Campus News

President resigns to accept position in Oklahoma

OSU President Paul Risser, who in his nearly seven years at the helm led the university to record enrollments and impressive growth, has resigned and will begin work Jan. 6 as chancellor of the Oklahoma State System of Higher Education.

As chancellor of the Oklahoma system, Risser will be the chief executive officer for the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. He will head a system composed of 25 state colleges and universities, 10 constituent agencies, and two higher education centers.

"I’ve dearly loved Oregon State University," Risser said, "but I grew up in Oklahoma, I went to high school there, I taught at the University of Oklahoma for 14 years, and my mother and one son live there. So, in essence, I’m going home.

"I’ve been president of two universities now, and this gives me a chance — in what may be a last step — to run a system," the 63-year-old Risser added. "It is a good fit."

Risser had been president of Miami University in Ohio when he was selected to become Oregon State University’s 13th president. Before he arrived at OSU on Jan. 1, 1996, enrollment had plummeted to a 30-year low of just 13,700 students. Under Risser’s leadership, the university boosted recruiting efforts, expanded scholarship offerings, broadened its marketing, and implemented new orientation and retention programs.

Larry Roper, OSU’s vice provost for student affairs, said Risser was instrumental in getting the campus to focus on the needs of students.

"Paul’s vision was to put the interests of the students first," Roper said, "and that attitude became infectious. There was a campus-wide effort to make the student experience at Oregon State something special, and that energy and desire to help our students find success are still vibrant today."

Since 1996, Oregon State has experienced a dramatic growth in enrollment, topped by the record 18,789 students this fall term.

OSU has experienced significant growth in other areas as well. In 2001, the Oregon University System selected Oregon State to develop the first branch campus in Oregon history, and the OSU-Cascades Campus opened in Bend that fall. Despite budget restrictions, enrollment has grown significantly in the last year.

Risser also helped Oregon State launch an effort to propel its College of Engineering into one of the top programs in the nation. In 2000, the university began an ambitious 10-year, $180 million fund-raising campaign, with two-thirds of the funds to be raised privately. That campaign led to a $20 million gift from alumnus Martin E. Kelley to support the initiative — the second largest gift in the university’s history.

Popular among alumni, Risser has been an advocate for a strong athletic program, though he admits he isn’t "really a sports fan." In 1998, he hired a young, unproven athletic director named Mitch Barnhart to help the department field more competitive teams, improve facilities and reduce its debt. He encouraged Barnhart to sign Dennis Erickson as head football coach, and three years later the Beavers went to the Fiesta Bowl. Season tickets have sold out for the past two years.

Bob De Carolis since has replaced Barnhart as athletic director and now is spearheading a drive to expand Reser Stadium, the smallest facility in the Pacific-10 Conference. Two years ago, the athletic department built the privately funded $12 million Merritt Truax Indoor Practice Facility. Risser’s support has been a critical key to athletic success, boosters say.

Other new buildings dot the OSU campus or are in the construction phase. In 1997, the university opened the CH2M HILL Alumni Center. Two years later, OSU completed a $40 million expansion of The Valley Library — later named Library of the Year by the Library Journal — and dedicated the College of Forestry’s Richardson Hall, a $27 million teaching and research facility.

This fall, the university opened its first residence hall in nearly 30 years. Halsell Hall is named after one of the university’s first African American graduates. Construction is at the midway point of a $19 million expansion of Dixon Recreation Center and just beginning on a new Hilton Garden Inn hotel project on Western Boulevard. And in September, the university held a pre-groundbreaking ceremony for the $48 million Kelley Engineering Center.

Earlier this year, Risser launched an internal self-examination called OSU 2007, designed to focus the institution’s efforts on areas of excellence.

An internationally known scientist, Risser has continued to pursue his interest in ecological issues. Last year, he chaired a team of Oregon scientists that produced the State of Oregon Environment Report. Earlier, Risser led the Willamette River Restoration Initiative for Gov. John Kitzhaber.

Orcilia Zuniga-Forbes, OSU’s vice president for university advancement, has known Risser since they both served on the faculty and in the administration at the University of New Mexico. She said he will be missed.

"I think the most important thing that Paul has done is to instill a sense of pride about OSU that is felt by the students, staff, faculty and alumni, and even by people with no apparent affiliation with OSU," she said. OSU

New residence hall dedicated
OSU’s first new residence hall in nearly 30 years is now open.

Ward descendants. (from left) Justin Titus, Merideth Titus, Camille Titus, Barbara Sparks Jackson, Janice Scott and Grady Scott

Named for OSU alumna Carrie Beatrice Halsell Ward, ’26, the first African-American student to graduate from Oregon State in the university’s 143-year history, Halsell Hall was dedicated Oct. 16. Activities included remarks by OSU President Paul Risser and members of the Halsell family, a ribbon cutting ceremony, and poetry written for the occasion by OSU faculty member Michael Ingram. Representatives of the NAACP presented OSU with a special commendation during the ceremony.

A four-story, L-shaped facility that accommodates about 210 students in suites and apartment-like rooms, Halsell Hall was constructed at a cost of $9.5 million and completed just in time for the dedication. The contractor for the project was J.E. Dunn Construction of Portland.

According to OSU officials, the new residence hall was badly needed, as a rapidly growing student body has stretched on-campus housing to the breaking point. In the last six years, enrollment has gone from about 13,700 to more than 18,000. Student housing demands also are changing, according to Tom Scheuermann, director of OSU’s University Housing and Dining Services.
Halsell Hall was designed around a "theme" that helps attract students with compatible interests.

