NEWS: PSUFA members discuss pay struggles P. 4
P.
OPINION: Tr imet's stance on drug use masks complex societal challenges P. 5
ARTS: Holding Fire exhibition delves into various facets of wildfires P. 8-9
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NEWS
PSUFA nears an impasse with administration
OPINION
SPORTS Player Spotlight: Mariana Garcia Rosette
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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.
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 online 24/7 at psuvanguard.com.
As a writer first and foremost, I understand the power words can hold. My focus has been in the fiction strand of writing, but I’ve enjoyed my time learning about poetry and nonfiction as well. After my time ends at PSU, I plan to work in the world of words—whether it be in publishing, journalism or writing.
While you often encounter my work as copy chief, the goal is for you not to notice my hand in it. Errors grab your attention, like breaking the fourth wall or peeking behind the curtain.
My job is to make sure each and every article, caption, masthead, cover and footnote adheres to our house style guide and Associated Press style. The key is consistency and clarity. Grammar is a key component, but it’s more about polishing the author’s original story so it blends in with the rest of the paper— as if it was always meant to be there.
Copy editing is important, especially for a student paper. All our editors and contributors work hard to put out a high-quality paper, but a misspelled name or error in punctuation could lose that reader’s attention and trust for good. Each and every paper could be a first and last impression, which is why all should be edited and polished to make that impression a good one.
I also encourage anyone interested in copy editing to apply, regardless of experience. While editing and grammar may seem daunting at first, practice truly makes perfect.
Now, I’ll fade into the mist and let you enjoy the paper.
The Portland State University Faculty Association (PSUFA), who have been bargaining for a Cost of Living Increase (COLA), announced on their blog on Aug. 29 that the PSU administration has initiated formal mediation with the Employee & Labor Relations Board.
The blog explained how mediation can be initiated by either side of the bargaining table after 150 days of bargaining if an agreement has not been reached. However, the blog stated that this announcement surprised their bargaining team, as the administration previously seemed to agree mediation was unnecessary.
“Why is PSU calling for mediation as soon as they are legally allowed to, and without giving PSUFA any indication this was the direction they were moving?” The blog stated. “We hope that it is motivated by a commitment to continue bargaining in good faith and in a democratic spirit and not an attempt at unilateral implementation of their vision of ‘fairness’ and ‘equity’ upon our unit.”
In a previous interview, PSU President Ann Cudd explained how she was very optimistic that a solution could be found and believed mediation would help both parties reach an agreement. Though PSUFA is willing to participate in collective action, Cudd said at the beginning of the term that she does not believe a strike is possible, given Oregon law.
Erica Thomas—adjunct professor in the university studies department and PSUFA’s chair of political action—explained how PSUFA legally cannot take collective action until they complete the mediation process and reach an impasse. Thomas said if both parties reach an impasse, they must abide by a 30-day coolingoff period, during which they cannot legally strike or take any collective action. According to Thomas, the soonest they would be allowed to strike would be towards the end of the fall term.
“Personally, I think [mediation] is a good thing because the membership is not happy with the packages that have been offered so far at all,” Thomas said. “They are extremely upset about the packages that have been offered, and there is no legal pathway towards striking unless we go to mediation.”
PSUFA’s most recent bargaining session on Sept. 1 resulted
in the PSU administration presenting PSUFA with a counterproposal, which looked “remarkably similar to—and in many ways worse than—the packages they presented [to PSUFA] on July 19,” according to the blog.
At the Sept. 1 bargaining session, the administration announced it would increase the COLA to the per-credit minimum from 6.5% to 10%, which aligns with PSUFA’s demands. However, the blog explained how this increase came at the cost of their other demands. Though the administration met demands for an increase, it rescinded their verbal agreement to pick up retirement at 6% and its offer of an additional $25,000 to the Adjunct Faculty Assistance Fund for caregivers—a $15,000 a year increase to the Faculty Education Fund. The administration also offered no length-of-service increase for adjuncts employed for 12 or more years.
Still, according to the blog, this raise only puts adjuncts at a 1.7% increase to what they made in 2019 when adjusted for inflation. With many adjuncts struggling to make ends meet, PSUFA representatives have expressed the dire need for a COLA.
