Reforming general education is challenging for institutions due to inertia, institutional politics, budgets, and structural barriers. Oregon State University recently adopted a new structure for its general education curriculum that increases access to high-impact practices, decreases overall credit hours in general education, and links directly…

Context: The clinical practice of athletic training involves the daily application of public health (PH) principles and practices. In recent years, there has been an increased interest in understanding and promoting the intersections of athletic training and PH. Objective: The primary objective of this article is to share the path taken by the…

Augmented-reality (AR) technology, and its impacts on teaching and learning, have already made their way into elementary, secondary, and higher-education classrooms. The authors discuss why AR matters in the higher-education context, and they describe current examples of AR use that can enhance teaching and learning across multiple fields in…

This article presents Oregon State University's experience launching an innovative Open Textbook initiative in spring 2014. The partners, Open Oregon State and the Oregon State University Libraries and Press, aimed to reduce the cost of course materials for students while ensuring the content created was peer-reviewed and employed multimedia…

Studies have shown that student engagement in undergraduate research experiences leads to considerable gains in a wide range of skills important for success in postsecondary education and career development. However, recent research suggests that high-impact practices like undergraduate research are disproportionately available to students from…

With an increasing number of higher education institutions now offering "digital badges," some suggest that this credential has become a practical commodity in the world of college credentials. Colleges and universities are in a unique position to be the gatekeepers of many of those credentials. Among the many institutions of higher…

The decline in hummingbird populations and shifts in their movements may adversely affect their role as pollinators and, in turn, plant biodiversity (Allen-Wardell et al. 1998). For example, Hadley et al. (2014) discovered that larger fragments of forest correlated with larger hummingbird populations and more seeds of "H. tortuosa" being…

Portland State University has become internationally known for its whole-university approach to community-university engagement. Many academic leaders from around the world are now drawing on models for engagement that originated at Portland State. As the university takes stock of its successes, of changing economic conditions, and of the…

Urgency and ambitiousness have characterized the conversation about the serious and significant environmental challenges occurring internationally. Steffen (2006) demonstrated a remarkable breadth of public and private sector constituent groups contributing to the conversation along with possible responses. Architects, landscape architects,…

When Midori Funatake came here to the University of Oregon in 1940, she never suspected that she would not get her degree until Sunday, April 6, 2008. Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, during her second year. Fellow students and campus officials expressed sympathy to her, she says, but "the newspapers said anybody of…

Over the past decade, Portland State University (PSU) has received consistent national accolades for its innovative, engaged approaches to student learning. More recently, PSU has expanded its emphasis on engaged research and has more intentionally highlighted its institutional partnerships and impact on the region. A current (2006-07)…

This article describes a new dormitory complex at the University of Oregon. The Living-Learning Center, as it is known, is a pair of four-story brick buildings that bookend a large landscaped courtyard. The new buildings contain several elements designed to bring students and faculty members together--and it is these features that are the result…

When Mary Cullinan became president of Southern Oregon University in September, the 5,000-student public university in the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains was in dire financial shape. A $4-million shortfall had forced university officials to dip deep into its financial reserves, draining them to perilously low levels. The path back to…

Oregon State University (OSU) is located in Corvallis, a community of 53,000 people situated in the heart of the Willamette Valley between Portland and Eugene. Approximately 15,700 undergraduate and 3,400 graduate students, including 2,600 U.S. students of color and 950 international students, are currently enrolled at OSU across 11 academic…

The Orbis Cascade Alliance is a consortium of 35 college libraries in Washington State and Oregon which allows the libraries to pool their resources in pursuit of what librarians call collaborative collection development. In its scope and diversity, Orbis Cascade is unusual among groups of colleges that collaboratively buy and share books, with…