The Beaver Caucus

Health career ladder gets kids excited for science

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Matt Debow – Lebanon Express – Three middle school students watched in awe as COMP-Northwest student Will Galbraith lifted a one dollar bill with a magnet.

Eighth-grader Dina Altuhov was a one of those students at COMP-Northwest’s Health Career Ladder program on Dec. 5. The program is held for one month a year on most Saturdays during the school year.

“I learned that everything can be affected by a magnet: you just have to have a really strong one,” Altuhov said of the expirement.

Galbraith was using a rare earth magnet to show the kids that nearly everything is magnetic in some form, including cereal — because it contains iron.

Altuhov said she wants to become a surgeon because she enjoys the show “Gray’s Anatomy” since she was little, and because she enjoys going to the doctor, she said. Those are also the reasons she attended the LHCL program.

Altuhov enjoys learning about new complicated scientific topics, but the LCHL is able to present those issues in an understandable way, she said.

Altuhov is in eighth grade, which makes here a third year LCHL.

The third year career ladder students rotated from four different demonstrations in COMP-Northwest study rooms. Another experiment was filling balloon with water and air, and fill balloons with just air the holding each balloon over the flame of a candle.

The balloons containing water didn’t pop immediately.

The reason for that is water, which is cooler than the gas air, absorbs heat, explained Cody Laverdiere, COMP-Northwest student leading the demonstration.

Laverdiere asked the students how that knowledge could be applied in medicine.

It could be used to break a fever, a student responded.

True, Laverdiere agreed, but that knowledge also is used for organ transplants as donated organs are kept cold so they last longer, he explained.

In another room, Lebanon High School student Jorin Bruslind helped lead a microbiology experiment with his mom Linda Bruslind. Linda Bruslind is a professor of microbiology at Oregon State University.

Most of the time her OSU students help out with these outreach efforts, but those students were unavailable.

Linda Bruslind said she does a several outreach efforts to expose the kids to the field of microbiology.

Getting kids interested in possible career fields, not just including medicine, is of the the LCHL’s, goals said Tristen McKenna, second year med student and president of the program.

The LHCL mimics curriculum that’s been done on the Pomona College of Osteopathic Medicine campus for about 20 years, McKenna said.

“The whole idea is that bring in kids who are in sixth grade,” McKenna said.

The career ladder days starts with a presentation from a professional in a science field. That presentation includes the students and parents.

“We’ll get them excited about being a researcher or get excited about being a doctor,” McKenna said.

Other examples of professionals include aircraft pilots and engineers, he said.

After the large group students are broken into small groups where they get to do fun experiments.

“With the sixth, seventh and eighth graders, we focus on fun,” McKenna said. “For this academy we’re doing scientific method, but we’re making it fun.”

The parents are split into a different spot where the adults learn about how to have their kids apply for college and how to apply for grants and scholarships.

At the latest academy, a panel of COMP-Northwest students talked about how they all didn’t do well in high school during a presentation to the parents.

“It just opened the parents eyes to ‘you don’t need to be a 4.0 valedictorian’ to go to university,” McKenna said. “All of us basically said we sucked in high school. Every single (COMP-Northwest student) said I was a terrible high school student.”

When the students are juniors and seniors in the career ladder program, the LCHL will switch gears, and the goal is help them get into college, McKenna said.

“Okay, now that you are getting closer to college this is what you need to do to get into college,” McKenna said. “How to get letters of recommendation; how to do well on the SAT/ACT; how to write good essays for scholarships. Overall, we get the kids excited when they’re young and get them into college when they’re older.

To apply students for the LHCL, visit http://www.westernu.edu/ladder-lebanon/apply.php.

http://lebanon-express.com/news/local/health-career-ladder-gets-kids-excited-for-science/article_6d4c34bd-ead7-5b3e-82ab-5983c96f2304.html

Oregon State takes stand on transfers, will call upon Pac-12 to follow

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John Canzano – Oregonian – Oregon State will announce later today a strong new policy aimed at transfer students with troubling conduct issues, The Oregonian has learned.

