Mount Hood

Western implements a new simulation service, Kognito, to help students communicate about sensitive issues.

Sage Kiernan-Sherrow  | News Editor

Western’s Health and Counseling Center has recently implemented an interactive simulation service called Kognito to teach students communication strategies regarding emotional and psychological distress. 

Kognito is an online program co-founded by New York-based clinical psychologist and Baruch College professor, Dr. Glenn Albright, who originally developed the idea for the project when he recognized the need for faculty to have trauma-informed training after observing many students struggling. 

According to Kognito’s website, “his research involves integrating empirically-based findings drawn from neuroscience such as emotional regulation, mentalizing, and empathy, as well as components of social cognitive learning models including motivational interviewing and adult learning theory.” 

Kognito applies this research by employing a communication style known as “motivational interviewing,” which “helps people open up and make changes in their lives,” by reportedly making them feel less judged and more likely to open up, according to Albright.  

The simulations include computerized people programmed with personality and emotions and many are free and accessible to the public, available on one’s personal technological devices. And, since its inception, Kognito’s database has broadened to include simulations for veterans, K-12 students and teachers, members of the LGBTQ+ community, doctors and parental figures, teaching individuals how to approach sensitive topics and how to educate others about important issues, such as correct antibiotic use. 

At Western, the simulations are mostly used for educating students and faculty about how to talk to individuals who are experiencing psychological distress and how to motivate them to seek help from the counseling center.

Albright calls Kognito “a new and innovative simulation technology that can result in changes in people’s physical and emotional health which can be completed in privacy.”

Students can visit the SHCC, call 503-838-8313 or explore Kognito’s website for more details.

 

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Photo by Kay Bruley

Philip Harding advocated for the HR763 Bill during his Feb. 18 lecture on sustainability, explaining how it creates jobs and supports innovation.

Sage Kiernan-Sherrow  | News Editor

Philip Harding didn’t come to Western to convince students to believe the research of climate scientists and he certainly didn’t come to blame individuals for the climate crisis: he came to help students realize that individual practices, while helpful, are not enough to spur change, and that, instead, they should consider supporting the HR763 bill.

A chemical engineer currently working as the Director of Technology and Sustainability for the Willamette Falls Paper Company, Harding spends his free time advocating for the bill as a member of the Citizens Climate Lobby both in Washington D.C. and at local universities, like he did at Western on Feb. 18.  

Because he works in manufacturing product development where his team is consistently trying to produce paper created from non-wood and recycled fiber, Harding says he recognizes that money is the central problem preventing change. 

“It’s really slow to get people to embrace (sustainability) … because of money,” Harding said. 

However, he believes that HR763 could provide a solution.

The bill, currently supported by over 80 legislators is “a proposal that would charge a fee for fossil fuel usage based on what we think people would need to gradually and predictably adapt, upon which the fee would be refunded to the people,” said Harding. 

Harding wants students to understand that pricing carbon isn’t negative and that it actually creates jobs by changing companies perceptions and forcing them to invest in clean energy. 

Harding invited students to participate in a role-playing scenario where they were to imagine themselves as investment bankers should HR763 pass. Following student responses, Harding said that he predicts that bankers would invest in renewable energy companies, who would then expand and hire humans who would then be able to afford renewable energy products, creating a cycle that would be mutually beneficial. 

Harding says that changing how we consume energy is a highly complicated issue that involves too many political fights. HR763, on the other hand, is a comprehensible solution.

Harding encouraged students to call their representatives to show support for the bill, stating that “all you have to do is care and believe in doing something positive” to make change. 

 

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

The Incidental Fee Committee’s partial preliminary decision shows large overall departmental cuts.

Sage Kiernan-Sherrow  | News Editor

Every year, the Incidental Fee Committee is tasked with determining how they are going to allocate funds permitted by student fees, if any changes to the incidental fees need to be made, and which departments will be granted enhancements or have their budgets cut. 

Over the past month, the student-run IFC has been debating these aspects while facing a $150,000 deficit reportedly caused by low enrollment, culminating in a final 5.5% cut proposal that drastically affects student resources. Their preliminary decision resulted in a $270,941 cut to base budgets, and only one enhancement was granted — $250 towards Campus Recreation.

“Before we started making preliminary cuts, the IFC members agreed to being apprehensive towards cuts that would put student safety at risk, decrease student wages, interfere with the growth rate of incoming students, and decrease the accessibility of childcare,” said Logan Baker, the Chairperson of the IFC. 

However, childcare was one of the top six areas affected by IFC’s preliminary decision — confronted by a 7% in budget cuts — and many other departments are facing cuts which directly correlate to student pay and accessibility to campus resources. 