Alison Lutz—adjunct professor in the school of art and design and member of the PSUFA bargaining team—explained how she has multiple part-time jobs besides her role at PSU. She said that working multiple jobs outside of the education field impacts her ability to dedicate time and energy to her job at PSU.
“My attention is spread to all of these different jobs, and I’m not able to pour as much energy into my teaching as I would want,” Lutz said. “I would like to be there for my students, answering their emails every day, but I don’t… because I have other jobs that I have to attend to. If I was as accessible as my students needed me to be, I would be working all the time. Unfortunately, I just have to make a call, and that call is that I’m not able to be there for my students in the way thatI would prefer, based on just the fact that I have five part-time jobs.”
Despite these issues, Lutz explained how being an adjunct offers her enough flexibility to maintain her studio practice, and that her love of teaching keeps her at PSU.
“Nobody becomes a teacher to become a millionaire,” Lutz said. “You are a teacher because you like engaging with people.
You like exploring new ideas. You like seeing students grow and being a part of that process of growth and engaging with the next generation in your field. The administration knows that this is a labor of love, and so they’re willing to exploit that.”
Thomas said she works 60–80 hours a week at multiple jobs and had to choose her career over having children.
“The reason that I chose not to have children was because— for me—it’s [either] art or kids, and there is no way for me to afford a comfortable life with children in this space,” Thomas explained. “In this context, it’s just not possible.”
Thomas says roughly 70% of adjuncts are women, making adjunct pay inequality a gender equity issue. She said she doesn’t feel supported by PSU in her job, especially in the way she needs it most—equal pay for equal work.
“People are literally homeless in our bargaining unit,” Thomas said. “The stress of having that kind of economic precarity in your life is so harsh. Student learning conditions are negatively affected when their faculty members—their teachers—have a bad contract that puts them in this precarious position, that makes them choose between doing free work or not fulfilling basic expectations that undergraduate students should have. We’re fighting for students to have a better educational experience, and we’re fighting against the adjunctification of the university. We want stability, we want fair pay, and we want support from the university in economic terms.”
PSU tentatively scheduled the next bargaining session for Sept. 18. Members and supporters of PSUFA can attend Bargaining Town Hall meetings on campus or over Zoom on Sept. 21 and Sept. 26 from 5–6 p.m.
PSUFA announced a breakthrough in their negotiations with the administration. Earlier sentiments of an impending impasse have shifted, as PSUFA revealed in an official statement on Sept. 19 that they have reached a tentative agreement with the administration.
Stay tuned for the latest updates on this development by following us on Instagram @psuvanguard. We will provide ongoing coverage on this evolving story.
Trimet posted an article earlier this month on its blog titled “It’s time for a crackdown on public drug use,” which was motivated by reports from a University of Washington study that 100% of sampled MAX Light Rail trains tested positive for low levels of methamphetamine.
In the post, Trimet acknowledged that the drug residue concentration was extremely low and didn’t constitute a health risk to riders or employees. However, it stated, “we want to keep drugs off our transit system entirely ” [italics original to quote].
Trimet is taking steps to “combat drug use on our system,” which included doubling its security budget since 2020, significantly increasing security personnel on board, prohibiting smoking of any kind on transit and partnering with law enforcement to “increase safety missions around transit centers.”
The merits of these steps can and likely will become debated in the coming weeks and months. There’s a bigger problem here, though. Why is Trimet deciding drug policy?
The blog post vaguely mentions state law, stating, “Oregon law poses challenges for keeping the smoking of fentanyl and meth out of public spaces, such as transit.” That sentence is vital to understanding the tangled knot of fear and backlash driving Oregon drug policy.
First, there’s a few facts to get out of the way. According to a letter from the directors of the Washington Poison Center (WPC) and Oregon Poison Center (OPC), the amount of drugs detected in the UW study was extremely small. More importantly, it’s a result of the United States’ “epidemic of opioid and stimulant use” more than anything else.
Oregon is in no way an outlier in this trend. According to a 2021 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study—which
looked at age-adjusted, drug overdose mortality rates by state— Oregon had a rate of 26.8 deaths per 100,000 people. That’s about middle of the road for the U.S., with other states like Kentucky and West Virginia coming in at 55.6 and 90.9 respectively. Drug overdose rates have also been rising across the country for decades. In 1999, the highest rate came from Nevada at 11.5.
