Portland State Vanguard

POrTLaND STaTe VaNGuarD

VOLuMe 69 | ISSue 23 | February 17, 2015

PAYMENT PLAN POSES POTENTIAL RISKS FOR STUDENTS New payment schedule and associated fees have adverse effects on PSU community

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OPINION

arTS & CuLTure

SPOrTS

Students offi cers. pg. from 6 across the state rally in Salem to fight rising cost of tuition. pg. 6

Think your campus. pg.professor 9 sucks? You better figure it out fast if you want a 100 percent refund. pg. 11

PSU professor's pients. pg. 16 short story inspires collaborative art show at Powell’s Books. pg. 17

The Big Skypg.

Marathon. cracks 23 open with a torrent of tennis balls as Viking Tennis duels at the Cascadia Clash. pg. 21

CONTENT NEWS OPINION COVER ARTS & CULTURE CALENDAR SPORTS

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The Student Media Board, which oversees and guides Portland State's officially recognized Student Media organizations, is seeking student members to help shape this vital aspect of campus life.

Currently, there are openings for five students, of which only one may be held by an elected or appointed member of student government. To be eligible, a student must be in good standing with Portland State and not currently part of the staff of any Student Media organization.

Independent contractors within Student Media are eligible. Undergraduate students must be registered for at least six credits and have an institutional GPA of at least 2.5. Graduate students must be registered for at least five credits and have an institutional GPA of 3.0.

Interested students may visit the Student Media website at pdx.edu/student-media or contact the Coordinator of Student Media at reaz@pdx.edu to find out more about the board and the various media organizations.

To inquire further and apply for board membership, contact ASPSU to begin the nominating process.

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The Vanguard is published weekly as an independent student newspaper funded by the Student Fee Committee and 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 those of the PSU student body, faculty, staff or administration. One copy of the Vanguard is provided free of charge to all community members; additional copies or subscription issues may incur a 25 cent charge.

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asPsu tackles camPus issues

SeNaTe CHaIr aND eQuaL rIGHTS aDVOCaCy DIreCTOr GaLeN ruSSeLL aND aSPSu VICe PreSIDeNT rayLeeN MCMILLaN at the Feb. 9 ASPSU Senate meeting.

DEVIN COURTRIGHT/PSU VANGUARD

SENATE APPOINTS NEW MEMBERS, PASSES RESOLUTIONS FOR FOSSIL FUEL DIVESTMENT, SMSU RENOVATIONS AND ZERO PERCENT TUITION INCREASE

serina hersey

The Associated Students of Portland State University held a Senate meeting in Smith Memorial Student Union on, Feb 9 to appoint new senate members and discuss current issues at PSU. The meeting began with the senate nominees and Student Life Director nominee briefly introducing themselves. All delegates expressed various backgrounds of community service and student body involvement.

Senate nominees included Shanae Jung, Liddy Champion, Russell Brown and Michelle Wiley, as well as Student Life Director nominee Danielle Ali-Cassim. ASPSU members voted to approve all nominees, confirming them as new members of ASPSU. Next, the Sustainability Committee began their first reading on a Divestment Resolution. Elyse Cogburn, Linda Hoppes, Jeff Wiley and Luis Perez presented on why they think PSU

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should pursue divestment in fossil fuels.

Hoppes said sustainability is not just environmental justice, but social and economic as well. She added that out of the 28,000 students at PSU, 21 percent of the students choose to commit to sustainability. In a current survey being conducted by the committee, 81 percent of 212 students said PSU should divest in fossil fuels.

“We embrace our role as... responsible [citizens] of the city, the state, the region and the global community, and foster actions, programs and scholarships that will lead to sustainable solutions,” Hoppes said.

Out of the $44 million of PSU’s endowments, fossil fuel constitutes 1.34 percent.

“This is not just a [PSU] issue, this is a global issue,” Cogburn said. “It is not about the why, but how we can take action. We can take climate action. There [are] a lot of steps

we can take on the smaller scale that have larger impacts,” Cogburn, who is also part of a group called Divest Portland State, said PSU should divest fossil fuels, reinvest the money back into socially responsible investments, and have complete transparency of those investments.

ASPSU voted to approve the resolution to divest fossil fuels after the first reading, with the conversation continuing at the next senate meeting.

Jonathen Gates, ASPSU university affairs director, led a reading on SMSU’s Renovation Resolution.

Gates said SMSU is dark, confusing, and has an insufficient use of space that does not meet the needs of the current student body.

Other members of the board were concerned about additional fees added to the student account once renovations begin. Gates explained that currently the amount of

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

fees are unknown; however, the PSU Foundation will likely find donors to pay the expense, and the mechanics would be worked out explicitly by ASPSU. ASPSU members voted to approve the SMSU Renovation Resolution.

Later, Judicial Board Chief Justice Nathan Claus introduced the upcoming Elections Committee recruitment and new changes to the Elections Manual. The Elections Manual consists of borrowed ideas and adaptations from Elections Committees at other universities. Claus encouraged ASPSU members to inform others to apply. As of Feb. 16, ASPSU has received four applications. The deadline to apply is Feb. 18.

Following Claus’s announcement, ASPSU Vice President Rayleen McMillan and President Eric Noll presented on tuition increase, the politics behind it and ASPSU’s stance on the issue.

Both suggested a zero percent increase in tuition for all undergraduate, graduate and non-resident students.

McMillan commented on a potential 12 percent increase in tuition and said this is inaccurate. The number originally came from the recommended Governor’s Budget plan. Kevin Reynolds, Vice President of Finance and Administration, calculated that without any budget cuts, tuition could rise up to 12 percent with the governor’s new plan, according to McMillan.

“The good news is, no one is talking about [the GRB] anymore,” McMillan said.

With the new institutional boards taking office in July 2014 and Senate Bill 270, which enforces transparency between the legislatures and the school and students, tuition cannot rise above 5 percent without coordination with the Higher Education Coordinating Commission.

“It would be political suicide for [PSU] to raise tuition above 5 percent,” McMillan said.

Noll and McMillan also presented a statement to deliver to the state Senate on the Rally to Restore Higher Education in Salem last Thursday. They have been working with the Student Budget Advisory Committee to advocate for zero percent tuition increase.

Patrick Vroman mentioned that the SBAC is also pushing for reform in the PSU payment plan and making health insurance for students optional.

With all in favor, ASPSU passed and adopted the resolution against tuition increase.

Academic Affairs Director Tia Gomez and Equal Rights Affairs Director Galen Russell announced the cultural competency workshop taking place next Thursday and that they need volunteers from ASPSU.

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career Fairs hosted by Psu advising and career services Katrin KasPer

Portland State Advising and Career Services held career and internship fairs last week in Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom. The fairs were divided thematically into an engineering and technology fair, which took place on Thursday, and a second fair on Friday, addressing all majors.

This is the 26th year PSU has organized the career fairs.

“There are three fairs for all majors each year, and two fairs for engineering and technology majors,” said Greg Flores, associate director of the career services.

“In 2011 we decided to create an extra fair for this field due to the huge interest of employers and students,

who are seeking for people speaking ‘engineering.’”

ACS’s organization for these fairs is an ongoing process. Around 130 companies attended last week’s fair.

“We send out invitations to employers,” Flores said.

“They come to meet our students and mostly they are hiring. The students can get firsthand information about

the companies and connect with them. Everybody wins.”

About one third of the employers come back every year, and some are newcomers. On Thursday, 55 companies attended the fair.

“We’ve been coming here for five years to look for engaged students,” said David Barwick, technical recruiter at CDK Global. “We offer about 40 internships and want to recruit characters. Fifty percent of last year’s interns started working for us.”

He emphasized that the fair is an opportunity for both sides to learn about each other.

Flores said ACS doesn’t take attendance on the number of successful connections between students and enterprises, but the wellaccepted and crowded fair shows its need.

Abby Rojas is an environmental studies major, working on her bachelor’s degree.

“I think the event is great to take a look at types of intern-

ships and job options,” she said.

“I want to check up on internships for the summer break.”

Alan Phan, who just graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, is in a different situation. “I’m looking for a job in design and manufacturing companies,” he said.

When asked how he gets into touch with potential career contacts, he answered: “I introduce myself and tell them about my accomplishments. Beforehand, I did research on employers I’m interested in. I ask questions about their expectations like skills they are looking for.”

Students motivations for attending professional fairs are different. Some just want to gather information about existing possibilities, and others are seeking concrete work options. A common goal is selfpresentation and getting connected professionally. Besides face-to-face contact, Phan said social media networks like

LinkedIn or Twitter are helpful for that purpose.

“I found that creating a business Twitter account can be effective to show what thoughts you have about professional topics,” Phan said.

Sonji Young from Cambio Health Solutions discussed the characteristics recruiters look for in potential interns and employees.

“We want to see how willing they are to be brand advocates for themselves,” Young said.

“Candidates should start talking to us, show us who they are and what they do outside of their academic life.”

In her opinion, the biggest mistake students can make is judging companies only by their high profile instead of being open-minded.

“I think this generation of job seekers, the digital generation, will reshape the course of the work place, because they are so used to adapting quickly to digital changes,” Young added.

Leading, learning, life changing Prepare for your future career in: • Teaching • Counseling • Adult Education • And more!

pdx.edu/education PSU Graduate School of Education Graduate School of Education

POrTLaND STaTe hosts separate engineering and all majors career fairs in the Smith Ballroom each February.

PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY

OPEN HOUSE Thursday, March 5, 2015

Noon—2pm | Room 296/298 | SMSU

MORGAN KNORR/VANGUARD ARCHIVES

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

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diVest Portland state inFormation Panel discusses diVestment From Fossil Fuels

eCONOMICS PrOFeSSOr raNDy bLuFFSTONe addresses an attendee question at a recent informational panel on divestment from fossil fuels.

aleXandre Pomar

Divest Portland State, a coalition focused on PSU’s divestment from the fossil fuel industry, held an informational panel on Feb. 9 in Smith Memorial Student Union.

The panel consisted of six people with backgrounds in individualized facets of sustainability. The panelists were Bryan Brumley, a certified financial planner; Dr. Randy Bluffstone, PSU professor of Economics; Dr. Linda George, PSU rofessor of Environmental Science and Management and Chemistry; Anthony Bencivengo, Fossil Free of Reed College organizer; Linda Hoppes, or-

DEVIN COURTRIGHT/PSU VANGUARD

ganizer for Divest PSU; and Zach Allen, organizer for 350PDX. Divest PSU began as a project under the Student Sustainability Leadership Council and was subsequently formed into a permanent group on campus. The group is currently an active part of the Sustainability Leadership Center at PSU. Members of the group work in accordance with studentled campus groups, organizations throughout Portland and other colleges and universities nationwide.

Prior to the panel, students and community members were asked to submit questions.

The first question asked for an explanation of Divest PSU's function.

“The foundation is there to basically get money to support [PSU] through scholarships, athletics and the other necessities PSU needs,” Hoppes said. “Currently 1.34 percent of the budget here is invested in the fossil fuel industry.”

Another submission asked George to explain the potential impact if consumption of non-renewable resources slowed.

“The good news is that C02 is both produced and consumed naturally,” George said. “So there is a lot of mo-

tion of C02 cycling within the earth's system naturally.

Human-made sources of C02 are about 40–50 times less than the natural sources of C02.”

She continued, “So it is a relatively small portion, but it is enough to create this imbalance and this growth in C02 that we are seeing; reducing that imbalance and the human sources will affect the C02 concentration.”

Bluffstone was asked to comment on PSU’s image as a leader in sustainability, despite its continued investment in fossil fuels.

“It is my impression that

sustainability really [has]— and more so over the last years—become a core value of [PSU],” Bluffstone said.

“I do not think this is just marketing. I think this really is part of the PSU values and it is just increasing.”

Bluffsone responded to another question asking if divestment could increase awareness and donations to the foundation.

“I think the answer is yes,” Bluffstone said. “It is very consistent with our values as a university; we are addressing the most important aspects of environmental challenge that the [Earth] has probably

faced since humans arrived on it.”

Divest PSU has set three main goals in their efforts to divest from fossil fuels: to pull away from the top 200 fossil fuel companies PSU currently supports, create transparency in PSU’s investments in those companies, and to re-invest that 1.34 percent in more socially responsible ventures.

“We need to be working on this individually and as groups through collective action…” Bluffstone said. “It is the biggest challenge there is, and I know PSU would like to work on this and make a positive contribution at large.”

asPsu J-Board recruits members for elections committee serina hersey

The Associated Students of Portland State University Judicial and Constitutional Review Board is collecting applications for the Elections Committee for the upcoming student body elections. Election packets are available Feb. 24, and voting begins April 13.

