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In The News

• $2.5 million gift lifts CLT funding
• Freeman Foundation grant to benefit Chinese Studies
• Award-winning ROTC program now marches on its own
• PLU School of Education awarded two grants
• Student debaters win at international tournament
• PLU’s yearbook, Saga,comes to an end
• NAICU president highlights 2010 goals
• PLU People

$2.5 million gift lifts CLT funding

A $2.5 million gift from longtime PLU supporter Arthur H. Hansen brings the total raised for the Center for Learning and Technology to $10 million.

Art Hansen and his late wife, Jennie Lee Hansen ’34, played a key role for years as hosts for admissions, alumni and other events at their home. Jennie served on the alumni board and they both offered leadership to the Make a Lasting Difference Campaign. Students enjoy the opportunities provided through the Jennie L. Hansen Endowed Scholarship and the Jennie Lee Hansen Recital Hall in the Mary Baker Russell Music Center.

“The university is grateful for the Hansens’ generosity and Art’s continued service as a member of the current campaign steering committee,” President Loren J. Anderson said.

The Center for Learning and Technology, projected to cost $19 million, will bring together the School of Business and the departments of mathematics, computer science and computer engineering. The CLT also will house a variety of campus offices, including the dean of the Division of Natural Sciences, the Center for Executive Development and the Tacoma-Pierce County Mathematics, Engineering & Science Achievement Program (MESA). Construction
could start late this year.

Along with streamlining the day-to-day operations of these critical departments, the state-of-the-art facility will allow more integration between depart-ments, faculty and students.

“The new complex will advance the use and study of technology to the forefront and stimulate synergy among the departments at a time when all of us in education are looking to break down disciplinary boundaries,” President Anderson said.

Freeman Foundation grant to benefit Chinese Studies

A $686,000 grant will broaden and strengthen PLU’s Chinese Studies under-graduate program and enrich studies in local elementary and high schools.

“We’ve very excited about this,” said Greg Youtz, chairman of the Chi-nese Studies program. “It will increase the size and prominence of Chinese studies on campus, and it will, in a re-ally dramatic way, take our enthusiasm and expertise into the community.”

On campus, the four-year grant from the Freeman Foundation Undergraduate Asian Studies Funding Initiative will:

• Support the hiring of a part-time Chinese language instructor.
  
• Fund faculty activities in semester abroad travel and course develop-ment.
  
• Pay for campus lectures, perfor-mances and Chinese cultural groupvisits.
  
• Increase the size and quality of li-brary holdings in Chinese studies.

In addition, the Freeman Foundation Grant will enrich Chinese studies opportunities in South Puget Sound primary and secondary schools including:

• The establishment of a “China Insti-tute at PLU” that will bring together PLU faculty and local teachers for lectures, readings and discussions.
  
• A series of presentations by PLU faculty in local K-12 classrooms various China related topics such calligraphy and art, language and literature, music and theatre, and Chinese festivals and traditions.

Youtz said the timing of the grant award—so close to the $4 million gift for international programs from Peter and Grace Wang—will enhance global studies in an important way.

“The 21 st Century will be enor-mously affected by China,” Youtz said “It is our mission to help make the emerging prominence of China on the global scene much more evident.”

PLU’s interdisciplinary Chinese Stud-ies Program is designed to provide stu-dents interested in China a broad foundation in Chinese language, culture and history, and an opportunity to focus on the religious-philosophical world view and the economic structure of China.

PLU is committed to providing inter-national studies opportunities for stu-dents
and offers majors in Chinese Studies and Scandinavian Studies. The university also offers an innovative Inter-national Core of classes, which provide an interdisciplinary approach structured around a theme of global studies.

Award-winning ROTC program now marches on its own

Starting this academic year, PLU is a host institution for the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps, rather than a satel-lite program of Seattle University.

“It’s better for the student and the school,” said Lt. Col. Mark Brown, pro-fessor in the new Military Science de-partment.

With its autonomy, PLU takes home the awards its cadets win, and gradu-ates have better career opportunities because they’re ranked independently by PLU.

Brown, who was stationed at Fort Lewis and previously taught in the ROTC program at Berkeley, said the transitionand integration with the school have
been smooth. Cadets must meet the stan-dards of both the Army and the university.

He says the program is a benefit to the university because the population tends to be more ethnically diverse, and full scholarships and monthly stipends allow many people to attend PLU who could not otherwise afford it. Those on scholarship must serve at least four years
after graduation to cover their education costs.

