SPRING 2024 7 LESSONS FROM COVID-19 THE NEXT ERA OF OSU FOOTBALL LOVE STORIES The customs, places and curious codes that have shaped campus romance —and Beavers who’ve found lasting love.
Prewitt Scholarship recipient Jessica Zak is earning a bachelor’s degree in earth sciences with an emphasis in geology. Her passion lies in seismology, tectonics and earthquake hazards. Almost three decades ago, Mandy Prewitt (pictured below) discovered her life’s passion in geosciences. Rock formations fascinated her. She planned to get a master’s degree and share her love for geology with the next generation. But tragedy struck, and Mandy passed away in 1996 during her sophomore year at OSU. Today, her parents Sharon and Dwight Prewitt have created a scholarship in Mandy’s memory, helping students like Jessica Zak (right) prepare for careers in the sciences. They plan to endow the scholarship through a gift from their estate. “We believe geosciences are extremely important because we live in this world, so we have to take care of it,” they say. You, too, can make a meaningful difference at OSU through your will or trust. Contact me to learn more. Jennifer Milburn Office of Gift Planning 541-231-7247 Gift.Planning@osufoundation.org Careful stewards of the Earth.
Spring2024 1 C ON T E N T S In Every Issue On the Cover The magazine of the Oregon State University Alumni Association F E A T U R E S SPRING 2024 ← Cover illustration by Zohar Lazar 2 PHOTO ESSAY 4 EDITOR'S LETTER 5 PUBLISHER'S LETTER 6 LETTERS 58 IN MEMORIAM 64 BACKSTORY 34 OSU, a Love Story How campus romance has changed across the decades, and Beavers who have found lasting love. by Katherine Cusumano 42 7 Lessons from COVID-19 From changes to how classes are taught to innovative ways to protect us from the next outbreak, OSU researchers are learning from what we went through. THE QUAD VOICES P.12 President Jayathi Murthy reflects on the university’s new strategic plan and the importance of creativity; four perspectives on art that made an impact. NEWS P. 15 New marine research center takes shape; a snowboard company becomes a hands-on learning opportunity; and more. RESEARCH P. 21 How one Oregon State scientist uses data, modeling and maps to interpret a changing world (and help the nation’s gardeners). CULTURE P. 25 Take a tour of new and lesser-known campus artwork; PRAx opens its doors to the public. SPORTS P. 31 Meet the man for the moment, new Head Football Coach Trent Bray. OUR COMMUNITY ALUMNI NEWS P. 49 Dr. Kris Otteman teaches veterinarians how to combat animal abuse; Q&A with NPR journalist Meghna Chakrabarti; and updates from across the wide world of OSU alumni. COURTESY OF OSU SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES
2 ForOregonState.org/Stater MOME N T S PURE FUN Pac-12 women’s basketball as we know it the most exciting in decades. The Beavs rallied from seven points down in the final two and a half minutes of the game to defeat No. 9 UCLA with a last-second, buzzer- Thrilling. Stunning. Nonstop. On Friday, Feb. 16, an 8,525-strong crowd at Gill Coliseum — including a record 2,369 students — got a vivid demonstration of the kind of over-the-top action that made the last season of
Spring 2024 3 PHOTO ESSAY PHOTOS BY KARL MAASDAM, ’93 Rueck, ’92, MAT ’93, told the press after the ear-splitting cheers finally faded and happy throngs left for celebrations beyond the stadium. “I just couldn’t be more proud of them. Tonight was just pure fun.” the team playing much of the game without sophomore star and leading scorer Raegan Beers, after an early second-quarter foul fractured her nose. “Who would ever count this team out now?” Head Coach Scott beating shot by junior Talia von Oelhoffen. The fateful three-pointer from the top of the key helped catapult the Beavers, then ranked No. 11 nationally, into the top 10 for the first time since Feb. 11, 2020. This despite
4 ForOregonState.org/Stater Spring 2024, Vol. 109, No. 2 PUBLISHERS John Valva, executive director OSUAA; vice president of alumni relations, OSU Foundation Julie Lambert, ’85, chair, OSUAA Board of Directors EDI TOR Scholle McFarland GRADUATE ASSISTANT Katherine Cusumano DESIGN CONSULTANTS Pentagram Austin, DJ Stout, Davian-Lynn Hopkins DES I GNER Teresa Hall, ’06 COPY EDITOR Charles Purdy ADDRESS CHANGES ForOregonState.org/Address LETTERS AND QUESTIONS stater@osualum.com 877-678-2837 Oregon Stater 204 CH2M HILL Alumni Center Coravallis, OR 97331 ADVERTISING Kayla Farrell-Martin Kayla.Farrell-Martin @osufoundation.org 541-737-4218 ADVISORY COUNCIL Nicole “Nikki” Brown, ’04, Tillamook Vicki Guinn, ’85, Portland Tyler Hansen, Tucson, Arizona Lin Hokkanen, ’82, Portland Colin Huber, ’10, Albany Chris Johns, ’74, Missoula, Montana Ron Lovell, Gleneden Beach Jennifer Milburn, ’96, Albany Elena Passarello, Corvallis Mike Rich, ’81, Beaverton Roger Werth, ’80, Kalama, Washington Oregon Stater (ISSN 0885-3258) is published three times a year by the Oregon State University Alumni Association in collaboration with the Oregon State University Foundation and Oregon State University. Content may be reprinted only by permission of the editor. ILLUSTRATION BY JOÃO FAZENDA FROM THE EDITOR FOUR YEARS AFTER about the pandemic whose century I shared. It makes more sense to me now that such a significant event could be talked about so little, fading from front-of-mind awareness. It’s been four years since my daughter and I went frantically store to store in Portland, searching for hand sanitizer; four years since stay-athome orders shuttered everything “non-essential” and many of us learned the ins and outs of Zoom; four years since people in cities began the nightly ritual of standing on balconies and porches at 7 p.m. to bang pots and pans and cheer for frontline workers who risked and often gave their lives to protect us. Today I am grateful to be able to step past peeling social distancing dots outside the grocery store and not give them a