The expected change to OSU’s admissions policy would apply to all undergraduate and graduate students seeking to transfer to the university. The policy would also apply to student athletes.

The policy requires that those seeking to transfer to OSU must disclose whether they are ineligible to re-enroll at an institution they attended in the past seven years due to student conduct reasons. If a student transfer is ineligible to re-enroll at another institution because of student conduct violations, they automatically will be declined admission to OSU.

“We are committed to combatting sexual violence in society and to improving safety on the Oregon State University campus,” said OSU President Ed Ray. “This is an important step to strengthen the university’s admissions policies for transfer students related to conduct that is not consistent with creating a safe and inclusive community at Oregon State.”

Dr. Ray is also lobbying Pac 12 Commissioner Larry Scott requesting that Oregon State’s policy or a similar policy be brought up for discussion and consideration at the next conference meeting in March. He also will be the sharing Oregon State’s new policy with the presidents of each Pac 12 institution.

The shift is in response to lobbying conference-wide by Brenda Tracy, the survivor of a gang rape in Corvallis in 1998. Tracy contacted the presidents of the 12 conference members earlier this year, calling upon them to ban transfers with sex-assault incidents.

“We need to stop transferring around student-athletes with serious criminal issues,” Tracy said in September. “Athleticism shouldn’t trump safety. If you’re recruiting an athlete, why aren’t you looking at criminal history?”

Dr. Ray contacted Brenda Tracy early Monday morning to call her “an inspiration” and to thank her for championing the effort.

The OSU policy is framed as “a meaningful addition to the many efforts that Oregon State has undertaken to address sexual violence and increase campus safety.”

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/john_canzano/index.ssf/2015/11/oregon_state_takes_stand_on_tr.html

OSU enrollment up 2.4 percent

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Bennett Hall – Corvallis Gazette Times – Enrollment at Oregon State University is up 2.4 percent over last year, but only a small fraction of that growth occurred in Corvallis.

Oregon State’s total enrollment is 30,592, university officials reported Monday, making OSU the largest university in the state.

Of the 534 additional students who signed up for classes this fall, however, only 83 are at the main campus. Total enrollment in Corvallis increased by just 0.3 percent, from 24,383 last year to 24,466 today.

That number is closely watched in Corvallis, where many residents have complained about livability issues caused by rising enrollment numbers. OSU President Ed Ray has promised to cap enrollment at 28,000 on the main campus.

“As Oregon’s statewide university, we take seriously our mandate to provide access to as many qualified in-state students as we can,” Ray said in a statement announcing the enrollment figures.

“At the same time, we are nearing our capacity on the Corvallis campus, and thus slowing our growth has been a priority.”

OSU has started a waiting list for prospective students who hand in application materials and tuition deposits after the April 15 deadline. While no qualified students have been turned away for this reason, some may take the waiting list as a cue to apply elsewhere, helping to hold the numbers down, OSU Vice President Steve Clark said.

“We have not changed our admission requirements,” Clark said. “We’re just using wait-listing as a tool.”

University officials say they have 5,110 students taking classes online through the Ecampus program, up 607 students, or 13.5 percent, from 4,503 at the same time last year.

And there are 1,016 students this fall at the OSU Cascades Campus in Bend, which is now offering four-year academic programs for the first time.

That’s a decrease of 156 from last fall, when the fledgling satellite campus tallied 1,172 students. But 192 of those students were part of a dual-enrollment program with Central Oregon Community College. Now that OSU Cascades is offering four-year programs, the dual-enrollment program has shrunk to just 113 students and OSU has decided to stop counting dual-enrolled students at COCC until they move into their upper-division classes at OSU Cascades.