Another impact of the proposed 5.5% cut would be a reduction in student pay — and study space — through the closing of Werner University Center on Saturdays. 

The alternative to making these cuts is to raise student’s incidental fees. Two plans are presently being considered to determine what students will be charged per campus credit, but a decision has not yet been reached regarding the projected percentage for that increase. President Rex Fuller has allegedly stated that he will veto any plan to raise the fees past 5%, a declaration that is being challenged by some students, department leaders and IFC members. 

Daniel Woolf, an elementary education major and Judicial Administrator of ASWOU stated that President Fuller’s position, “takes power away from the students who should be making that decision” and relayed his observation that “students (at the first preliminary hearing) overwhelmingly stated that they would be willing to pay more for (departmental) services.” 

A 5% increase of the current $375 incidental fee would result in an $18.75 increase per student, or $393.75 total.

If President Fuller vetoes the decision, mediations would then ensue. 

In the meantime, students passionate about how their fees are being allocated still have the opportunity to advocate for themselves during the next open hearing on Thursday, February 27, from 4-6 p.m. in the Pacific Room located in the Werner University Center.

 

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Infographic by Kyle Morden 

A Q & A with former U.S Representatives, Rod Chandler and NIck Lampson, about the shifts in our political climate, and the growing need for civic literacy.

Sage Kiernan-Sherrow  | News Editor

Congress to Campus is a program focused on educating the public about and encouraging the practice of civic literacy and public service. Last Thursday, Feb. 13, former U.S. Representatives, Rod Chandler and Nick Lampson, came to Western as participants in the Congress to Campus program, and were intent to discuss those ideals. I sat down with them to learn more about it:

 

Q: Can you tell me a little bit about yourselves and your experiences as former representatives?

C: I represented the eighth congressional district in the state of Washington. I grew up in Oregon, attended Eastern Oregon College, and then graduated from Oregon State University. I have a Masters degree from UNLB in education.

L: I’m from Southeast Texas, and I represented the ninth congressional district until the state of Texas had a redistricting effort in 2003 and I lost the opportunity to serve in that district, so I moved to district 22 and ran again, going back to Congress for my fifth term.

 

Q: I understand that Congress to Campus is a program that focuses on civic literacy. Can you tell me a little about what civic literacy means to you and why it’s important?

L: I served in the Congress during a time of even greater transition than what was around while Rod served. He served mostly in the 80s and I served mostly in the 90s. The camaraderie that existed and, in my opinion, had done so much to help us achieve fantastic goals as a nation, began to wane. The ability for people to sit and enjoy conversations with another, work through difficult differences, and find common ground and compromise was going away. We seem to have less respect, less willingness to listen to our counterparts, and therefore less of an ability to achieve the goals of our nation. Our need for civility and a search for common ground is of the utmost importance if we are going to have good legislative action.

C: We want to inspire young people to participate. We aren’t coming in and saying “be a democrat, be a republican,” we’re saying “get involved.” Understand the issues, look at the candidates, and get involved in helping them get elected. Participate in the process of public policy itself; go to Salem, if you’re for something, go lobby for it, if you’re against it, go against it.

 

Q: My generation has been told since we were little that a lot of issues are going to be up to us. What are representatives doing to support young people who are trying to make a difference?

L: We’re going to college campuses. We want that engagement; we want to show why you should have an interest in the things that we have already done. You need to be preparing yourself to step into the shoes that we’ve worn before. It wasn’t too very long ago when we were in exactly that same situation as you, and we were looking up to people doing these things. They had the ability to inspire us to go and work in Congress. If we can leave a little bit of interest on the part of the students we’ve touched, then we will have accomplished our goal. We have to have you step into the positions to carry on what our founding fathers started 250 years ago, or we won’t continue to exist. 

 

Q: Early, you were discussing how some respect for opposing sides has diminished. In your opinion, is that being helped along by the media in any way? Are you seeing media misrepresentation of what Congress does?

C: I think the media looks for the sensational. Those seeking media attention behave sensationally. It is an element, for sure. Go back to, say, the 1960s, where you essentially had three major television networks and newspapers that were extremely thick. All of that has pretty much gone away with the news sources that we have now, and it’s really tragic.

L: I think it was an intentional effort by politicians to run against what we thought to be the mainstream media, a project of anti-journalism that has been successful. And it’s too bad, somehow we have to find a way to replace it with something that is more acceptable. Discussions like we are having now are fairly rare, today. 