Halsell Hall’s "Community Service Learning" theme is built on a concept that promotes responsible citizenry and integrates experiential, hands-on learning with a student’s academic and social experience. "The objective is to help students make the connection between belief in helping others and acting to influence social change in the hall, around campus, off-campus and globally," Scheuermann said.

The process for naming the new student residence hall began more than a year ago, and students supported naming the new facility after a notable student — someone considered a "trailblazer" who not only had to overcome great odds to get an OSU education but then used that education to help others.

Carrie Halsell earned a B.S. degree in commerce in 1926 from what was then Oregon Agricultural College. She had earlier graduated from Salem High School in 1921. Following her graduation from OAC, Halsell moved to Portland, where she was employed as a maid for Meier and Frank.

"The job opportunities for African-Americans in Oregon in the mid-1920s were rather limited," Scheuermann said.

So in 1927, Halsell moved to Virginia, where she took a position as assistant to the registrar at Virginia Normal Industrial Institute (Virginia State University). Within several years, she became a business instructor, a career path she followed for the rest of her life.

She retired from South Carolina State University in 1968 and died in 1989. (For more on the life of Carrie Halsell Ward, see the September 2002 issue of the Oregon Stater, p. 12.)
Among the guests who attended the dedication were Ward’s niece, Barbara Sparks Jackson, as well as other family members, all of whom live in Oklahoma, Georgia and Texas.

Grandniece Janice Scott served as a guest speaker for the gathering, while Justin Titus (great-grandnephew) and Camille Titus (great-grandniece) joined Halsell Hall student residents Dalenisha Crabtree and Erik Helzer in cutting the ribbon to officially open the new facility.

Other speakers included Matt Rygg, ’02, resident director of the new hall; Terri Tower, assistant director of University Housing and Dining Services; OSU vice provost Larry Roper; Calvin Henry, founding and charter president of the Corvallis branch of the NAACP; Mary Fuller, vice president for NAACP Oregon, Alaska, and Washington State Conference; and OSU faculty member and poet Michael Ingram of the School of Education. In addition, regional representatives from the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, of which Ward was a charter member at Virginia Normal and Industrial Institute in 1929, were in attendance.

Guided tours were conducted following the dedication. Before and after the ceremony, guests enjoyed a variety of refreshments said by family members to be among Carrie Halsell Ward’s favorites. Arnold Dining Hall participated in the special occasion by serving catfish, rice and liver pudding. The ceremony took place at noon in the courtyard area in back of Halsell Hall, located near Bloss and Finley Halls and east of Gill Coliseum.

Compiled from stories appearing in the Barometer and OSU This Week, with assistance from Laurie Bridges, ’99, and Terri Tower, ’69, ’80, of University Housing and Dining.

Research, tech transfer efforts set new records
Total research funding as well as income from "technology transfer" programs at Oregon State University both set new records in the latest fiscal year, reflecting a continued growth in university research activities and the new products, companies, jobs and business they help to generate.

From left: Engineering Dean Ron Adams, Tektronix CEO and president Rick Willis and Gordon Reistad, head of the department of mechanical engineering.

In fiscal year 2001-02, OSU had more than $159 million in funded research programs, up almost 10 percent from the prior year and about $13 million higher than the previous record, set in 1999.

In the same period, the university’s Technology Transfer Program, which works to identify, patent and license to private industry the products of university research, also had a record level of income from licensing efforts, at $1.25 million.

In the last five years, officials say, more licensing agreements have been signed than in the previous 15 years, and 21 start-up companies have evolved from OSU research since it began its tech transfer programs in 1980.

Among the inventions of OSU faculty in recent years were new methods to treat sleep disorders, new types of solar cells and new technology for the radio frequency heating of foods.

Tim White named interim president

The Oregon State Board of Higher Education has named Tim White interim president of Oregon State University. White has been provost and executive vice president at OSU for nearly three years.

Richard Jarvis, chancellor of the Oregon University System, said White had tremendous support from the OSU campus community.

"Oregon State University is a strong, vibrant university with a lot of momentum," Jarvis said, "and the overwhelming sentiment we encountered was to select an interim president who would continue pushing the institution forward."

White will begin making the transition to interim president during the next month, Jarvis said. Risser is scheduled to begin his job as Oklahoma’s chancellor on Jan. 6.

"The next year will be a very challenging one for Oregon State University, and I feel a personal commitment to continue the work that we’ve begun," White said.

White came to OSU as dean of the College of Health and Human Performance (now Health and Human Sciences) in January of 1996, after serving for five years as professor and chair of the department of human biodynamics at the University of California-Berkeley. He previously was on the faculty of the University of Michigan.

He was named OSU’s interim provost and executive vice president by Risser in January of 2000 and six months later was appointed to the position on a full-time basis.

As provost, he was instrumental in helping the university launch the OSU 2007 process, and he played a key role in helping Oregon State begin the state’s first branch campus with last year’s opening of the OSU-Cascades Campus in Bend.

White’s tenure as interim president is expected to last at least through the summer of 2003. The Oregon State Board of Higher Education is beginning a national search for a new president.

Sabah Randhawa, ’81, former vice provost for academic affairs, has been named interim provost and executive vice president, and Leslie Davis Burns will take over as vice provost for academic affairs.

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