“This study aimed to determine if drugs could be detected in public transit, and it can,” the WPC-OPC letter stated. “This is reflective of the volume of drug use currently in our communities and a reminder for the community to develop solutions to decrease drug use over the long term.” The letter’s ending addresses the simple fact that drug abuse is not a law enforcement problem—it is a public health problem.
Shirley Block, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 who represents Trimet employees, told KPTV that bus and train operators felt unsafe with public drug use. “People have a fear, a fear of the unknown,” Block said. “Right now, people don’t know [the] long term effect. That’s a mental fear to them.”
Unfortunately, that’s been the driving force behind U.S. drug policy for decades—Oregon included. Fear of drugs is a potent political force, typically leading to a punitive approach.
This is not the time or place to get into the details of carceral drug policy—except to say that if the War-on-Drugs-style of drug crackdowns actually reduced drug use, well, it would have worked by now
Trimet referred to Oregon law—specifically decriminalizing most drug use from Measure 110—which established a new Class E violation with a maximum $100 fine for unlawful possession of a controlled substance.
According to statistics from the Oregon Judicial Department,
58% of Class E violations are for possession of methamphetamine, with the rest being mostly a mix of Schedule II substances, heroin, oxycodone and others.
Signed into law in Nov. 2020, Measure 110 took a nosedive in popularity, as 56% of Oregonians now support a total repeal and 64% support repealing some parts of the law, according to a survey conducted by Emerson College Polling commissioned by the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions
But let’s take a closer look at that poll. A majority of polled voters thought Measure 110 increased houselessness in their community, 50% said it made their community “much less safe” and 43% said that Measure 110 funds going to a needle-exchange program made their community less safe.
The problem is that these aren’t questions of public opinion— they’re facts. Has Measure 110 increased houselessness rates in Portland? There is no data to that effect, and it’s somewhat of a pointless question anyway. The myriad of factors which go into houselessness—not to mention drug addiction—are too varied and interdependent to dumb it down to one single cause.
There are many critiques to be made of Measure 110, especially its rapid implementation and underfunded treatment program. A 16-bed fentanyl detox center—which opened this month in East Portland—is “the first alcohol and drug withdrawal management facility in the state that was paid for with funding from Measure 110,” according to OPB
However, to single out decriminalization as the cause of a slew of social problems is misguided at best. It ignores the underlying causes of drug abuse in favor of a simple, politically advantageous solution. Our drug policy is based on fear rather than facts, and that is a dangerous road to go down.
Often viewed as a serene sport, golf harbors a world of mental trials and isolation which hides within the trees sprawling throughout the meticulously-groomed acres of green. Entering her final year of collegiate golf, Portland State senior Mariana Garcia Rosette reflected on how she took on these challenges, as well as her aspirations for this upcoming season.
“It feels a bit bittersweet, but I’m looking to help the new girls and our other returners as much as I can [by] creating team bonding experiences, making sure we challenge each other while offering unwavering support on and off the course,” Garcia Rosette said.
Despite its individualistic nature, golf thrives on the camaraderie which underpins most team sports. “Being part of a collegiate sport is about building that team environment and building that sisterhood,” said Garcia Rosette.
The PSU women’s golf team goes beyond the fairways, engaging in activities such as homework sessions, baking and seasonal celebrations to foster off-course connections and unity.
Navigating the dual responsibilities of guiding her game and nurturing team spirit, Garcia Rosette acknowledged her role as a senior leader. “Being named team captain is a big responsibility,” she said. “It’s just fun to help these girls navigate their college careers.”
She serves as a bridge between individual pursuits and team goals, fostering a sense of camaraderie and support which transcends golf’s solitary nature.
However, golf’s challenges extend beyond team dynamics. The solitude intrinsic to the game presents a profound mental challenge. “A lot of mental work goes into it,” Garcia Rosette said. “Golf is a lot about how you approach it and staying present and moving on after a bad shot or a good one.”
Indeed, golfers like Garcia Rosette confront the physical demands and the mental fortitude required for excellence. Personal goals stretch beyond scores and statistics, encompassing relentless improvement on and off the course.
