Old is the new new A conversation with designer Courtney Leonard on high-end fashion and sustainability ARTS & CULTURE PAGE 7
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PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY TUESDAY, OCT. 2, 2012 | VOL. 67 NO. 10
Campus Portland is calling alerts Less than 50 percent of students notified in case of emergency ISAAC HOTCHKISS VANGUARD STAFF
If an apocalypse happened tomorrow, all you would have to do is look around and you’d know what was going on. But in the case of a more opaque emergency, such as a gunman on campus, possible bomb threat or even a snow day, more than half the campus is out of the loop. “Humans are inherently bad communicators,” said Bryant Haley, emergency management coordinator at Portland State. “I mean, have you ever been in a relationship?” According to Haley, this August there were approximately 12,500 students signed up for PSU Alert, the service that rapidly notifies the PSU community by text, voicemail and email in the case of an emergency. There were just under 30,000 students at PSU in 2011–12. Haley says he would like more people to sign up. Keeping people informed when things are falling apart is tough, he explained. “In an emergency, 85 percent of the time communication breaks down. Just look at the FBI when 9/11 happened.”
Clery Act If there were a crime at PSU, the university is required by the 1990 Clery Act to provide “timely warning” to the entire campus. Warnings are distributed via email, announcements on PSU’s website, printed notices posted at visible locations and local media. These legally required timely warnings are only somewhat effective, however. They might not be seen by people away from computers, and those who are working may not check email or the PSU website frequently enough. And people can miss signs around campus. Therefore, PSU and many other universities offer a quicker and more personal alert service, locally called PSU Alert. This provides rapid notification and offers more information than the legally mandated timely warnings. In addition, PSU Alert users can opt into information updates about weather or traffic emergencies. Haley described how, as a child, he used to have to wait for a scrolling ticker on the morning news to announce whether there was a snow day at his school. Now the information can be delivered to the public in a simple email or text message. See PSU ALERT on page 4
New study explores the city’s draw to the young and college educated
ANDREW LAWRENCE VANGUARD STAFF
“If you build it, he will come,” goes the famous line from the 1989 Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams. But according to the results of a study by two Portland State professors on the city’s uncanny ability to attract and retain young, college-educated students, a better tagline for Portland might be “Don’t build much of anything at all—they’re just going to keep coming anyway.” Titled “Is Portland Really the Place Where Young People Go To Retire?”—a reference to the popular comedy Portlandia—the recentlyreleased study finds that these young, college-educated (YCE) individuals continue to flock to Portland despite high unemployment, lower pay and a propensity for those who are employed to find only part-time work or work in “non-college” occupations, such as food service. “Young people do not come here to retire, but do not come here to get rich either,” the study concludes.
“I would presume that people know that moving here is not exactly like moving to the promised land from a job-market perspective,” said Greg Schrock, assistant professor of urban studies and planning at PSU, and one of the authors of the study. “The presumption is that people are trading their earnings, their financial well-being, for other kinds of nonmonetary benefits.” These “nonmonetary benefits,” such as Portland’s music and DIY culture, quick access to stunning natural amenities like Mt. Hood or the Pacific Ocean, and its unique transportation ethos are part of what keeps Portland’s “demographic effectiveness” high despite a languid job market. An area has a high DE if more of the target group move in (or stay) than move out. For example, if the target group of a study is aging, long-haired metal drummers, and for every 10 who move to an area, four move out, the DE of that area for aging, longhaired metal drummers would be 60 percent.
ADAM WICKHAM/VANGUARD STAFF
PORTLAND’S CULTURAL OPPORTUNITIES are just one of the city’s many draws. The target group of the study in question, though, was YCE individuals between 25 and 39, with whom Portland had a DE of 29.2, second only to Louisville, Ky. Among the top 50 U.S. Metro areas for 2008–2010. That beat out Seattle, with a score of 28.5; Austin, with a score of 23.7; and San Francisco, with a lowly 16.2. So while it’s always nice to beat Seattle, Portland needs to recognize and take advantage of this vast, untapped pool of young talent before it’s too late, as migrants can often be fickle, said Jason Jurjevich, assistant director of the Population Research Center at PSU and the study’s other author.
“You know, just because we’ve had these strong historical trends of attracting and retaining young people with bachelor’s degrees, there’s no guarantee that in the future folks will continue to pour into the region,” Jurjevich said. Depending on how you measure it, Portland also has either the highest or third-highest rate of YCE self-employment in the U.S.—between 9 and 10 percent—according to data contained in the study. One could ask the question, though, whether those 9 or 10 percent are self-employed by choice or chance. See UNEMPLOYMENT on page 3
Invasive bullies Saving the endangered Oregon spotted frog MAYA SEAMAN VANGUARD STAFF
Knee deep in Washington’s cold marshland waters, Kyle Tidwell catches frogs and records habitat data. It isn’t what most people would consider an ideal way to spend a Saturday morning. But to Tidwell, a Portland State graduate student, it’s paradise. As a conservation biologist researcher, Tidwell divides his time between the field and his office at the Oregon Zoo, where he studies amphibian behavior. His doctoral research focuses on the impact of the vastly invasive American bullfrog on the local—and endangered—Oregon spotted frog. He’s collecting clues to help solve a decades-long mystery: What role does the American bullfrog play in the decline of the Oregon spotted frog population? In recent years, Oregon spotted frog numbers in the Pacific Northwest have dwindled. The frog now inhabits less than 15 percent of its original range, in part because of competition with invasive predator
species such as bullfrogs. The bullfrog—a frog of superior size, weight and speed compared to the Oregon spotted frog—will feed on anything that can fit in its mouth, putting the tinier, slower spotted frog high on the bullfrog’s menu. According to Tidwell, bullfrogs have been affecting native frog populations for over 70 years, and currently thrive in every location where Oregon spotted frogs have gone extinct. This has prompted institutions like the Oregon Zoo to begin raising the endangered species in captivity for the purpose of reintroducing them into the wild at locations with stable habitats—and hopefully no bullfrogs. Despite this bleak scenario of frog against frog in an unevenly matched fight for an already limited habitat, there is some hope. The only location in the world where Oregon spotted frogs manage to coexist with bullfrogs is at Conboy Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Washington. The refuge covers more than 6,500 acres of pristine forests and wetlands. Managed by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, this gem of the Pacific Northwest also acts as a safe haven for bald eagles and the endangered greater sandhill crane.
COURTESY OF MICHAEL DURHAM
THE OREGON SPOTTED FROG—pictured here in the Conboy Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Washington—is fighting for its survival. “It’s a unique privilege to work with Oregon spotted frogs at Conboy Lake. The refuge is a beautiful place,” said Tiffany Hicks, a biologist for the WDFW. If Tidwell can discover what aspect of Conboy Lake’s Oregon spotted frog population makes them successful, then perhaps those conditions can be replicated in other locations. To uncover how Conboy’s Oregon spotted frogs are surviving, Tidwell has devised a series of inventive experiments that mimic predator approach. One test involves dropping a foam ball from above a frog’s head, not
allowing it to hit them, but close enough to elicit an escape response. He records and compares the response times of two populations of Oregon spotted frogs: one from Conboy Lake and one from Black River, where bullfrogs have remained absent. But since a foam ball is not a predator of the Oregon spotted frog, Tidwell decided to get more creative. “If I think that the bullfrog is the thing that is causing them to go extinct, I need to throw a bullfrog at them, metaphorically,” Tidwell said. See FROG SCIENCE on page 2