UO Portland or OSU Portland, No thank you!

[forestgreen]

NY Times on Portland: All the kombucha you can drink, but no jobs.

http://www.blueoregon.com/2014/09/ny-times-portland-all-kombucha-you-can-drink-no-jobs/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

After years of glowing coverage about Portland, the New York Times Magazine turns the screw and starts musing out loud that Portlandia's "where young people go to retire" riff might have some basis in reality.

But after the provocative lead, the NYT's take is actually quite good:

Portland is not a corporate town, as its neighbors Seattle and San Francisco have become. While there are employment opportunities in the outdoor-apparel business (Nike, Adidas and Columbia Sportswear are all nearby) or the semiconductor industry (Intel has a large presence in Hillsboro), most workers have far fewer opportunities. According to Renn, personal income per capita in the city grew by a mere 31 percent between 2000 and 2012, slower than 42 other cities, including Grand Rapids, Mich., and Rochester. And yet people still keep showing up. “People move to New York to be in media or finance; they move to L.A. to be in show business,” Renn said. “People move to Portland to move to Portland.” Matthew Hale may have all the kombucha he can drink, but he doesn’t have a job.

But the most compelling bit is a small note from David Albouy, economics professor at University of Illinois:

Albouy told me that he has always wondered why Portland doesn’t invest more in its institutions of higher education. If you took Portland’s quality of life and citizens, he said, and added Pittsburgh’s universities, you would come out with a world-class city.

Yup. That's exactly right.
It has always been striking to me that Portland is the only major city on the West Coast without an R1 research university. Seattle has UW. SF, Oakland, and San Jose have Berkeley and Stanford. Los Angeles has USC, UCLA, and Cal Tech. San Diego has UCSD.

Sure, Eugene has UO and Corvallis has OSU -- and Portland has OHSU -- but that's not the same thing as a top-tier undergraduate and graduate university right in town.
After all, top-tier four-year universities attract (and retain) talented young people to the region, which in turn attract major employers and breed startups.

Oregon has to get serious about investing in Portland State.

I've been flabbergasted why we're not doing that. Is it alumni loyalty to UO and OSU that punks PSU at the State Legislature? Is it just a lack of imagination or ambition? Whatever it is, it's hurting Portland.

You know, if it requires changing Portland State to UO Portland or OSU Portland, in order to get this ball moving, I'd be OK with that.

 

[BobWoodshed]

This is usually an unpopular opinion and it's coming from somebody who attended both OSU and PSU, but it would be enormously beneficial to the state as a whole if PSU and OHSU merged under UO's umbrella as UO Portland. People outside of Oregon who don't work in biomedical research would suddenly know OHSU exists (UO Health & Science Campus), PSU would quickly lose its second tier status, and UO's total research profile would be somewhere around $800 million overnight. I understand the barriers and why you can't just waive a wand to make it happen, but the author makes a great point.

 

[BroadwayVik]

I am an alum of all three (UO, OSU, PSU). We had problems at each one. UO had what I called an "anti-success league" and OSU had too much "hick influence." Both were as assinine situations as that in which Portland State currently resides.

UO's image had to change from a 1960's burned-out hippie refuge camp to become something more success-oriented, something reflective of, say, Big-10 Iowa or Indiana. Success in football displaced the burn-outs, finally, and the culture then considered the athletics turnaround to also be the end of the mourning period over the tragic and senseless death of Steve Prefontaine.

OSU's image changed when ag students began considering themselves as either ag-scientist or agronomists. Also, OSU was FINALLY successful in getting rid of the perpetual loser, cellar-dweller image in football. Even after that, both Albany and Corvallis still had too many townies that keep the hick influence too much alive, however. Over time, raising prices on real estate and building townhouses around key city parks has helped to alleviate their hackneyed input, thankfully. "Kick a hick ... outta town!"

PSU's image will never be anything but punked unless it merges with OHSU. That way, it will be protected from UO or OSU takeover influence. Then, it will formulate naturally into a serious university on par with, say, the University of Pittsburgh. There would be no stopping it.

The name will have to change as the hybrid university would be more than a health & science institution and OHSU would certainly not consent to being called PSU, and for very good reason. Some native Oregonians seem to have a hard time understanding the reality of this. Too sentimental about things that don't matter.

The name would have to be Oregon [something] or Northwest [something] or even Cascadia [something]. The name would morph (again), but the university will be hugely better off. And so will Portland.