“Honestly, the biggest goal is just to have fun,” Garcia Rosette said. “Just hoping that giving it my all—on and off the course—will get us closer to winning and inspire the other girls to do the same.”
Beyond Garcia Rosette’s insights, the mental rigors of golf have garnered attention in the sporting world. “The fact is that golf, played to the best of one’s ability, requires intense concentration,” stated a Golf Digest article , emphasizing the sport’s unique challenges.
GolfNews delved into the mental aspects as well. “Developing mental resilience is essential for golfers who want to perform at their best consistently,” the article stated. “It involves cultivating strategies and techniques
that help players overcome challenges and setbacks, both on and off the course.”
The New York Times also stressed the mental fortitude required for golf. “Psychologically, golf may be the most fragile sport of all,” the NYT article state. “It’s certainly the most frustrating. In baseball, a batter can be fooled by a crackling curveball. But a golf ball just sits there until a golfer hits it. And if that ball is hit improperly, the golfer cannot blame anybody else. What you hit is what you get.”
Looking ahead to the upcoming season, Garcia Rosette is eager to help the team build on last season’s performance. “Having a coach change can be difficult, but I think Coach Winter has done a great job recruiting some players, and this year, we have some strong freshmen coming in,” she said. “I know everyone has put a lot of hard work into practice and being motivated and engaged with the team.”
One notable event on the horizon is the Big Sky 54 tournament, celebrating Title IX’s anniversary. Garcia Rosette views this as an excellent opportunity to promote women in sports and is excited about the team’s participation.
“I think the addition of that tournament to celebrate Title IX’s anniversary is great,” she said. “I mean, it’s something that we’ve never done before, and it promotes women in sports. I think it’s a great event for everyone, but I think our team is very excited to participate in it.”
Garcia Rosette has improved her average stroke count significantly, crediting mental work and a change in mindset. “I think some of the key lessons that I’ve learned is to stay in the moment,” she said. “It can get really easy to build on the past or focus too much on what’s ahead of you, but engulfing yourself outside of it and just making sure that I’m enjoying what I’m doing and being grateful for what I have in the moment is really important.” She focuses on staying present and positive on the golf course, relying on techniques like breathing exercises and daily affirmations.
As a senior and co-captain alongside junior Tannica Porter, Garcia Rosette embraced her leadership role by offering guidance and support to the newer players. She has learned to cherish the present moment, a lesson she believes will be crucial for this season’s performance. “Before I go on the course, I just remind myself why I do this and what I’m grateful for that morning,” Garcia Rosette said.
Garcia Rosette’s journey through collegiate golf reveals the sport’s unique blend of challenges and rewards. As the team embarks on a new season, Mariana’s leadership and determination will undoubtedly play a role in their pursuit of success on and off the course.
Golf courses can promote biodiversity in urban areas when strategically designed and managed, especially in environments where wildlife might seek shelter or refuge. While comprehensive data and dedicated studies on this holistic approach are currently limited, management strategies are increasingly shifting towards recognizing and leveraging golf courses for their potential contributions to conservation efforts.
It is essential to understand golf courses’ primary composition, maintenance and the shift towards a holistic approach instead of the traditional one.
Golf courses commonly feature turfgrass, which most individuals recognize as grass or lawn. Turfgrass systems find applications in various settings, encompassing areas such as front yards, recreational spaces, sports fields and parks.
Humans actively manage artificial systems like turfgrass, which differ from natural ecosystems such as prairies or meadows. Natural systems of grasslands have more spatially sowed seeds and offer a range of plants working in tandem to cohabitate. Where other plants and species would offer nutrients to the soil, artificial systems need artificial nutrients.
While lawns may not be a natural feature of wild ecosystems, they are a prevalent and integral aspect of urban environments which most people are accustomed to. Lawns are common green spaces which people are familiar with, and this familiarity can influence how they perceive and address the issues and challenges associated with these artificial systems.
Lawns are often monocultures, meaning they are one crop variety artificially maintained in one location. We have a lot of monoculture, usually with vegetation grown and harvested for consumption. The problems we see with lawns are often similar to those with agriculture—the threat of deforestation, soil erosion, water irrigation and a need for chemical fertilizer.