second look. But we did live through something big and life-altering — and the world is changed as a result. Four years after the fateful spring of 2020, we’re chronicling how the pandemic affected OSU, and how the university’s great minds responded, with “7 Lessons from COVID-19” (p. 42), a deep dive into the projects and lasting changes driven by it. From new ways to teach classes, to the veterinary researchers and multidisciplinary teams working to protect us from future outbreaks, OSU is doing amazing work to learn from what we went through. That’s what’s special about research universities like ours. A problem isn’t just a problem; it’s an opportunity to find solutions, to take knowledge further, to look at the world in a new way. And that’s something worth remembering. Scholle McFarland Editor, Oregon Stater Historians notice something unusual when they look back at the years around 1918. There’s very little written, either in textbooks or literature, about the Great Influenza epidemic, or Spanish Flu, which claimed more than 50 million lives worldwide in less than a year — more than were lost in all of World War I. Of course, evidence remains. My Tennessee childhood included cemetery field trips to do grave rubbings. We would place a piece of paper over a headstone and then rub the paper with charcoal or crayon to capture the designs carved there. Row after row of those stones showed the dates 1918 and 1919 — and the chiseled names revealed how often whole families were wiped out. But as an undergraduate history major, I learned more about the Black Death of the 1300s and how it changed society than I ever did
Spring 2024 5 FROM THE PUBLISHER OFF I CERS Chair, Julie Lambert, ’85, Aptos, California Vice Chair, Dan Jarman, ’88, Lake Oswego Treasurer, Bob Bluhm, ’82, Portland MEMBERS Jay Boatwright, ’78, Sacramento, California Sharada Bose, ’84, M.S. ’88, Milpitas, California Claire Conroy Brown, ’00, Los Angeles, California Jim Coats, ’93, Portland Mary Coucher, ’83, Lake Oswego Eric Feldhusen, ’02, Salt Lake City, Utah Sean Gordon, ’13, Stockholm, Sweden Conrad Hurdle, ’96, MAT ’97, Portland Pam Johnson, ’83, Dallas, Texas Kelly Kaiser, ’93, MPH ’99, Corvallis Doug Kutella, ’98, Lake Oswego Keith Leavitt, ’88, Wilsonville Holly McKinney, ’91, Bend Lee Miller, ’80, Blodgett David Molina, ’04, Portland Jayathi Murthy, OSU president, ex officio Victoria Thanh Nguyen, ’95, MAIS ’06, Portland Candace Pierson-Charlton, ’73, Ed.M. ’02, Corvallis Denver Pugh, ’97, Shedd Johnathan Riley, ’09, Portland Michele Rossolo, ’01, Portland Lori Rush, ’78, Dallas Shawn Scoville, OSU Foundation president and CEO, ex officio Maya Sonpatki, student representative, ex officio Syesha Holliman Thomas, ’02, Seattle, Washington Marcia Torres, ’01, Clackamas Michael Whitten, ’12, Portland Jessica Wolfer, ’10, M.S. ’11, Newberg ADDRESS 204 CH2M HILL Alumni Center Corvallis, OR 97331 541-737-2351 osualum@osualum.com ForOregonState.org SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook: facebook.com/ oregonstatealum X/Twitter: @oregonstatealum Instagram: @oregonstatealumni Sign up for the Beaver Lodge newsletter at ForOregonState.org/BeaverLodge A RELATIONSHIP THAT LASTS A LIFETIME I met my wife at an Oregon State football game. Call it destiny, serendipity or just sheer luck, but her assigned seat happened to be next to mine in a stadium of more than 40,000 fans. She looked great in orange. I wore Cal’s blue and gold for my undergraduate alma mater.At kickoff,we were strangers vying for a shared armrest and cheering for opposing teams. By the fourth quarter, we both “just knew.” Hanna, OSU class of 1997, attended that Beavers road game in California with her Uncle Kelly, ’82. I was with former classmates, sharing in college football as we have countless times. I suppose you can say that our alma maters brought us together. On that day, they played a large role in kindling new love. By halftime, we barely noticed that our companions had fled our flirting to watch with more captivated fans. I don’t remember anything about the game itself. But it remains the best football Saturday of my life. This issue of the Oregon Stater takes a look at how student romance has changed over the years and collects tales of Beavers meeting Beavers. I have been looking forward to this story and applaud our graduate student writer Katherine Cusumano (who earns her MFA this June) for bringing it to life so delightfully. It makes sense to me that love and college sometimes go together. My undergraduate days were my first moments out on my own. It’s when I started to fully discover what kind of friends, colleagues and companions I wanted surrounding me and, critically, what I was capable of giving to others myself. Sharing such dramatic personal growth with schoolmates can create lifelong relationships. And for the lucky ones who pair friendship and romance, it can be magical. Even years later, it feels right that I met my bride through Oregon State. Initially through her eyes and in my own experiences since, it’s become clear to me that this university isn’t just a location with world-class academics — it feels like home. When you have the good fortune to maintain college relationships, the common bond almost always includes a foundational fondness for OSU. Reconnecting with schoolmates; reading this wonderful publication; attending university-related lectures, events and ballgames; advocating for OSU; wearing orange and black; and donating to university causes close to our heart — these are all ways we show our love. John Valva Publisher, Oregon Stater ILLUSTRATION BY JOÃO FAZENDA
