News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.
The Career Center and the College of Arts and Sciences are hosting Destination: Declared – a 2 session workshop series designed to help students explore majors and choose one that will be a good fit. Faculty and staff who know students who may be thinking about changing their major and/or need to declare a major are asked to encourage them to participate.
For more information, contact Chelsea Chase, Career Center, at chase@up.edu.
The College of Arts and Sciences’ Public Research Fellows program will present a talk by Brittney Cooper, “Trust Black Women: The Importance of Black Women in U.S. Politics,” on Friday, September 4, at 3:30 p.m, as part of the Public Research Fellows 2020-2021 Virtual Series. Cooper’s talk was postponed from its original March date, and in keeping with COVID-19 safety protocols, will take place via Zoom. To attend, use this link.
Cooper will explore the struggle for Black women’s suffrage and the historical role of Black women’s vote, making the case for why there is no progressive politics in America without Black women.
As an associate professor at Rutgers, Cooper studies and teaches Black Women’s Intellectual History, Black Feminist Thought, Hip Hop Feminisms, Hip Hop Studies, Race and Gender Representation in Popular Culture, Digital Feminisms, and New Media. She is co-editor of The Crunk Feminist Collection (The Feminist Press 2017). and author of Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (May 2017) and Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower (February 2018).
Sponsors include the College of Arts & Sciences, Juliet Ashby Hillman Foundation, The Jackson Foundation, and Juan Young Trust. For ADA accommodations and further information, contact Cara Hersh at x7262 or hersh@up.edu.
A group of 26 science faculty and students from the College of Arts and Sciences attended the annual M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust Undergraduate Research conference on November 8-9 in Vancouver, WA. The annual conference drew hundreds of college students and science educators from across the Pacific Northwest. A number of UP students gave oral and poster presentations to colleagues from around the Pacific Northwest. Students mentored by Laura Dyer (biology) and Eugene Urnezius (chemistry) took home poster prizes for outstanding posters in their sections: Pia Fornell won for “Identifying How Sonic Hedgehog Signaling Affects Cardiac Neural Crest Migration Following Fetal Alcohol Exposure” and Kailin Mooney won for “Physicochemical properties of 2,5-dihydroxy-1,4-quinones appended with phosphonato groups.”
Additional information about the conference is available on the Trust’s website.
The first CAS Colleagues event will take place on Friday, November 15, from 4 to 5:30 p.m., in Franz 120. All are welcome to come mingle, sip, and chat and get to know their campus colleagues. “At the heart of it, the thread that weaves us together is our intellectual curiosity; the drive of a hungry mind to reach out and explore the world.” Come learn more about your intellectually-curious colleagues, Nicole Leupp Hanig and Jeff Meiser.
For more information contact Jacqueline Van Hoomissen, biology, at vanhoomi@up.edu.
The College of Arts and Sciences and the Humanities Collaborative will present the inaugural Public Research Fellows Program on Monday, September 23, 4 to 5:30 p.m., in the Bauccio Commons board room. The program will feature an introduction and explanation of the 2019-2020 theme of the U.S. Women’s Suffrage Centennial; a talk by Christin Hancock, history; an interactive discussion; and food, drink, and conversation. A flyer for the event is available here.
For more information contact Laurie McLary, CAS, at mclary@up.edu.
The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust recently awarded three grants totaling $178,427 to the University of Portland to support scientific research. The three grants include the following:
This grant marks a total of $2.6 million awarded to the University of Portland by the Murdock Trust since 2011.
For more information, contact development at x7395 or giving@up.edu.
The College of Arts and Sciences Natural Sciences and Mathematics division is pleased to announce that four junior faculty in the departments of biology, chemistry, and environmental studies have each received external grants to support their research and K-12 outreach work in the local community. Collectively, these individual grants total almost $180,000, with an additional $50,000 in matching funds contributed by CAS. This success in funding is a demonstration of the commitment faculty have made to pushing the boundaries of science, while simultaneously engaging with undergraduate and local K-12 students in transformational educational endeavors. The first of these grants is funded by the Society for Developmental Biology and the latter three by the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, which has been a generous, key contributor to CAS for many years. All four projects will involve undergraduate students.
