University Archives

I wondered whether PSU had an official Archivist, so I went looking. I found Cristine Paschild, who is both the University Archivist and Head of Special Collections. What surprised me was that the position of Archivist has only been in existence at PSU for two years.

The Archives office is in the Millar Library, room 180. I met Cristine at her office there, where she told me about recent activities on campus in the world of Archives. The City of Portland Archives just moved into the new Student Rec Center (see Erica's post). Those two offices, plus the Oregon Historical Society and the Multnomah County Library, had the "1st Annual Archives Crawl" on October 2nd. Christine said it was very successful. Participants where given booklets in which to gather stamps at each location, and there was a party afterward.

Cristine pointed out that having the City of Portland Archives close by gives one easy access to a wider perspective on some subjects. For example, the COP Archives have the official papers of Vera Katz, while the University Archives have her personal papers.

I asked Cristine what the Archives might be used for. She said students, faculty and whole classrooms use it. Last year a Cultural Anthropology class used the Archives to research urban legends about the campus, such as "were the windowless offices built to be bunkers to protect staff from rioting students?" and other tales related to PSU.

I also wanted to know if anyone has used the archives to research any ghostly occurrences on campus. Cristine said that she wasn't aware of any such research, but that she had heard of cold spots and apparitions at a previous post. She would love it is someone came in to do research related to ghostly activities.

The Archives contain a wide range of material, from Dark Horse Comics figurines to 14th century illuminated manuscript pages. I found those to be fascinating and beautiful:

An illuminated page from the 14th century:

Detail of an illuminated page (notice the face):

Items in the Archives are non-circulating, but appointments can be made to view them in the Archives office. Items are listed in the catalog, or you can contact Cristine to make inquiries about specific subjects.

An early German print from the 16th century:

urban plaza/new friends

Before starting this assignment I knew little about PSU. I know others have found more obscure and appealing areas upon campus, but I chose to write about the PSU Urban Plaza.

My first impression of the quarter draws a parallel to Pioneer Square. Both are constructed of brick and serve as a hub for Trimet. I found myself idling in the urban plaza the other day after departing my bus and managed to work up enough courage to speak with a couple of students; Calvin and Charlie.

Although my questions sounded candid and a bit hesitant, the students seemed willing to engage and gave me their answers genuinely.

I asked about their initial feelings toward the plaza, and we settled upon a few mutual agreements:

- Aside from the Food for Though Cafe, it is difficult to find a good cup of coffee on campus.

- With the tall buildings and the number of chain businesses such as Seattle's Best and Pizzacato, the plaza can feel like less of a park on campus, and more like a center for corporate business offices.

- The square can feel uncomfortably "open" with few trees. If given the choice one would rather spend time in the Park Blocks (especially in autumn.)

After speaking with my new friends, I wanted to research and find a few positive traits of the area. Here is what I found:

-Convenient for transportation, The PSU Urban Plaza is the only location where the Portland Streetcar and Max Lines will intersect.

-Construction for the plaza was completed in 2000, making it fairly new. The PSU Urban Center is built efficiently, and the annual reduction in energy cost is reduced by $23,000 per year. Currently this spot alone has saved the university $230,000 dollars in the past 10 years.

Student Groups

Tucked away on the first mezzanine floor of Smith is a whole host of Student Groups. From Pre-Health to Association of African Students, from Portland State Professional Sound to Veteran Students. PSU NAACP Group. You may see banners or presentations from some groups, but others are more behind the scenes. For example, Portland State Professional Sound. You may hang out for the Live at Lunch concerts, but who puts them on? Who organizes them? PSPS is who. They set up the gigs, work the boards for optimal sound performance. They book the musicians, handle all the equipment. They're behind the scenes, but they're so integral to the social events on campus. Pictures to come...

Association of African Students

Lesson learned ( # 1 tip for wannabe reporters and researchers: write everything down!)