The key difference with golf—compared to other sports using turfgrass—is the amount of space golf courses occupy. According to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, an average 18-hole golf course spans about 160 acres, with 95 acres of maintained turfgrass. In contrast, a football field covers just 1.89 acres of turfgrass. This vast land usage sets golf courses apart in terms of space requirements.
Golf has a distinct advantage due to the various available courses, allowing for initiatives that promote greater biodiversity and sustainability. According to the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, an average 18-hole golf course spans about 160 acres, with 95 acres of maintained turfgrass. In contrast, a football field covers just 1.89 acres of turfgrass.
“Intensive management practices such as frequent application of inorganic fertilizers, irrigation, and fuel consumption from mowing and leaf blowing all decrease the likelihood that urban turfgrass ecosystems can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in cities,” a University of California, Berkeley article stated.
Water conservation is currently a significant priority, particularly in Oregon. Despite the perception of ample water resources, the changing climate necessitates a shift in focus. A school of law graduate student from Seattle University explored the potential for golf courses to adopt sustainable practices, such as utilizing reclaimed and recycled water or transitioning to drought-tolerant grass. These adaptive strategies address water scarcity and mitigate concerns related to irrigation contaminants, presenting promising opportunities for the industry.
Golf courses operate in open environments, which means the fertilizers and pesticides they use have the potential to contaminate water systems through runoff. Journal of Environmental Management published a review which delved deeper into the concerns raised by watershed managers regarding golf courses
serving as a significant source of nutrient loading in bodies of water. Consequently, there is a strong emphasis on improving irrigation management and fine-tuning nutrient application to prevent overuse and the subsequent pollution of waterways.
Management practices have enhanced the capacity to contain runoff and improve surface water quality and quantity. Despite regulatory changes since the 1980s, maintaining golf course landscapes still involves the application of fertilizers, posing a potential risk of watershed contamination and pollution. This highlights the ongoing need for responsible management practices to balance the maintenance of these landscapes with environmental conservation efforts.
While often adhering to United States Environmental Protection Agency regulations, pesticides and chemicals commonly used for maintenance can still have harmful effects. As science uncovers the secondary impacts of these chemicals and regulations evolve, there is a shift towards adopting biological pesticides and improved practices which minimize chemical use.
Best management practices guide golf course management towards greater sustainability. The department of soil science at the University of Wisconsin recommended reducing pesticide application on fairways and implementing lower-risk pesticides within newly developed frameworks as part of this shift towards more environmentally friendly practices.
Portland strongly emphasizes sustainability. This is particularly evident in its five public golf courses which prioritize ecological impact.
Our primary focus should revolve around our perception of green spaces and our access to nature. When considering more ecologically sustainable land-use alternatives, we must define the benefits we seek and determine how we value these green spaces.
An unexpected collection of objects welcomes visitors into a brightly lit gallery room through the streetside windows of Well Well Projects in North Portland.
A wooden dining room table with a curiously uneven surface is flanked by a green vest dangling from the ceiling. Laid out across half of the room is a massive pile of sticks, rocks, wool and other materials. In the corner is a heap of clay, which visitors are encouraged to add to the pile.
From the benefits of beavers to the materiality of forest products to the vulnerability faced by firefighters, the works adorning this gallery address separate but interconnected interests relating to wildland fire.
This is Holding Fire, an exhibition open until Oct. 1 which was organized by a collective of artists called Fuel Ladder. This group of colleagues, students, and educators based around the University of Oregon have organized this project to explore the socio-ecological landscape of the PNW.
Fuel Ladder describes itself as “a collective working at the intersections of contemporary art and climate,” whose goal is to “cultivate collaboration through practice-based research [and] engaging, on-the-ground experiences of climate crisis through the stories, metaphors and materials of wildfire in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.”
“In this show we’re not really answering anything, we’re just raising all these questions,” said Karin Bolender, a member of Fuel Ladder. “It’s valuable to bring people together in a space to talk through ideas and collaborate on questions, and not to say that a finished aesthetic object isn’t valuable, but there is value in processing together.”
Bolender’s contribution to the exhibition includes a video of paper shreds floating down streams against a forest backdrop, as well as a metal bucket with old western novels floating in the water.