The deadline to apply for a spot on the Elections Committee

is Feb. 18. As of Feb. 16 the J-Board has received four applications, according to JBoard Chief Justice Nathan Claus.

The Elections Committee is made up of four students who will handle the organization and administrative side of the elections. The committee enforces the elec-

CHIeF JuSTICe NaTHaN CLauS (SeCOND FrOM LeFT) with fellow student senators at a recent ASPSU meeting.

DEVIN COURTRIGHT/PSU VANGUARD

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tions, deals with conflicts, publicizes the elections, recruits candidates and manages voting stations. The J-Board, which is in charge of the elections as a whole, recruits the members of the Elections Committee.

To apply, students must meet minimum GPA requirements and be enrolled in classes for spring term. Furthermore, they cannot be candidates in the upcoming elections.

Interested students may submit resumes and brief statements via email or through Orgsync, an application submitting website.

Individuals who meet the requirements will then go through an interviewing process with Claus and ASPSU Adviser Candace Avalos.

“In general, what we look [for are] people who have the ability to be impartial, and

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

that requires a level of maturity and critical thinking skills and ability to investigate and have integrity,” Avalos said.

“We want to look for people who are going to be dedicated because it is a big job and a lot of pressure. They need to be prepared to receive negative feedback sometimes. Also, they need a lot of energy to recruit, which is a big part of the committee.”

Claus said the J-Board is looking for a diverse set of students.

“We are looking for basic qualities such as students who are interested in setting up the elections, want to learn how to do the election process, and set up the elections for the ASPSU next year,” he said.

This year, the Elections Committee has new rules, requirements and responsibili-

ties that students must follow.

“Last year was the first year that we didn’t have a separate Elections Committee, and it just created a lot of problems,” Avalos said. “This year we’re switching back. This is going to create a lot of us setting some new precedent and implementing standards.”

The J-Board encourages students to join the Elections Committee for various reasons. Both Claus and Avalos expressed similar benefits such as being able to navigate complexity, interacting with policies and student advocacy, learning to deal with pressure and learning to be consistent.

“It is a hard position, and dealing with conflict helps toughen you up,” Avalos said. “It will give you the opportunity to interact with policy and interpretation

of that and how to enforce things and how to balance between enforcing rules and being flexible.”

“It is really great for students to be able to navigate the complexity of the university system, learning to interact with people coming from different perspectives, and making decisions with integrity in a short amount of time with all eyes on you,” Avalos said.

Students chosen to serve on the Elections Committee will undergo training before ASPSU campaigns begin.

“I think it is going to be a fun assignment because they get to work within the elections, so they can have their fun making sure everything is running smoothly and [helping to] plan some of the programming such as debates, candidate forums, et cetera,” Claus said.

oregon students fight for the freeze

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Students from across the state gather at the capitol steps in Salem to advocate for higher education funding

Jessica Pollard

Over 500 public university and community college students from across Oregon gathered at the Capitol Steps in Salem, Oregon, on Feb. 12 to fight for tuition freezes across the board.

Students from 26 universities and community colleges were present at the rally.

The crowd gathered around 12 p.m., holding signs and chanting. “We’ll allow a zero percent increase,” read one sign held by a Southern Oregon University student.

Oregon’s Senate must set aside $755 million for public universities and $560 million for community colleges in the 2015–17 biennial budget in order for Oregon schools to maintain current tuition costs, according to a press release from the Oregon Student Association.

“Gay, straight, black, white, education is a right!” said Lane Community College students as a University of Oregon pep band played for the crowd.

Balloons with school logos floated around the steps.

Mascots from different universities mingled with the crowd and interacted with local reporters. Portland State students wore “Fearless Advocate” t-shirts.

The crowd quieted as leaders from across the state took the stage.

Tony Funchess, Associated Students of Portland State University Director of Multicultural Affairs, gave a commencement speech.

“We’re coming from reciprocity.” Funchess said.

“Together, not alone, but together, we are asking for $755 million for universi-

ties, and together we are asking for $550 million for community colleges. The recession was stabilized on the backs of students, and we can’t take it no more.”

“As a student of color, I know personally how difficult it is to afford and access higher education. So this is an important day for me, and I thank each and every one of you for being here,” Funchess continued.

Attendees said if the senate does not set aside this money, universities and community colleges will face tuition increases and possibly program cuts.

PSU, according to OSA, has already experienced a tuition increase of 64 percent in the last decade, and could face up to a 12 percent increase next year.

“Right now, we are looking [at] between a 3 and 4 percent tuition increase at Western Oregon University,” said Associated Students of Western Oregon University's Director of Equal Rights Organizing Dean Wright.

Wright spoke about how important higher education is to him as the child of single mother.

Wright also reminded attendees of Oregon’s “4040-20” senate bill 253 from 2011. The goal, according to oregonlearns.org, is to have 40 percent of Oregon students attain a bachelor’s degree or higher, 40 percent attain an associate’s degree or skilled occupation certificate, and 20 percent to at least finish high school by 2025.

“That is 80 percent of the Oregon population having a higher education degree,”

Wright said. “In order for that to happen, they need to put their money where their mouth is and reinvest in our education.”

The crowd of students cheered. “We’re Oregon students and we deserve higher education,” Wright said.

Several others spoke, including Taylor Marrow, a professor at Chemeketa Community College; SOU student Torii Uyehara; and two State Representatives, Mark Johnson and Peter Buckley.

“When it comes to funding education, we’re cellar dwellers,” Johnson said.

In 2014, Oregon was rated 47th out of 50 states for higher education funding per student, according to the Oregonian.

A press release from OSA said funding per student decreased by 32 percent between 2002 and 2012.

SOU students woke up before 5 a.m. to make the drive from Ashland to the Capitol Steps.

“SOU is looking at facing between 3–5 percent of a tuition increase,” said Promise Grace, SOU student body president.

PSU President Wim Wiewel was present at the event but did not speak.

“If you drive it, I will work like hell in this building,” Buckley said. “The session just started, we have to keep fighting.”

Larson Ross, a PSU student who attended the rally, said, “I thought the rally was interesting. It was good to have that kind of activism, but I feel like it wasn’t necessarily radical enough compared to student movements of the past.”

a CrOWD OF STuDeNTS from multiple schools rallies in Salem to advocate for a tuition freeze.

SILVIA CARDULLO/PSU VANGUARD

SILVIA CARDULLO/PSU VANGUARD

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OPINION

18 is the new 21 Lowering the drinking age is the responsible thing to do

Against the Current

by Sebastian Richardson This January I had the immense pleasure of turning 21 and finally reaching the legal drinking age. The night of my birthday I went out with two friends, had a few beers and ate some pizza.

Now this may come as quite a shock for some of you, but that was not my first experience with alcohol. I, like most underage college students, had my fair share of underage drinking experiences that ranged from responsible gatherings to reckless binges. Luckily for me, these binges never resulted in anything harmful and I never had that worry go through my head while I was drinking.

I have always been a proponent of lowering the drinking age back to 18. For a long time I have felt it was a civil liberties issue; I can vote, go to war, get married, move out, go to college and pay taxes, but I can’t have a beer? For me this seemed ridiculous.

Once I started college, access to alcohol ceased to be a difficult feat and I found it easy to drink every weekend if I so desired. So my entitled desire for the drinking age to be lowered ceased to be an issue. However, as I look back on all the drinking I’ve done and witnessed prior to being of legal age, I have a much better reason the United States should lower the drinking age.

Quite frankly I believe lowering the drinking age would not only make drinking safer, but it could ultimately lower the amount of sexual assault that occurs on campuses.

Following the end of prohibition, individual states were able set their own drinking age. In 1984 congress and the Reagan administration, famous for other great social policies like the war on drugs and trickle-down economics, passed a law forcing all the states to raise their drinking age to 21 or else face cuts in funding. Such legislation did little to prevent minors from drinking, nor did it make college-age drinking any more responsible.

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According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, every year roughly 1,825 college students between ages 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related causes. More than 690,000 students ages 18–24 have been violently assaulted by students who were drinking, and over 599,000 students in the same age group have received unintentional injuries while drinking. Perhaps most surprising is that roughly 97,000 students ages 18–24 are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or rape annually.

According to the nonprofit Choose Responsibility, which promotes safe drinking habits, nearly 90 percent of drinking done by 18–20-year-olds is done in excessive amounts.

While a lot could be said about this trend and how it’s bad for students, their health and academics, I want to primarily focus on the potential risks this sort of behavior carries for women on American campuses.

Being an urban campus, we here at Portland State don’t have a bad reputation for huge frat parties and don’t have large sporting events which attract a lot of heavy drinking. Seeing as though a large amount of our student body commutes and many are nontraditional students, we have quite a different environment compared to other campuses like Oregon State or the University of Oregon.

A study conducted by the Department of Justice found that one in five women on campus will be the victim of an attempted or completed sexual assault while in college. This same study also found that sexual assaults are more than twice as common when the victim is incapacitated due to alcohol or other drugs versus forced coercion. Along with that, 24 percent of college students who were victims of forced sexual assault and 35 percent of incapacitated sexual assault victims would consider the assailant a friend.

Another disturbing trend shows that the amount of sexual assaults that happen on campus spike around September and October when students are arriving and returning to campus.

I would argue that a lot of these trends are largely to be blamed on the drinking age.

Rather than allowing 18-year-olds to drink in an open space like a bar or at a friend’s house where they can buy their own alcohol or have it made by a bartender, underage drinking is forced underground, into the basements of fraternities and other places where students are not supervised. A bartender can cut you off or call a cab for you, and won’t hesitate to call

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

CHRISTIAN PROFETA/PSU VANGUARD

for help when you’ve had too much. Most people have friends who can help them and watch out for them, but it doesn’t take very much for someone to take advantage of a bad situation.

Obviously the issue of sexual assault is deeper than just the drinking age, but the environment of underage college drinking can be a breeding ground for such assaults to take place.

As I mentioned previously, a large amount of these assaults are perpetrated by the friends of victims, so this means that in some cases the perpetrators are the ones drinking with the victims, and it’s someone who they might feel comfortable with walking them home or taking care of them if they drink too much. Lowering the drinking age would hopefully take away a lot of these weapons used by predators and would reduce the amount of vulnerable situations first and second-year college students can find themselves in.

Campuses try to combat such activity by handing out information and trying to encourage safe drinking behavior, but nothing is more ridiculous than having university housing staff, teachers and parents teach minors how to do an illegal action safely.

It’s clear that we need a new approach to underage college drinking that recognizes its existence. Instead of trying to fight it with legislation, we should acknowledges people’s ability to self-govern and give them the opportunity to make responsible decisions in public spaces. I’d rather see 18-year-olds at bars than in a darkened room with a drink that may or may not contain codeine. Thankfully, I’m not the only one.

In 2007 John Cardell, the former president of Middlebury College, founded Choose Responsibility, a nonprofit committed to exploring the dangers of reckless alcohol consumption and lowering the drinking age to 18.

In 2008 the Amethyst Initiative, started by Choose Responsibility, was launched and is taking a critical look at the current drinking age and has been signed by 138 college presidents, showing a shift in thought among leadership.

I’m hoping that in the future college students will treat their bodies with respect, won’t drink to excess, and especially won’t take advantage of their incapacitated peers.

However, until then I think it’s clear we need to reexamine the validity of setting the drinking age at 21. Prohibition backfired miserably, and I think we are now seeing the backfire of the drinking age.

OPINION

But what if my professor sucks?

Simply Complicated

by David Wooldridge

If you have any significant experience taking classes within the university system, then it’s a safe bet that you’ve had a professor who just wasn’t a good fit. Maybe they taught in a style you didn’t like, maybe they had that one accent you could never understand, maybe they smelled…interesting. Hopefully you were fortunate enough to notice this deal breaker in the first couple classes. If not, you probably have a vivid memory of just how painfully unpleasant it was to sit through 10 weeks of non-optimal professorship; if so, welcome to the club.

The overarching problem here is that too many of us are in the latter category, in which we don’t realize how poorly matched we are with our professors until it is too late for damage control. Unfortunately, it’s very easy to fall victim to this issue considering you’re allowed roughly one week after classes begin to drop with a 100 percent refund. Depending on how

COURTESY OF KYLE BACON

many times per week your class meets, this is probably equivalent to about one or two class meetings, which is rarely enough time to make a calculated judgment about if the class of the professor will be a good fit for you.

You might not have too much trouble with that thick accent (or even mild accent) at first, but just wait until week two when you start wondering why the professor hasn’t bothered to pair the lectures with a PowerPoint. Just cross your fingers and hope that the stuff you can’t understand won’t be on the midterm. Spoiler alert: It will be.

