UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

Sharon Jones

New Innovation Minor Director Announced: Salvador Orara

The University’s new campus-wide minor in innovation will be led by Salvador Orara, who will be hired as a Franz Center professor of practice and housed in the Shiley School of Engineering, according Shiley School dean Sharon Jones. Orara has a BFA in graphic design and a MFA in media design. His experience includes numerous UX (user experience design) roles including Jaguar Land Rover. He also has considerable teaching experience, most recently with Pacific Northwest College of Art. He is currently the AIGA Portland Chapter president (the professional association for design). Orara will begin in his new position on Thursday, August 15.

Orara’s new position is part of UP’s push to increase cross-disciplinary learning. Matthew Kuhn, incoming interim dean, says “Sal will add a new aspect to our students’ learning, by building upon their expertise and developing an interdisciplinary innovation mindset to solving complex problems that involve the human and societal dimensions.”

The new innovation minor will be offered campus wide and will be housed in the Shiley School of Engineering. Classes offered through the innovation minor include “Introduction to Design and Innovation,” “Sketching and Prototyping,” and “Empathy, Observational Research and Human-Centered Design.”

For more information contact the Shiley School at x7292 or engineering@up.edu.

A New Chapter for Shiley School Dean Sharon Jones

University president Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C., has announced that Sharon A. Jones, dean of the Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering, accepted the position of vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Washington Bothell. Her final day at the University of Portland will be June 30.

Jones has provided exceptional leadership in service to the students, faculty, and staff of the Shiley School of Engineering. She spearheaded numerous enhancements to the school’s curriculum, forged deep and sustainable relationships with significant philanthropic and industry partners, provided support for faculty scholarly and curricular development, and increased diversity among students and faculty. Today, 39 percent of undergraduate students in the Shiley School of Engineering identify as a minority, and 33 percent of its faculty are women. Among many other accomplishments, she launched Oregon’s only biomedical engineering master’s program, supported the construction of the University’s first maker space (known as “Pilot Space”), and led UP to become the only private institution to join Oregon’s Multiple Engineering Cooperative Program (MECOP).

As vice chancellor at University of Washington Bothell, Jones will oversee the university’s academic units, drive the development and implementation of academic policies, and lead efforts to enhance the campus culture for faculty and staff starting July 15.

An interim dean of the Shiley School of Engineering will be appointed shortly. A national search for Jones’s successor will be launched soon.

Shiley School Joins National Grand Challenge Scholars

The Shiley School of Engineering has been accepted to the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenge Scholars Program (GCSP), according to engineering dean Sharon Jones. Jones credits associate engineering dean Mark Kennedy for much of the work needed to make the Shiley School’s membership a reality.

Shiley School engineering students will focus on five components of the GCSP’s mission:

  • Hands-on Project OR Research Experience: Related to a Grand Challenge
  • Interdisciplinary Curriculum: A curriculum that complements engineering fundamentals with courses in other fields, preparing engineering students to work at the overlap with public policy, business, law, ethics, human behavior, risk, and the arts, as well as medicine and the sciences
  • Entrepreneurship: Preparing students to translate invention to innovation; to develop market ventures that scale to global solutions in the public interest
  • Global Dimension: Developing the students’ global perspective necessary to address challenges that are inherently global as well as to lead innovation in a global economy
  • Service Learning: Developing and deepening students’ social consciousness and their motivation to bring their technical expertise to bear on societal problems through mentored experiential learning with real clients.

The GCSP program is a combined curricular and extra-curricular program with five components that are designed to prepare students to be the generation that solves the grand challenges facing society in this century. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE), at the request of the National Science Foundation, convened a committee of leading technical thinkers to create a list of the grand challenges and opportunities for engineering facing those born at the dawn of this new century. The committee’s final conclusions were released on February 15, 2008, and were presented at a public event at the NAE in October 2008.

 For more information, contact the Shiley School at x7292 or engineering@up.edu.

Two Fine Young New Fellows

epicenter-logoUP students Taylor Hendricks and Cole Preece have completed training to join the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) University Innovation Fellows, a national program that empowers student leaders to increase campus engagement with entrepreneurship, innovation, creativity, design thinking, and venture creation. They join 121 new Fellows in the current network, for a total number of 291 Fellows from 114 schools. Hendricks and Preece are supported by faculty sponsors Peter Rachor, Robin Anderson, and Sharon Jones to create new experiences for students at the University. They will join current UP Innovation Fellow Kevin Bastien.

For more information contact the Shiley School of Engineering at 7292 or stroheck@up.edu.

Student Kevin Bastien Accepted for National Fellowship

bastienKevin Bastien, a junior computer science major and Entrepreneur Scholar, has been accepted to the prestigious NCIIA/Epicenter Engineering University Innovation Fellows program, according to Peter Rachor, Franz Center. His application was supported by Rachor, Tammy Vandegrift, Sharon Jones, and Robin Anderson.

Bastien’s fellowship is seen as an opportunity for UP to have a member of this national group on campus in support of entrepreneurship and innovation initiatives within the Franz Center for Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation. It will also support increased focus on entrepreneurship, leadership, and innovation within the Pamplin School of Business, the Shiley School of Engineering, and campus-wide.