Brown is conscious of the contro-versy that becoming a host institutioncreated. A debate preceded the close faculty vote to approve the program. Many faculty opposed creating a mili-tary unit and object to the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy on homo-sexuals. Gays and lesbians are banned from military service, unless they refrain from disclosing their sexual orientation. PLU has a non-discrimination policy and a goal of inclusiveness for sexual minori-ties.

“I thought there would be some hard feelings, but I think Sept. 11 warmed a lot of hearts,” Brown said. “I think people are more appreciative of the role the Department of Defense plays in our stability. It’s made the program more real, more human.”

Beth Kraig, chair of the history de-partment and a member of the ROTC advisory committee, says her concerns remain. PLU added a clause in the uni-versity catalog stating that the military science department is in conflict with the university’s non-discrimination policy.

“We’ve done what we can at the institutional level to say this is a discrimi-natory program, but we can’t eliminate that discrimination,” Kraig said.

Brown said he believes working with the advisory committee and taking part in campus discussions have eased ten-sions.

“The ethos of the university and the Army’s focus on values are very closely mirrored,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of people on the outside see that.”

PLU School of Education awarded two grants

Two new grants will help PLU faculty prepare teachers to become nationally recognized expert educators and help address the teacher shortage.

The School of Education at Pacific Lutheran University won a grant from the Washington Initiative to support National Board Certified Teachers. Administered through the Office of the Superintendent Public Instruction and funded by the Gates Foundation, Washington Mutual and the Stewart Foundation, the grant provides $46,000 for planning starting in January, followed up by a $184,000 implementation grant for the next academic year.

"I think this is going to have a greater impact on teaching than anything else that's come through," said Sue Yerian, assistant professor of education at PLU and project manager for the grant.

According to Lynn Beck, dean of the School of Education, the department has been working to find ways to prepare graduates ahead of time for the national certification. Teachers must go through a rigorous application process to become nationally certified, and usually do so after years of teaching experience.

"We want our students and our concepts and our preparation to work toward that," Beck said of the Washington Initiative grant. "This is a wonderful opportunity for us."

The National Board started in 1987 as a way to establish national teaching standards and recognize educators who excelled. The program stresses being reflective and thoughtful, urging teachers to look at lessons in different ways.

Long before the grant, the School of Education sought out nationally certified teachers in the area for advice in trying to align programs with certification goals in mind.

"The people we're working with are the best teachers in the state," Yerian said. "Our students get the benefit of their expertise. We gain a tremendous amount from this."

Vic Hansen '96, who teaches fourth grade at Brookdale Elementary School in Spanaway, is applying for certification.

"I want to make sure I'm as good as I can be," Hansen said. "I'm becoming a better teacher just by going through the process."

The School of Education, partnered with several area school districts, also won a substantial grant from the Professional Educator Standards Board to offer alternative routes for teachers to become certified. The grant will provide support for 29 nontraditional teacher candidates sponsored by partner districts to enroll in innovative programs at PLU.

It will allow people with degrees in other fields or those with other school experience to become certified teachers by taking night and weekend courses at PLU. The grant pairs teacher candidates with mentors and provides funding help for students seeking to teach in areas where there are shortages, like math and science, and in locations where teachers are harder to hire. The grant will provide help with tuition, stipends for student teachers and mentors.

Kyle Mach ’03 and Adam Holt ’04 won the International Debate Education Asso-ciation tournament in Balvanyos, Roma-nia, in January. Adjunct professor Julia Patriche, who is Romanian, was their coach.

Mach has emerged as one of the top national debate students. He has earned a speaker award at every tour-nament this year, including the presti-gious Top Speaker Award at Linfield’s
Hap Mahaffey tournament in November. Holt attended debate camp last summer at Willamette University.reactions to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the responsibility of individuals and society as a whole.

The competition, with teams from 12 countries, followed the parliamentary debate format, which involves two two-person teams, one representing govern-ment, one opposition. There are six
rounds of preliminary competition before the elimination rounds.

“One of the reasons we went there was to show our different debate styles,” Mach said.

Part of IDEA’s mission is to promote intercultural and international debate in an effort to educate high school and college students and to engage in demo-cratic discourse. The topics used at the tournament dealt with issues such as eastern European countries joining the European Union, U.S. imperialism or international responses to terrorism.

In its final round, the PLU team de-bated a Romanian team, arguing for the opposition on the topic of “Globalism is a masquerade for cultural imperialism.”

PLU’s yearbook, Saga,comes to an end

The PLU yearbook, Saga, will conclude its run in the current form. At the December meeting of the Media Board the decision was made to end Saga completely or to convert it to another format that better suits the wants and needs of the students. A survey is being conducted to get more information from the university community. It certainly marks the end of an era-this will be the first time in years that PLU will be without a yearbook.

