Marketing and Communications
Press Releases: January 2008
SOU Invites the Public to Meet Provost Candidates (1/25/08)
The Provost Search Committee has invited four final provost and vice president for academic affairs candidates to the Southern Oregon University campus for a series of interviews and to present on the topic of "Reflections on my tenure as SOU's Provost, circa 2013."
The candidates’ presentations and the following receptions are open to the public, and community participation is highly welcomed. All the presentations will begin at 3:00 p.m. followed by a welcome reception at 4:30 p.m. The finalists are Jonathan Glenn, Gary Kiger, Ann Leffler, and Kent Neely.
University of Central Arkansas (UCA) Associate Provost Jonathan Glenn will present on January 29. He has also served as the UCA interim dean of the College of Fine Arts and Communication.
Gary Kiger, the dean of the College of Humanities at Utah State University, will present on January 31. He is also a sociological researcher in the areas of gender, work, family, prejudice formation, and prejudice reduction.
The current dean of the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville College of Arts and Sciences, Kent Neely, will present on February 4. He also served as associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the Boise State University.
Glenn, Kiger, and Neely will show their presentations in the Rogue River Room of the Stevenson Union.
Ann Leffler will present on February 13 in the Meese Room of the Lenn and Dixie Hannon Library. She currently serves as the senior consultant to the provost, as well as presidential professor of sociology at the University of Maine.
“We are very excited to have these four exceptional candidates on their way to Southern Oregon University,” says Jonathan Eldridge, vice president for student affairs and search committee chair.
Well Driller Demonstrates Techniques for SOU Hydrogeology Students (1/25/08)
Pioneer Drilling owner Fred Krasner has agreed to donate his time on February 1, 2008, from 1 to 5 p.m. to drill a monitoring well at a site selected in North Mountain Park as part of an educational field experience for a Southern Oregon University (SOU) hydrogeology class.
Instructor Robert Coffan sees this as a real-world experience for both hydrology and geology students who will observe well drilling and construction and learn about ground water hydrology and water resources. Students will also establish a staff gage donated by the US. Geological Survey to record and monitor stream levels on Bear Creek. "I have learned by experience that the best scientists and engineers are the ones that can relate what they have learned in the classroom setting to the natural environment," says Coffan.
Students will see how a well is drilled and learn about mobilization, noise, weather, and set-up (and possibly breakdown) of equipment during the winter months. This experience will assist them as they leave the classroom environment and create their own solutions to hydrogeologic issues.
The new monitoring well at North Mountain Park will be used to assess shallow groundwater conditions near Bear Creek and will be available to the City of Ashland, Rogue Valley Council of Governments, Oregon Water Resources Department, and the Bear Creek Watershed Council.
Southern Oregon University Instructor Publishes Book on Ethics (1/25/08)
Southern Oregon University philosophy instructor Mitchell Frangadakis presents his new book, God is Ethics: A Gadfly's View of Self-identity, Beliefs, Values, and the Buddhist Notion of Absolute Truth. Published by Wisdom Artist Productions, Frangadakis’s book is available online at www.lulu.com in both print and downloadable formats.
While surveying both Eastern and Western axioms, Frangadakis introduces universal questions in ethics. He addresses those rhetorical queries by presenting the reader with principal philosophies from both worlds—East and West.
“Taking a friendly and conversational style, Mitchell Frangadakis introduces his readers to the breadth and depth of philosophical thinking,” says SOU Philosophy Program Director Prakash Chenjeri. “He invites us to join him on a philosophical journey, which leads us to his provocative conclusion—God is ethics. Ultimately, it is this proposition that Frangadakis wants us all to examine.”
In addition to teaching philosophy, Frangadakis is a lifelong student of the meditative traditions. He recently served as the director of Hollow Bones, a Buddhist center in the Rinzai Zen tradition. He is also the former retreat coordinator for Tashi Choling, a Tibetan Buddhist retreat center in southern Oregon's Colstine Valley. Drawing from his experiences, Frangadakis has incorporated Eastern traditions with Western ideology to reflect on philosophy and its interconnections with life.
SOU Supporter Significantly Increases His Endowment (1/25/08)
Longtime Southern Oregon University (SOU) contributor Gerhard Heiter recently increased his scholarship endowment from $135,000 to $250,000 to support the University’s students.
Heiter’s considerable donation to the Gerhard Heiter Scholarship Endowment will make it possible for more scholarships, and of larger amounts, to be awarded. The Gerhard Heiter Scholarship is merit-based and focuses on full-time undergraduate and graduate SOU students majoring in art, foreign languages and literatures, music, and theatre arts.
Upon retiring to Medford, Oregon, Heiter searched for a local institution to receive his philanthropy. He found Southern Oregon University. Since 1989, his contributions have included matching community funds to renovate the Schneider Museum of Art, as well as funding the Gutenberg Meeting Room in the Lenn and Dixie Hannon Library. He served for several years on the advisory board of the Friends of the Schneider Museum. The Heiter Gallery in the Schneider Museum of Art is one reminder of his continued presence on the SOU campus.
