the new elected university president.
Dr. Ann E. Cudd is set to take over as PSU’s 11th president starting this summer, with Percy assisting her in the transition. Afterwards, Percy will reassume a role amongst PSU faculty, where he will write about his leadership experiences before he retires, according to a message he sent to the campus.
Japhety Ngabireyiamana and Jospin Mugisha are cousins who lived and played in a refugee camp in Tanzania, East Africa. Japhety would run around playing soccer, hanging out with friends during the day—then eating homemade food with his extended family members in the evenings. Life was carefree, albeit impoverished—dirt floors, no stove, no running water.
Japhety’s family stayed 10 years in the refugee camp just beyond the borders of Burundi in Kibondo, Tanzania.
Then one day, the family heard that they had been chosen to travel to yet another unknown land—the United States. One of the families sponsored by Shepard of the Valley Lutheran Church (through the World Relief Organization) to come to Oregon, they migrated once more to establish a home for their growing family.
Japhety and Jospin both immigrated to the U.S. in 2007, Japhety eight and Jospin six. They started school at the Beaverton School District, where only 2.2% of the student population is Black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. They experienced racism and bullying from many white kids in their new home, and were teased and harassed to the point that they denied their African culture and heritage. The long-standing displacement and inexplicable racism
was extremely traumatic for the young boys.
Japhety remembered walking into the Beaverton elementary school classroom and being surrounded by white faces, all of which were staring at him. Kids made fun of him and teased him: for his clothing, his food and even his smell.
He tried his best to fit in, to erase his African heritage. “I didn’t want to be African anymore,” Japhety said. “I wanted to lose all traces of my culture.” He coped by playing sports and trying his best to blend in.
“In the refugee camp, I was surrounded by people that ate the same, dressed the same, talked the same and had the same skin color,” he said. In this new school, Japhety could not even ask to use the bathroom because he did not yet speak English—he spoke Kirundi. At first, the only English words he knew were “thank you.”
Luckily, his family moved to NE Portland, where Japhety met Dr. S. Renee Mitchell.
The door to the Soul Restoration Center in NE Portland is covered with hand-written statements such as “I am whole, I am vibrant, strong and happy, I am enough, I am unstoppable, I am beautiful, adventurous and grateful.” This is the outlook behind the I Am M.O.R.E. (Making Ourselves Resilient Everyday) program that Mitchell is running.
Mitchell works with kids who have experienced trauma, mostly Black kids. She describes herself as a “spirit gardener.” Her goal is to shift their internal belief in their own capacity to inspire through a program based on evidence, research and theory.
When she first met Japhety, she described him as “a tall, handsome guy, he did not speak loudly, didn’t look you in the eye very much. Didn’t have a sense of himself. It felt like he was trying to hide—to be invisible.” Where did this trauma come from?
Mitchell explained that, sure, growing up in a refugee camp had its difficulties—resources were slight—probably not enough food to eat, but he had family, a lot of love, and laughter. When Japhety came to the U.S., she said, “he is a fish out of water—people were racist, they treated him badly. He absorbed all of that, internalized all of that, and that is why he caved into himself. It’s about white supremacy—there is no way [for him] to understand where all that bullying is coming from.”
Through Mitchell’s guidance, Japhety recalled his trauma and abuse at an I Am M.O.R.E. conference in Philadelphia a few years ago. Japhety stood on a stage in front of hundreds. “I remember in middle school, these four white boys with blond hair continuously bullied me from sixth through eighth grade,” he said. “I remember they would walk past me and start pushing me, assaulting me and disrespecting my culture…”
OUT OF AN AFRICAN REFUGEE CAMP COMES ‘BPROUD’
Mitchell described how the I Am M.O.R.E. program worked: “We encouraged them to share their stories, build their confidence and value themselves, exposing them to different things,” like art, music, poetry, history and writing. She leaned into what the kids were interested in doing.
“We were putting on a ‘story-telling fashion show’—and Japhety volunteered to be a part of it,” Mitchell said. This was meant as a mechanism to tell their story, with three changes of clothing, in front of an audience. They told their personal trajectory through life, underscoring the trauma that they had experienced.
