Months after making the decision to relocate the University’s Portland programs to the White Stag property in Old Town Portland, development is proceeding slightly behind schedule; the University is looking at opening the facilities in Spring 2008. Senior Vice President and Provost Linda Brady said the property will give the University “greater visibility” in the Portland area, and provide space for the development of new programs.
“We did look at a couple of locations, but the Old Town/China Town location, the access to public transportation and the city’s commitment to redevelopment of that area of Portland were all very important to the University in making a decision,” she said.
With the exception of a joint MBA program with Portland State University, all of the University’s current programs in Portland will now be housed at the White Stag property, Brady said.
The new location is not technically considered another campus because the programs there are focused around certificates or degrees that are generally not available at the University, and regular courses will not be offered there, Terri Warpinski, vice-president of Academic Affairs.
“I see it, as a University, we’re made up of multiple schools and colleges and I really see what’s happening in Portland as creating additional professional school capacity,” Warpinski said. “Each area has a stand-alone capacity. So, (the urban architecture program) is completely contained there, so there’s not a parallel here at all. (The programs) exist there because they are uniquely connected to the context of Portland.”
Brady said visibility in Portland is important not only because it is the population center of the state but because that is where the University recruits the most students.
“While certainly there are other colleges and universities in Portland, we think there are particular areas in which the University of Oregon has historically been very strong that enable us to offer programs either separately or in collaboration with Portland State that will not duplicate opportunities available at other Universities, but provides new opportunities,” she said.
That includes the new School of Journalism and Communication Portland-area program, which opened its George S. Turnbull Portland Center in Spring 2006, and offers several academic programs. Beginning in fall 2007 the school will offer a master’s degree in strategic communication, according to the center’s Web site.
That degree will involve public relations and a business component and is targeted at working professionals in the “early part of their career,” said Tim Gleason, dean of the School of Journalism and Communication. Currently, the Turnbull Center offers some stand-alone courses in strategic communication and internship opportunities. A program called “Portland Senior Experience” that provides undergraduate Public Relations students with the opportunity to take courses in Portland while working paid internships at one of several Portland businesses, Gleason said.
“It’s doing quite well,” he said. “A number of the students in there are getting jobs right out of the program. It’s been very positive.”The journalism school’s offerings in Portland are intended to compliment, not duplicate, what other Portland universities are doing, Gleason said.
“It expands our service to the people of the state of Oregon as well,” he said of the school’s presence in Portland. “We’re offering course work and resources in the major media market in the state; not just in Eugene.”
Although the journalism school’s involvement is new, other departments already had Portland programs.
The Department of Architecture has had a presence in Portland for several years and provides a good opportunity for students to study urban architecture, said Frances Bronet, dean of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts.
The White Stag property will provide the AAA department with art classrooms that have space to present and work with art with the opportunity for public interaction, Kate Wagle, Art department head said. And also new courses of study.
The department, in conjunction with the art department, is developing new Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees that would provide students an opportunity to design the products that people interact with every day.
The bachelor’s degree would be in “material studies,” combining elements of art and interior architecture, Wagle said. Students would develop “functional objects” and take courses in business, economics and anthropology to understand the cultural implications and uses of the products.
A fifth-year Bachelor of Fine Arts in “product design,” which Bronet said involves designing anything from watches to cars, is also being proposed.”In a place like Oregon, we might be looking at new ways of transit – what are more sustainable models,” Bronet said. “So it’s a cross-disciplinary program looking at those kinds of elements that we use almost every day that would change your life.”
The bachelor’s degree in material studies and the BFA in product design are in the early stages of getting approval from the University and state administrators, but Bronet said they had “unanimous support” from the AAA faculty.
If approved, the product design BFA would probably be only available in Portland and the material studies bachelor’s degree would have to be completed in Eugene, but the BFA might also be available in Eugene, Bronet said.
Gleason, Wagle and Bronet said the University’s presence in Portland provides students with more opportunity to work with the professional world.
“The kind of business there that students can interact with and the scale of the community and urban environment are going to give them opportunities they wouldn’t have in Eugene, and that will expand their world professionally and aesthetically,” Wagle said.
Gleason said that the school is also hosting a range of seminars and lunches for the professional community in Portland. As the state’s media center, Portland offers a range of opportunities for students to work for large corporations, he said.
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