Alas, fear not, fellow students: If you start noticing problems in week two, you’re free to drop the class for a 70 percent refund, because somehow two weeks of class equates to 30 percent of what you paid for it. Furthermore, if your hatred continues to grow you can drop in week three for 40 percent and even week four for a whopping 20 percent refund. Don’t spend it all in one place.

Let’s say you show up to class, hate the prof and decide to drop it. Awesome. Problem solved, right? Nope, because there’s no guarantee that there will be anyone else to teach that class this term, next term or any other term, for that matter. This means that you could drop a necessary class on the basis of a bad professor, only to find that there will be no one else to profess it. Looks like you’d better start getting used to that accent.

The worst is when you can’t identify certain professorial problems until long after week two, such as unusual methods of grading or poor/useless feedback. At this point, if you do de-

cide to drop the class you’d better have a butt-ton of money, because you only get a partial refund. And don’t even think about adding another class to replace the one you dropped, because you’d need an unreasonable amount of free time to catch up.

“What’s the root of this problem?” you ask. “Why do some professors incur in me such vehement frustration that I want to slam my head against the unnecessarily expensive textbook they required me to buy?” Melodrama aside, it probably has something to do with the lack of standards on teaching higher education. Seriously, look it up: you don’t need any kind of teaching certification to be a college professor.

“No certificate?” you exclaim. “But what does this mean!?”

Well, comrade, it means that your professor never actually had to learn how to profess. Without a standard, every teaching style will be indefinably different and will contribute to a vast array of methodologies, none of which are advertised in the course catalogs. That’s right, registration is basically a roll of the dice, except the six sides represent questionable teaching methods.

Oh, don’t forget about ol’ reliable website Rate My Professors. If you’re new to college (or if you’ve been living under a rock), this site allows you to check and write reviews on professors at just about any school; it tracks their overall scores on things like helpfulness, clarity, easiness and even hotness.

“Our problems are solved!” you cry, a twinge of hope left in your feeble voice.

False. Rate My Professors is cool, but don’t forget that the existing reviews could have been posted years ago. Professors are people too; they can change from good to bad, from bad to good, and anything in between. This site is only useful under a set of specific parameters. First, your professor has to be on the site and have existing reviews for you to read. Second, those reviews must be recent. Third—here’s the catch—those reviews must be objective.

We can’t forget that Rate My Professors eats a solid diet of hot, wet college angst. It operates totally on the notion that college kids value their own opinions so much that they go out of their way to post them on the Internet for others to read and use. The objectivity of a review could be compromised by any number of factors. For instance, a review by the student the prof disliked would probably look a lot different than the one written by the teacher’s pet, am I right?

The moral of the story is that there’s a huge issue going unaddressed; because of the lack of standards, there’s no way to completely avoid subpar professors, and the add/drop regulations perpetuate the problem by making it grossly unappealing to drop the class. I think it’s reasonable to ask—on the basis of our ungodly tuition—for three weeks of class with guarantee of a full refund. I know, an extra fortnight before the drop date doesn’t enforce any kind of standard on teaching, so obviously it won’t solve the root of the problem; at the very least it would give us a little more ground to make a decision.

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

9

OPINION guest columnist

Burn or get burned A socially anxious look at the street preachers on campus

Christopher Stauoffer

Those who were in ear or eyeshot of the Park Blocks a couple of Fridays ago probably noticed the commotion caused by street preachers who were occupying the area. This is not a new sight; street preachers show up from time to time, but this time it was a completely different experience for me.

My encounters with street preachers generally involve me running to the closest library corner for coffee, quiet time and emotional debriefing. Coming from a personal and spiritual history that has involved many evangelical churches, existential crises and general anxiety, I am very triggered by these sign-wielding, adversarial, circular-thinking individuals who seem to have the uncanny ability to turn everything into a yelling match in under five minutes. As a socially anxious person who is uncomfortable with both larger crowds and general unrest, I find the whole environment that happens when these folks show up to be saddening. Sometimes I do not know what I find more upsetting, the misled nature of the angry preacher or the hoards of students whipping out their smartphones and taking photos (#AngryManWithSign).

But this specific encounter was different for me. I was in a rare mood and had been making attempts to be more spontaneous, doing things that were outside of my comfort zone, so I walked up to the five or so preachers who were surrounded by a larger group of students.

After successfully waiting out the inevitable pressing anxiety caused by the crowd, the anger and the smartphone filming, I started to think about talking to the preachers.

The thing about introversion, coupled with social anxiety, is that by the time you contemplate the thousands of questions or responses you might have for any given comment, the moment to speak has already passed. This experience only increases the desire to have your voice heard, which can be hard when you are a naturally quiet person in such a large, loud environment.

However, I began to feel an increased need to be diplomatic. I felt truly saddened for these preachers; I believe that whatever life changing, religious experience they might have had has been bastardized by an ugly us-verses-the-world mentality. I also felt deeply for those who stood with me in opposition to them, who often seemed to succumb to anger. But still, with empathy and a need to understand both sides, combined with a constant, annoying need to see harmony (#ISFJ), I felt an increasingly pressing need to enter the dialogue with a calming presence.

I approached one of the preachers with questions of doctrine; there were phrases written on his sign that I was legitimately curious about. But the man with the sign seemed to have no interest in discussing the sign that he wielded. It seemed that he was ready to argue before I had even gotten halfway through my question. That’s the thing about angry, sign-waving, primitive Baptist evangelicals: They are under the impression that they are there for a purpose, and any straying from this would be straying from their message (a crime punishable by guilt in their world).

This protesting had been going on for quite a while, and even simply asking them for the time would have likely ended in someone feeling invalidated. I had a burning desire to maintain the calm that I held onto with conviction, but sign man was ready for battle and any real discussion was a lost cause.

The thing about being socially anxious is it makes you timid, and being timid makes you get interrupted (#invalidated).

10

COURTESY OF KAYLEIGH CAVANAUGH

When I tried to speak to the leader of the group, I was either interrupted by him or a louder voice from the crowd.

It seemed that, given his unwillingness to have a real conversation, my best course of action at this point was to speak with fellow classmates who were near me. This also proved to be difficult. Within the commotion, I perceived that the root of unrest was a general feeling of sadness. I had a deep desire to discuss these feelings with someone; surely others around me would need to debrief from this. However, it seemed the commotion caused by the preachers had created an environment that made emotional expression impossible. Their adversarial qualities had spread like the plague through the opposition, making real, honest discussion hard to come by.

I should note, I understand the anger. I understand why it is sometimes necessary to fight fire with fire in terms of protest.

It is just that a situation such as this can sometimes stray from the root of the problem.

Despite feeling like I had no voice in this situation, I walked away from it feeling more confident than I thought I would

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

have. Though I was unsuccessful in having a helpful conversation with the street preachers (something it seems they are maybe not capable of ), I did manage to talk to another student before I left. I was able to mutually express with someone how absurd the whole thing was. I was able to finally articulate with someone my thoughts on how upsetting the whole situation felt.

Perhaps in situations where we are visited by individuals or groups who are triggering to us the healthiest thing we can do is discuss it with one another, sharing personal experiences, discussing the things we have learned in our studies and not giving in to the irrationality that comes when we yell back and forth. Of course, when there is a need to approach someone who is being disruptive to our campus environment, perhaps it may be better to approach calmly, speak rationally, and shake the dust off our feet and walk away should our legitimate attempt at conversation be met with yelling.

Though I could be wrong, it might be my social anxiety doing the talking.

OPINION

rise oF the tiny houses LIVING SMALL MIGHT NOT THE BEST WAY TO BE SUSTAINABLE OR HAPPY

THe TINy HOuSe GIaNT JOurNey in Arizona.

Tiny House Giant Journey is a travel blog

by Jenna Spesard and Guillaume Dutilh, who tow their house across the country in pursuit of their goals of travel journalism.

That's What's The Matter

by Kevin Rackham

COURTESY OF GUILLAUME DUTILH THROUGH CREATIVE COMMONS VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Tiny houses are having a moment right now. They’re small, generally in the range of 150–800 square feet. They make the most of the space, and you might end up sleeping above your kitchen. Articles about them show up in my Facebook feed pretty regularly. There have been news segments on them, and, at this point, tiny houses are probably 70 percent of the content on Pinterest. People like tiny houses because they’re touted as sustainable, as being a solution to the housing crisis in big cities, and there’s definitely an element of “getting back to our roots” about it. But as much as people love the idea, I can’t get behind the movement.

I grew up in Albany, a smaller town in Oregon, and I’ve always been used to having space. It was an older house that my parents bought and refurbished after they got married, with two bedrooms and a big yard. Maybe it’s my own bias, but when I read

stories about people with children buying a tiny house, I feel bad for the kids. Having my own room as a kid was great. I had my own personal space and I had a place to keep all of my things.

But beyond reasons of privacy and personal space, I think tiny houses are kind of a pipe dream. They’re like the American Dream of owning a house and land as seen through an Instagram filter. Attached to this dream is the idea of building your house on a small plot of land, but of course this plot of land will still be within driving or biking distance of cities.

They don’t help with affordability, either. Forbes estimates the average cost of a tiny house to be $200–400 per square foot, but according to the last census, the average cost of a regular house is $84 per square foot. This doesn’t include land, either.

I can’t help but notice that a lot of the people who have these dreams are millennials. The entire tiny house movement seems

staying silent: a respectful choice I sit in a local restaurant, sipping a drink while waiting for a colleague to arrive. A couple tables away, two individuals are discussing a certain crime that was allegedly committed near campus several months ago. These two individuals, whom I took to be students, voiced their opinions that those of us who do not actively protest such crimes are, in fact, endorsing said crimes.

This idea, known as a “false dilemma,” is one that seems to be very popular among young people and those with certain political and religious ideologies. Simply put, people who subscribe to this concept maintain that there are but only two sides to any given conflict, and that in the absence of endorsing one given side, one is showing his or her approval and endorsement of the other side. To them the world is

black and white with no shades of gray in between and no spectrum to analyze.

A college campus is rife with opportunities to see this phenomenon firsthand. Students are constantly bombarded with messages of acceptance, diversity and understanding. However, an undercurrent in many of these messages is, “If you aren’t with us, you’re against us.” We are told repeatedly that we must fully integrate ourselves into campus culture, openly accept such beliefs (on their terms), and to do anything less is an affront to the rights and beliefs of others.

Looking at the world as if every issue were a simple binary choice is common among children. However, as we grow and mature, our ability to rationally analyze situations grows with us.

COURTESY OF JARED PETERS

to be a way for millennials to feel content with having way less than our parents and grandparents did. Living in a tiny house with a plot of land feels like trying to do mental gymnastics. It’s one thing to want the tiny house, but most people still want the space that a plot of land comes with.

Economists have been projecting for a long time that we’re going to be the first generation with less wealth than our parents. I’ve always wanted to end up with a house large enough for a family and with enough space that I can take care of my parents when they’re older. Sustainability is one thing, but there are so many ways to be sustainable without massively downsizing. I don’t really like the idea of convincing people to be content with less, or with living small, in this context. It feels like convincing people they need to be happy being poorer and living with less than every generation before them.

The Campus Oracle

by Nathan Anderson

For example, I’m a white, straight, Christian male. My demographic is responsible for most of the horrible stuff that has happened on this planet ever since the days of Constantine.

However, I don’t actively and vocally protest the actions of the KKK or the Westboro Baptist Church. My decision not to vocally and publicly condemn such groups on a daily basis does not mean and should not imply that I support them.

During the Bush administration, when it was official American policy to perform torture on fellow human beings in a manner adopted with relish from the Nazis, I did not actively protest on the streets. I certainly did not and do not condone such tactics; I will, indeed, cheer loudly and open my best bottle of spirits the day that Bush and Cheney are put on trial for war crimes.

However, as for today, I will go about my daily life choosing not to engage in a constant stream of condemning rhetoric.

I firmly believe that everyone should be able to stand proudly for their beliefs and not be silenced while expressing them.

I also hope that those who choose to remain silent on any given topic will have that choice honored. Perhaps people who choose to refrain from engaging in a discourse or from involving themselves with certain issues do so because their beliefs might be seen as unpopular. I’m inclined to believe that most people who keep silent do so because they have better things to do. All of us should be held without judgment for voicing our opinions—or choosing not to. To ask otherwise is to ask someone to humiliate themselves simply to prove their humanity.

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

11

COVER

PAYMENT PLAN pOSES pOTENTIAL RISKS FOR VIKINGS NEW pAYMENT SCHEDULE

AND ASSOCIATED FEES HAvE ADvERSE EFFECTS ON PSU COMMUNITY Jessica Pollard

Since Fall 2014, Portland State has implemented a payment plan option for students to cover their education costs in three montly installments.