I picked the Association of African Students for my place of interest and could not be more satisfied with my choice. I encountered an office full of warm and very welcoming. I mainly spoke to a student who identified herself as the 'PR person" (hence my tip above, since unfortunately I forgot her name) and told me that the African Student Association has over 100 members and last year celebrated its 30th anniversary. Another student who was there ( who wore a very traditional middle easter garment, had her face covered and did not want to take pics or shake my hand- though was extremely nice and courteous-) told me that the mission of the association was to "united the African student community attending PSU and the student community at large". They have a great number of activities and events throughout the the year, including, AIDS awareness week and African night which includes a fashion show, which enthusiastically encourage me to attend. They have a meeting this Friday at 2pm.

CEMN

I chose the Center for Electron Microscopy and Nanofabrication as my place for this project. I sent out an email to try to get a tour but the lady who does it is out of town. I went and talked to a grad student named Justin who was very helpful. He pointed me in the direction OF GREG WHO SHOWED HIM HOW TO USE THE MICROSCOPES ALTHOUGH HE DOESN'T REALLY USE THEM IN HIS STUDIES. HE STUDIES THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT AND WHAT IS LEFT OVER or something that was immediately confusing to my non scientific ear.I have an email out to Greg as he was not in his office when I went by to hopefully meet with him... More Later

If you haven't had the pleasure of fetching something from the Facilities Store, you've been missing out. I first encountered this place about 6 months ago while running errands for a student group. The Facilities Store is the place where all student groups, departments, offices, etc on campus get their maintenance supplies. A student employee walked me around and told me that they need a place like this on campus because "going to Home Depot every time you need a light bulb or battery isn't cheap". Then we started talking about inventory. I mentioned that I had done inventory in an automotive parts department a couple years ago; it took days with twenty people. He said that it takes about that long at the store, and counting every tiny part is tedious. It surprised me that the store is primarily analog, and inventories are transcribed from handwritten customer orders.

The original alibi I used to get behind the desk was to grad some recycled architecture board. I awkwardly shuffled through the piles of board without knowing what I was trying to find. We talked about the sketches that we found, and laughed about how the library is shaped like a space ship (see bottom pic). I grabbed two boards and went my way.

I am having formatting trouble. My apologies.

PSU Recycles

I was wandering around Cramer trying to find the Career Center when I noticed a room that said "PSU Reuse Room." I stopped and asked someone if they knew anything about the room and they sent me to the Sustainability and Recycle program located in the urban planning building. There I met Kelli Martin, the graduate assistant at PSU Recycles. Kelli told me that the mission of PSU recyles is as so: 1. Reduce the total amount of garbage and recyclable materials PSU generates. 2. Eliminate recyclable materials found in the garbage through student, faculty, & staff education. 3. Increase departmental participation in campus recycling. 4. Efficiently collect and transport recyclable materials from buildings to collection sites. Her job is to collect data, monitor material flow, and assist in education and outreach about recycling here at PSU.

Her boss, Roshelle Hall, is the Recruitment Coordinator. She delegates tasks as well as oversees all the employees. Rachelle is out on maternity leave right now. An associate of Kelly's, Honore Depew, is the Education and Outreach Specialist. He is in charge of things like in-class training, and he oversees a group of classified recyclers who collect the recycling from all the residence halls, as well as some student buildings. I asked Kelly why she was interested in sustainability and recycling as a career, and she responded that she liked that it was a budding field, with opportunities for new jobs. She expressed that it was an outlet for being an agent of change, which she was most interested in being. However, she also expressed that progress is slow, because it is difficult to get every single person to change behavior they are so used to doing.

She told me about a few different programs that PSU Recycles is involved with, such as Chuck It For Charity, and Recyclemania, which are used to kick start recycling at the beginning and end of every year. She told me that PSU Recycles used to be a student club, until it was adopted into Facilities and Planning quite some time ago.

Volcano Dialogues

I think, for me, one of the hard parts of this project was the feeling that people just didn't want to talk to me. With that in mind, I thought about who would want to talk with me? Who's always trying to talk to me? Children International!

