Christophe Chung-Sine and Kristi Barckley of OSU’s Cool Shoes ballroom dance troupe entertain students and parents at a barbecue welcoming new students to campus.

A Record Fall: OSU sets enrollment, GPA marks
More than 18,000 students have enrolled at OSU’s Corvallis and Cascades (Bend) campuses this fall, giving OSU the highest enrollment in school history. And the incoming class may have the highest grade-point average the entire Oregon University System ever has seen.

OSU has enrolled 3,185 new freshmen, the largest class in 30 years. Even more impressive, the university’s huge freshmen class has a whopping 3.53 average high school GPA.

The highest recorded grade-point average for first-time freshman at OSU was 3.46, set last year. And since Oregon State has had the highest average GPA for entering freshmen among all universities in the state system from 1990 to 2001, the 3.53 average is thought to be the highest ever.

"It is tremendously gratifying to see a greater number of Oregon’s brightest students staying in state and enrolling at Oregon State University," said OSU President Paul Risser. "These students are incredibly talented, motivated, and offer a wide range of perspectives and experiences. They want to make a difference in the world."

Oregon State’s enrollment for its Corvallis campus is 17,920, a 7 percent increase over last year’s fall enrollment of 16,777, according to Bob Bontrager, the assistant provost for enrollment management. An estimated 476 additional students are enrolled in OSU-Cascades Campus in Bend that opened in September. Of those, more than 200 are OSU students; others are enrolled in other academic institutions that partner with Oregon State in the new enterprise.

OSU’s on-campus enrollment easily surpasses its previous enrollment record of 17,689 students set in 1980.

Joe Hendricks, dean of the University Honors College, said 135 new freshmen are enrolled in the program this fall. Applicants to the honors college boast an average GPA of 3.97, and average SAT score of 1,376.

A student enrollment of more than 17,900 represents a remarkable turnaround for OSU in just five years. In 1996, the university’s enrollment had plummeted to 13,700 — the lowest it had been in 30 years.

Robert Lawrence, associate professor of geosciences

What Robert Lawrence learned about the Taliban after living in Pakistan last year helped him understand how Hitler controlled Germany.

"The Taliban can reasonably be described as religious fascists who control people by terror," said Lawrence, an associate professor of geosciences who returned from Pakistan Sept. 9. He had served as executive director of the U.S. Educational Foundation in Pakistan for almost a year, overseeing the Fulbright program there.

Lawrence first went to Pakistan in 1978 to study a seismic fault. He and his wife returned three more times as part of the Fulbright program. He said the majority of Pakistani and Afghan people are friendly, hospitable, and religiously moderate and that the Taliban represents a small and violent minority.

"Marvelous country, marvelous people, good rocks and horrible climate," is how Lawrence characterizes Pakistan. "It’s a measure of the many really good friends we’ve made that we’re anxious to go back."

He said that ethnicity and religion play integral roles in the crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The many different ethnic groups in the area have different histories and ways of living. The Taliban, for example, are based in the Pashtun population in southern Afghanistan, and much of what they are trying to enforce is rural custom.

Lawrence said that the Taliban recruits in religious schools in Pakistan. With very little state support for education in Pakistan, the only free education available to poor boys is the madrassa or religious schools, which teach an extreme version of Islam and are controlled by the religious right. So far the Pakistan government is not willing or able to bring the situation under control.

Lawrence regrets that Americans who had been scheduled to travel to Pakistan this fall as Fulbright scholars were not allowed by program organizers to come. "Life is dangerous," he said. "The vast majority of professors who had planned to come argued they wanted to tough it out."

As for himself, Lawrence said, "It’s a beautiful country in which to study geology. I’ve been doing it for more than 20 years. I’m not about to stop now."

Hruby receives Distinguished Professor Award
	OSU Alumni Association President Nancy McCoy presents Dennis Hruby with the OSU Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award.

Dennis Hruby, ’73, professor of microbiology, has been awarded the OSU Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award for 2001.

During his 17 years as a faculty member at OSU, Hruby has established a strong biomedical research program in the area of microbial pathogenesis, for which he has received many honors including the 1998 OHS Foundation Discovery Award and the 2000 F.A. Gilfillan Award for scientific career achievement.

Despite being located on a comprehensive land-grant university campus without a medical school, Hruby has established a very successful biomedical research enterprise. During his career at OSU, he has received more than $10 million from external sources to fund his research. Furthermore, he has founded a publicly traded biotechnology company, SIGA Research Laboratories, to develop and commercialize innovative new technologies to prevent and treat infectious diseases.

The company has a research laboratory in Corvallis, allowing opportunities for collaboration with OSU on finding promising alternatives for disease prevention and treatment. The collaboration is helping foster the development of new vaccines and antibiotics to counteract dangerous new diseases that are emerging and bacteria that are becoming increasingly resistant to conventional antibiotics. SIGA also has received a grant for development of vaccines and antitoxins to counteract the effects of biological warfare agents.

Hruby is known nationally for his work in exploring new strep throat vaccines, which are now in human trials. He has focused on a new breed of vaccines that use sprays and lozenges, not needles, to stop infections before they occur.

In addition to his own research, Hruby has actively worked to improve the institutional environment for medical research. He was the first faculty member hired for the Center for Gene Research and Biotechnology, and he has been a leader and driving force in its growth. He spearheaded the development of the OSU molecular and cellular biology graduate program from its inception to its accreditation and served as the program’s first director. Establishment of this graduate program has had a major impact on medical research and training on the OSU campus over the last decade.