The PSU Payment Plan has been subject to criticism of the policies associated with the alternative form of payment. “[T]he impact is extremely significant upon students who really don’t have the ability to pay by the sixth of the first month or by two days into the term,” said Eric Noll, Associated Students of Portland State University president. “And those typically tend to be international students, out of state students, low income students, Native American students who receive tribal funding or have unique funding structures.”

Post-baccalaureate student Sean Mahoney said he has experienced difficulties by enrolling in the payment plan. He criticized the plan as an added burden to students’ educational costs.

“This policy is new,” Mahoney said. “[In] fall of 2014 they just said ‘here it is.’ And it’s been in place for a term and a half now, and it’s really becoming apparent how detrimental it can be.”

The payment plan charges a $100 late fee for each installment students are late on

12

christian profeta/PSU VANGUARD

tuition payment, so students may be charged up to $300 per term in late fees. This fee is in addition to enrollment and processing fees associated with the payment plan. This is higher than other Oregon universities, which typically charge a small percentage of tuition. For example, University of Oregon charges a $6 billing fee for every past due balance. Students have a 10 day grace period on late payments and the annual interest rate on unpaid bills appreciates up to 9 percent.

The university charged Mahoney a late fee after he reached his credit maximum as a post-baccalaureate student. He needed to file a petition to take more credit hours. But, Mahoney said, by the time the university approved him for 30 more credits, he had been charged a $100 late fee because his financial aid had not disbursed.

“I don’t know how [late fees are] benefiting the community at all,” Mahoney said. “So I’m paying a $100 late fee...I don’t know what I’m doing or why that’s needed or why that’s meaningful.”

Mahoney continued by discussing fees that will be implemented next year.

“Next year if you don’t preenroll in this payment plan, they’re going to be charging

you $35 at the beginning of every term to enroll you in the [plan],” Mahoney said.

“So if you’re having some kind of struggle financially or you don’t know about it or English is your second language, then whatever your tuition is, even if it’s in-state, [it could be] $3,000, then you have $300 in late fees. That’s a 10 percent bump in tuition, right there.”

“The students are working really hard to get a good education, and it’s not fair for them to be saddled with additional debt and additional hardships because it seems like the university’s looking for more money,” Mahoney added.

A change of pace at PSU Until this year, all students were expected to pay their balance in full by the start of every term.

In 2008, PSU conducted a survey about how to better serve students, said Director of Communications at PSU Scott Gallagher. This survey began a discussion about possibly creating an alternative way to pay for school.

“Currently, all public universities are pretty much the same…they all charge the tuition for the quarter, they have billing fees, they charge interest when it’s not paid,

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

and they also charge late fees,” Gallagher said.

PSU is the first public university in Oregon to adopt something like the payment plan, Gallagher said.

This fall, students had the option to opt into the payment plan by Oct. 6 or be automatically enrolled and face a $100 fee if unable to pay the term’s tuition in full upfront.

A late fee of $100 is added for every monthly installment not paid on time.

“We don’t want that money,” said Associate Vice President of Budget and Finance at PSU Alan Finn.

“We would rather collect $0 [in fees] and have every student pay their bills.”

The $100 fee works to encourage timely payment, Finn said.

Starting during the 2015– 16 school year, it will cost $35 per term to enroll in the plan, according to the PSU website.

So far, the payment plan is estimated to accrue $800,000 in revenue from fees per year, Noll said.

The $800,000 is no more than the amount of revenue gained from fees and interest before the plan, Finn said,

but fewer students are contributing to the sum.

“If we’re doing our job correctly, the revenue should drop significantly,” Finn said.

The money goes directly to the general fund and is small in the face of the $2 million o f student debt that PSU writes off annually, Gallagher said.

If the student’s term balance is not paid in full by the date of the third installment, the student will have their preregistration for the following term cancelled.

“Financially, by un-enrolling students who haven’t paid down their account balance, it reduces the risk of the institution of students accruing a significant amount of debt and defaulting on their loan,” Noll said.

“From our perspective, it’s a financial risk-management policy...on the part of the institution.”

Gallagher described things differently. “[Cancellation of pre-registration] sounds really bad, but that also helps some students and prevents

them from going further into debt when they’re not ready for it,” Gallagher said.

“That’s, not to be cruel, an indirect way of helping protect them,” he added.

ASPSU Multicultural Affairs Director Tony Funchess said this policy does not help students.

“This will keep students from accessing education that will get them jobs to get them out of debt,” Funchess said.

In early December, 1,200 students were in danger of being un-registered for winter term as a result of the payment plan. Ultimately, 35 students were unable to register at all for winter term.

Risk for international students The issue of un-registering students has been a concern among PSU’s international student populations who lose student visas as a consequence of being unable to attend PSU the following term.

Before the payment plan, students were allowed to continue the following quarter without paying tuition on time, but would receive interest and account holds, said Academic Affairs Director at PSU Tia Gomez-Zeller.

Gomez-Zeller said students from countries such as Syria may be escaping turmoil and

COVer may also have issues receiving funds from their countries due to destruction or less established financial institutions.

“By putting this payment plan in place, it creates an additional barrier and stress factor on those student lives, while we still expect them—as their families and their culture and their community expects them—to be excellent students,” Funchess said.

“If you put a hold on my account and I’m registered for classes, I don’t have to worry about my immigration status,” Gomez-Zeller said. “If you drop me out, [as an international student] the moment I get dropped out, I have 30 days to leave the country.”

“Every student’s impacted because we’re a community,” Gomez-Zeller said.

Gallagher said the effect on the international students is an unfortunate side effect of this policy change.

“But you have to understand that our purpose is to help students get a degree and move on…

Our purpose is to educate, not provide a visa,” Gallagher said.

Barbara Payne, member of the ASPSU Judicial and Constitutional Review Board, said international students may have difficulty navigating the procedures of the payment plan.

“International students, who may or may not have command of the language in the emails that come from PSU, are getting these [payment plan] emails, and if anything outstanding is going on, and with international students there are a lot of hiccups…their housing is now under scrutiny because of this payment plan,” Payne said. “We’re talking about all of these domino effects of things that can happen to a student if in fact...PSU doesn’t get their money when they’re supposed to.”

Gomez-Zeller noted that some international students who have been at risk for deportation because of unpaid tuition have received forgiveness or assistance from administration and the Office of International Affairs here at PSU.

Impact on PSU diversity This year’s incoming freshman class is made up of 40.3 percent students of color.

Funchess explained that the payment plan’s ability to un-register students may decrease diversity. “[We] can’t figure out how to retain students, and a payment plan is not a way to retain students. It’s a way to lose students,” he added.

Funchess pointed out low numbers of African American students at PSU, which has an African Amer-

this with as many people as we could,” Finn said.

Azul has met with Student Accounts on a regular basis.

Megan Looney of Financial Services has been very helpful in solving one-on-one cases regarding issues with the payment plan, Azul said.

He expressed that possibly there should be more than the two available options for paying tuition.

Stresses for students Some feel there was a lack of conversation about implementation before the payment plan was put into place this fall.

Funchess said PSU’s Office of Finance and Administra-

recourse for those that are the most impacted by it.”

Gallagher pointed to the slow-moving timeline of policy implementation in a university setting. Initial discussion of a potential alternative to tuition began in 2008. Students concerned today might not have been around during the conversation in 2008, Gallagher said.

Other complaints stem not from the financial side, but from the IT standpoint.

Payne’s qualms with the plan originally stemmed from a string of emails she received toward the end of fall term and throughout winter break. She described them as stressful.

den you’re kicked out of school, you can’t pick your classes, you’re going to lose your housing, and the whole thing just turns into a monster.”

At the ASPSU meeting on Feb. 11, some members expressed the concern that the $50 balance minimum for the plan had not been holding true.

Fundamental question of education According to Gallagher, Oregon is 47th in state funding for higher education. For this reason, Gallagher said, PSU is tuition-dependent.

“We are so dependent on the revenues that we get

“If you drop me out, the moment I get dropped out, I have 30 days to leave the country” -Tia Gomez-Zeller ican student population of 3 percent. Of the Urban 21 Universities, PSU has the lowest number of African American students, Funchess said.

Native American students from certain tribes may face particular difficulty attaining their tribal funding by the sixth of every month.

The Native American student population has grown from 244 students in 1999 to 380 students in 2014, according to Coordinator of Native American Student Services Dean Azul. For some of those students, attaining funds for school can be a challenge.

Some indigenous students aren’t affected by the payment plan, while others are because of tribal funding.

“At the start of the term, some kids [didn’t] realize they didn’t receive their scholarship from the tribe,” Azul said.

“A lot of students I dealt with didn’t realize the [late] fee could be waived with good reason,” Azul said.

“There are lots of special circumstances with our students, and we tried really hard to pre-communicate

tion did not consider the impact the payment plan would have on the students.

“They instructed and informed about what was going to happen, but they did not do any of the work necessary to find out how to implement this in a way that it would actually be beneficial,” Funchess said. “It’s been beneficial for the institution in the capacity that they will raise approximately $800,000 on the backs of students who are already strapped to pay for their education.”

Both Funchess and GomezZeller said representatives from the Office of Finance and Administration visited ASPSU to speak about the payment plan before it was implemented, but did not open the plan up for discussion.

“I think it would be more useful if there was a discussion before implementation,” Gomez-Zeller said.

“What this payment plan is doing is putting up an additional barrier that is hindering communities of color,” Funchess said. “And it has been done without any thought, without any conversation, without any

“Especially for people who have financial aid, there need to be concessions made because we shouldn’t be getting those emails,” Payne said.

Before the start of winter term, Payne let an $88 parking permit fee go to her student account. Any balance over $50 remaining in a student account before the start of term results in enrollment in the plan.

“I had $88 outstanding, and the payment plan kicks in and all of a sudden I owe $44 by the first,” Payne said. “Otherwise I’m going to get hacked for $100.

It just kills me, because it’s not tuition. It’s a parking permit, and I can choose to do whatever I want with my student account.”

“I had another friend whose financial aid didn’t come through because of a technicality…” Payne said.

“You’ve got technicalities and little things here and there, whatever they may be, and all of a sud-

from student tuition and fees that if there are students who can’t afford to pay that tuition and fees,” Finn said.

“Yet we’re providing that education for them—we’re kind of in a bind because we want so badly to help that student get to the finish line, but we need the money to do it, too. No one has found that answer yet.”

Oregon Students are currently advocating for $755 million in state funding for public universities.

This is an effort t o avoid potential tui t i o n increases, according to J.P. Cummings of the Oregon Student Association.

“Because if the state isn’t willing to pay for it, and the student can’t afford to pay for it, who’s going to pay for it? That’s where we get kind of stuck in the middle,” Finn said.

Future plans At an ASPSU Executive meeting on Feb. 11, members discussed their future involvement with the payment plan.

Noll met briefly with Vice President of Finance and Administration Kevin Reynolds on the subject in early February.

“He and his department are asking a lot of questions… there is a lot of flexibility, based on the conversation, to change or adjust the payment plan,” Noll said.

The Student Fee Committee is currently working on a resolution to help solve issues regarding the payment plan.

“Members of the SFC are extremely excited to get something going with the PSU payment plan and to work with anyone inside or outside of ASPSU,” said SFC Committee Chair Alexandra Calloway-Nation.

The SFC hopes to introduce their resolution before spring term, Calloway-Nation said.

Calloway-Nation said the SFC has discussed the possibility of removing the $35 enrollment fee and making the $100 late fee easier to have waived.

Currently, ASPSU is working on gathering testimony from students who may have had issues with the plan this year.

Gallagher and Finn encouraged students to call Student Financial Services with issues related to the payment plan.

“Please call us, and we’ll talk to you,” Finn said.

Additionally, students facing difficult circumstances are encouraged to reach out to the many resource centers available at PSU. “We need the students to become engaged in their education beyond the classroom,” Funchess said. “There’s an accountability here where everyone is accountable for this.

No one just gets to sit on the sidelines.”

Additional reporting by Miles Sanguinetti.

Students can email aspsuprs@pdx.edu with their own stories about the payment plan. Students may call Student Financial Services at 503–725-3440 with any issues.

Watch the video story online at psuvanguard.com

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

13

arTS & CuLTure

conFucius institute hosts lecture on chinese oPera PrOFeSSOr HONG WaNG of Soochow University discusses the history of kunqu Opera during a recent visit to PSU.

ruBy KinG

The Confucius Institute hosted professor Hong Wang of Soochow University, China, on Friday, Feb. 6.

Wang gave audiences an introduction to the history of Kunqu opera.

Wang, the head of translation research at Soochow University, visited Portland eight years ago for a conference and didn’t forget his experience.