C: Divorcing your opinion from what you’re reporting is really hard to do, but at least when you’re attempting that, then you’re more apt to get good information to the citizens. We don’t see that anymore. 

 

Q: Going back a bit, what were the biggest challenges of being a representative when you were in office? What do you want the public to know about your position?

L: I looked at being a representative as having three different jobs: I had my policy job, which meant I had to do a lot of reading, preparing for committee meetings, and deciding which policies we were going to support, constituent services, which meant responding to letters, taking phone calls, responding to requests for help, and campaigning, which in a district that was not competitive, I had to be constantly raising money and preparing for the next campaign. Any one of those would be considered a full-time job, and when you put the three of them together, time was the greatest resource that I could pray for.

 

Q: What are the biggest issues that we are facing currently, which people should be paying attention to?

L: I think that you don’t solve any of the issues that we face until we address the divisiveness of the nation. Our division has prevented us from having a conversation. I believe that there is no issue where we can’t find some common ground. From there, I’ll hand it the question off to Rod, because the issues are going to be the same for both of us.

C: Firstly, the fiscal budget; we are spending your generation into debt that is just immoral, a trillion-dollar deficit in the president’s proposed budget. Next, the environment; we’ve got to deal with global warming, not just as a nation, but globally. We’ve got to partner with the rest of the world.

L: And healthcare, that’s of a critical nature. And because this is the end of the interview, I’d like to make a point, if you don’t mind. Rod and I represented a different era of Congress than what is there now. I believe that if the public would recognize how we were able to work together in the past few days together at Western, and sought to have people of similar minds that we have, we’d solve the problems that face our communities. 

 

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Earlene Camarillo

Rallies in response to the cap-and-trade bill draw participants from far and wide.

Sage Kiernan-Sherrow  | News Editor

The Timber Unity protest against Senate Bill 1530 on Thursday, Feb. 6, reportedly rallied over 2,000 people and brought over 1,000 trucks to the capitol, according to The Statesman Journal. It was countered by Renew Oregon, a coalition of groups in support of the bill on the following Tuesday, Feb. 11, when over 1,000 individuals rallied at the capitol in its defense. 

Senate Bill 1530, or the cap-and-trade bill as it’s often referred to, would target Oregon’s highest polluting companies of carbon emissions and hold them accountable for emissions higher than the proposed cap would allow, causing them to pay to utilize those emissions and eventually resort to more sustainable options. However, there are concerns over its economical feasibility. 

Kathy Hadley, a local farmer and member of Timber Unity, said the bill has extremely negative consequences for rural Oregonians, who believe their costs of living will dramatically increase after the bill causes companies to move out of state and fuel prices to rise.

“We’re concerned about the money it would cost and the way it’s being handled, how they’re trying to pass such sweeping legislation on a partisan line with so significant effort to address the concerns of the minority,” Hadley stated. 

Oregonians supporting the efforts of Renew Oregon say that the bill is in response to what they believe is a current climate emergency and that the government and the fossil fuel industry are lying about the state of the environment. They counter Timber Unity’s argument, saying that the bill will actually work to provide more jobs, while acknowledging that sacrifices need to be made in order to survive.

A speaker at the rally on Feb. 11 and a youth activist, Maya Stout is a fifteen-year-old student at Newport High who became passionate about advocating for the environment after witnessing changes in her community and stated, “we have to define what an impacted community is … climate change destroys not only the environment but the economy sustained by it.”

Eric Richardson, the Eugene-Springfield NAACP president, added that “this is not a political issue, it’s a moral issue,” and reminded the crowd that rural people, marginalized people and people of color are fighting on the frontlines against climate change.

Timber Unity remains unconvinced. 

Hadley expressed doubts over the bill’s ability to help save the environment, stating that Timber Unity had proposed ways to commit to seeing immediate change, and that she would rather people recognize the good that people are trying to do, rather than just taxing the negative.

To read the bill itself, visit https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/.

 

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu

Photos by Sage Kiernan-Sherrow

Oregon’s largest private university, Concordia University, is closing its doors after this term

Sage Kiernan-Sherrow  | News Editor

Concordia University, located in Portland, is the largest private university in Oregon, and it’s closing permanently at the end of this semester in April — its 115-year run coming to an end.

This makes Concordia the fourth local private university in Oregon to close since 2018, following Marylhurst University closed, The Art Institute of Portland and Oregon College of Art and Craft. 

A sophomore at Concordia, Bailey Wieland, called the news a “shock,” mentioning that she felt blindsided, because she had just received an email to register for the upcoming term. 

Concordia senior, Christian Thyron, concurred, adding that he had “heard enrollment was the highest it had been in awhile, and that Concordia was expanding and growing.” 