Hruby came to Oregon State as an undergraduate to be a marine biologist. He quickly discovered that marine biology was a graduate program, so he chose another major — microbiology.

After graduating from OSU in 1973, he entered the University of Colorado doctoral program in microbiology. Of the 10 doctoral students who entered the program at that time, Hruby was the only one to graduate, an achievement he attributes to the classroom instruction and research opportunities he received as an undergraduate at OSU. He returned to OSU in 1983 as a faculty member when the university expanded its expertise in gene research and biotechnology.

New dean to oversee revitalization of College of Science
	Sherm Bloomer

OSU has announced a plan to revitalize its College of Science, punctuating its plan by appointing Sherman H. "Sherm" Bloomer as dean following a national search.

Bloomer has served for two years as interim dean of the college. He arrived at OSU in 1995 as a professor and chair of the department of geosciences within the College of Science.
OSU plans to propel the College of Science into one of the university’s premier teaching and research units — one that is recognized for its excellence, according to Tim White, OSU provost and executive vice president.

"The College of Science has several truly outstanding teaching and research faculty and programs," White said, "but budget constraints and, to a certain extent, an antiquated structure have kept the college from reaching its full potential. We will work with the faculty and leadership of the college to address those issues and make the College of Science one of the best programs of its kind."

White said that, concurrent with the appointment of Bloomer, OSU will fully retire a debt the college incurred prior to Bloomer’s appointment as interim dean in 1999. The college was to have paid off that debt over the next decade. Instead, White said, those funds, which amount to $1.5 million, and others will be used by the college to provide more support for students, faculty and staff in the basic biological, mathematical and physical sciences.

OSU also is committed to working with the College of Science to hire four to five key senior faculty to launch strong research programs in areas of strategic scientific priority. Those areas include biomolecular research, earth and environmental sciences, ecology and organismal biology, and materials science.

"The specific focus of these initiatives will be crafted through discussions with members of the college and as part of a wider university discussion on research directions," Bloomer said. "They build upon existing areas of excellence and, by increasing the critical mass of faculty in these areas, OSU will have an opportunity for distinction in these important areas."

As dean of the College of Science, Bloomer oversees one of the major academic units at OSU. The college has 12 departments that offer bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, and includes special pre-professional programs in health and medicine.
Bloomer came to OSU from Boston University, where he was a faculty member and administrator in the department of earth sciences from 1987 to 1995. He also spent four years at Duke University.

An internationally recognized expert on convergent margins and oceanic crust, Bloomer has led several oceanographic expeditions in the western Pacific Ocean. He has worked under the auspices of the Ocean Drilling Program and serves as a member of one of the scientific advisory boards for that international research program.

Bloomer is a graduate of Rice University. He received his doctorate from the University of California, San Diego, through the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

One of his goals as dean of the College of Science, he says, is to promote research and encourage it to permeate into every layer of the college, from freshmen classrooms to the laboratories of senior scientists.

Natural Resources Institute formed
OSU has formed a new Institute for Natural Resources that will give the state a new opportunity to effectively analyze, research, and resolve some of Oregon’s most difficult and controversial environmental issues.

The institute is one outcome of the Oregon Sustainability Act of 2001 recently signed into law.

For the first time ever, anyone wrestling with a natural resource issue — from a federal agency to a concerned citizen — will have an ally that can coordinate research, organize data, and propose policy options. Solutions will be based on the latest science and take the multiple needs of the environment, economy and local communities into consideration.

Clients of the institute will be able — at a single site — to ask questions, request information, propose studies, learn about natural resources and environmental conditions across the state, and gain help in developing opinions or policy proposals. Those same citizens will be deeply involved in the work and participate in development of the solutions.

"The institute will bridge a big gap in Oregon’s ability to make sound natural resource policy decisions," said Rep. Susan Morgan. "The legislative vision for the institute is to be a trustworthy and technologically capable repository for all of our natural resource related data."

Under the umbrella of the new legislation, the new institute will become a focal place for answering the tough questions and providing data, research, policy options and public communication on issues ranging from salmon recovery to forest management, agriculture, endangered species, the use of biotechnology and rangeland, coastal, and marine resources.

"We believe this institute will become the turning point in Oregon’s pursuit of a sustainable environment and natural resource base," said Hal Salwasser, dean of the College of Forestry at OSU and one of the leaders in organizing the new initiative. "The time has come to address all of the needs facing the state, look at the big picture and find solutions that help both our environment and our people."

The new institute will be based and housed at OSU, and a national search is already under way for a permanent director. It will collaborate as necessary with other institutions and agencies around Oregon. At first it will operate on a very basic staffing level and later expand to include permanent scientists with expertise in appropriate areas.

Terry Dibble, senior research engineer, surfs in OSU’s wave lab for a National Geographic video crew filming the documentary, "The Science of Waves," which will be shown world wide.	Social Science Hall was renamed Gilkey Hall in honor of noted artist and educator Gordon Gilkey. Gilkey, former dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at OSU, died last year.
The Queer Resource Center, housed in the Women’s Center, recently opened on campus and will serve as a clearinghouse for information on gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual issues, as well as a gathering place. The center is funded with $7,000 from student fees.	The OSU Agricultural Experiment Station’s branch station network observed a centennial in September with an open house at the Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center’s Union Station. The Union station, established in 1901, was the first facility in what has grown into a web of 11 branch experiment stations that conduct research linked to localized economic, geographic and climatic conditions around the state.