“I was moved by the warmhearted teachers, and now that I am back it feels like I have come home,” Wang said.

Wang gave a presentation on Kunqu, one of the highest artistic achievements in China. Kunqu derives from a region near Suzhou, often described as the Venice of the East.

The area is known for its production of local crafts like fans, wood carvings, jade carvings, silk tapestry and Cheongsam dress.

Kunqu is one of the oldest and most refined forms of traditional Chinese theater, dating back 600 years. It is known for its poetic eloquence and dramatic musical refinement. Often called the mother of Chinese opera, Kunqu holds mass influence on other forms of Chinese theater.

Elements that set it apart from other Chinese theater include its primary use of bamboo flutes, artistic movements on the stage and unrealistic stage settings that appeal to the audience’s imaginations.

Kunqu derives from the word Kunshan, one of the simple regional songs during the 14th century. It also derives from the artform chuanqi, or romance play.

Over time the singing techniques used in Kunsham were improved. Chants be-

came softer, finer and more intensely emotional until Kunqu was born.

“Kunqu was artistically refined over a period of 200 years and was prominently featured in the competing opera schools in China, becoming more fashionable both within China and abroad,” Wang said.

Yet as China entered the modern age, Kunqu lost the edge it used to have.

With dramatic changes in Chinese industry, Kunqu lost favor with many of its previous audiences. As a result, its popularity and social influence diminished. Fortunately, the art of Kunqu survived and is considered one of the fundamentals in how script writing and performing arts developed within China.

To put on a Kunqu opera, typically only 18 performers are needed, and troupes won’t use more than 30.

SELENY DIAZ/PSU VANGUARD

The hierarchy of typical roles is composed of Sheng, the young male character; Dan, the female character; Jing, the male character with face makeup; Mo, the middle-aged man and often main character; and Chou, the comedy character.

Some of the most famous Kunqu operas include “Snow in Summer,” “The Eternal Palace,” “The Legend of Leifeng Pagoda” and “Yearning for Earthly Delights,” which include issues of injustice, unrequited love and rebellious Buddhist nuns.

But the most famous piece of Kunqu opera is “The Peony Pavilion.”

“Tang Xianzu was regarded as the Chinese Shakespeare, and ‘The Peony Pavilion’ is often called the Chinese equivalent to ‘Romeo and Juliet,’” Wang said.

In the opera a young maiden has a fateful dream about her true love in a garden, falling ill and dying from heartbreak. Three years later, the man she dreamed about falls in love with a self-portrait of the young woman and brings her back to life.

Today there are still six professional Kunqu troupes in China.

Dr. Meiru Liu, professor and director of the Confucius Institute, concluded with news about the center’s upcoming events, starting with their Chinese New Year gala at the Smith Memorial Student Union Ballroom, which was held on Friday, Feb. 13.

“We have the Chinese New Year Fair on the 21 of February,” Liu said. “There will be all kinds of events, including one that will teach you how to make Chinese dumplings and sticky rice puddings.”

'Princess ugg' has a lot to teach MOSTLY ABOUT MASCULINITY AND FEMININITY BINARIES, BUT ALSO HER AX andy anady

Ted Naifeh's PRINCESS UGG is a ridiculous delight and a real breath of fresh air.

In Princess Ugg, Princess Ulga of the highlands Grimmeria and sole child of the king, inspired by but not totally sold on her mother's deathbed regret, has promised to learn how to stop all war between her people and the nearby Frost Giants.

It’s a heavy quest for a young girl faced with 2,000 years of feuding peoples and limited resources.

So, not really knowing what she’s doing, Ulga goes to the lowlands, where they've achieved peace and diplomacy. Unfortunately, they’re kind of pansies.

14

The lowlanders are also very judgmental and literate, so upon approaching these valley lands Ulga’s half-baked plan crumbles right out from beneath her feet.

Despite the blood, Princess Ugg fits pretty comfortably in the all-ages category, but that isn’t to write it off as just for kids. Instead, this comic addresses important issues like diplomacy and people skills without talking down to its audiences, and does so in an unusual way.

Without being manly (whatever that’s supposed to mean these days), Princess Ulga is very masculine, and she’s comfortable with that.

But she’s not necessarily

comfortable with the alienation of being so different and bullied by those around her.

While so many series—especially for children—include an episode or story arc about a young boy confronting his relationship with masculinity, there seem to be fewer instances of girls confronting their relationship with femininity—as though femininity just happens.

This isn’t true for Ulga. She is very masculine, but she still has to confront her relationship with femininity.

Princess Ugg is simultaneously upholding a traditionally feminine value of building relationships while doubting a traditionally masculine role

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

of violence and apathy. A fauxViking backdrop seems like the perfect setting for this discussion, and it takes place on different levels, lending legitimacy to each other.

Princess Ulga’s efforts to ease tensions between herself and frill-dressed, teadrinking, nose-in-the-air Lady Julifer is really important and not just within the story itself. Diplomacy means something. Diplomacy is as romantic as war, even with nonsensical jerks who aren’t interested in making friends with you, either.

Princess Ugg is a wonderful, mildly fantastical comic about a Viking princess with hilarious references to the

Prose Edda, including Odin in the form of a bird and a mammoth named Snorri, both almost acting as a wink from Naifeh to the original canon while not giving Ulga sleeves in feet of snow and ice.

I’ll admit that originally I was nervous that this little berserker was just another victim to the male gaze in the guise of being her own character, but I picked up the book anyway because all the covers only contained women and Ulga is always carrying a double-ax.

Luckily, I was wrong and despite her scant clothes Ulga is not there for heterosexual men. Ridiculously short and muscular, Ulga’s

body is her own. Even in the shower scene she’s nothing but an undulating mass of pure, ax-wielding muscle.

One of the bullying princesses says to another “whenever one muscle moves, the others have to get out of the way,” while they stand as a group and objectify and gossip about her body. This story does, after all, essentially take place in old Nordic high school with the addition of politics and monarchies.

So while Princess Ugg can be suitable for younger kids, it’s worth a read even if there aren’t any children in your life.

I can’t wait for the next issue, which comes out on Feb. 25.

arTS & CuLTure

‘Winter coat’ art show inspired by professor’s short story Jon raBy

The normally crowded Powell’s books was quiet on Thursday night, but three stories up people slowly drifted into the Basil Hallward Art Gallery. By 7 p.m. the laughter of friends hugging and chatting filled the space.

Fifteen minutes later Loretta Stinson-Rosenberg stood behind a huge podium of carved wood.

She began with thanks, and the crowd gave her their silent attention while she read her short story “Winter Coat.”

Behind her was a variety of art inspired by her story.

Ben Rosenberg’s Winter Coat art show opened at the Powell’s Books art gallery on Feb. 5 and will run until March 31. Rosenburg’s wife, Portland State professor Stinson-Rosenberg, wrote the short story that provided the inspiration for the multiartist collection.

The show was unique in that it was not focused on one artist, but a collaboration of many artists, all using one short story as inspiration for their pieces. The result was an innate connection between the works, but each very different from one another at the same time.

“The beauty of collaboration is that it’s not all about me,” said Stinson-Rosenberg.

“It’s not all about him. It’s about the collaboration between all of us.”

“Winter Coat” is a story about Ruby, a woman who is married to a drug addict.

In a moment of inspired sewing, she takes his coat from the closet and finds a syringe in the pocket. What this means and what she must do becomes real to anyone who has been put in a place that they do not want to accept.

Stinson-Rosenberg described the focus of her story as “when you know something you don’t want to know.” “[When] you finally can’t deny the truth,” StinsonRosenberg said. “You run up against the truth and there is nowhere to go.”

Ben Rosenberg, the curator of the project, graduated from PSU with a master's in Fine Arts in 2007 and is now an adjunct professor of various art courses at Clark County College and Clatsop Community College. He was asked to curate an art show in Astoria, which catalyzed the idea to do a show not centered on anyone, but stemming from one place: a short story.

“I feel that’s how a group show should be,” said contributing artist Mike McGovern. “A wide range of artists from different backgrounds and talent with diversity in the imagery and the processes.”

It is a well-known secret that writers should read their work aloud to check it for errors and to make sure the grammar fits their voice.

Stinson-Rosenberg would do this with her husband, and it was in this way that he first heard the short story. It stuck in his mind.

“I was so intrigued by the voices and feelings about what was going on in Ruby’s head, the unknown, yesterday, now, tomorrow,” Rosenberg said. “How does an artist bring this out— what part, and why?”

Rosenberg sent “Winter Coat” out to a diverse group of artists including painters, photographers, printers, mixed-media artists, sketchers and sculptors. Thus there are many art styles represented in the show, taking

form in a variety of responses to the story.

“I just let them go for it,” Rosenberg said. “I knew their way of interpretation and if they surprised me in a different way of working, well, I thought, so be it. Here it is.”

Of the artists, two were PSU professors. Horia Boboia and Mike McGovern both teach art at PSU. Boboia teaches painting and McGovern teaches printmaking.

“Ben was my student here at PSU and since then we remained friends,” said Boboia. “I also knew [Stinson-Rosenberg], the writing half of this collaboration, and another PSU alumni. I was happy to see them both working together.

Meanwhile, there are other artists in the show I know and admire.”

While many artists focused on different aspects of the story, Boboia’s piece fo-

cused on the last sentence of the story.

“The last sentence of the story becomes a very short story in itself, while its visual counterparts provide a stage for contemplation,” Boboia said. “Where one story ends another begins.”

McGovern created three mixed-media pieces for the show.

“After reading the story I felt a strong connection

to it, and it proved to be a new, exciting challenge in my art that I might not have explored otherwise,” McGovern said. “Printmaking is a very collaborative and community-based art form, so this opportunity to work with another artist’s words really fit into my process.

“The show is unique; I haven’t participated or seen a show like this before.”

GaLLery VISITOrS parade through Powell's Books to view a collection of works curated by professor Ben Rosenberg.

ADAM GRACE/PSU VANGUARD

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

15

arTS & CuLTure Blake eats it:

Big mac

on a wire BlaKe hicKman

I stopped pretending that I was too good for McDonald’s many years ago. The anti-McDonald’s polemic Super Size Me has colored the view of thousands of millennials that slam the golden arches days after a visit to Taco Bell or Wendy’s.

Those of you who have read this column before know that I have no qualms paying over $10 for a burger. That said, I also don’t have a problem paying $2 for a burger (if anything, it’s the Red Robin or Applebee’s-level of burger that I object to).

I would never advocate pulling a Morgan Spurlock and eating there every day without exercising (that’s a

lesser known facet of Super Size Me), but honestly, there’s just something to be said for the comfort level of fast food—especially for those of us who grew up on suburban chain restaurants I realized not long ago that although I’ve been an occasional (we’re talking like once every other month or so) McDonald’s patron for over two decades, I’ve somehow never had a Big Mac. This seemed inconceivable to me.

It’s their number one, their signature dish!

Earlier this week I took the plunge and purchased my first ever Big Mac which, incidentally, will also be my last ever Big Mac.

RICO MACIAS ZEPEDA/PSU VANGUARD

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This is not a good fast food product.

First off, has anyone ever eaten at McDonald’s and thought, “You know, this could really use more bun?” In great contrast to the ersatz Big Mac that Brunch Box serves called the Burgermiester, this sandwich is just a dry, bunheavy mess.

If you’re serving a twopatty sandwich on a twin bun, you have to up the meat ratio to compensate.

Then there’s the lettuce.

It’s basically just like having a wet coffee filter on your sandwich. Then there’s the special sauce. What a crock. This is just watered down Thousand Island, folks. Or is it Russian dressing? And do you know the difference?

The Big Mac disappointment is in great contrast to some really fine products the chain has introduced recently. The triple cheeseburger is a revelation, making meat and American cheese the focal point and the bun an afterthought. There’s also the recent addition of jalepeños to the menu, best served on the Jalepeño Chedder McChicken sandwich.

So, under no circumstances should you head to the golden arches every day, but if you need the occasional Mickey D’s fix, I’m not going to turn my nose or wag my finger or issue any other number of offensive body-part-centered gestures.

But I will tell you that you probably shouldn’t get a Big Mac.

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

comics studies certificate makes debut

JEOFFRY RAY/PSU VANGUARD

Kara erny

A new post-baccalaureate Comics Studies certificate program was recently announced by the university.

The program allows students to earn a certificate by taking six comics-themed courses between winter, spring and summer term.

With only one required class, students can choose from the list of available courses in the program that best meet their interests.

“We had this core group of courses that already existed, and I’ve also been working to bring in the comics professionals,” said Dr. Susan Kirtley, director of rhetoric and composition.

Kirtley is also currently teaching the Comics Theory & History course this term, the only required course for the certificate. Next term she will be teaching Visual Rhetoric.