6 ForOregonState.org/Stater L E T T E R S Kudos Loved the rticle by C thleen Hockm n-Wert bout sh rks. O course, the topic w s winner, but her style kept me re ding beginning to end in nticip tion o wh t she w s going to do next. Tell her th nks. DAVID BEACH, ’67 John V lv ’s he rt elt rticle [“When Be vers nite”] in the l test Oregon Stater put into words ex ctly wh t I w s eeling! Th nk you, John! SUZIE WALKER, BEAVER MOM, 20142018 Beneath the Trees Accredit tion s Level II rboretum or the OS c mpus [ s described in “Br nch Out”] is n especi lly oyous event to me. My gr nd- ther E. P. J ckson w s n e rly vision ry reg rding the development o Oregon St te’s c mpus s pl ce o exquisite be uty. While n undergr du te (cl ss o 1904), he person lly dug the holes nd pl nted multiple trees on c mpus, including t le st some th t currently r me the p thw ys through n e stern portion o c mpus grounds between Monroe nd Je erson. A ter he gr du ted nd met my gr ndmother Edith H ll, they returned to Corv llis, nd he worked s n engineering culty member. L ter, s the superintendent o buildings, he ch mpioned the concept o red brick c des on the c mpus buildings to cre te the cl ssic look commonly seen t upsc le e stern universities. He w s extensively involved with the design nd construction o e rly c mpus buildings. My gr nd ther’s vision is now re- lity bec use Oregon St te niversity is truly be uti ul c mpus. JUDY (LARSON) STROJNY, ’69 Snows Past Wow, the rticle “The Big Snow” in the Winter 2024 Oregon Stater brought b ck some memories or me. Some o us in McN ry H ll AJAWSOME ISSUE A ter the winter issue re ched m ilboxes, re ders wrote in to pr ise C thleen Hockm n-Wert’s story bout the Big Fish L b’s sh rk rese rch, to sh re memories o “The Big Snow” o 1969 nd to commiser te bout the current st te o college sports. Kip C rlson discussed “The First Time the Western Con erence Fell” on ir with Mike P rker nd Jon W rren o the Joe Be ver Show. And Doug Wells, ’71, member o the 1967 Gi nt Killers, sent us this quick tip or d pting P c-12 b seb ll c p to fit the new re lity: Bl ck out the 1, he s ys, so the writing more ccur tely re ds “P c-2.” COVER: ILLUSTRATION BY TIM O’BRIEN
Spring 2024 7 decided to walk down to the Whiteside Theatre to see the new Steve McQueen movie, Bullitt. We liked the movie so much, we stayed for a second showing. When we left the theater for the walk back, it was not the same as the trip down! —BILL WILLIAMS, ’74 “The Big Snow,” brought back pleasant memories. A girlfriend became snowed in while visiting me. We took walks at night when the campus was fairly quiet, and the snow sparkled and crunched under our feet. I remember it was amazing how long it stayed looking pure white and unblemished by auto traffic. Classes were canceled because the parking lots could not be cleared and the professors (forget about the students) had no place to park their cars. I was a senior living in a room on the second floor of a big old house on Ninth Street near the end of campus. On one of the snow days, my landlord and I took her Afghan hound for a walk. The dog got loose of the leash and went bounding back and forth across the lower campus. I went after the dog, yelling her name. Almost immediately, a number of men living in McNary Hall leaned out the windows yelling the dog’s name, mocking me and laughing all the while. All I wanted to do was catch the dog, which I finally did by throwing myself on top of her as she sprinted by. My friend and I still have a laugh over the incident now and then. —OLIVIA L. SMITH, ’69 I was surprised to see myself in the photo [in “The Big Snow”], walking from our rental home to campus with books and my trusty umbrella. I was taking and teaching some classes at the time, I but do not recall the reason for my walk in a snow event. I thought you would enjoy the background to the image. Currently, I am well retired from a career with the University of California, located in Riverside. OSU was good preparation for that career. —VIC GIBEAULT, PH.D. ’71 Skydiving Alumni After high school, I enlisted in the Air Force and was sent to Indiana U. to become a Russian linguist. I spent time in Pakistan and Turkey, and then finished at the National Security Agency in the D.C. area. I moved to Oregon with my wife, Billie, in 1969 and began working in Philomath-area sawmills. I began attending OSU, graduating in 1972 with a degree in English lit. There was a skydiving club, and my wife and I took lessons. Our first competition was a collegiate meet at Star, Idaho.When we quit jumping,I had logged 150 jumps, and my wife had logged 75. Our most wonderful experience was jumping into a Grateful Dead concert in 1972 [a benefit for the Springfield Creamery, owned by author Ken Kesey’s brother]. I also jumped into the Albany Timber Carnival and the Children’s Farm Home school along Hwy. 20. —R. MICHAEL MOORE, ’72 The Cherry on Top It was very interesting reading the Stater’s Spring 2023 food issue as it relates to the maraschino cherry. My company, International Tank & Pipe Co., manufactures the wood stave tanks that brine and store the cherries. Our company has been in business since 1904. I thought you might like to know that the maraschino cherry’s history continues to have an OSU presence to this day. —MICHAEL E. BYE, ’64 Send letters and comments by email to stater@osualum.com or by mail to Oregon Stater, OSU Alumni Association, 204 CH2M HILL Alumni Center, Corvallis, OR 97331. We edit for clarity, brevity and factual accuracy. Please limit letters to 225 words or less. WE TOOK WALKS AT NIGHT WHEN THE CAMPUS WAS FAIRLY QUIET, AND THE SNOW SPARKLED AND CRUNCHED UNDER OUR FEET. JEANNA BUSH; OSU SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES ڿ Jeanna Bush, ’99, sent this photo of her son, 8-yearold Henry Jarrell, waiting at a bus stop. “My child is what you would call a major Beaver Believer,” she said, “This is just how he dresses for school on any given day — it is not a dress-up day!” Though baseball is his love, “he is an all-around Beaver fan.” ۄ Matt Andrews, ’77, didn’t think the In Memoriam photo used for Floyd Bodyfelt, ’63, M.S. ’67, got across the gregarious, longtime OSU professor’s “sparkle.” This one, he believes, does the job better.