“Gary Heiter extends his charity to SOU not only to support the University but also to set an example of generosity in the community,” says Schneider Museum of Art Director Mary Gardiner.
SOU Hannon Library to Host Free Lecture: “Sentinel of the Seas” (1/24/08)
Southern Oregon University's Hannon Library continues its free Siskiyou Views lecture series with SOU Emeritus Professor Dennis Powers. His new book Sentinel of the Seas: Life and Death at the Most Dangerous Lighthouse Ever Built is the fascinating story of St. George Reef Lighthouse, one of the most dangerous, expensive, and remote sentinels built in America.
Author and presenter Dennis Powers spent five years of extensive research utilizing the National Archives, original journals, and personal interviews to write Sentinel of the Seas (Citadel Press, 2007). Powers captures the tumultuous history of St. George Reef Lighthouse (which is located miles off the coast of Northern California), the astounding feat of its construction, and the lives of those who had a love of the sea--or had little choice in the matter. At times, office-building–sized waves and whistling winds imprisoned crews for weeks, including one sixteen-story wave that totally engulfed the light house.
SOU Emeritus Professor Dennis Powers is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the University of Denver Law School. He is the author of nine published nonfiction books, including Sentinel of the Seas: Life and Death at the Most Dangerous Lighthouse Ever Built (2007); Treasure Ship: The Legend and Legacy of the S.S. Brother Jonathan (2006); and The Raging Sea: The Powerful Account of the Worst Tsunami in U.S. History (2005). He was a full-time attorney specializing in business law before turning to writing and then teaching at SOU.
The public is invited to this free lecture at 4 p.m. on Thursday, February 7, in the Meese Meeting Room (LIB 305) at Hannon Library. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the lecture and at the SOU Bookstore. For more information, call 541-552-6835.
SOU Faculty Discover New Species of Mushroom (1/18/08)
SOU Professor Emerita of Biology Darlene Southworth, Biology Research Technician Jonathan Frank, and Environmental Studies Adjunct Professor Robert Coffan have submitted a research manuscript to the scientific journal Mycologia. Coffan discovered the new species of mushroom in the Rogue River near Crater Lake in 2005.
"Discovering new habitat for complex organisms such as mushrooms is something you might expect in the Amazon or along the deep oceanic trenches," says Coffan. "But here they are, waiting for us in the Rogue River in southern Oregon."
"It's pretty unbelievable to see a mushroom standing straight up under flowing water," Southworth adds.
“This is a prime example of the benefits that Southern Oregon University students reap as the University’s faculty and students collaborate in and out of the classrooms and labs,” says College of Arts and Sciences Acting Dean Josie Wilson.
Who Killed The Constitution? Should We Care? (1/15/08)
These questions will be addressed by Bruce Fein, a Constitutional scholar who helped draft the articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton. Fein’s presentation about current threats to the U.S. Constitution will take place on February 5 at 7 p.m. in the Rogue River Room at Southern Oregon University. There will be no admission charge.
The event is sponsored by the Southern Oregon Defenders of the Constitution, who gathered this fall to rally support for a congressional investigation of Vice President Dick Cheney. Co-sponsors are SOU’s history and political sciences departments, Students for Truth, and the SOU Media Collective.
Fein is a conservative thinker who is urging Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to reconsider her “impeachment is off the table” pledge. In an August column for SF Gate, Fein wrote: “Bush has crippled checks and balances and protections against government abuses. If these claims and practices are not repudiated, the precedents will lie around like loaded weapons, ready for use by any White House incumbent to intimidate rivals or to destroy the rule of law.”
A 1972 graduate of Harvard Law School, Fein has served with distinction in government and as an international consultant. He worked in several Justice Department posts, including deputy assistant attorney general, and was the research director for the Joint Congressional Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran. He recently served on the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Presidential signing statements.
Fein has authored volumes on the Supreme Court, the U.S. Constitution, and international law, has assisted three dozen countries with revisions of their constitutions, and is a scholar/lecturer at the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, and George Washington University. He is founder and chairman of the American Freedom Agenda and writes copiously for newspapers and Web sites. He is invited regularly to testify in congressional committees by both republicans and democrats.
Southern Oregon Defenders of the Constitution began meeting at the home of Priscilla High and organized an October 27 impeachment rally in downtown Ashland. The group considers the current republican administration to be “royalist,” working to implement the theory of “unified executive power” to centralize power in the executive branch and dismantle the Constitution’s system of checks and balances. The group believes that defense of the Constitution transcends the ideologies of left and right. It is about protecting Americans’ basic freedoms.
Students for Truth has sponsored a number of events on the SOU campus questioning the truth of government and media accounts of the events of September 11, 2001.
The SOU Media Collective will be videotaping the event without charge.