One of the professionals working with the program is Shannon Wheeler, known for his comic Too Much Coffee Man, and his work with both Dark Horse Comics and The Onion, among others.

“I would say the [the certificate] increases your chances of opportunities,” Wheeler

said. “It’s still very much that opportunities are ones that you make yourself, but that when you apply you’ll be looked at more seriously.”

Wheeler will be teaching Comics Creation in the spring.

Nicole Georges, illustrator and creator of Invincible Summer, teaches courses in cartooning all over the country and will be teaching a course in the spring called Autobiographical Comics.

“If [students] go through the program, they will be able to create a comic community with their fellow classmates, and they’ll be getting taught by professional cartoonists from the Portland area,” Georges said.

“And if they choose to use the tools that they learned in the program, they will be able to apply those to their own cartooning career.”

A number of other professors at Portland State and in the comics industry will be teaching courses.

Brian Michael Bendis, who works with Marvel comics, is currently teaching Writing Comics, which will be available again in spring term.

To qualify for the program, post-baccalaureate students must be enrolled at PSU, be in good academic standing and fill out the online application.

The application for the certificate is currently unavailable but will be open soon. In the meantime, students can find the list of courses being offered on the comic studies program website.

“We’re very lucky because we are in Portland, Oregon, which is one of the best comic cities in the entire country,” Kirtley said.

Kirtley hopes that eventually comics studies will have a minor and major at PSU. In 2012, the University of Oregon launched its own comics studies minor.

PSU has a long relationship with the comic book community. Mike Richardson, the creator of Dark Horse Comics, is a PSU alumni and has donated the entire collection of Dark Horse comics to the Branford Price Millar Library.

The PSU library is currently showcasing an exhibit called “We Love Dark Horse Comics” that will be on display in the first floor elevator lobby until May 1.

ARTS & CULTURE

Musical ennui Honore's 'Love Songs' wows despite limp acting victoria castellanos

Ah, no one understands love quite like the French.

Who else could concoct a romantic musical drama featuring a bisexual triad singing about things like saliva, rain and long-term relationships?

Christoph Honore’s 2007 film Love Songs has the distinction of being one of “pope of trash” John Waters’ favorite films. Salon film critic Andrew O’Hehir aptly described the film as a “blend of Francois Truffaut’s wistful Parisian sentimentalism and Pedro Almodóvar’s acrid polysexual comedy.”

Love Songs follows Ismael (Louis Garrel) and Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), a couple in the throes of an eight-year relationship threatening to bottom out, as they navigate the complexities of the ménage à trois.

Alice (Clotilde Hesme), a co-worker of Ismael’s, has taken root in their bed and life. After a month, the couple

feelS like they might be in over their heads with the jealousy that plagues them both.

After an unexpected tragedy, Ismael and Alice must find outlets for their startling grief. Alice turns to Gwendal (Yannick Renier), a recent love interest, while Ismael is pursued by Gwendal’s high school-aged brother, Erwann (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet).

Trying in vain to lean on Ismael and dealing with issues of her own is Julie’s sister, Jeanne (Chiara Mastroianni).

Divided into three parts and with a distinct pastiche quality, Love Songs is structured around music written by Alex Beaupain. The characters spring into song spontaneously, but it somehow makes sense and is less campy than you would imagine.

The song lyrics tell much of the narrative, explaining the protagonists’ stale relationships and the bitter jealousies that have been sprinkled throughout their eight-year love affair.

Replete with bitter namecalling and the painful truths you rarely divulge, these songs are hardly upbeat but are wildly catchy even if you don’t speak French. You might not have any idea what the words mean, but they’ll get stuck in your head!

The film is a clear homage to Jean-Luc Godard in its attempt to emulate A Woman is a Woman, but don’t let the copycat aspect deter you.

Love Songs is full of its own memorable moments, such as when Julie’s mother asks her to explain the positions involved in a threesome.

It’s also chock-full of the requisite postcard-perfect Paris scenery in elaborate montages and artistic winks from Honore, like Ismael’s scarf matching the French flag as he pursues liberty, equality and fraternity.

Possibly the one legitimate gripe is the performances.

While Love Songs is certainly a drama, Garrel seems so focused on oozing ennui to the

Bac Films/2007

extreme that his character lacks dimension.

The actors do not have the kind of chemistry you might expect from a trio of 20-somethings exploring their sexualities together.

While Julie and Ismael are moderately convincing as long time partners, they have zero sparks with Alice.

The only standout performance is from Mastroianni, which isn’t a surprise given her lineage; she’s the daughter of famous French actress Catherine Deneuve and Italian film star Marcello Mastroianni.

Love Songs earned Honore a Palm d’Or nomination at Cannes and the Special Jury Award at the 2008 Torino In-

5th Avenue Cinema presents 'LOVE SONGS' 510 SW Hall St. Friday, Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. & 9:30 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. & 9:30 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 22 at 3 p.m.

Admission: free ternational Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, in addition to a handful of other award nominations including four Cesars (the French Oscar equivalent).

Despite the international acclaim, the film majorly flew under the radar in the United States, only screening in half a dozen theaters nationwide.

Whatever your end opinion

on the plot or music, Love Songs has the charisma to stand on its own.

Film critic Mark Olsen expressed it best when he said, “Christoph Honore’s films aren’t just films you like—you develop weird little crushes on them.”

And Love Songs is no exception.

'Viet Cong' is an icy ode to order jordan rasmussen

Canadian post-punks Viet Cong take their music very seriously, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that there isn’t anything to enjoy in their 37-minute, self-titled debut LP. Beginning with “Newspaper Spoons,” Viet Cong sets the playing field immediately. Nearly 60 seconds into their album the only sounds you hear are a heavily distorted drum line and lead singer Matt Flegel’s chilly, deadpan vocals before the ripping snarl of a guitar.

This is certainly not easy like Sunday morning music.

Viet Cong is deliberate, intensively meticulous and has an incredible attention to detail. Throughout their album, they recall and master the

sonic palette of post-punk so they can tear it all down, emerging from beneath the rubble of it all.

“Deliberately made to disintegrate,” sings Flegel on opener “Newspaper Spoons,” which essentially becomes the thesis for the album.

Although the distortion may lead you to believe otherwise, this album does not feel lo-fi in any way whatsoever. Everything feels intentional, as if every tight drum fill or icy bassline was placed there to serve a distinct and separate purpose.

The oppressive distortion on the instruments creates a bleak and almost cacophonous soundscape, but Viet Cong always finds a way to subvert themselves.

The haunting drumline and screeching guitar of “Newspaper Spoons” dissolves into a celestial synth melody before the song closes.

The album’s midpoint, “March of Progress,” follows a militaristic drumline for nearly the first half of the song, until it switches without warning into delicate guitar and what might be Flegel’s most subdued vocals on the whole album.

However, the song transitions once more into an almost danceable New Order-esque synth breakdown before finally ending.

Viet Cong’s grim and austere tones can lull you into a wintry mood, but they never leave you there, always surprising with an unexpected

transition or with a moment of surprising delicacy.

After the very public dissolution of post-punk band Women in 2010 and the death of the band’s guitarist Christopher Reimer in 2012, Viet Cong was formed from their ashes. Viet Cong is made up of two exWomen band members, bassist and vocalist Matt Flegel and drummer Mike Wallace.

Considering the band’s rocky history, it comes as no surprise that their lyrics are a reflection of their past.

Matt Flegel’s vocal delivery is deadpan and emotionless at times, but at other points he yells desperately into their distorted void or, as in “March of Progress,” Flegel sings with a broken and yet still stunning falsetto.

Lyrically, the album is obsessed with deconstruction, much like their music. Lyrics like “If we’re lucky we’ll get old and die,” from “Pointless Experience” reveal a lot about themselves.

Regret, existential pointlessness and the sense of everything falling apart are the key themes repeated throughout the album, yet it never feels overly dramatic. It is the few moments of beautiful clarity that are interspersed between the pounding distortion that help ground Viet Cong and stop it from being too fussy or overbearing.

Viet Cong also includes a rerecorded version of an old song, “Bunker Buster,” which contains one of the most

memorable guitar riffs in a while. How often is it that a riff gets stuck in your head in 2015? That alone deserves an award.

“Bunker Buster” is the type of song that makes you want to pick up a guitar and pretend you know what you’re doing.

Album closer “Death” is an 11-minute song that culminates to a 4-minute wash of sound in which no instrument is recognizable on its own until the band slowly deconstructs it all, and then transitions into something almost entirely unrecognizable from before.

Viet Cong is an album best listened to all at once from beginning to end. It’s an ode to order, incredibly cohesive from start to finish.

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

17

ETC

EVENT CALENDAR john pinney

Tues, Feb. 17

Mardi Gras Pancake Bar When: 4–6 p.m.

Where: Blumel Lounge

There’s no better way to celebrate the biggest party in America than by stuffing your face with all kinds of pancakes, crafts and games.

Treat yourself! And save me some syrup. The event is free for students with kids.

you need to know! Over 100 departments, majors, minors and certificate programs will be in residence, along with Advising & Career Services.

FREE

Wham-O! Comics Show When: Unknown time Where: Milepost 5 See event website for details

FREE

Conversation Trivia and Bingo When: 5–7 p.m.

Where: Ondine Lobby Last year, Portland State placed nationally in the top 10 schools for energy reduction, and it plans to continue the streak this year.

Come and win candy or other prizes while playing bingo, trivia, defending the school’s honor and learning lots about water and energy conservation. FREE

Wed, Feb. 18

Explore PSU Majors When: 12–3 p.m.

Where: SMSU 355 Do you have questions about your major or other majors or minors here at PSU? Are you unsteady on the rock of indecision, wishing you fit into a program better, or wanted to find a way to tailor your college experience to your needs? Come to this exploratory event and learn all that

A group exhibition of works at the Milepost 5 lofts that are all inspired by comic books, graphic novels and contemporary illustrative works.

It’s sure to be an enlightening and out of this world time! Runs until the March 13. Spandex allowed, but not required for entry. No capes!

FREE

The Watcher Files Exhibition When: 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Where: PSU Academic and Student Rec Center The final exhibition of the residency of artists Garrick Imatani and Kaia Sand explores the idea of anonymity and passing on the ideas of and representations in civic engagement. The Watcher Files is a body of work that uses that catalogue of police surveilance files on activists from the 60s through 80s.

This artistic event involves both literary and artistic mediums as addendums to actual files. The artists will speak about their work on Feb. 25 at 7 p.m. as well. A not-to-miss piece of history interpreted through an artistic lens.

leave you wanting more, or to at least leave the theater with the songs stuck in your head. Other performances include 2 p.m. on the 21 and 1 and 6:30 p.m. on the 22.

Open captioning is available at the 6:30 p.m. performance on the 22. I know I’ll be there!

Dept. of Chem Series: Brett A. Helms When: 3:15 p.m.

Where: Science Building 1, Room 107 Get down to the very heart of your favorite molecules with this week’s seminar by the career staff scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. FREE

FREE

Thurs, Feb. 19

Trans* Affirming Fitness Group When: 3–4 p.m.

Where: ASRC 440/441 A space for all trans*, genderqueer and body-positive people to exercise in an environment that honors each individual and their identity choice. It happens Tuesdays and Thursday at 3 p.m. and is, without a doubt, very awesome.

FREE

Fri, Feb. 20

Cinderella by Rodgers & Hammerstein When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: Keller Auditorium Fee: $36 The timeless tale of the girl with the fairy godmother, the cruel stepmother, and the prince who just didn’t know how to give up a good search or enjoy a proper ball comes to the Keller Auditorium. Brought to you by the guys who created The King and I and the The Sound of Music—yes those two infectious Broadway legends—this is a traveling company sure to

Lovers: The Music of Samuel Barber When: 7:30 p.m.

Where: First United Methodist Church; 1838 SW Jefferson St. Fee: $15 general, $7 students and seniors The rarely heard erotic works of Pablo Neruda as performed as a choral oratio written by Samuel Barber will be performed by the PSU Choirs and PSU Orchestra.

This strange trip through the throes of human ecstacy will ensure you never hear choral music quite the same way again, in a good way. Conducted by Ethan Sperry with over 100 singers from the PSU Chamber Choir, Man

Choir and Vox Femina. Other pieces performed include Barber’s “Agnus Dei” and Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet.” A second performance will be on Feb. 22 at 4 p.m.

Tickets should be purchased through the PSU Box Office.

Portland Golf Show 2015 When: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Where: Oregon Convention Center, Exhibit Hall A Fee: $13 Join your fellow golfers for this year’s show, and make all your friends green with envy when you come away with knowledge about new products, find yourself some more tee-time buddies, and hopefully get to see the latest in all golf technology. It’s a weekend’s worth of fun!