I'm interested in places that seem usual but might have more. This is what drew me to Plaid Pantry. Everyone knows and/or hates the canvassers in Portland. But I think it's too easy to write these guys off, I went to talk to them hoping to find something interesting.

This is Kylie, he works with Dialogue Direct, the company Children's International hires to fund-raise. He came to Portland 3 months ago, knowing one person. Kylie has a MFA in painting and hopes to get more involved in the arts here in Portland. Kylie seemed like an OK person but I've been informed he might really be a terrible and manipulative person. I don't know, but I did find something interesting about the "dialoguers." I felt like DD could be a kind of for profit social practice. I was inspired to know what it felt like to stop people on the street.

With this in mind, I grabbed a note book and pen and headed to Cramer Hall. I heard there was a rock by the geology department that came from the Mt. Saint Helens eruption. I set up by the rock to start some dialogues.

Questions (In no order)

"What do you know about volcanos?"

"what do you know about this rock?"

"what do you know about Mt. St. Helens?"

Answers

"nothing"

"My high school in Alaska was named after a volcano"

*cuts me off mid question* "Sorry man, I'm not interested" once he hears me finish my question "[mt. st. helens] blew up in the 80's. It's on the ring of fire which is part of the...Cascadia tectonic system"

"I like volcanos"

"I think it blew up in May?"

"It blew up 6 years before I was born" I asked him where he was from and if there was any natural disasters there "In Madrid, Missouri there was a 9.0 earthquake. It was a really big deal" He says. Later, "There was an earthquake at OSU but I think I was the only one who felt it. It was because I was spacing out and standing real still I could feel it shaking but my friend said he didn't feel anything."

"Sorry I'm busy" 5 minuets later he's walking the other direction, smoking a cigarette and mumbles "forgot my card at the place"

"Yes" this lady seemed very confidant "It blew up in 1981 and spread ash and debris across the NW. It was one of the biggest eruptions in America." We talked for a few minutes. She went on an overnight camping field trip with a class. "We went to the ape caves which is part of the same volcanic system" She's actually a biology major but takes a lot of geology courses. I asked if there was lava or just ash. "Oh yeah, there was lava"

"There's lots of volcanoes where I'm from" where's that "An island up in Alaska" (2 people from Alaska, both have experience with volcanoes!?)

"These rocks are under extreme heat, at the core of the earth" I've been talking with this man for a while and he seems to be wrapping up "and they're under unimaginable pressure- crushed beneath thousands of pounds of earth." He has a very distinct tone of voice and pacing, it's captivating."But here's what I don't understand" I also detect a faint smell of alcohol "When these rocks- which are created in the most extreme environment in our planet- are brought to the surface. How are they not destroyed completely? That. That might be the real mystery." He walks away.

UPDATE: new picture and 150 word sum up for the vanguard article.
"Mount Saint Helens (Mt. St. Helens) blew up in the 80's. Mt. St. Helens blew up in 1981. It blew up six years before I was born. The mountain is part of the Cascadia Tectonic System. It was a big eruption. There was lava, there was ash, it was part of the ape caves system. My high school was named after a volcano in Alaska. There's lots of volcanoes in Alaska." These are things I learned while standing on the corner of Cramer hall by the red rock asking people what they knew about the rock, Mt. St. Helens or just volcanoes in general. I heard this rock came from the famous explosion but later I heard it was just a rock from the geology department. I actually heard a lot of conflicting information and I'm not sure if I learned anything true. But, I did get to know how it feels to stop people on the street and ask them questions. It's fun, you should try it out.

City Archives

This week I thought I would do some meta research by visiting the city archives. The city auditor's office is responsible for storing and preserving records from all kinds of activities including (but definitely not limited to) historical documents, Commission meetings, arrest records, maps, and architectural plans.

Last year the archives started the process of moving their offices and storage facility from their North Portland location near Chimney Park to the new Student Rec Center building on Portland State's campus. The office closed for six months to while they inventoried materials dating back to 1851, the year Portland became incorporated as a city and the year that they began keeping records. Adrianne, a recent MLS grad, said that the number of weekly visitors has doubled since the move. The staff is mostly happy with the change. The only exception is that the "records people" are "hermits" and dislike all the attention that their new space has brought.