Wieland thinks that Concordia’s closing is due to low-enrollment — a notion that is backed by statements from the administration — although former reports show a growing online enrollment pattern over the last few years and their seven-year self-evaluation report portrays them as one of the highest growing universities ranked by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Regardless, Concordia University has struggled financially in the past few years, following a rollercoaster pattern of increases and decreases. Portland Business Journal published an article on Feb. 10 discussing Concordia’s controversial partnership with HotChalk, a company which creates online degree programs, which resulted in a $1 million settlement that’s cause for speculation. 

Condordia has contributed more than 251,000 service hours benefitting an estimated 10,000 people, including 5,000 youth, according to their seven-year self-evaluation report.

“I feel really bad for the university. It’s been a home to people in the community and for those attending and working there,” Thyron said.

Concordia’s financial deficits have resulted in thousands of students struggling to figure out the next steps in their college careers. As Wieland said, “we are asking ourselves ‘where are we going to go now? Is all of our going to go to the other school when we transfer?’” Wieland plans to further her education through the University of Portland, but her peers still have many decisions to make. 

Western faces similar issues in terms of low-enrollment. Students interested in learning more about how the Incidental Fee Committee has responded to deficits created by low enrollment can find more information in the upcoming issue of The Western Howl, released on Feb. 18.

 

Contact the author howlnews@wou.edu

Courtesy of Concordia student, Bailey Wieland

Spokesperson for Out and Proud, Mick Rose, recalls their journey of reclaiming their cultural and historical queer heritage

Sage Kiernan-Sherrow  | News Editor

Out and Proud is an event hosted by Western’s Multicultural Student Union, which, “recognizes the challenges that people of color face within the (LGBTQ+) community as well as celebrate their achievements and successes,” according to their executive board. This year, Western invited Mick Rose, an Indigiqueer, non-binary human from the Diné, Omaha, and Pawnee nations to speak about their many intersecting identities.

“Let us never forget our privilege on the land that we occupy and in the institutions in which we study,” Rose began, reminding the audience that the forced relocation of Native people is what allowed Western to grow. 

Initially, Rose stated that they had felt conflicted about speaking because of their complex relationship with their own identity; they hadn’t always identified as a member of the queer community and “at many times felt marginalized by the community.”

For them, their pride was fostered through self-discovery, and reclaiming aspects of their indiginous culture and history that had been severed.

A major turning point in that reclamation came from their grandmother’s affirmations towards their “coming-out,” as it was then that Rose was introduced to their tribe’s five-gender system and realized that they identified as Dilba, a person who identifies with the female spirit, and people their grandmother described as caretakers, peace-makers, counselors and warriors. 

Previously, Rose spent years attending college at BYU, where they assimilated and faked straightness to avoid being kicked out, excommunicated or facing electric-shock therapy. 

“I knew then, it was a dangerous place to be, and I needed to fit in … so I could get out,” Rose said.

During one particular incident, Rose recalled being nearly arrested because they had taken a bite of their pizza as they stood in line to pay for it, and the unjustified consequences that resulted thereafter. 

“This incident left a permanent on my public record. It comes up now when I apply for jobs, it came up when I applied to be a foster parent. Every time I have to justify my conviction … and relive the embarrassment of being a target as a person of color at my university campus,” said Rose.

Rose was inspired to write their senior thesis on Indian Boarding Schools, institutions known for kidnapping native children and forcefully indoctrinating them into Christianity, who operated under the former Bureau of Indian Education whose mantra was “kill the indian, save the man.” Rose’s own family was heavily affected by Indian Boarding Schools.

“This background and my family’s relationship with education is important because there’s layers in that where colonization has severed my ability to connect to my gender and sexuality,” Rose said.

Colonization has removed examples of queer, two-spirit indiginous people from history, and Christianity was responsible for many of their murders and much of their supression. 

Rose acknowledged that the loss of indiginous queer knowledge and heritage is a loss for all queerfolk. 

Now, however, “the consistent work done to discover and of identity in the indiginous community is one that is mirrored by Western society as well. How wonderful that communities and societies are shedding the confines that colonization has held. How beautiful that various tribal nations are able to reclaim and then share our traditional knowledge in these contexts,” Rose said. 

Rose’s embodiment of pride comes at a variety of intersections; it combines the pride of being indiginous, the pride of reclaiming their non-binary, queer identity and the pride of rediscovering the language of identity under the reclamation of their indiginous tradition and culture.

Rose reminded the audience, “you can identify however you feel inside .. and it will change over your lifetime.”

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Contact the author howlnews@wou.edu