This is part of a pulping performance—which Bolender has been carrying out over the past three years—where she tears up pieces of Pulp Western novels, leaves them in a creek and returns later to mine the pulp.
The word pulp in terms of genre—such as Pulp Fiction or Pulp Western—is named after the cheap wood paper used to manufacture a particular sensationalized literature in the first half of the twentieth century.
“I got really interested in the Pulp Western and the western as a narrative being about the way the land is possessed, and that being very much a reiteration of erasure of any kind of Indigenous presence on the land or any kind of Indigenous claim to the land,” Bolender said.
“I’ve been thinking about the materiality of the book, like the fact that the book itself is a forest product,” Bolender said. “You know, it is made out of the forest.”
Upon returning to the sites to mine for the pulp, Bolender explained how “it was kind of comical, because I couldn’t actually tell if things were pulp or if they were bark, and I was like, ‘That might be the objective of this project.’ Acknowledging that it’s a material that came from the land, and what happens if we let it go back to the land in these ways?”
One of the main themes of Holding Fire is materiality. “What materials are we using?” Bolender said. “Where do they come from? How are we responsible to them in different ways?”
Another work highlighting ethical questions of material sourcing is the hanging vest, a textile product by Sasha Michelle White, titled “A Bellows, Part One—The Shelter Shirt.” This piece uses firefighting attire to address the risk and vulnerability faced by caretakers responsible for fireprone environments.
“Regulation firefighting gear is made through a very toxic process, using carcinogenic solvents and synthetic polymers to
create what are called aromatic polyamide or 'aramid' fibers,” White explained. “These fibers are supposed to be inert once processed, so inert that they don't break down even in a landfill, but there’s evidence that the fiber may actually be carcinogenic.”
To contrast this, White has constructed “A Bellows” using a naturally fire-resistant material—silk dyed with the stem bark of tall Oregon grapes and recycled fabric from a defunct fire shelter.
White was also thoughtful in countering a working culture that excludes women by designing a garment made to fit femalepresenting bodies, even though about 12% of wildland firefighters in the United States identify as women. In “what is still a machismo fire culture,” as White explained, women are “issued uniforms that are tailored to men, that don’t fit them and can increase stress and injury in what is already a dangerous job.”
Suspended across the room is another arrangement of textiles centered around firefighting. A wood-framed backpack, fabric eye mask and broad-handled straps are a few of the items displayed in the collection titled “Forest Fashion.”
Based on a cultural history of firefighting and backcountry hiking in the PNW, “these are all kind of reproductions or an iteration of things that would be part of a fire lookout’s tool pack, that they would have with them,” said Nancy Silvers, a collaborator in the project.
The items are adorned with symbols and shapes, each denoting an environmental message—such as potable water, swamp gas or landslide. This is the Environmental Wayfinding System, a re-imagined language of survival code designed to represent the socio-environmental legacy of the PNW.
Another piece in Holding Fire is a dining table called “Incident Table,” which has a surface resembling the topography of the 173,393-acre burn area left by the massive 2020 Holiday Farm Fire in Oregon.
“I just think about how much we interact with these maps online… and I wanted to make that more tangible and physical,” said Colin Ives, the artist behind this piece. Ives described the dining room table as an interface representing “the realities that we all sit around, whether we live directly in the valley or not.”
The Holiday Farm Fire destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses and devastated the infrastructure of Blue River and surrounding communities. Considering the direct effects of wildland fires and the ensuing smoke which impacts air quality throughout the western U.S. every year, it is understandable why the public would perceive wildland fires in an overwhelmingly negative light.
However, another intention of Holding Fire is to address the inevitability and necessity of wildland fires, which have always occurred naturally on the land. Many plant and animal species
depend on fire—which clears out decaying matter and generates new growth—to maintain the natural harmony of an ecosystem. While 85% of forest fires are man-made, and it is often necessary for human intervention to prevent excessive damage, suppressing fire completely would only harm the natural cycles of the environment and potentially lead to even larger fires due to the unnatural accumulation of debris.
Similarly, the large pile of materials which laid in the center of the gallery room paid homage to the duality of another harshlyjudged feature of the environment—beavers. This structure is intended to mimic a beaver dam and is “trying to show people, because beavers are kind of considered a nuisance… [that] they’re actually really beneficial to landscapes,” Silvers said.