The April 6 opening of the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts (PRAx) represents the culmination of a dream held by generations of Oregon Staters. To help build a community of supporters, OSU President Emeritus, and PRAx board member, Ed Ray pledged a $50,000 challenge to “name” 200 seats in the Lynne Hallstrom Detrick Concert Hall with gifts of $2,500 per seat. The seat campaign was a huge success; we now have a $500,000+ endowed fund that will provide ongoing support for the facility and its programs. Thank you, President Emeritus Ray, for championing PRAx. And thank you, OSU arts supporters, for “taking your seat” — so our community will have powerful experiences at PRAx for generations to come. Look for their names when you take your seat at PRAx. Take a bow, arts supporters Before the music begins, a word of thanks Join us: Three ways to support PRAx • Name a seat in Detrick Hall with a gift of $2,500 | Beav.es/TakeYourSeat • Join Friends of PRAx and enjoy elevated arts experiences; benefits begin with an annual gift of $1,000 | prax.oregonstate.edu/give • Buy tickets for the inaugural 2024 season | prax.oregonstate.edu/events
Polla M. & George T. Abed ’62 Marlys Amundson Brenda A. & Leonard A. Aplet ’76 Linda R. Ashkenas & Jeff Rodgers ’86 Jean M. & Ray B. Auel Bobbi & John D. Bailey ’97 Matthew R. Baines Mary A. & Steven C. Baker ’67 Luanne Heyl Beller ’76 & Stephen M. Beller ’77 Dori & Peter J. Betjemann Julianna & Peter J. Betjemann Theodora Betjemann Mary J. Brauti & Fred Brauti ’49 Tammy M. Bray Molly Brown Blanca J. & Robert I. Brudvig ’89 Doug Brusa Mary & Clark Bundren Lori & Mike Butler Shirley & John V. Byrne Betty & Darry W. Callahan ’64 Dallas M. Caples ’17 Doreene Carpenter Jorjie & James R. Coakley ’70 Kathryn C. & Douglas M. Collins Bobbi Conard ’76 & Andy Ungerer ’81 Judith Nieslein Corwin & Mike Corwin Carolyn C. Creighton ’62 George F. & Lynne A. Detrick Family Trust Kathleen Fahlman Dewalt ’78 & Stephen R. Dewalt Sara Dier ’08 & Joseph Horn Lisa Kosiewicz Doran & Toby G. Doran ’95 Tyanne & Chris Dussin David Eiseman Gretchen Heesacker Evans ’69 & Richard B. Evans ’69 Kathy & Edward Feser Betty ’67 & James W. Flad ’68 Judith Walls Freeman ’63 & Peter K. Freeman Constance French & Jay McCormick Diane Nurmi Freres ’73 Michael J. Gamroth ’73 Dawn & Jim M. Gasaway ’90 Tina Wheeler Giesbers ’78 & Kenneth Giesbers Jacqueline L. Giustina ’10 (Hon. alum.) & Nat Giustina ’41 Corrine L. ’89 & David H. Gobeli The Goodall Family Suzanne M. & Rum Grey Marguerite Whitaker Hagen ’77 & Ronald Hagen ’77 Katherine Ray Hall Elizabeth N. ’81 & Ted J. Hammack Florence F. Hardesty & Verl L. Holden ’53 Gale ’75 & Paul A. Hazel ’75 Cathleen & David P. Hockman-Wert Terri Homer Beth & Jerry Hulsman ’54 Sue Ann Sturgis Irving ’67 & John Irving ’63 Cynthia Janes ’91 Sue Wallace Jaqua ’65 & Evan Jaqua Mary & Ed Jennings ’18 (Hon. alum.) Rosalie M. Johnson & Peter E. Johnson ’55 Vicki Christiansen Jordheim ’86 & Daniel P. Jordheim ’87 Rita Young Kilstrom ’59 Abigail Walker Kimerling ’01 & Thomas E. Kimerling ’01 Jennifer Au Klammer ’84 & Peter J. Klammer ’83 Judy Waggoner Korgen ’66 Paula D. & Kenneth S. Krane Rebecca McLeod Kubitz ’76 & Michael L. Kubitz ’75 Pam Lind Julia A. & Steven J. Lont Kaye Bailey Loughmiller ’64 & Bert E. Loughmiller ’64 Linda & Arthur N. Louie Ronald P. Lovell Cheryl Miller Lutz ’72 & I. Arthur Lutz Barbara S. MacKinnon Catherine Z. & Christopher K. Mathews Kristina Gehring May ’93 & Mark R. May Barbara A. & Duane C. McDougall ’74 Robert S. McEwen ’77 Juli Ellingson McLennan ’98 & Tom McLennan ’96 Holly Hicks McMorries ’86 & David W. McMorries ’88 Susan McNutt Stephanie M. & Shawn A. Mehlenbacher Sarah M. & Andrew J. Meigs Elizabeth McBride Menashe ’57 Karen Illman Miller ’72 & Edward L. Miller Barbara Hunderup Moon ’69 & Dick L. Moon ’70 Linda L. & Frank Morse ’70 Helena M. & Bernard L. Muehlenkamp Anne Murphy & Don Wackerly Jayathi Y. Murthy & Sanjay Mathur Natalie Giustina Newlove & Robin Newlove Shelley Shirley Nuss ’78 & Gary S. Nuss ’80 Geraldine Olson Cathryn M. H. ’89 & Steven M. Peters ’89 Susan E. ’61 & Ken R. Poorman ’61 Stephanie Ray Pritchard Elizabeth Ramirez Beth Ray & Edward J. Ray ’22 (Hon. Ph.D.) Mike Ray Glen Rea & Carol Nelson Rea Douglas H. Reckmann ’73 Lajja Reser ’94 Laurie Davidson Reser ’87 & Mark A. Reser ’88 Jane Nichols Reser ’81 & Martin A. Reser ’83 Deb & Michael L. Reser Michelle Renee Reser ’90 Patricia Valian Reser ’60, ’19 (Hon. Ph.D.) & Alvin L. Reser ’60 Mary Ann Roberts ’77 & Paul A. Roberts Jacci & Joseph L. Rodgers III Susan J. & Lawrence R. Rodgers Amy Y. Rossman ’75 & Christian Feuillet Flora L. Leibowitz & Loren K. Russell ’79 Kelly K. Douglas & Eric H. Schoenstein ’88 Tamara V. & Shawn L. Scoville Linda & Richard Seekatz Julie Clarke Seipp ’89 & Paul E. Seipp ’89 Lauren R. & David C. Servias ’12 Shelly H. & Jeremy Signs Linda V. & Courtland L. Smith Anita Rose Cate Smyth ’04 & Michael D. Smyth Erin O. & Steve Sneller Patricia & B. Linn Soule Marilyn McCornack Starker ’72 & Bond Starker ’69 Vicki & Patrick F. Stone ’74 Adina Filipoi & Peter Swendsen Bonnie Ten Eyck Thomas ’53 & Donald W. Thomas ’53 Jana & Doug Tindall ’78 Caitlin Townsend Jo Anne J. & Clifford W. Trow Christine & David Vernier ’76 Claudia Keith & Marilyn Walker Regina & Tyrell Warren-Burnett Mary Jane Weber & Dale W. Weber Richard G. Wheeler ’58 Mark C. Huey & Wayne Wiegand Caroline & Bill H. Wilkins Sandra J. Willis Jay Wilt ’75 Shirley Small Wirth ’63 & Donald S. Wirth ’61 Marsha Portmann Yandell ’73 & Dick Yandell Mary C. ’68 & John M. Yates Nicola & Steve M. Zielke Thank you, seat campaign donors
CREDIT TK OREGON STATE’S DAY OF GIVING bit.ly/DamProudDay
Spring 2024 11 T H E QUAD PHOTO BY MAIA INSINGA A bright March day on the Corvallis campus heralded the beginning of spring. INS IDE VOICES P. 12 NEWS P. 15 RESEARCH P. 21 CULTURE P. 25 SPORTS P. 31