University officials took those changes into account when calculating this year’s growth rates for overall enrollment in general and the satellite campus in particular, Clark explained, by subtracting the dual enrollment numbers from both the 2014 and 2015 tallies.

When the 192 dual-enrolled students are subtracted from last year’s total, the Cascades Campus is credited with 980 students for the 2014 fall term. Viewed in that light, the 1,016 students this year at the Bend campus (not counting the lower-division dual enrollees at COCC) equates to a 3.6 percent increase.

But if the dual-enrolled students are counted for both years, the result is a 3.8 percent enrollment drop for the Cascades Campus, from 1,172 to 1,129.

Interest in attending OSU Cascades diminished somewhat last year because of land-use appeals that delayed the start of new classroom, dormitory and dining buildings, Clark said, but enthusiasm seems to be reviving now that construction is underway.

“I don’t have concerns about the long-term growth” of OSU Cascades, Clark said.

The decision to stop counting dual-enrolled students as part of the Bend campus has no impact on the university’s Corvallis enrollment numbers, but it does change the big picture somewhat. Subtracting those students for 2014 gives OSU an overall enrollment of 29,866, 192 less than the 30,058 university officials announced last fall.

The lower number from 2014 was used in calculating the 2.4 percent growth rate for this fall.

Other highlights from the fall 2015 enrollment figures include:

• Minority enrollment is up 6.9 percent, from 6,320 in 2014 to 6,754 this fall.

• Three out of four undergrads on the Corvallis campus are Oregonians.

• 41.6 percent of entering freshmen from Oregon are considered “high achievers,” with high school grade-point averages of 3.75 or better.

• OSU now has 3,328 international students, 11.3 percent of overall enrollment. The number is up 3.9 percent from last year, a slower growth rate than 2014’s 12 percent increase or 2013’s 21 percent jump.

• The College of Engineering has the highest enrollment of any at OSU, with 8,205 graduate and undergraduate students enrolled this fall. The College of Liberal Arts is second with 3,905 students, followed by Science (3,526), Business (3,487), Public Health and Human Sciences (3,200) and Agricultural Sciences (2,610).

• The most popular major at Oregon State this fall is computer science, followed by business administration, mechanical engineering, kinesiology, and human development and family sciences.

http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/osu-enrollment-up-percent/article_aa566263-2b89-5c95-ae73-fcec633807e9.html

$8.9 million grant to aid OSU alliance

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By James Day — Corvallis Gazette Times

An educational alliance involving Oregon State University has received an $8.9 million federal grant to continue its work.

The University Innovation Alliance, a consortium of OSU and 10 other colleges, received the “First in the World” grant as part of a competition to encourage innovation in higher education.

The alliance will use the money to study the effectiveness of advising in increasing retention, progression and graduation rates for low income and first-generation students. Assisting such students is a key goal of the alliance.

“This grant will significantly aid Oregon State University’s effort to foster far greater student success,” said OSU President Ed Ray. “Along with other University Innovation Alliance partners, Oregon State will learn how to effectively use predictive analytics to improve student retention and graduation rates through individual advising and academic counseling.

“My intent is to share all that we learn throughout the higher education community.”

The grant will be administered by Georgia State University on behalf of the alliance. George State will conduct a four-year research study on all 11 alliance campuses. Students at each campus, who will be selected at random, will receive:

  • Intensive, proactive advising to help them establish individualized academic maps
  • Real-time alerts prompted by a system of analytics-based tracking when they may be struggling
  • “The … grant will enable us to study the work already taking place at our 11 institutions,” said Bridget Burns, executive director of the alliance, “and test best practices using data analytics that we can share with an beyond the alliance.”
  • Other universities in the alliance, which was launched last September, are Arizona State, Iowa State, Michigan State, Purdue, Ohio State, UC Riverside, Central Florida, Kansas and Texas.

Editorial Board: Can advanced wood products lift rural Oregon?

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This rendering shows Framework, the Pearl District mixed-use project that won the U.S. Tall Wood Building Competition.