Mary Hansen, one of the archivists, is responsible for much of the recent activity such as the Archives Crawl, the archive's blog and twitter pages, and other outreach efforts. She says that the reasons people visit the archives are as numerous as their visitors but that some of the most frequent researhers are students and authors.

Brian told me about several authors who had been in for extended research projects recently. Peter Boag came in to research his book about 19th and 20th century "same sex affairs". I asked Brian to show me an example of one of the texts that Peter may have used and he brought out a grey cardboard box with the words:















"Police Historical/Archival, Subject Files, Mug Book
Prostitutes, Queers, Pimps, Bunco"
handwritten on the side.

Inside was a dilapidated, old book with small photos pasted next to names and reasons for their arrests. Peter had been using records like this one to look into arrests of Portlanders for perceived or actually homosexual behavior. The most interesting thing about this record was the terminology used. Most commonly these were euphemisms that were coded so that police knew what the real reason for the arrest was.
For example, the description of arrest for a woman arrested for prostitution would be listed as "immoral woman" or "soliciting." A pimp might be arrested for "bringing 2 together - immoral." A gay person might have been aressted for "immoral disorderly conduct." Some of the reasons such as "illigal sale of alcohol", were a guise for arresting "gypsies," prostitutes, madams, or pimps when they didn't have direct evidence of any other misconduct. I was interested to see that the word "immoral" was used in relation to the law. Obviously police still have these sorts of blanket violations, like disorderly conduct, that can be abused to arrest anyone. It is telling that they come from a place where morals were a legal matter.

I love the woman laughing in the last image.

MultiCultural Center "Home Away from Home"

The Emphasis on this center, located in Smith memorial student union on the 2nd floor room 228, is that "It Belongs to Students!" Jon Joiner who is the Coordinator for the Multicultural Center wants all students to know that the multicultural center belongs to them and that it is a resource that is here to serve students. It is a place to come in and study, to use computers, to come in for events, and is a social place of support for under-represented and majority students alike. Joiner reffered to the center as a students "Home Away from Home." The center offers speakers forums, peer to peer mentoring, international coffee hour, a study community, and many other great rewards.

The Multicultural center supports and promotes: student focus, social justice, a respect and embrace of differences and commonalities, and the shared value of multicultural history, traditions and customs. The vision of the Multicultural center is to prepare students to be global citizens.

Joiners message to students :
"We are committed to providing each student, regardless of class standing, the opportunity to obtain a quality multicultural education and assisting in the achievement of personal development goals.

Our entire raison d'etre is to be of service to community members of all backgrounds in a practical and effective manner and to further the cause of diversity in all areas of our campus community.

Please help us reach our goals and yours by becoming a regular user/contributor/friend of the MCC in any capacity you see fit. Whether you're looking for space to hold an event, a teach-in, help with event-planning or cosponsorship, please feel free to contact us anytime." - Jon Joiner.

The Multicultural center has a list of events that they hold and that is open to the public. For more information on the multicultural center and their events and services , please visit : http://www.pdx.edu/mcc

Printmaking Lab

When I first enrolled at Portland State, I was told by multiple sources that the art department was horribly underfunded and that most of the classes were pretty bad. I had been told to try printmaking after taking a drawing class at PCC and so I signed up for the class anyway. I then saw that my sources were wrong about at least one program because the printmaking lab has new, clean, functioning, and plentiful equipment. At Portland State we have the capability of making lithographic, intaglio, relief and screen prints. I ended up being in that room for most of the year. The room itself is roomy and comfortable and easy to work in. There are several students that seem to never leave the room and the instructors are helpful and knowledgeable.