12 ForOregonState.org/Stater VO I C E S DARING NEW THINKING PRESIDENT JAYATHI MURTHY ON OSU’S STRATEGIC PLAN, CREATIVITY AND LOOKING TO THE FUTURE. As told to Scholle McFarland The Board of Trustees accepted the university's new strategic plan this fall. Is there anything in it that makes you particularly proud ? What makes me excited is that it is really ambitious. First of all, it recognizes the things that we are good at. So there’s a baseline excellence, but then it sets some really high standards. So for example, we are going to push graduation rates up to 80% or higher. We are going to push our research expenditures from $367 to $600 million, and we are going to open up the whole innovation, entrepreneurship, workforce development space, which we haven’t yet done as a coordinated effort. If we hit these goals, there’s absolutely no question that it puts us on the map. Similarly, for Ecampus, if we were to truly more than double the number of students there and hit a 30,000 target, that would be a huge game changer. So these are big changes, and I’m excited for them, but also determined to see them through, to see them take hold and make a difference. What do you think is going to be the biggest challenge? It’s very easy to have the strategic plan sit in the president’s or provost’s office or both. What’s difficult about this plan, all the goals in it, is that they go deep down into the departments — in some cases, as deep as the individual classes. Take our 80% graduation rate goal. Now, there are certain things that can happen in my office or in [Provost] Ed Feser’s office or at the OSU Foundation. For example, there’s fundraising to support student scholarships. The Finish in Four scholarship program is presumably drivable by leadership. But what happens when you start to dig into failure rates in this or that class? The reasons for a high-failurerate class in engineering may be different from those for a College of Liberal Arts class. There’s a lot of granularity in some of these things, and they’re very college specific. So getting the colleges to set strong goals for themselves, to create metrics that they’re going to track, to fix the things that need fixing specific to their circumstances and needs — that’s a whole lot of work on the ground, starting with the individual professors and extending all the way to departments, schools and colleges. I haven’t seen that level of penetration in many places. With the push to more than double Ecampus, it seems like having a large group of students who aren’t physically on campus could pose challenges around creating community. The students are not physically on campus. That’s ↑ President Murthy presents the university’s strategic plan at its fall launch. Follow her on X at @OregonStatePres. Read the new plan at beav.es/plan.
Spring2024 13 PRESIDENT Q + A PERSPECTIVES true. But these are courses taught by our colleges, by our professors. So the students are very much in the curriculum. In that sense, they’re not separate. Of course, there are differences. Frequently, Ecampus students are working. They’ve got families. They’re sometimes older than the average 18-year-olds we typically bring into our undergraduate programs. There are, I think, a distinct set of pressures on Ecampus students. One of the things that I’m excited about in this whole expansion is creating a new way of looking at these students to help them build communityand connection to OSU.We also need to look at success metrics for Ecampus students. I mean, our 80% graduation rate is really focused on first-time freshmen undergraduate students. That kind of rate typically can’t be met by people who are taking a couple of classes at a time, who have a full-time job, who have a family. So there are questions about what defines success for that group. How do you run an online operation that delivers high-quality degrees and ensures success? How do you promote a sense of camaraderie and a connection? How do you keep those connections going after you graduate? These are questions we are going to have to answer. The future has a big online component to it. So answering these questions, developing these new modalities, is going to be really important. This issue comes out the week after PRAx opens. As a scientist and an artist, do you think having an arts center might make us a better research university? PRAx is about creativity. I think Pat [Reser’s] vision and ours is really creativity for everybody. It’s centrally to bring artists, performers and daring new thinkers to campus, getting people excited and opening up minds. That’s certainly what art does for me. We need our students to be able to see what that kind of high excellence looks like, what high creativity looks like. UNFORGETTABLE ART Q: WHAT’S ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE WORKS OF ART YOU’VE ENCOUNTERED, AND WHY DO YOU THINK IT’S STUCK WITH YOU? PETER BETJEMANN Associate Professor of English; Patricia Valian Reser Executive Director at PRAx Matthew Mazzotta’s Storefront Theater in Lyons, Nebraska (population 811), is a modified storefront wall that literally unfolds into a community theater space. This captures what art really is: an intervention in everyday life. For some, that intervention might be virtuosic skill on a piano. For others, it’s a giant sculpture of a spoon on a lawn. For Mazzotta, it’s the pushbutton unfolding of a theater in a remote town. Art creates difference — whatever the medium or scale. PATRICIA VALIAN RESER, ’60, ’19 (HON. PH.D.) PRAx namesake donor As an OSU student, I saw van Gogh’s Starry Night in a traveling exhibition in Portland. I was blown away by the energy, the colors, the passion. It just shivered my timbers; it was so powerful. Years later, following my experience with cancer, I took painting classes. I wanted to be not just a survivor but a thriver. The arts gave me a way to express what I felt and were central to my healing process. JERRI BARTHOLOMEW, M.S. ’85, PH.D. ’89 Director, John L. Fryer Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory; leader of OSU’s Art-Sci program I encountered Eduard Charlemont’s Moorish Chief on my first visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Although the setting is exotic and the chief exudes grace and power, what drew me was the whiteness of his robes and the complexity of the wrinkles, shadows and folds of the cloth. There are more famous paintings that have impacted me, but for some reason my mind returns to the impossibility of The Moorish Chief. PETER SWENDSEN Patricia Valian Reser Chair and Director of the School of Visual, Performing and Design Arts To see a student create something they consider their own — a piece of music or sculpture or writing or design — is to see them express something about themselves and their community. It is far more than a “lightbulb” moment; it is an explosion of promise and potential, an embodiment of trust that a creative act can reach others and even change the world. That’s what sticks with me.