Oregon’s history reveals an aggressive approach to beavers. This keystone species nearly suffered extinction due to fur trapping and their perception as a nuisance to human interests. “In
policy, it is still a hot topic, because they are blocking up irrigation and trenches,” Silvers said.
“Beaver Dam Analog” intends to highlight the many benefits of beavers, such as increasing the fire resistance of an ecosystem through building natural irrigation systems and forming refuge for other plant and animal species.
“The beaver can still be in a landscape but maybe not interact in a negative way with humans, but we need to keep advocating for the benefits that they bring,” Silvers said.
Holding Fire involves the community in a process of reflection and inquiry about our local ecology, encouraging viewers to participate in a collective experience of art-based discovery and research.
“Social practice art is very much like, ‘the product is the experience,’” Bolender said. “Particularly if you’re doing it with the community.”
SMSU sub-basement
Sept. 28, 1 p.m.
Free
Learn how you can share your work and have your voice heard through opportunities in Student Media. No prior media experience is necessary.
PSU Park Blocks
Sept. 28, 11 a.m.
Free
Join us in the PSU Park Blocks to learn about amazing student organizations, leadership opportunities, jobs, internships, volunteering and on-campus events
5th Avenue Cinema
Sept. 24–25, 3 p.m.
Free
Come watch free screenings of Jennifer’s Body and Fight Club. Free popcorn will be available to all attendees.
Campus Rec Center, 3rd-floor courts
Sept. 26, 7 p.m.
Free
Meet with 30 plus Campus Rec clubs and check out everything Campus Rec offers, including intramural sports, outdoor programs, aquatics, fitness and inclusive rec
SMSU Ballroom
Sept. 23, 6 p.m.
Free (tips encouraged)
Kick off the school year at the annual Viking Days Drag Show. Featuring Portland treasure—Poison Waters—and other amazing drag artists.
SMSU 458
Sept. 25, 2 p.m.
Free
Learn about queer and trans events and support, talk to QRC staff and meet other students. They will have cotton candy, identity and pronoun pins, games and more.
PSU Basic Needs Hub
SMSU Suite 435
Mon–Fri, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Free for students
Helps students access resources such as funds, food, housing, employment, childcare and health support
PSU Food Pantry
1704 SW Broadway (temporary location)
Tues–Thur, 12–4 p.m. Free for students
Access to free groceries in a welcoming, equitable, trauma-informed way. Must be enrolled in at least one credit for summer or fall.
University Center Building 340 E Times vary Free
In peer recovery, students with shared experiences connect to reduce stigma and build a campus recovery community
Sober Social Hour
University Center Building 340 E Fridays 1 p.m. Free
Grab a coffee, talk recovery or just enjoy creating new sober friendships. Not a formal recovery support meeting, but a peer recovery specialist is available to share resources and support.
730 SW 10th Ave. Suite 111 (entrance on SW 9th Ave.)
Mon–Fri, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Free
Multnomah County official cooling center with access to free technology, internet, limited books and events
Varying Locations
Mon–Fri, hours vary Free
Provides energy bill assistance to low-income Oregonians to support household stability
SHAC Mind Spa
UCB Suite 310
Mon–Fri (by appointment)
Free for students
Solo space to experience biofeedback, light therapy, meditation, massages, relaxation and more. Must be enrolled in at least five credits for summer or fall.
Mindful Meanderings
Listen on Spotify Available 24/7 Free
PSU-produced podcast about being mindful while outside, practicing gratitude, finding joy and being in the moment
Telus Health Student Support
Download on App Store or Google Play
Available 24/7
Free
Connecting students with free, confidential mental health and wellbeing support
Workshop Wednesday Video
Watch on Youtube Available 24/7 Free
PSU Campus Recreation Center staff videos about topics ranging from Leave No Trace and plant identification to hiking spots and land acknowledgments
BORP Online Fitness Studio
Watch on Zoom
Mon–Sat, hours vary
Free
Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program’s (BORP) virtual exercise classes for people with physical disabilities
Cosmic Kids Yoga
Watch on Youtube
Available 24/7 Free
Using fun and popular stories to get kids engaged in a calm, relaxing, mindful workout