Sat, Feb. 21

Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Shuttle When: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

See Campus Rec Center for information Fee: With season pass: $20 members, $30 non-members Without season pass: $75 members, $100 non-members If Mt. Hood is one of your favorite places to express yourself though hitting the slopes, then Campus Rec has a deal for you! Whether or not you have a season pass, this is your ticket up the mountain without having to deal with traffic! Prices include roundtrip shuttle and a day lift ticket.

FEATURED EVENT SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21

Rocky Horror Picture Show Midnight Showing Clinton Street Theater, $8

The ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW

18

Fun fact: Your event listings writer is an alumni of this, the longest-running shadowcast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the world! Featuring lip-synching, choreography and costumes to die for, it’s quite the experience! The Clinton Street Cabaret performs RHPS every first, third and fifth Saturday of the month. Doors open at 11:30 p.m., virgin games start at 12 a.m.. If you’ve never experienced it, you’re in for a treat. Who knows? You might even see me as Eddy or Dr. Scott. I do love a good bit of frozen Meatloaf, after all. Check out the Clinton Street Theater website for the skinny on just a couple of the rules of house (and you can always buy prop bags from the cast for five bucks if you forget to bring your own!).

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

Sun, Feb. 22

Silver Falls Day Hike

When: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

See Campus Rec for information Fee: $25 members, $50 non-members Please note that the last day to register for this trip is 2/18 so you can attend the pre-trip meeting. Silver Falls is known as the crown jewel of the Oregon State Parks system, and it’s not hard to tell why, considering you even get to look behind the waterfall. No pets, but there are plenty of places for a picnic. Dress for the hike; stay for the fun!

Mon, Feb. 23

Portland International Film Festival The 38th Annual Portland International Film Festival rolls onward with movies from all different countries and perspectives, genders, races and sexualities around the world. There are shorts, animated films, documentaries, anything you could think to want to see, really.

Prices, venues and the giant list of available films can be found at festivals.nwfilm.org/ piff38/ including PIFF After Dark, which is this lovely and rebellious event that is oh-soPortland!

FREE

21+

PSU FREE OPEN TO PUBLIC 21 & OVER

eTC

horoscoPes

aquarius Jan. 20–Feb. 18

Binge watching Archer is your best bet for this week. Also, because it’s hilarious. Some people think you’re Lana, but we both secretly know you wish you were Mallory.

John Pinney

Pisces Feb. 20–March 19

You may have paid two bucks for that ring tone, but when you don’t land that internship because of said ring tone, you should take that as a hint that it wasn’t the right ring tone for you.

aries March 21–April 19

Hot dogs have very little nutritional value. And if you don’t quit your hard partying ways and buckle down this term, people might start talking about you like that.

Taurus April 20–May 20

Hawkman is one of the least appreciated members of the Justice League, but his strength and power are unmatched. Much like his backstory, you have a life of grand and rich tradition that people are missing out on. .

Gemini May 21–June 20

This week, Cyrano de Bergerac should be your inspiration.

Someone close to you is falling in love but is a little shy and really needs you. I could recommend a couple really good movies, if you’d like.

Cancer June 21–July 22

Are you an astronaut? Because you are out of this world. And a little out of your mind if you think that shade of orange goes with that shade of purple.

Leo July 23–Aug. 22

Scorpio Oct. 23–Nov. 21

Valentine’s Day is over, sweetie, but I know you still feel romantic. And the reason for that is because you do have the moves. Don’t let anyone say otherwise.

You might think that now is too early to start thinking about your cosplay costume, but that’s simply not true. If you want to be a warrior goddess, you’re going to have to sew that costume yourself.

Virgo Aug. 23–Sep. 22

Sagittarius Nov. 22–Dec. 21

February 15 is the third-best holiday of the year, after Christmas and my birthday.

Half-price chocolates are here, and you should indulge, Just like me.

Your week starts on the other end of a cliffhanger. You’ve experienced a lot this past week, and now it’s time to see how good or bad the aftermath is.

Libra Sep. 23– Oct. 22

Capricorn Dec. 22–Jan. 19

TBS sitcoms use a lot of laugh tracks to mask their lack of comedic timing. You might feel a bit like that this week: flat and fake. But really, you just need to eat breakfast more often.

Keep driving the bus over 55 miles per hour or it might explode, Cappi.

That’s a metaphor. If you’d studied for your test like you said you would, you might know that.

ELISE FURLAN/PSU VANGUARD

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der (9,3)

1 The Italian student leaves Jesus College in Cambridge for one in Oxford (6,6) 9 After final portion of vindaloo, time in the bog is required – many a time (5) 10 Driving back from endless binge – utter lunatic! (9) 11 Washing up liquid (9) 12 South American uses it to pay sweetener to Frenchman (5) 13 Live with uncontrolled desire (6) 15 Turned around the car, almost plunging into the grass (8) 18 Man United’s opposition? (8) 19 They can be worn on the sleeve of a suit (6) 22 Showy splendour’s reflected in some festal celebrations (5) 24 Throw Liverpudlian into a stew (9) 26 She saw girl following an investigation out East (9) 27 Piece of eight? (5) 28 Dish of lamb’s ten-

doWn

1 Thick soup is food to the German (7) 2 Priest not empowered to perform ceremonies? (5) 3 Snack, very loosely speaking, provided by club (4,5) 4 It follows that he came across a bad egg here and there (6) 5 Peacekeepers under British leader fighting to relieve oppression (8) 6 Animal shelters in broken down Escort, having run away (5) 7 Find out when record’s finished playing (8) 8 A vice that’s accepted (6) 14 One’s name may often be on it being extremely prone to illness, lacking energy (4,4) 16 Try to accommodate too many people – more than 100, on the fourth row (9) 17 Arrived and, being unimportant, found the red carpet thus? (6,2) 18 Schism causes end-

less damage to church (6) 20 Cover the woman to keep in the warmth (7) 21 Wear down a fabric, say (6) 23 Refuse to have reckless time at first (5) 25 At university to get first in philosophy?

Much would be required here! (2,3)

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

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SPOrTS

Big sky conFerence dual and the Battle oF Portland Phuoc Francis nGuyen

The Portland State Vikings men’s tennis team looked to get back on track against Montana State at home at Club Green Meadows in Vancouver, Washington.

The Vikings (2-2, 0-1 Big Sky) were trying to even out their record while the Montana State Bobcats (1-3, 1-0 Big Sky) tried to stay undefeated in conference play.

In their Big Sky opener, the Bobcats secured a road win over Northern Colorado 5-2.

The PSU Vikings dropped their opener against the preseason favorite, Idaho. This matchup presented PSU with a chance to tie the Big Sky standings. The Bobcats and Vikings were picked sixth and seventh in the preseason coaches’ poll, respectively.

To qualify for the conference tournament for the first time, the Vikings need to finish in the top six of the Big Sky conference.

In doubles lines 1-3, the Vikings would be represented

by Stuart Tierney with Ian Risenhoover, Matt Pronesti

with Wil Cochrane, and Brent Wheeler with Ethan Lopez. Tierney and Risenhoover squared off against threetime 1st Team All-Big Sky player Niklas Brandes with Javier Martin-Morillas. This match ended with the Viking duo coming out on top 6-4.

They would only need one more doubles match win to secure the point. Pronesti and Cochrane would fall to Kellen Bates and Harry James 4-6.

The last doubles match was contested against the Bobcats’ line one singles player Andre Napoliatano and Dylan Harvala. Lopez and Wheeler pulled through with a 6-4 win to put the Vikings on top 1-0 in the Big Sky dual.

In singles lines 1-6, the Vikings would be represented

by Lopez, Tierney, Wheeler, Pronesti, Cochrane and Risenhoover.

Napoliatano squared off against Lopez, winning in straight sets to tie the dual score at one apiece.

James fought off Cochrane

in two tight sets to put the visitors on top. Tierney upset the all-conference player, Brandes, in straight sets to level the dual score.

Martin-Morillas put the road team back on top with a tough two set win over Wheeler. Pronesti came through for the Vikings in three sets, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 over Bates to set up a winner-takeall line six singles for the crucial Big Sky Conference win.

Risenhoover dropped the first set 3-6 to Harvala before storming back in the second set 7-5. The third set, however, would go to the Bobcats 6-3 to give them a 4-3 dual win and 2-0 Big Sky record.

“After Montana State, everybody was pretty low; it was a very emotionally draining match, having it come down to a 3rd that was back and forth, up and down,” Cochrane said. “But a 3-4 loss is a lot of progress based on last year’s 7-0 loss to the same team. Looking ahead to possibly playing them again, I think we just

need to do better at winning those crucial points which come with belief and confidence, which we should hopefully have lots of by the end of the season.”

In the battle for tennis supremacy in Portland, the Vikings (2-3) would take on their in-state rivals the University of Portland Pilots (2-0). The match was held at the West Hills Racquet & Fitness Club in Portland. The Vikings faced a tough task in defeating the Pilots, who they haven’t beaten in seven attempts. Their dual would be played on the day after the Big Sky encounter against the Montana State Bobcats.

The back to back for the Vikings gave the Pilots an advantage, who haven’t played a match since they won 4-3 over previous number 68 East Tennessee State over three weeks ago.

In doubles lines 1-3, the Vikings did not make any changes from the match against the Bobcats.

Tierney with Risenhoover

faced off against line one and two singles players, Reid Delaubenfels and Steffen Dierauf. The match left Tierney unable to play his singles match at line two. This match ended in a 6-2 win for the Pilots’ pair. Cochrane and Pronesti faced off line three singles Mathieu Garcia and Kent Andreasen in a close 4-6 win for the Pilots duo.

The doubles win secured the Pilots the first point of the dual. In line three doubles, Wheeler and Lopez dropped their match 2-6 to line four and five Michai Pervolarakis and Garcia.

The absence of Tierney meant that all in lines singles 3-6 would be pushed up toward 2-5. Wil Junior Nate Chart would make his singles debut at line six. The Vikings provided tough matches for the Pilots, yet the momentum from winning against a ranked opponent propelled the University of Portland to win the dual 7-0.

“Tierney is a very important part of our team but we

are deep all the way through and have experience playing at many different spots,” Cochrane said on the loss of Tierney in singles. “I think the emotional day we had before playing UP and the fact that they had a great team led to a less than great day.

“For the rest of the season we are just looking to build on some wins, right now we have been very competitive but haven’t come up with any significant wins, so we should look to start winning these tough matches and build on that confidence,” Cochrane said. “Right now, as a whole, our level of play is up and down. Once we get wins our level of play should start to get consistently higher, which would put us in a position to beat those top teams.”

You can see Cochrane and the PSU men’s tennis team look to get back on track when they host the Montana Grizzlies in a Big Sky Conference match on Feb. 21 at their home courts, Club Green Meadows.

WIL COCHraNe was one of six Vikings to participate in the men's doubles during the Big Sky Conference.

COURTESY OF LARRY LAWSON/PSU ATHLETICS

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Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

SPOrTS

Getting out in the city commentary By lauren schlanGen

Portland—some see it as the home of hipsters, hippies, vegans and birds put upon things. It’s a small city often overlooked, easy to pigeonhole and stereotype. But to you and I, the City of Roses is our home, and we know how far beyond the stereotypes it goes.

Oregon is packed full of outdoor attractions: Mount Hood, Crater Lake National Park, Bonneville Dam, Hells Canyon, Timberline Lodge and Cape Kiwanda. The largest city in the state, Portland is home to its fair share of attractions as well: the Oregon Zoo, the Portland Japanese Garden, Washington Park, Forest Park and Hoyt Arboretum, to name a few.

Located in a dense urban area, it may be hard to imag-

ine what the Portland State campus has to offer in terms of outdoor activities (apart from busting your butt to get from Fourth Avenue. Building to XSB in the five minutes you have before your next class begins). However, there are numerous outdoor activities that PSU students can get involved in here on campus.

The best place to start for this would be the Outdoor Program office. Located at the corner of 5th Avenue and Harrison Street, the ODP is your one-stop shop for information and resources to get you connected with the great outdoors.

Teacup Cross-country Skiing/splitboarding, Marquam Nature Park Service & Yoga, Silver Falls Day Hike, and Intro to Outdoor Sports

Climbing are all events on the February calendar alone. Most events have a cost associated with them, but for those of you who consider yourselves broke college kids like myself, the ODP also offers an array of free events.

All trips are student led, which means every year, even every term a variety of different outdoor activities appear on the schedule. Future event dates and more information can be found online at pdx. edu/recreation/outdoorprogram. However, to sign up for said events, you need to make your way down to the physical office location on 5th and Harrison.