The University Innovation Fellows program is run by the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter), a National Science Foundation-funded partnership between Stanford University and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). Learn more about the students’ accomplishments and activities here (http://tinyurl.com/luqtf2h). For more information contact Rachor at 7782 or rachor@up.edu.

A FIRST For Engineering

FIRST copyOn Saturday, January 4, the Shiley School of Engineering hosted the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Kickoff regional event in the Chiles Center. More than 800 high school students and teachers from Oregon and Southern Washington came to UP for the nationwide NASA telecast of the kickoff for this year’s competition. Moderators and volunteers for the event came from throughout the local technology industry. Engineering professor Debbie Munro participated in the formal program (as did engineering student Natalie Janson) and described the benefits of a UP engineering education. Students and teachers were also given tours of Shiley Hall.

Engineering dean Sharon Jones extends her thanks to all who made the event a resounding success, including engineering technician supervisor Allen Hansen and his staff, Bill Reed and the events staff, Dan Sandaal with information services, and athletics director Scott Leykam, who coordinated events in such as way as to allow the use of the Chiles Center during basketball season.

For more information on FIRST go to this link. For information on Saturday’s event contact Kim Spir, engineering, at 7314 or spir@up.edu.

Howard Vollum’s 100th Birthday

vollum_howard_1The Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering will celebrate the 100th birthday of Charles Howard Vollum, co-founder of Tektronix, on Friday, May 31, from 3 to 5 p.m., in Shiley Hall, according to Aziz Inan, engineering. The celebration will include an invocation by Rev. David Sherrer, C.S.C., welcoming remarks by engineering dean Sharon Jones followed by presentations by former and current Tektronix employees and Vollum’s sons, Don and James Vollum, and the unveiling of an extremely rare, vintage Tektronix 511 oscilloscope found recently in storage in Shiley Hall. All faculty and staff are invited; please RSVP to Jamie Strohecker, engineering, at 7292 or stroheck@up.edu by Tuesday, May 28.

Charles Howard Vollum was born in Portland, Oregon, on May 31, 1913 and died on February 5, 1986, at age 72. He enrolled at the University of Portland (then named Columbia University) in 1931 and completed a two-year program in engineering in 1933. He then transferred to Reed College where he majored in physics, graduating in 1936. Following his graduation, in the midst of the Great Depression, Vollum worked as a radio technician before he was inducted into U.S. Army in 1941. Vollum’s wartime experience gave him the opportunity to study state-of-the-art technology on Cathode-Ray-Tube (CRT) displays and to collaborate with other experts in this field.

In 1946, Vollum co-founded a company to design, manufacture, and market laboratory oscilloscopes. The company was first named Tekrad, but then a month later changed its name to Tektronix (drawn from “technology” and “electronics”), due to a trademark conflict. Tektronix built its first high-performance, low-cost oscilloscope, the 511, using electronic parts purchased from government surplus. When released in 1947, the 511 was superior to any oscilloscope on the market. Over a period of forty years, Tektronix turned into a $1.5 billion-per-year, 20,000 plus employee electronics company. Tektronix engineers built many different types of electronic test and measurement instruments as well as other products such as television monitors and computers. By many, Vollum is considered to be the “father” of Oregon’s electronics industry (Silicon Forest). He was a major donor and contributor to the University of Portland and served on its board of trustees from 1955 until his death in 1986. The Vollum Study Room, located in the Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering, is named in his honor.

New National Science Foundation Grant

The University of Portland has been awarded $446,307 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to increase retention in engineering and computer science with a focus on at-risk first year and sophomore students. The University of Portland is the only Oregon university and one of nine universities and colleges nationwide to receive NSF grants as part of a public-private partnership called Graduate 10K+.

The NSF works in partnership with Intel and General Electric (GE) to stimulate comprehensive action at universities and colleges to help increase the annual number of new graduates in engineering and computer science by 10,000. This effort is funded with $10 million in donations from Intel and the GE Foundation as well as a generous personal donation from Mark Gallogly.

Shiley School of Engineering dean Sharon Jones was the principal investigator of the national grant, with co-principal investigator Tammy VanDeGrift, engineering. Engineering and computer science are fields in which industry leaders lament an inadequate supply of graduates with the knowledge and skills needed in business and industry, and they are fields in which women and minorities are chronically underrepresented. Engineering and computer science are also part of a general trend in which many undergraduates pursuing majors in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields leave them entirely during their first two years in college.

Graduate 10K+ projects will operate for five years. Each of the projects has identified factors that can derail would-be engineers and computer scientists in their first or second year of undergraduate study and taken a targeted approach to addressing those factors. Other schools receiving Graduate 10K+ grants were California State University Monterey Bay, Cornell University, Merrimack College, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Syracuse University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas-Pan American, University of Washington, and Washington State University.

For more information contact the Shiley School of Engineering at 7314 or spir@up.edu.

Engineering Dean’s Forum

A Dean’s Forum has been scheduled with Sharon Jones on Tuesday, February 12 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in Shiley Hall room 319. All are welcome to bring questions, comments, concerns and an appetite to this open forum. Pizza and beverages will be provided and there will be a drawing for five Shiley School of Engineering t-shirts. For more information contact Kim Spir, engineering, at 7314 or spir@up.edu.