Japhety walked onto the stage, first in African clothing, wearing a Kente cloth tied at one shoulder. Then he changed into American garb: a blue jean jacket with an American flag on the back. Lastly, a tailored jacket embellished with beautifully woven multi-color Kente fabric, blending the two cultural heritages.
A big contagious smile crossed his face. He stood tall, and spun around, showing off the cloth and his pride. Playing in the background was his recorded voice telling his story of going from a place of self-loathing to that of self-acceptance.
He reclaimed his African culture, music and traditions. As for the participants, “they got a standing ovation! They were rock stars!” Mitchell said.
Japhety’s paternal cousin, Jospin Mugisha, arrived in Beaverton just a few months earlier than Japhety. At first, only his mother liked the idea of emigrating. Once a senator in Burundi and now a businessman in Tanzania, his father was content living where they were.
All this changed when their family was attacked and his mother beaten by Burundi soldiers. They filled out the immigration application with UNICEF and were granted asylum.
The move to the U.S. changed him. Jospin said that he internalized the racism, that it was “easy to forget [my] culture and assimilate. It was not cool to be African,” he said. Each morning, he left his homemade lunch and African clothing behind so he would not be bullied at school. Jospin moved in third grade and took this opportunity to reinvent himself. He started saying that he was born in California.
Near the end of his junior year of high school, the pandemic
hit. No more school. “I had a seven-month summer—hella excited,” Jospin said. “I would drive to Portland, and play basketball with my cousins at McCoy park. We started speaking Kirundi to each other.”
By Jospin’s high school senior year, he and Japhety were having Zoom calls nightly. Japhety wanted to start a family business and knew that Jospin did graphic design work as a side hustle. They brainstormed late into the evening.
Jospin said that he began by making clothes for himself, and screen-printing messages around the Black Lives Matter movement. “It was right after the George Floyd situation happened,” Jospin said. While they didn’t want to profit from the BLM movement, Jospin and Japherty did want to exert a positive message for their logo that built up their community. It seemed natural to Japhety that they work on creating a clothing business.
Jospin and Japhety came across the phrase “Be Proud.” Japhety had been working with Mitchell, and liked the idea of claiming one’s identity. Jospin worked late into the night on the logo and font and came up with “bproud,” the letter “b” printed in black, signifying a Black-owned business.
Jospin sent his design to Japhety first thing in the morning. “It’s perfect!” Japhety exclaimed.
The first Instagram post was created with professional photos of sample clothing and a strong message of intent. They wore their dashiki, traditional African clothing and the bproud crewnecks. Their family and friends liked and shared, and soon they had over 300 followers.
Six months later, the brand was launched with a supply of crewnecks and hoodies. The Portland community embraced them. “Off rip, everyone was onboard,” Jospin said. They sold out in the first month.
PSU collaborated with the brand by hosting a space for bproud to sell their products in SMSU. Brilliantly, Jospin and Japherty designed an interactive display by writing the words “I am proud to be ____” on the surrounding glass wall.
Jospin explained that he was expecting words like African, gay or bisexual but was not expecting what they got: words like first-generation student, mother and persistent. The one he remembers the most was, I am proud to be here. “Mental health is…I am proud to be here—I am proud to be alive,” Jospin said. “This changed everything for us, from that moment on—bro, it was like this could mean anything.”
Jospin plans to spend time enhancing the bproud brand during his gap year. He will work on creating systems to automate, defining the foundations for scaling up and increasing the product line. “We want [bproud] to mature naturally,” Jospin said. “We want people to wear it because they are called to it and because it looks good. It is our baby.”
Japhety has a full-ride merit scholarship at PSU. He is taking 18 credits and will soon graduate with a Bachelor’s in Marketing and a certificate in Athletic and Outdoor Studies. His favorite class this term is Global Sourcing and Negotiations with Daniel Wong. He is also working about 20 hours a week at 1338Tryon, a promotional product supply company that has contracts with Amazon and Intel, among others. Melinda, the warehouse manager, explained that Japhety is a leader committed to promoting multicultural education and diversity awareness in the workplace.