Your student I.D. badge gets you a lot more than

access to your building and into games for free.

It’s also your ticket to exclusive prices on outdoor equipment that the ODP has available for rental.

Equipment for backpacking and camping, climbing and mountaineering, skiing and snowshoeing, rafting, kayaking and other water sports can all be found at the ODP. Students can hit two birds with one stone by getting involved with the ODP and earning college credit at the same time. Something to look out for in the coming terms are PE 199 Independent Study Outdoor Program introductory seminars such as Intro to Whitewater Kayaking, Intro to Sea Kayaking, Intro to Rock Climbing

eQuIPMeNT reNTaL CeNTer aTTeNDaNT DeaNNa aNSary aND STuDeNT COOrDINaTOr NeaL rObINSON display equipment available through the Outdoor Program.

MILES SANGUINETTI/PSU VANGUARD

and Intro to Mountaineering. Other credit earning courses include Wilderness First Responder and Wilderness First Responder Recertification.

Next time you need to get some fresh air, stop by the ODP, who make it easy to get out of the city and into the natural beauty of Portland and Oregon’s landscape.

Vernon adams: a VerBal commit aleX moore

PSU VIKINGS LOGO

Last week Eastern Washington Eagles quarterback Vernon Adams announced he would be playing football his senior year at the University of Oregon.

Best known for his success against BCS teams, Adams once lit up Oregon State for 518 total yards—a Reser Stadium record.

His success against quality teams, with fewer weapons around him, started to gain Adams attention. And after Marcus Mariota’s decision to forgo his senior season to declare for the NFL draft, it made sense for Adams to transfer to Oregon.

But before all the big games, before the transfer news and even before his first college game, Adams was a verbal commit to Portland State.

“We went through the process, and he had already taken his trip to Eastern,” said Vikings former head

coach Nigel Burton. “He came to our place, and let us know that he wanted to come [play at Portland State]. It was a really good conversation and we were happy.”

On national signing day, things went different from expected for Burton and his coaching staff. Adams signed his letter of intent to go to Eastern Washington.

Adams changed his mind.

“It was not the first time that’s ever happened on signing day in my career,” Burton said. “Obviously you’re disappointed. And it made the day a lot more interesting than we were hoping, but in the grand scheme of things, you never know what would have happened had he come.”

PSU and Eastern Washington were two schools that did not miss out on Adams’ talent, cultivated during his high school career in south-

ern California. That talent now finds him in the quarterback race at a nationalchampionship contending Pac-12 school.

“There’s a lot of great, great players out there,” Burton said.

So what happened that made Adams change his mind and go to PSU Dam Cup rival Eastern Washington? In the complicated business of recruiting, a number of different factors play into the decisions being made. But between Adams and PSU, one of the deciding factors may have been communication.

“The thought was put in his mind that maybe he wasn’t going to get to play quarterback at [PSU],” Burton said.

“Or that he wasn’t a priority.

That wasn’t true. In the end, it worked out for him. And things usually do, the way I

believe. It kinda is what it is.”

Adams went on to play three years at Eastern Washington where he totaled over 10,000 yards in the air and over 1,000 on the ground. He won three straight Big Sky championships and broke records in multiple road Pac-12 arenas.

How did recruiting go this year for PSU? The Vikings have 13 2015 recruits, including some local talents at the quarterback position. One of the most notable is Johnathan Boland, who played high school football at Parkrose.

For Adams, getting his degree at Eastern Washington is necessary for his transfer to Oregon. In his time at Eastern Washington, Adams will be unable to work with the football team, as he will not be a part of the football team next year. After his degree, Adams will be in a fight for the starting position.

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

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SPORTS UPCOMING

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PSU vs. NORTH DAKOTA

Juli Inkster Spartan Invitational

Thur. Feb. 19, 7:05 p.m.

Alamaden Golf and Country Club, San Jose, CA Mon., Tues., Feb. 23-24, All Day

PSU vs. NORTHERN COLORADO Sat. Feb. 21, 7:05 p.m.

PSU Women's Basketball

Men's Tennis

PSU @ north dakota

PSU vs. MONTANA

Thurs. Feb. 19, 7:00 p.m.

Sat. Feb. 21, 2:00 p.m.

PSU @ NORTHERN COLORADO Sat. Feb. 21, 2 p.m.

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PSU vs. SACRAMENTO Sun. Feb. 22, 10:00 a.m.

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Might a new wave of Vikings turn the tide?

Commentary by Jason Susim

Following National Letter of Intent Signing Day, Portland State Athletics has acquired some fresh talent.

Recruiting five student athletes from high school, five from junior college and three transfers, PSU football has bolted up its roster for the spring season.

Recruiters have scouted these athletes from local high schools to out-ofstate schools, searching for future Vikings to represent PSU. Standing out among the recruiting class of 13 athletes is quarterback Alex Kuresa.

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He hails from Utah and started his college career as a wide receiver at BYU. Initially catching the attention of talent scouts during high school, Kuresa threw 101 touchdown passes and amassed nearly 13,000 yards as a high school student.

Head Coach Bruce Barnum has expressed his thoughts about Kuresa on GoViks.com, stating, “The only kid I ever saw with a 39-and-a-half minute highlight video.”

Kuresa’s versatility is what makes him valuable in Barnum’s eyes.

“[Kuresa] is another guy who can play multiple positions,” Barnum said.

Perhaps versatility is a good start to turning this team around. Viking football is coming off a losing season this past fall. Averaging 24.2 points per game and closing out the season with a record of 3-12, the team isn’t providing fans with much to cheer for.

The empty stands and lackluster sideline performances seem to affirm the team’s mantra of “We all we got.”

The lack of wide fan support must also contribute to the frustrations of the

Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

athletes. While PSU isn’t exactly a football school, the student body would like to stand behind a team that represents excellence. We have not seen that in our football program, but we remain hopeful.

National Letter of Intent Signing Day has provided Viking football with an opportunity. The spring season will show whether the team can capitalize on the efforts of their recruiters. These 13 athletes, these proud future Vikings, have a chance to show the school and the city what they signed on for.

As posted on GoViks.com

2015 PSU Football Signees High School Jonathan Boland QB, 5-11, 190, FR, Portland, OR (Parkrose HS) Thomas Hamilton QB, 6-3, 220, FR, Baker City, OR (Oregon City HS) Carlos Martin RB, 5-11 200, FR, La Habra, CA (La Habra HS) Chase Morrison RB, 5-10, 190, FR, Portland, OR (Jesuit HS) Charlie Taumopeau TE, 6-3, 265, FR, Federal Way, WA (Federal Way HS)

Junior College Casey Eyman P, 6-1, 195, JR, Anaheim, CA, (Cypress HS/Fullerton College) Christopher Gilchrist WR, 6-4, 195, JR Altadena, CA (Charter Oaks HS/Mt.SAC) Mosa Likio LB, 5-11, 240, JR, San Mateo, CA (Wilcox HS/C. of San Mateo) Za’Quan Summers RB, 5-9, 175, JR, Alexandria, VA (Williams HS/Scottsdale CC) Austin Wolff LB, 6-1, 225, JR, San Diego, CA (Fallbrook HS/Palomar College)

Transfers Tyler Foreman S, 6-1, 195, SO, Pasadena, CA (Crespi HS/UCLA) John Jackson DT, 6-2, 270, FR, Tucson, AZ (Canyon Del Oro HS/Wyomi ng) Trent Riley WR, 6-1 205, SO North Bend, WA (Mount Si HS/UNLV) *(High school recruits will not compete in spring)

SPOrTS

Portland-seattle cascadia clash DEFENDING BIG SkY CHAMPS COME TO TOWN

Phuoc Francis nGuyen

The Portland State Vikings women’s tennis team traveled north to the tennis Center at Sand Point in Seattle to face the Seattle University Redhawks in this past weekend’s Cascadia clash.

These two teams came into the dual with opposite momentums. PSU came in riding a three match win streak over Lewis-Clark State, Lewis & Clark and a Big Sky Conference opening win over Montana State. The Redhawks came into the match with tough losses to Boise State, Weber State and Idaho, respectively.

After losing the doubles point to Montana State, the Vikings were looking for a better start against Seattle. In doubles lines 1-3 the Vikings had Dane Vorster with Siena Peri, Tracy Dong with Ayaka Terakawa, and Megan Govi with Kelsey Frey. Seattle would counter with their lines one and two single players Kelli Woodman with Michelle Lui. This match gave the Redhawks the first match win of the day. However, Govi and Frey leveled the score at one apiece with their 6-4 win over Kristen James and line five singles player, Sari Kwee.

The doubles point would come down to line three and four singles players Madison Maloney and Barbara Carey against the PSU pair of Dong and Terakawa. In this back and forth match, it ended in a tiebreaker 7-6 (1). The tiebreaker won by the Seattle Redhawks pair gave them a 1-0 lead in the dual.

“It is important for us to be able to refocus after losing a doubles point because we have singles to worry about and you can’t focus on the things that already happened,” said junior Ayaka Perakawa.

“This year we are focusing on a strong start and finish. The doubles point is just a little advantage for the other team, but we have nothing to worry about since our singles is stronger than ever.”

The Vikings would need to win their four of the next six singles matches without their

steady line four singles player in Sabina-Elena Preda. Senior Alexa McDonald would fill in for the Vikings at line six with Frey and Govi at lines four and five, respectively. Vorster, Peri, and Dong would make up the first three lines for PSU. Dong continued her strong play with a 6-2 6-0 over Maloney, which leveled the dual score at one apiece.

McDonald filled in admirably with a 6-3 6-2 win over Audrey Scott. Vorster came back down one set to win a tight three set encounter 2-6, 6-3, 7-5. These three singles wins left the Vikings only needing one more win to be victorious in the dual. Senior Megan Govi delivered with a close straight sets win over Kwee 7-6 (4) 6-4 to give PSU their fourth straight dual win in a row. Peri and Frey battled in three set encounters.

The comeback win 4-3 over Seattle gave the team additional confidence, McDonald said.

“Coming back after losing the doubles point and winning four singles matches gave us a lot of confidence in our singles game and room for improvement for doubles,” McDonald said, “I was really happy at how strong mentally everyone was for singles. Most of the doubles and singles came down to a few points.

We now know what to work on this upcoming week. We are looking forward to testing Sac state this Sunday.”

Two days later, the defending Big Sky Champion the Montana Grizzlies came into the Club Green Meadows looking to spoil the Vikings’ four match win streak and their unblemished Big Sky Conference record. The champs came into their Big Sky opener with losses to Washington State, Gonzaga, Oregon and Iowa.

The Vikings would get Preda back for this match. She would be paired with Dong in doubles at line two. Vorster and Govi would be in line one.

Frey and Peri would be in line three. Vorster and Govi faced

off Precious Gbadomosi and Laurence Pelchat who represent the Grizzlies in line one and three singles, respectively.

The 2-6 score left the Vikings needing to win the last two doubles for the first dual point. Preda and Dong played a tough set before falling to Sasha Carter and Cat Orfanos who play lines two and six for singles, respectively.

In the previous Big Sky match against the Bobcats, PSU managed to come back to win five of the next six singles.

In singles the team would be represented by Vorster, Peri, Dong, Preda, Frey and Govi in lines 1-6. The comeback started off with Preda announcing her return with a 6-2 6-1 win over Hannah Sulz. That evened the dual at one apiece. Gbadomosi and Vorster played two tough sets with Montana prevailing to retake the dual lead.

Cam Kincaid gave the Grizzlies a 3-1 lead with a straight sets win over Frey. Dong and Peri remained on court with Govi about to start line six play. Dong would prevail over Pelchat in two tight sets 7-5 7-5 to get the Vikings their second point. Peri came back from down a set to force a third before dropping this tightly contested match 3-6 in the third.

The Grizzlies would go on to win the dual 5-2.

“We thought that the match against Montana was close and we felt that we could’ve won all the lines in both singles and doubles,” Preda said. “This is a great feeling, because it means that we are there, we can beat the team who won our conference last year! We look forward to practicing harder and to give our best on the court.

We know that we are good enough to beat any team in this conference and we also know that if we work hard enough this will happen.”

You can see Preda and the PSU women’s tennis team look to rebound at home against Sacramento State next weekend at 10 a.m. on Feb. 22 at Club Green Meadows.

COURTESY OF GERD FUNCKE THROUGH CREATIVE COMMONS

Come take an eye opening look at the growing problem of radicalization and its solution, with particular focus on ISIS, as well as the recent surge of bigotry and ignorance towards Muslims. Open to all.

Complimentary food will be served.

Thursday, Feb 19th @ 5pm PSU MultiCultural Center info@PortlandMuslims.com Vanguard | February 17, 2015 | psuvanguard.com

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