Becca

My first experience with printmaking was in high school where after a simple stamp project working with repetition and color, I began working on other projects where I basically taught myself how to print relief (carving in rubber stamp material or linoleum). My high school art teacher was, to me, very mediocre. I didn't learn much from her and found myself often frustrated with the class. When I came to PSU, the printmaking class was the one course that first caught my eye. I was sure that I wanted to take it. I quickly discovered that PSU has an amazing printmaking program and so in my first fall term here, I took relief printmaking with Valerie Wallace. I became completely enamoured with the whole process but mainly my professor and her work. I took a class from Valerie every term of last year, working my way from relief to intaglio (etching) and to silkscreening. I found her to be incredibly inspirational and knowledgeable. Her way of working with the class and individual students was unlike any art teacher I've had before. I felt compelled to make conceptually intriguing and creative artwork and she challenged my abilities as an artist while making my work and creative ideas feel validated all the while. I lived in that studio last year. I fed off of the talents of my professor and the other students.

Haley

http://vwyellowpress.com/

We found out that the printmaking club is indeed in effect and running. On our way up to the studio located in Neuberger Hall, we noticed that there were club flyers lining the staircase and low and behold, we saw one for printmaking. The meeting are Tuesdays starting at 5:30, so we plan to attend and gather more detailed information about the ways in which the club has gotten together and perhaps any conflicts that they encountered in their attempts to get the club started as well as funded. The club is a way in which the print studio's resources and machinery can be utilized by students who may not be art majors or able to take a printmaking class. When we went to the studio, we found 4 or 5 students working on projects before the beginning of class and were able to confirm our thoughts about the club's start-up and continuation. We spoke to Erika who reiterated that we should talk to Valerie for more information, which we plan to do. Erika told us that Valerie is due for a baby girl, so that she plans to take some time off soon and has been coming into class more around 2:15 rather than 2.

Field Work

I have been to Field Work, a new collaboration between the studio and social practice MFA students and the graphic design students of PSU, for two events now. The first was a project by Public Social Unversity called LOVE and the second was a presentation by Monica Haller on book workshops she facilitates working with war veterans. Both events have been interesting and the space has a lot of potential for future workshops, shows, etc. I have been talking with Justin about making it "rad". We want to work with everyone involved and create a space that attracts people to Field Work by the activities going on there.

Park Blocks

I have always been aware of how much the Park blocks seem to be a part of PSU and the academic environments. Students seating down on the benches, or on the grass, eating, studying or just chatting seem to be as much part of the PSU campus experience as any building. I went to the planning and facilities building to find out more of who takes care of the park blocks. I spoke to someone there (forgot my sources name). She explained that, although the Park blocks belong to the city of Portland; its maintenance is the responsibility of both the city of Portland and the PSU landscaping crew. From dog poop to branches on the grown, the PSU crew takes care of it. if there is a more in depth need for maintenance, PSU will call the city of Portland to take care of it (sewage and draining issues, tree disease control).

Rad Pantry

What's interesting about Plaid Pantry? These little convenience stores survive on being exactly like their siblings around the country. So is PSU's outpost on 10th and mill any different? According to Greg, the clerk I talked to, the plaid pantry at PSU is totally different then any other store he has worked at. He's done shifts at PP behind the subway on 12th and at OHSU so he seems to know what he's talking about. I talked to him as customers rotated through the store. It seems the average shopper spends about 76 seconds in the store, Greg told me this was normal during class times but sometimes lines can stretch all the way around the beer display. A regular who was buying gatorade backed this up. Another regular said he had been shopping here since the 80's. Supposedly the space was put in when the building was built in the 50's, but it wasn't a plaid pantry until about 30 years ago. Despite all this info, I was still hoping to find something that made this Plaid interesting.

Maybe there is a seedy underbelly of 24 hour connivence stores but PP turns out to be pretty tame. Greg used to work the night shift and he says not much happens other then encounters with transients with 

drug or mental health problems. Lots of students try to buy booze with their friends ID but greg says "they're not that smart" and get caught when they try to pay with their own credit card. After asking some friends if they knew anything, I learned about "Porno Wednesday." Supposedly this is the day when all the new issues come out, as my friend learned when he came in and found Greg putting price tags on hundreds of adult magazines.