Oregonian Editorial Board – Oregon’s timber industry will never be what it once was. The state’s annual timber harvest is about half what it was 30 years ago, and employment in the wood products industry has fallen by a similar amount. With dozens of mills closed, many of those jobs wouldn’t come back even if harvests increased dramatically. But is there a chance that what remains of the industry that once defined Oregon can reinvent itself in a way that would bring back at least a portion of the more than 30,000 jobs that have been lost since the mid-1980s?

This rendering shows Framework, the Pearl District mixed-use project that won the U.S. Tall Wood Building Competition.

The past two weeks brought evidence that such hope exists in the form of a product called cross-laminated timber (CLT). DR Johnson Lumber of Riddle became the first U.S. company to be certified to produce cross-laminated timber. Also, a Pearl District project involving local real estate developerProject^ (the symbol is part of the company’s name) and architecture firm Lever was named one of two winners in the U.S. Tall Wood Building Prize Competition. The planned 12-story building, which was entered into the contest by The Framework Project LLC, will be constructed primarily from cross-laminated timber.

So what is cross-laminated timber, why is it a big deal and how much potential does it have to help revive Oregon’s wood products industry? Cross-laminated timber is actually a large panel that is assembled from multiple layers of wood. The middle is made from lower-value wood with higher-value wood on the outside, said Thomas Maness, dean of the Oregon State University College of Forestry. Once assembled, the panels are customized with openings for windows and doors and slots for wiring, and then shipped as a package. “You can almost think of this technology as a massive Ikea cabinet,” Maness said.

The exciting thing about cross-laminated timber for Oregon is that it fits the state like custom rain gear. It’s a sustainable product – the wood sequesters carbon. The panels also require less energy to produce than cement, which emits carbon during the manufacturing process. The wood panels burn slowly, reducing safety concerns. And the panels can be made from smaller-diameter timber than many wood products. Demand for the product is strong in Europe and is growing in the United States and Canada, particularly on the West Coast. Asia is another growth market that Oregon is well-positioned to serve. As an added bonus, the fir produced in Oregon is ideal for this new wood product.

In short, the engineered panels are a piece of the move toward more sustainable buildings, and Oregon is ideally located to become the U.S. leader in the technology. So, just how big could this emerging industry become, and how many jobs could it produce?

DR Johnson currently has about 100 workers at DR Johnson Lumber and Riddle Laminators. Chief Operating Officer John Redfield said the company has hired five to eight workers because of the expansion into CLT, which included using company employees to build and adjust equipment needed to produce the new product. Workers already with the company were trained and promoted for the new jobs, with new workers hired to perform their former tasks. He said the plan is to “start slow and grow with the market.”

In Europe, CLT plants generally employ 200 to 400 workers, Maness said. He projected that Oregon could support as many as a half-dozen plants. A projected gain of 1,200 to 2,400 jobs is a pretty small number for an industry that has lost so many. But the hope is that cross-laminated timber will be just the first of several new wood products to flow out of Oregon factories.

Construction is scheduled to begin in March on a building at OSU for the National Center for Advanced Wood Products Manufacturing and Design. The joint effort of the Oregon State forestry school and the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Artswill focus on development of innovative wood products that can be made in Oregon, with emphasis on those that can be used in multi-story, multi-use buildings.

Maness said researchers could explore topics such as wood densification, which could lead to harder and more durable floor surfaces, and improved acoustics. The general goal: Add more value to wood products. Even if the resulting products are exported, high-paying jobs will have been created here. It’s a much better economic play than exporting raw logs. And many of those jobs will be at plants in struggling rural communities, such as Riddle.

Much work remains before the state reaps a big payoff from these efforts. Competition surely will arise elsewhere. But Oregon is off to a good start and has some competitive advantages. Maness is well aware of the stakes. “We’ve got to figure out how to do this right or we’re not going to have any rural communities,” he said.