CREDIT TK HELPING ORGANIZATIONS UPSKILL EMPLOYEES WITH AN EYE ON TOMORROW As the health care industry faces rising demands, health care professionals must have the ability to enhance their skills to meet the community’s evolving needs. Oregon State is built for this type of challenge. And it’s why OSU Ecampus teamed up with Samaritan Health Services to give its 6,000+ employees more affordable access to the university’s innovative learning opportunities online. It’s our latest creative collaboration that offers Oregon State’s in-demand education solutions to help organizations upskill, recruit and retain their employees. Your organization’s future depends on upskilling and reskilling your employees. Learn how you can collaborate with Oregon State to build a thriving, future-ready workforce. ecampus.oregonstate.edu/workforce ONLINE
Spring2024 15 A DEEP DIVE New ocean research center brings together OSU strengths. A $20 million gift to the Oregon State University Foundation by alumni Judy (Mellenthin) Gaulke, ’65, and Mike Gaulke, ’68, will create a new center to lead and support research and development of technology that helps society better understand, protect and make use of the ocean. “We are grateful to the Gaulkes for their support as we boldly tackle some of today’s biggest challenges,” said President Jayathi Murthy. “What is so special about this gift is that it leverages OSU’s global distinction in oceanography with our extraordinary strength and depth in engineering. The Gaulke Center will inspire and enable greater collaboration and technological innovation in ocean research.” The couple’s gift establishes a chair position for the Gaulke Center for Marine Innovation and Technology. NeWs UNSPLASH: JONATHAN BORBA (TRT1UDZBUNA) cont inued
↗ Mike Gaulke pilots a simulated research ship at the Hatfield Marine Science Center. 16 ForOregonState.org/Stater N EwS 1/4 $ 4.2 1st 122,500 NEARLY MILLION THE OREGONIANS of OSU undergraduates — 7,209 last fall — are the first in their families to go to college, an increase of about 6% from last year. was awarded to OSU researchers to lead a national project studying the bacterial disease killing honeybees and imperiling the pollination of crops like blueberries and almonds. mental health coordinator focused on serving the university’s veterans and military-connected students was hired for the Corvallis campus this fall (Donald Phillips, ’16). took part in OSU Extension’s statewide flower and vegetable seed giveaway, the Grow This! Oregon Garden Challenge, last spring. This is its fifth season. KARL MAASDAM, ’93 BEAVER BRAGS It also includes startup funding, support for faculty and graduate students, and funding for early-stage research that has significant potential impact but may be considered too risky to receive other types of funding. An endowment will supply ongoing stability for the center. The Gaulke Center will take advantage of the resources of the JenHsun and Lori Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex, a research and education facility expected to open in 2026, which will house one of the nation’s most powerful supercomputers and feature team-based approaches to solving challenges in areas such as oceanography, climate science and water resources. For example, Oregon State researchers are currently working on devel- oping robotic boats that help measure glacier ice melt, as well as an autonomous swarm of robots that can independently explore under ice shelves using artificial intelligence. “Our future lies in the ocean, and it’s very clear that we need to change how we care for it,” Mike Gaulke said. “It’s very exciting to see how advanced technologies can provide tools and approaches for addressing problems.” The Gaulkes were inspired to make their most recent gift because of their lifelong love of the ocean. “We have had the opportunity to sail, dive and swim in oceans around the world, and we have seen dramatic changes within our own lifetime — from the disappearance of sharks to coral bleaching,” Mike Gaulke said. “From the massive worldwide problem of junk in the ocean to the opportunity of harnessing sustainable energy, there are so many challenges to address. We believe OSU is the ideal place to invest in creating solutions, and we hope others will join us.” Their gift is part of Believe It: The Campaign for OSU. — Michelle Klampe cont inued FROM THE MASSIVE WORLDWIDE PROBLEM OF JUNK IN THE OCEAN TO THE OPPORTUNITY OF HARNESSING SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, THERE ARE SO MANY CHALLENGES TO ADDRESS.