Japhety is also supporting his family business, Happiness Family Farm, in which the family grows and sells organic produce across the PNW. “My family was poor, so we grew much of our own food, especially the African vegetables that we were missing,” said Japhety. “Food was a temple for the African community—it reconnected them back to the motherland.”
Japhety and Jospin have recently been awarded the Portland INOO Entrepreneur Under 25 Award for their apparel brand that celebrates individuality.
“When you are grounded in your power, when you know who you are, then you want to empower others,” Mitchell said. “He is that hero—heroes have support—he wants to be that support to others.”
Biking is very popular in Portland as a way to commute, exercise and enjoy the outdoors. However, with the 80% jump in roadway fatalities from prior reports, as the Portland Bureau of Transportation reported, biking safety in Portland is called into question.
Chris Monsere, Portland State Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Civil & Environmental Engineering - Engineering & Computer Science, Maseeh College, has studied traffic and bike safety in Portland for over 19 years.
Monsere began his journey into the study of civil engineering in a drafting class in high school. He enjoyed drawing and architecture but found his strength in the site layout and design. “I was very good about the sort of the site layout piece and the thinking about the site design,” he said. “I like the idea that the things we build are very big—they have impacts on society. You get to be outside a lot, you know… that initially attracted me to civil engineering.”
Monsere interned in Michigan, where he worked on a large civil infrastructure project. His transition to traffic came during his graduate work. “I went to Iowa State University to do my master’s and Ph.D., and they had a large focus on lots of different topics, around data and traffic safety,” he said. “They have a fairly unique relationship with the Iowa Department of Transportation…so we did a lot of work for them related to safety. So that’s how I ended up being mainly interested in that topic, mostly from the vehicle side.”
His journey included some time with the Oregon Department of Transportation before joining the PSU team. “When I came out here, I worked for the Oregon DoT,” he said. “I was the highway safety engineer for four or five years before taking the position here at Portland State—then sort of transitioned from purely highway safety to more multimodal. And then, the last 10 years or so mostly focused on bicycle and pedestrian and related design work.”
Monsere has been at PSU since 2004. He described his recent work at PSU as promoting safe cycling infrastructure designs. “A lot of my work that’s had the most impact has been on the idea of providing separated space or unique space for bicycles on the roadway,” Monsere said. “They’re very common in European and other countries…the U.S. design had the philosophy [of] well, we don’t need to do anything at all because a road is good enough for a bike, or if we’re going to do anything, we can just paint some stripes. You’ll get a little footpath, which provides some separation from motor vehicles, but it doesn’t provide any real physical separation.”
Monsere described why this is a problem with so many riders. “What’s clear is that it doesn’t work for the majority of people who don’t want to bicycle next to 45-mile-an-hour traffic,” he said. “What’s called an all-ages and ability network. In some of our work, we asked, would you be willing to ride here
with your 14-year-old daughter or son?” If not, then that is not considered a safe riderall-ability bikeway.
Sadly, this has adversely affected female bike riders because they are less likely to take the risk of riding next to traffic. “In many European countries if you did an account of the bikeways—who are using bikes for transportation,” Monsere said. “It would be a 5050 gender split. But in many U.S. cities, it’s 10 or 15% female.” Monsere explained that some riders are adverse to the risk involved in riding alongside automobile traffic.
This risk is partly due to U.S. vehicle size increasing, contributing to the severity of bike/ car accidents. “So when you look at that equation of speed plus mass, it’s not really surprising that we’re seeing the most vulnerable users in the system, pedestrians primarily, have a significant increase in... fatalities,” Monsere described. “They’ve been climbing for three or four years now.”
When he talked about bike fatalities, Monsere described the most common fatal accident. “If you look at all the U.S. data for fatal bike crashes, the most common fatal bike crash is basically a cyclist being struck from behind…like on a straight roadway in between intersections,” he said. “And you can imagine that that’s generally [at a] very high speed…the number one fatal crash in the U.S. for bicycling [deaths].”