Laura Dyer, biology, received an SDB Education Grant, “Engaging elementary school students in developmental biology through brine shrimp lifecycle activities.” This grant will provide approximately $1,500 for dissecting microscopes and lab supplies in support of a developmental biology-related project for the fourth graders of Astor K-8 School.
Rachel Hutcheson, chemistry, received a Natural Sciences Grant, “Spectroscopic, mechanistic, and structural investigations of uncharacterized radical S-adenosyl L-methionine enzymes.” Funding in the amount of $59,650 will support research on Radical S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM) enzymes, using an anaerobic chamber (a chamber with no oxygen).
Kristin Sweeney, environmental studies, received a Natural Sciences Grant, “Quantifying feedbacks between topography, rock properties, sediment, and ecology on rocky shore platforms of the Oregon Coast.” This grant will provide $58,777 in research funds to use combined measurements of topography, rock hardness, and biodiversity to quantify the extent to which topography influences ecosystem structure and vice versa. The project is an interdisciplinary collaboration with Tara Prestholdt, biology, and is a great example of how UP’s close campus community can inspire fruitful cross-departmental partnerships.
Susan Murray, biology, received a Natural Sciences Grant, “Effect of SMAC (second mitochondrial activator of caspases) mimetics on human T cell activation and function.” This project is essentially about understanding the signals that determine T cell activation. $60,000 in funds will help drive research on an overall hypothesis that a new class of chemotherapy drugs called SMAC mimetics, which were developed for their ability to kill cancer cells, might have a very different effect on T cells—namely to relieve T cell negative regulation, and thus improve the ability of T cells to attack a patient’s tumor.
For more information contact the College of Arts and Sciences at x7221 or cas@up.edu.
Are you interested in developing innovative undergraduate research projects in a supported environment? Have you considered connecting your teaching and scholarship with the wider public but haven’t been sure where to start? The Humanities Collaborative invites faculty from across all disciplines to an informational meeting on Thursday, March 14, at 8:30 a.m., in the Clark Library conference room (no. 222). Attendees will find out more about the CAS Fellows Program, a pilot initiative for the 2019-2020 academic year that aims to build a replicable, scalable model for undergraduate research around an annual theme and innovative public-facing projects at UP. The inaugural theme will be “The U.S. Suffrage Centennial.”
A full description of the CAS Fellows program can be found at this link.
For more information contact Laura McLary, academic associate dean, College of Arts and Sciences, at mclary@up.edu.
The College of Arts and Sciences Humanities Collaborative invites you to participate in a lively lunch-time discussion about topics relevant for the humanities and interdisciplinary connections to the humanities. Please RSVP to Laura McLary at mclary@up.edu. Each lunch is limited to the first 12 participants who reply. All members of the UP community are welcome. This initiative is supported by College of Arts and Sciences dean Herbert Medina.
The CAS Humanities Collaborative will be highlighting the scholarship of three humanities professors in its first event of the academic year on Thursday, October 4, at 4 p.m., in the Bauccio Commons board room. Simon Aihiokhai, theology; Tina Astorga, theology; and Josh Swidzinski, English, will be presenting on research projects they conducted over the past summer. Participants will also get a first glimpse at the Humanities Collaborative manifesto, created with input from faculty during Faculty Development Day in May. Refreshments will be served courtesy of College of Arts and Sciences dean Herbert Medina. All members of the UP community are welcome and encouraged to attend.
The CAS Humanities Collaborative is dedicated to joining forces with our colleagues in the humanities to promote the enduring relevance of the humanities as a vital part of guiding students in their development as empowered, engaged critical thinkers and participants in a world of unscripted problems. We promote collaboration as a means of providing a strong base for strategic planning and to seek out opportunities to publicize and support the professional development of our colleagues teaching and researching in the humanities.
Please contact the Humanities Collaborative leadership team for more details: Carol Dempsey (theology, dempsey@up.edu), Molly Hiro (English, hiro@up.edu), Laurie McLary (CAS and ILC, mclary@up.edu).