Spring 2024 17 B R I E F S MARINE SCIENCE ADRIENE KOETT-CRONN GETTING STUDENTS TO THE WATER NEW PROGRAM NURTURES MARINE AND COASTAL STUDIES. By Scholle McFarland Each year, hundreds of Oregon State students visit the Oregon coast and the Hatfield Marine Science Cen- ter in Newport. They learn to identify marine organisms and sketch tidepools (like biology student Abigail Sader, shown here); explore the physical workings of the ocean and coasts; and build transferable skills they can take into their profes- sional careers. ¶ Thanks to a new aca- demic support program created this school year — OSU’s Marine and Coastal Opportunities — getting students’ hands in the sand is becom- ing even easier. Housed in the Office of Academic Affairs alongside other university experiential learning programs, Marine and Coastal Opportunities is a hub that connects students and faculty with coastal programs, field courses and experiences like internships, as well as awards and scholarships. It spun out of OSU’s multiyear Marine Studies Initiative along with new programs like the College of Liberal Arts’ interdisciplinary marine studies degree. ¶ Last fall, 260 students representing nine colleges, 18 undergraduate majors and 14 graduate programs came to Hat- field as part of their studies. This sum- mer, 10 field courses at the coast will let students explore topics such as arts, ecology, biology, aquaculture and the human dimensions of conservation. FINDING A PLACE IN SPACE The future of self-driving cars will de- pend in part on Oregon State researchers helping to modernize the National Spatial Reference System, which underpins all U.S. surveying, mapping, precision agriculture and, you guessed it, autonomous vehicle navigation. The system received its last major update more than 40 years ago. The team will receive $6.5 million over five years from NOAA. HELP FOR RURAL SCHOOLS With youth mental health issues on the rise, school counselors are in short supply — especially in rural ar– eas. But Central Oregon will soon see some relief, thanks to a $3.9 mil- lion federal grant providing full tuition and a monthly stipend for as many as 75 students to earn their Master of Counseling degree at OSU-Cascades. In return, each will work as a school counselor in rural Oregon for two to three years. Learn more at beav.es/PATH-SC. KEY ADVANCE IN CARBON CAPTURE When people talk about fighting climate change, reducing emissions often takes center stage. But what about the carbon dioxide already in the air? As part of a $24 million fed- eral effort to develop new meth- ods for direct air capture of greenhouse gases, OSU researchers have discovered the chemical element vanadium reacts with and binds car- bon dioxide at a “Goldilocks” level of reactivity — neither too much nor too little — an important step tow- ard improved technologies for redu- cing CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
INSTAWORTHY @osucascades Students frolicked in the snow early this year at OSU-Cascades in Bend. @oregonstate A record crowd filled Gill Coliseum for Beaver Wrestling. @beavergym The always-amazing Jade Carey surpassed 100 career event titles this February. 18 ForOregonState.org/Stater N EwS A LIVING, SHREDDING CLASSROOM SNOWBOARD COMPANY TRANSFORMED INTO HANDS-ON LEARNING EXPERIENCE. By Oregon Stater staff OSU-Cascades students drawn to the snowy slopes of Mt. Bachelor will soon be able to experience first-hand what operating an outdoor products company is like. The founders of Bend-based SnoPlanks have donated their snowboard business to OSU-Cascades, to create a unique hands-on learning opportunity. “We’re extremely grateful for the doors this extraordinary gift will open for OSU-Cascades students and faculty, transforming how they approach learning and teaching with experiences that can also help attract and retain students,” said Sherm Bloomer, chancellor and dean of OSU-Cascades. The student-run company is expected to draw from OSU-Cascades’ undergraduate business; engineering; outdoor products; and arts, me- dia and technology programs. A cross-disciplinary faculty team, jointly sponsored by OSU-Cascades and OSU’s College of Business, has developed a model for how students will take part in the operation and growth of the for-profit venture. The ۄ SnoPlanks’ snowboards are carried by national resellers and have been featured in Outside Magazine and Snowboarder. COURTESY OF SNOPLANKS
Spring2024 19 1. Pelican Girls By Julia Malye, MFA ’17 In 1720, three women, Charlotte, Pétronille and Geneviève, are among nearly 100 taken from Paris’ overcrowded La Salpêtrière asylum and sent to marry French settlers in what’s now Louisiana. Over the course of their voyage, they become close friends. Pelican Girls, Julia Malye’s American literary debut, is a sweeping historical epic about female friendships and colonialism. Malye, an acclaimed writer and translator, is the recipient of several French literary prizes. Learn more: bit.ly/pelican-girls. 2. First Meal By Julie Green, professor, School of Visual, Performing and Design Arts, and Kirk Johnson This was the final work of the late Green, an artist well known for her work exploring issues of criminal justice and the death penalty. Through painting and essay, her collaboration with Johnson, a former New York Times journalist, presents portraits of the first meals of wrongly convicted people after their release. Learn more: beav.es/first-meal. 3. Making the Unseen Visible By Jacob Darwin Hamblin, professor, School of History, Philosophy and Religion, and Linda Marie Richards, Ph.D. ’14 Combining science, history and testimony, this collection uses scholarly research and essays drawn from the OSU Downwinders Project to look at nuclear contamination and its effects. Learn more: beav.es/unseen. 4. Tribal Histories of the Willamette Valley By David G. Lewis, assistant professor, School of Language, Culture, and Society This illustrated history of Willamette Valley Indigenous peoples uses oral histories, federal records, photographs and maps to center Native voices and perspectives. Learn more: bit.ly/tribal-histories. 1 2 4 3 BOOKS BY BEAVERS “Brings to light a heretofore largely untold story of courage and resilience. It should be required reading for all who want to understand the true history of Oregon.” — Kerry Tymchuk, Boyle Family Executive Director of the Oregon Historical Society TRIBAL HISTORIES OF THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY DAVID G. LEWIS “Brings to light a heretofore largely untold story of courage and resilience. Required reading for all who want to understand the true history of Oregon.” — Kerry Tymchuk, Executive Director, Oregon Historical Society inaugural student leadership team is now working on the company’s reinvention as an OSU snowboard brand, with the 2025 product line anticipated to go to market this fall. SnoPlanks Academy, as it will be called, “reflects the dynamism of the Bend business community and OSU-Cascades — entrepreneurial, clever, cross-disciplinary and supportive,” said Tim Carroll, the Sara Hart Kimball Dean of College of Business. “SnoPlanks founders James Nicol and Ryan Holmes have already inspired OSU-Cascades students with their vision, and we are grateful for the chance to develop this platform — for business and learning.” Entrepreneurs Nicol and Holmes got the idea to turn their business creating sustainable, high-performance powder boards into a studentrun experience after serving as guest lecturers in business instructor Todd Laurence’s classes. Each time they spoke, they were surrounded afterwards by students eager to intern and work at the company. “This is the next, best possible chapter for SnoPlanks,” said Nicol, “to pass the brand along to future generations and see its reinvention. Our goal is to continue building a positive community, and to help transform opportunities for teaching and learning at OSU-Cascades.” IN PRINT L E A R N I N G SNOPLANKS ACADEMY, AS IT WILL BE CALLED, REFLECTS THE DYNAMISM OF THE BEND BUSINESS COMMUNITY AND OSU-CASCADES.