Monsere portrayed the impact of bike accidents on roadways, emphasizing the relative risk. “If you took a map of any city and you plotted where all the people, walking and biking, had been killed without any roads [on the map], you would see the roads because they would be on all the high-speed roadways because that’s where the problems are,” he said.
Monsere highlighted the significance of implementing protected or separated bikeways to achieve more equitable bikeways. Monsere described “a protected bikeway, or the new terminology ‘separated bikeway’...this dedicated
space with a vertical separation element from traffic. It can be cars, it can be a concrete barrier, [it] can be planters, it can be other things. So there are a lot of variations on what that vertical element is, but it’s something that delineates the space so that vehicles cannot generally get into it.”
Many countries are implementing an approach that considers both speed and mass.
Monsere explained the Safe System Approach.
“So there’s this design philosophy that’s fairly common in countries that are employing what is called the ‘safe system approach,’ where you want to separate things that [have] homogeneity of mass and speed,” he said. “So big things, going fast, you don’t want them mixing with people…freeways are kind of a great example of that. So it’s a long-term sort of network problem to build a safe network.”
Monsere commented on the subject of the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s productivity with bike safety infrastructure in Portland.
“Well, there’s always more to be done, but they’ve done a lot—if you look [at] the infrastructure that they’re building, they have a plan,” he said. “If you look at like Better Naito [Forever] project at the waterfront, it actually started as a PSU capstone course… now it’s a fully reconstructed, designed, high-quality bicycling facility.”
Monsere explained that this is a three-tier problem, including engineering, infrastructure and people’s behavior.
Monsere is also a Bicycle Transportation Committee (BTC) member. “The Transportation Research Board is kind of a unique thing,” he said. “It’s a branch of the National Academy of Sciences. It’s an all-volunteer organization around transportation themes. Then there are subcommittees that deal with the particular topic area, [like] the Bicycle Transportation Committee…the charge of the committee is really related to advancing the state of bicycle transportation.”
“[BTC] covers all things bicycle, from safety
to design to planning and encouragement,” Monsere continued. “But the committee’s job is to review and encourages research and write problem statements that can get funded through different federal agencies. It’s been fairly successful in recent years—I don’t know, three or four million [dollars] in bicycle research that’s been funded at the federal level. Portland State has a number of those projects, including the Parkway and bike intersection projects that are ongoing.” Monsere is Co-Principal Investigator of those projects. Monsere contributes to enhancing the safety of our bike-friendly city through his continuous research, volunteer work and advocacy efforts. The goal is to create a city with zero bike fatalities, which is being pursued through implementing improved infrastructure and educational initiatives, as well as promoting responsible community behavior. These combined efforts aim to make the vision of a safer city for cyclists a tangible reality.
One of the more endearing things about Portland, Oregon is the access to the beauty of nature without even having to leave the city limits. With parks galore in and around the city and a bountiful river that separates the east and west ends of town, we are pretty spoiled here in the PNW.
The Willamette River flows through the heart of Portland, providing a picturesque waterfront for outdoor activities, like festivals and competitions. This week, the Portland State Vanguard had the opportunity to sit down for an interview with the nonprofit organization, Dragon Sports, to talk about the yearly competition of dragon boat racing they put on dur -
ing the Portland Dragon Boat Festival and learn a little more about the origin of the race.
The legend of dragon boat racing has a long and fascinating history that dates back to ancient China during the Warring States period. The story revolves around the poet and statesman Qu Yuan, who was known for his loyalty to the kingdom of Chu and his opposition to the corrupt officials who ruled the kingdom. When Qu Yuan’s political enemies managed to turn the king against him, he was exiled. It was at that time that he started taking up the art of poetry to express his love for his country and his despair at the sight of its corruption. One of his
most famous poems was the “Li Sao” or “Encountering Sorrow.”