The statistics presented in the December issue of The Mast show Saga's production costs have been running higher than budget. The Media Board subsidizes about two-thirds of that money, but the yearbook must recoup more than $10,000 in sales revenue. With only 150 orders placed so far this year, and a history of missing sales goals, the budget could not be met.

All media initially share operating costs. "Saga is not an isolated issue," Media Board adviser Rick Eastman told The Mast. Every sales dollar not earned by the yearbook must come from somewhere else in student media, such as the student radio and television stations, the literary magazine or The Mast.

At last spring's meeting of the board, Saga was encouraged to research proposals over the summer and present an action plan for the publication's recovery at the December meeting. No resolution was reached. The Mast reported that several proposals were pulled together, but the board was apprehensive moving forward without more research into non-traditional yearbook ventures.

Some of the options that have been suggested for a year-in-review publication include a smaller, full-color item or a CD-ROM. The next step will be to decide what the best format will be and who will be in charge of its compilation.

The PLU Media Board consists of student representatives from campus media, ASPLU, media advisors and university staff.

NAICU president highlights 2010 goals

The public phase of the PLU 2010 long range planning process is near completion as the Academic Distinction and Fiscal Strategies Commissions prepare their final reports.
Conversations regarding academic distinction are at the center of the current 2010 planning process.

"What has emerged is a set of broadly shared themes, emphases, and values that will inform curricular and structural decisions aimed at making PLU more distinctive," said Patricia Killen, professor of religion. "The challenge we face is to move beyond quality and even beyond excellence to true distinction; distinction that sets PLU apart as the 'first rank' university our founders envisioned."

As a campus community, the planning journey reaches its destination this spring. The Fiscal Strategies Commission will host forums responding to the work of each commission, and the writing team, Paul Menzel, provost, Lynn Beck, dean of the School of Education, and Patricia Killen will draft the PLU 2010 long-range plan.

This January, amidst the work of the PLU 2010 process, the campus community was fortunate to hear from David Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. Warren shared his expertise with a campus address titled, "The New Reality and Higher Education."

"The great colleges do two things very well-they are animated by great teachers and they are organized around the education of the whole person," Warren said. "It strikes me that PLU has all the material in place."

PROPOSED "MARKS OF DISTINCTION" ARE DISCUSSED IN BACKGROUND PAPERS THAT CAN BE FOUND BY GOING TO www.plu.edu/encore/

PLU People

PLU's Philosophy Department was represented at the 53rd Annual Northwest Conference on Philosophy, held in Pullman, October 12-13. Greg Johnson presented a paper entitled "Coming Together, Remaining Apart: Merleau-Ponty's Reversibility of Flesh and Coalition Politics." Pauline Kaurin presented "After Nietzsche: Possibilities for Moral Reconstruction." And Jeff Cockrum, a philosophy major, presented "Aristotle's Argument for Slavery Undermines Itself."

Two members of the Geosciences Department attended the recent annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Boston. Duncan Foley presented a paper titled "Self-Similarity, Repetition and Emphasis on Links-A Fractal-Based Model for Undergraduate Curriculum." Jill Whitman presented a paper titled "Learning by Discovery in Oceanography." Whitman also was elected president of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers this fall. She assumed her position at the annual meeting of NAGT, held in conjunction with the annual meeting in Boston, Nov. 3-8

Joanne Lisosky, associate professor of communications, received the first place award in the open category of the Broadcast Education Association Research Division paper competition. The paper is a part of Lisosky's research in "Part of the Solution: Media and Violence Curriculum in Seattle Public Schools." The award recognition comes with a cash prize and an invitation to present her research during BEA's annual convention in Las Vegas. The award money will be presented in April.

E. Wayne Carp, history professor, presented a paper at the American Historical Association's annual meeting held in San Francisco, Jan. 3-6, 2002. His paper was entitled "The Sentimentalization of Adoption: When, Why, How?"

Dr. Chung-Shing Lee, ePLU director and assistant professor of business, delivered a one-day short course on "Excellence in Supply Chain Management" at University of Maryland on January 22. The course was one in the professional development series in Electronic Products and Systems organized by University of Maryland's CALCE Electronic Products and Systems Center. Dr. Lee also presented his research paper "Capturing the Benefits of Disruptive Innovation in E-Business Supply Chain Management" at the International Conference on Supply Chain Management and Information Systems in the Internet Age (SCMIS 2001) on Dec. 17-19 in Hong Kong. During the conference, he also visited Hong Kong Productivity Council, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and City University of Hong Kong.