20 ForOregonState.org/Stater OSU FOUNDATION Women’s Giving Circle “As a Women’s Giving Circle donor, I contribute to a legacy of strength, resilience and endless possibilities for the women leaders of tomorrow.” Dean Emeritus Tammy Bray College of Health Women’s Giving Circle committee member and donor In the 2023-24 academic year, the Women’s Giving Circle awarded over $70,000 to 13 outstanding projects supporting OSU students. Learn more and become donor and voting member: ForOregonState.org/WGC Kernutt Stokes has been helping Oregonians, many of them OSU grads, reach their business goals for more than 75 years. We are certified public accountants specializing in privately-held and family-owned companies in construction, manufacturing, agribusiness, transportation, professional services, and more. If you’re seeking accounting services, give us a call. We look forward to hearing from you. Proud to serve our fellow OSU alumni. Firm partners and OSU alums Shelly Sorem, CPA and Jonathan Powell, CPA lead Kernutt Stokes’ Corvallis office. Bend | Corvallis | Eugene | Lake Oswego 2273 NW Professional Dr., Suite 200 (541) 752-4556 | kernuttstokes.com
Spring 2024 21 KNOW YOUR BEES New guides help ID Northwest natives. Pollinator enthusiasts have new tools for identifying bees in their Pacific Northwest gardens, thanks to a project funded by the Fish and Wildlife in Managed Forest Habitats program in OSU’s College of Forestry. Similar to field guides familiar to fans of fauna and flora, these online tools contain the extraordinary detail needed to identify the small, nuanced differences between bee species. Oregon alone is home to more than 600 kinds of native bees. Explore the many bees of the Pacific Northwest (beav.es/ native-bees), male native bumblebees (beav.es/male-bumble) and female native bumblebees (beav.es/female-bumble). —Steve Lundeberg, ’85 ReseaRch PHOTO BY AIDAN HERSH
22 ForOregonState.org/Stater R E S E AR C H PHOTO BY KARL MAASDAM, ’93 MAPPING THE CLIMATE How one Oregon State scientist uses data and modeling to interpret a changing world. BY > STEVE LUNDEBERG, ’85 Chris Daly’s long career in science has been about pursuing what piques his curiosity, including his curiosity about peaks. “I’m interested in looking out the window and seeing the mountains and the different topography,” Daly said. “As a kid, when I was 8 or 10, I made a book of elevations. I listed capitals all over the world and was fascinated by how there could be big cities, with millions of people, 8,000 to 12,000 feet above sea level.” A professor in the College of Engineering, Daly used that fascination as fuel to become arguably the most accomplished and respected geospatial climatologist in the United States, if not the world. Daly coined the term for his unique trade — the study of spatial and temporal patterns of climate and the geographic features that cause those patterns. “Oregon abounds with such features,” he said. “For example, the Oregon Cascades act as a barrier to moisture streaming in from the Pacific Ocean, creating sharp rain shadows and semi-arid conditions on their leeward side. Protected valleys in eastern Oregon often hold pools of cold, dense air at night, making for short growing seasons.” Gardeners’ Best Friend Daly is the founding director of OSU’s PRISM Climate Group, whose work underpins the nation’s climate mapping, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant Hardiness Zone Map, relied on by the nation’s 80 million gardeners and the growers who supply them. The map helps farmers and gardeners understand what plants are most likely to survive winter temperatures in their region. The latest edition, published in November 2023, seemed to make real what many already suspected — that the effects of climate change are as close as their own backyards. After it showed nearly half of the country shifting into a warmer zone, Daly handled a deluge of media requests. But, he says, part
Spring 2024 23 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE ENVIRONMENT of this change comes from increasingly comprehensive data. The map’s newest version uses data from 13,412 weather stations, compared with the previous version’s 7,983. A more sophisticated version of Daly’s PRISM climate mapping system also gives a nuanced picture of temperature patterns. For instance, a look at Northeast Portland in the map’s ZIP-code–searchable online version (planthardiness.ars.usda.gov) shows a patchwork of two zones that change, in some cases, neighborhood by neighborhood. Before Daly became involved in the process in the 1990s, this level of detail and timeliness was simply not possible. Working with hydrologist and climatologist Phil Pasteris of Tigard, he ushered the USDA into the digital world by creating a computerized replacement for a process so time-consuming that the nation’s climate maps hadn’t been updated in nearly 30 years. The newly digital map was “an immediate hit,” when it debuted in 2012, according to Peter Bretting, a national program leader for the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. But more than that, he said, Daly’s work “helped establish a quality standard for this sort of thing. There’s nothing of this quality for any other place on the planet.” Better Data, Better Decisions PRISM is a computer model developed by Daly in 1991 when he was a Ph.D. student at Oregon State, studying under Ron Neilsen, a bioclimatologist with the EPA who had courtesy faculty appointments with the OSU colleges of Agricultural Sciences and Forestry. Daly devoted only one chapter of his dissertation to PRISM, but that was enough to generate interest from just about everyone who relied on the previously hand-drawn maps, including the Department of Agriculture. The PRISM Climate Group’s signature product is 30-year climate “normals” for the United States. The first edition of the normals covered 1961 to 1990. Since then, PRISM has published normals every 10 years, each time adding data and modeling from the most recent decade’s and dropping the least recent. “Any time you see a detailed map of climate variables — like precipitation, temperature or dew point — showing percentage of average or deviation from average, most likely PRISM normals are underlying that calculation,” Daly said. PRISM also produces a series of maps of several climate variables on a daily basis going back to 1981 and has monthly maps back to 1895. “These are downloaded about a million times a month from our website and used throughout government and industry,” Daly said. Why is this data so important to so many people? Expensive decisions both big and small are made based on it. The latest update of the normals was sponsored by the USDA Risk Management Agency, the group which oversees the federal crop insurance program and is a key supporter of Daly’s team. A Unique Career Path Daly, who started out as an electrical engineering student, calls his career “an interesting journey in terms of how the mind works” and a good example for younger people wondering what they should do next. “I thought I wanted to work in radio communications, but it made my brain happy to look at variations in climate,” he said. “My life has been a lesson in following what makes your mind active and interested. What I ended up doing involved some unexpected turns that I couldn’t envision when I made that book of elevations at 8 years old.” ↑ Eighty million gardeners and the growers who supply them have Chris Daly to thank for the data that tells them what grows where. ANY TIME YOU SEE A DETAILED MAP OF CLIMATE VARIABLES … MOST LIKELY PRISM NORMALS ARE UNDERLYING THAT CALCULATION.
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