Overwhelmed with grief when the capital of Chu was overtaken by the rival state, Qu Yuan waded into the Miluo River and let the water take his life. Upon hearing the news, the local people rushed into the water in their boats to try and save him, but were unsuccessful. In an attempt to honor Qu Yuan’s memory and protect his body from being devoured by fish and evil spirits, the villagers threw rice dumplings into the river, beat drums and paddled their boats around, birthing the tradition of dragon boats.
To this day, dragon boat races are held annually on the fifth day
of the fifth month of the lunar calendar in China. Dragon boat racing has become a popular sport around the world, with competitions like the one held annually in Portland. And in recent years, the event has become recognized as an official sport by being added to various international competitions such as the Asian Games and the World Dragon Boat Championships.
In Portland, the dragon boat racing community has grown steadily over the years, attracting both participants and spectators. Taking place on the Willamette River at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the races provide a thrilling and competitive atmosphere as spectators watch the teams paddle in sync to the beat of the drums coming from the boats.
Founded in 1996 by a small group of paddlers, DragonSports USA started out with only one old boat made of teak that they shared between the 36 of them. In those formative years, there were no established teams names yet, so any competition those paddlers entered was under the name of DragonSports USA. By 2006, the number of boats that were owned by the organization had grown to six, and today the organization owns 10 boats that they rent to teams for competition during the festival.
DragonSports USA serves as a unifying force for racers, promoting teamwork, fitness and cultural exchange within the community. The festival is held during the month of September and is welcoming to all shapes, sizes and experience levels.
In 2004, after they realized they had enough interest to create their own competition, DragonSports presented Portland with its first ever Portland Dragon Boat Festival, attracting teams from as far as Canada and California. In true Portland style, after racers get through fiercely competing with others, they can relax at the beer garden provided. “We pride ourselves on being the first ones to the beer garden,” said Sid Smith, the presi -
dent of the organization.
Dawn Ham-Kucharski, one of the newest members of the paddling team The Castaways and a sitting board member with DragonSports USA, is entering her second year of being in the world of dragon boat racing here in PDX. “As a new member, and someone who is new to the state of Oregon, and Portland, this has been a great way to not only connect to the community and make social connections, but [DragonSports] provides a welcoming inclusive environment,” she said. “No matter your ability or physical make up, everyone is included.”
Not only can dragon boat racing provide some fun while working on your fitness, but a study done by Dr. Don McKenzie at the University of British Columbia provided evidence that the rowing motion the racers do supports remission for breast cancer survivors, disproving the belief that less motion is better as to not disturb the areas created for cancer. Today there are more than 140 breast cancer dragon boating teams worldwide.
Sid said that throughout the weekend of the festival, things stay interesting. “It is just so exciting when you’re up against teams that are so similar, and races are won by a 100th of a second,” he said, which he and his team of The Castaways has gotten away with.
The last race of each day is a little different from the other ones that take place. For this special race, they have the top eight women’s teams on Saturday and the top eight teams on Sunday race from the Hawthorne bridge to the Marquam bridge and back, totaling 2000 meters.
Overall, dragon boat racing has become an integral part of the sports and recreational landscape in Portland. The sports combination of athleticism, teamwork and cultural significance has resonated with the community, fostering a vibrant and growing dragon boat racing scene in the city.
For more information on how to create your own team, become a volunteer or find a map to the beer garden, be sure to visit their website at dragonsports.org.
On May 15, outgoing Portland State President Stephen Percy held a press conference with members of Student Media—myself included—on topics that have impacted students and his administration in the closing days of his term such as the re-arming of campus police, anti-trans protests on campus and ChatGPT.
Above all, the conference clarified one thing: Percy has little idea of what’s happening on his campus, and not much interest in finding out.
According to Portland State Vanguard reporting, Campus Public Safety Office (CPSO) Chief Willie Halliburton informed Percy that he made the decision to have campus police return to patrolling with arms on Feb. 14, informing him again on March 9 that this decision would continue for the foreseeable future. The first public announcement of the re-armament came from Percy’s office on April 11—nearly two months after he was first informed of the change—in a campus-wide email that obfuscated the issue more than clarified it
Given the chance to explain this decision-making process, Percy’s answers were less than satisfactory. When asked about the large time gap between when officers re-armed and when the campus community was informed, Percy said that he wanted to consult with the University Public Safety Oversight Committee (UPSOC) and others before making an announcement.
“I asked UPSOC, to make sure that the UPSOC people were consulted, and then I asked for our communications people to spend some time crafting a plan so we could explain to people
exactly what we were doing and why we were doing it,” Percy said. Doing his due diligence to make sure that the decision was properly communicated is admirable—but that’s not exactly what happened here. “I definitely wanted to have a communication plan that took a week or two, I think, to get that formulation figured out,” Percy said.
Unfortunately, it didn’t take a week or two. Being generous, it was 30 days between when CPSO decided to re-arm full time and when Percy informed students, and almost two months after they initially re-armed in February. Ultimately, Percy did not have an answer for this discrepancy. “I don’t remember all the exact details,” he said.
When asked about the lack of opportunity for public comment on the CPSO decision, especially from students, Percy gave symbolic reassurances but little material substance. “We need to do a better job of communication to people,” he said, citing UPSOC involvement in future policy decisions.
“I’m not sure every issue a president has to be one where you can take a long time to have a lot of deliberation, when you feel this [re-arming CPSO] is an action you really need to take for the safety of people,” Percy explained. “This is a case where I think… the situation is so serious that the president has to make a decision on his or her best judgment at the time, given the knowledge they have and the input from the brightest people, rather than making a referendum on safety.”
As a student and member of the PSU community, I have to ask: which is it? Regarding CPSO re-armament, was there a
thorough deliberative process involving multiple university departments, or was it a quick decision? Does Percy take student opinion into account when making these decisions, or is this not a “referendum” situation, as he put it?
In light of these facts, Percy’s commitment to transparency appears flimsy at best. “My colleagues here, one of the things we’ve heard a lot about in the last year is transparency, transparency, transparency—I get it,” Percy said. “As president, I’ve tried to be as transparent as I can be. I think I’ve sent more messages out to the campus community.”
Transparency isn’t just about sending mass emails to students, though, especially not if those emails are delayed and opaque to begin with. It’s about letting students into the decision-making process to begin with—decisions that affect them personally—and giving students, faculty and other community members real, substantive power to make decisions in their own best interests.
UPSOC, as much as Percy has touted it as a win for transparency, is still little more than a symbolic advisory board. Their official charter charges them to “review and assess, according to such priorities as it may determine, all Campus Public Safetyrelated policies and procedures and make recommendations for any suggested improvements.” These recommendations, as far as it appears in this charter, are not binding.
Furthermore, their charter states that “CPSO will provide UPSOC with proposed new policies and revisions to existing policies no fewer than 45 days before their implementation.”
It’s not clear if that happened in the case of CPSO re-armament, though UPSOC was ultimately informed. Given the haphazard nature and quick timeline of the policy change, it doesn’t appear that UPSOC was informed 45 days beforehand.
In fact, Percy’s response to Halliburton’s initial notification makes it seem as though UPSOC doesn’t even have that much power. “[CPSO] told me about [rearming], that they were ready to go with that full time, and then I said, ‘I want to definitely consult with UPSOC,’” Percy said. What kind of system is set up here, that the president has the choice to want to consult with the campus safety advisory committee? It would be unfair to infer too much from this, to be sure, but it is worth noting that this is a remarkably glib way to talk about one’s required duties.
That brings us back to the main problem with this process: namely, that UPSOC, like the Associated Students of Portland State University (ASPSU), has no real power other than the ability to make recommendations to the president and Board of Trustees. In the end, the president holds the levers of power at PSU, and it’s their choice whether or not to take community opinion into account.
Percy’s disconnection from the campus community doesn’t end with CPSO, however. Take, for example, the official university response to anti-trans provocateurs visiting campus in April. The Queer Resource Center (QRC), a PSU Community Center, posted an advisory on their Instagram page requesting that students ignore the protesters, and “not give them what they want.”
Percy, in contrast, sent a campus-wide email on the same day stating that “[at] Portland State, we are committed to being a safe space for all members of the LGBTQIA+ community to learn and thrive.” The email did not specifically mention the provocateurs, or give an indication that something was happening on campus at all.
Percy didn’t appear to know much about what was going on, which has seemed to become a running theme. “I was told that someone might come and they didn’t know what day or time,” he said about the protesters. “I mean, we didn’t know the time.” Percy said he was unaware of the QRC post. “We have people that are trying to plan ahead for these kinds of events,” he said, later specifying, “people in student affairs.”
ChatGPT and other AI tools are an issue of major concern for universities moving forward , and PSU policy on the issue is a matter of some importance for students and faculty. As with other policy issues, however, Percy had some trouble finding clarity on his position.
“What do you guys think about it?” Percy asked. “What are you hearing? Is it a topic students are interested in, concerned about, or…?” Regarding his office’s position, Percy simply said that “the provost has convened a committee, because it’s sort of in the academic realm.”
What’s going on here? Does Percy have a case of senioritis? The lack of transparency from the university administration is intensely frustrating, and the excuse of “I can’t recall” simply doesn’t cut it on issues of this level of importance. If Percy can’t even come up with consistent explanations for university policy at a press conference that he had ample time to prepare for, what should we expect the rest of the time? One can only hope that incoming President Ann Cudd will take a different approach to the office.
ART
ART WALK MT. TABOR PARK
10 A.M.
FREE
A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO SEE QUALITY VISUAL ART AND MEET THE ARTISTS IN THEIR STUDIOS
41ST ANNUAL ROSE FESTIVAL ART SHOW OREGON SOCIETY OF ARTISTS 10 A.M.
FREE SHOWCASE OF WORK THAT CELEBRATES THE ROSE CITY IN ITS SPRING RESPLENDENCE
NERD POETRY SLAM AL’S DEN
2:30 P.M.
FREE
GEEKY POETRY, POP CULTURE, SCIENCE. SHARE, COMPETE, CONNECT.
SUBTLE INTIMACY PORTLAND JAPANESE GARDEN 10 A.M.
$14+
A SHOWCASE OF RUI SASAKI’S GLASSWORK, PRESERVING PLANT IMPRESSIONS
THE ARTIST STATEMENT INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING RESOURCE CENTER
1 P.M.
ANALYZE EXAMPLES, ENGAGE IN FREE WRITES, AND RECEIVE FEEDBACK. OPEN TO ALL LEVELS.
YOUNG ARTISTS
1610 NW 14TH AVE, PORTLAND, OR 97209
10:30 A.M.
$25
A CREATIVE JOURNEY FOR CHILDREN, EXPLORING THROUGH DRAWING, PAINTING, SCULPTURE AND MORE.
ALL ABOUT BUGS CREATIVE CULTURE
10 A.M.
$150
FOUR-DAY ART CAMP FOR KIDS AGES 5–10, ENDING WITH AN ART SHOW
THE CURE MODA CENTER
7 P.M.
$50
AN ICONIC ENGLISH ROCK BAND KNOWN FOR MELANCHOLIC, CAPTIVATING MUSIC
DURAN DURAN MODA CENTER
7 P.M.
$35
BRITISH NEW WAVE PIONEERS WITH ICONIC, STYLISH, CHART-TOPPING HITS, CAPTIVATING AUDIENCES WITH THEIR INFECTIOUS MUSIC
THE NATIONAL MCMENAMINS EDGEFIELD
6:30 P.M.
$52
BROOKLYN-BASED INDIE ROCK BAND BLENDING ALTERNATIVE COUNTRY, CHAMBER POP AND POST-PUNK
WUKI
45 EAST
10 P.M.
$25
A DJ AND PRODUCER KNOWN FOR HIS ENERGETIC AND HEAVY BASS ELECTRONIC MUSIC
PSU PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE LINCOLN RECITAL HALL
3 P.M.
FREE
A DIVERSE PROGRAM WITH SAMBA ENSEMBLE AND A WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING
MADISON MCFERRIN DOUG FIR
9 P.M.
$18
A TALENTED INDEPENDENT SONGWRITER, PRODUCING INNOVATIVE, SOULFUL A CAPPELLA PERFORMANCES
NOON TUNES SUMMER PIONEER COURTHOUSE SQUARE
12 P.M.
FREE
THE EL KAYS WILL BRING VIBRANCY TO PIONEER SQUARE AS PART OF A SUMMER CONCERT SERIES
BEST OF PPS
HOLLYWOOD THEATRE
5:30 P.M.
FREE
VIBRANT SHOWCASE OF YOUNG FILMMAKERS’ TALENT FROM PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS
A DREAM PLAY
LINCOLN HALL PSU
7:30 P.M.
$6+
CHURCHILL’S ADAPTATION OF STRINDBERG’S PLAY, CHALLENGING REALISM AND EXPLORING HOPE AMIDST REALITIES
THE INHERITANCE PART II TRIANGLE PRODUCTIONS
7:30 P.M.
$15+
CHARACTERS ON JOURNEYS OF SELFDISCOVERY, DECEPTION AND DESTRUCTION
MARGARET CHO
ALADDIN THEATER
10:30 P.M.
$35+
A BOLD AND TRAILBLAZING COMEDIAN WHO TACKLES SOCIAL ISSUES WITH HER UNFILTERED HUMOR
MORVERN CALLAR
5TH AVENUE CINEMA
3 P.M.
STUDENTS: FREE
GENERAL: $7
A FILM EXPLORING IDENTITY, GRIEF AND SELF-DISCOVERY THROUGH THE JOURNEY OF ITS PROTAGONIST
COMEDY OPEN MIC CHEERFUL TORTOISE
9 P.M.
FREE
FIVE-MINUTE COMEDY SETS WITH A FEATURE COMEDIAN
INHERENT GOOD CLINTON STREET THEATER
6 P.M.
$10
A DOCUMENTARY EXPLORING UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME AS A SOLUTION TO POVERTY
VORTEX COMMUNITY MEET
TEA CHAI TE
10 A.M.
FREE
A CREATIVE GATHERING TO COLLABORATE AND BRING IDEAS TO LIFE
WHAT’S BUGGING OUR TREES? WORLD FORESTRY CENTER
8 A.M.
$15+
COMBAT EMERALD ASH BORER. GAIN INSIGHTS, NETWORK AND PROTECT OUR PRECIOUS URBAN FORESTS.
SPRING BEER & WINE FEST
WASHINGTON MONROE FIELD
4 P.M.
$5
ONE OF PORTLAND’S ICONIC FESTIVALS. SAVOR CRAFT BEVERAGES, LOCAL DELICACIES AND DELIGHTFUL FLAVORS.
MY PEOPLE’S MARKET THE REDD 12 P.M.
FREE
A VIBRANT INDOOR AND OUTDOOR MARKET WITH FAMILY ACTIVITIES, DELICIOUS FOOD, MUSIC, PERFORMERS AND SHOPPING
PORTLAND TRACK FESTIVAL MOUNT HOOD COMMUNITY COLLEGE
7 A.M.
$15
WITNESS OLYMPIANS AND ELITE DISTANCE RUNNERS COMPETE IN THRILLING RACES
GEEKS WHO DRINK HAWTHORNE HIDEAWAY 7:30 P.M.
FREE
A LIVELY TRIVIA QUIZ TO TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE, AND ENJOY DRINKS WITH FRIENDS
PEDALPALOOZA BIKE FESTIVAL PORTLAND, OR 10 A.M.
FREE
A BIKE FESTIVAL THAT CELEBRATES SUMMER’S ARRIVAL WITH OVER 100 DIFFERENT RIDES ORGANIZED BY CYCLISTS