Or is that not a priority on Oregon's sentimentally provincial agenda? It had better become one, and soon.

 

[BobWoodshed]

If you're hoping for an OHSU merger, you're not going to like that one of the elephants in the room will be athletics. I can guarantee OHSU will not want to have any involvement with subsidizing college athletics in any way. I work with their Provost from time to time and she has mentioned multiple times how thrilled she is to work at a university where you don't deal with athletics.

 

[BroadwayVik]

I understand her feeling. Where there are NCAA sports, there tend to be instances of personal corruption (e.g. Penn State) and even anti-intellectual behavior on campus.

She may not care for them, but the reality is a successful university generally sponsors successful athletic programs, especially those at the level at which a hybrid OHSU-PSU merger would create. She may be able to persuade the elmination of football but I think not Olympic sports.

Athletics strongly tend to represent elements like school pride and alumni connection. It is also a great way for students to let off steam after a round of midterms.

 

[ManOfVision]

I've always supported a merger with OHSU. It's crazy that it hasn't already happened, actually. The most palatable name I've heard is Oregon Tech, assuming you also lump in OIT. That stated, none of this will happen anytime soon.

 

[BobWoodshed]

If you're in for some light reading, here's the full report drafted in 2011 regarding the two institutions merging:

http://www.pdx.edu/sites/www.pdx.edu.president/files/OHSU-PSU ReportFinal.pdf.pdf

One major road block of not having an independent governing board has been eliminated, but the others mostly stand.

 

[BroadwayVik]

Is that the report on how it would be optimal for PSU and OHSU to form a working alliance and perhaps not merge? Is that the report that showed what happened in other cases across the nation?

The honest truth is that if PSU and OHSU were actually planning a merger, it would have to be kept under wraps until it had already taken place. Then they can simply announce to the media, "Oh, by the way, we've merged." Past tense. There would be pesky interference from the Valley institutions otherwise. So, shhhh. Keep it under your hat.

That stated, none of this will happen anytime soon.

Is this just an assertion of opinion or do you know something? If an opinion, on what basis do draw such an inference? Forgive me if I do not share the same opinion. I'm pulling for The Vision with our beloved OHSU Professor and State Representative Mitch Greenlick and our gracious Mayor Vera Katz. L'chaim!


Higher education is so important. Let us emulate Pittsburgh, and not Cincinnati, in this regard.

 

[BobWoodshed]

Yeah, the document I linked to ultimately suggested the two institutions partner on specific initiatives instead of merge. I hate to be the type of person who claims inside knowledge without disclosing who I am, but I am indeed very close to where those types of decisions would happen at OHSU. The new School of Public Health is more or less a compromise to not being forced to merge. That option was very much on the table at one point, but is not anymore. That's not to say it won't come up again in the future, but I would guess nothing will seriously pop up in that regard for another decade.

Personally, I'm not really sure what my opinion is. The healthcare mission of OHSU is such a unique entity that it would have to be kept separate like UW's health system. The academic missions could definitely merge and the research missions most likely could if planned out well. It's not impossible by any means, but the scope and missions are just so different. It'd either be the best or worst idea ever.

 

[freja]

UW's Health System...what do you mean by keeping them separate ? the med school, nursing school, pharmacy school??? Regardles of the "school of study" those students are still considered UW students. If one keeps OHSU as a separate entity merged only on paper it will never work for either school. I think it is a great idea and the OHSU provost should appreciate what positives athletics programs bring and focus on that rather than the negatives. PSU has so very much to offer being in Portland it's a shame it can't build on that. But then, maybe that is exactly what gives PSU it's Portland feel...!!

 

[BobWoodshed]

Sorry about that. I meant in that the UW Medicine (hospitals, clinics, etc) are a separate financial entity administered completely independent of the core university. The academic programs are all UW as you pointed out, but UW Medicine gets to operate in the best interests of its unique mission. I would imagine something like that would occur if OHSU merged with PSU since healthcare delivery is different in scope than public education. Either way, it's all speculative.

 

[BroadwayVik]

Alums and students need to feel good about their university. The psychology literature makes the following clear points reiteratively:
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"Emotions follow perceptions because it is not an event that produces an emotional response, it is how the individual perceives the event."

So the campaign saying, "It is not just a game, it is an event," will come up short every time until the underlying perceptions have first been made favorable.
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"The point is that it is not external events that produce feelings, it is the person's perception and the internal meaning given to the events that matter most. For most emotinoally-based problems, the perceptions of the person will need to be addressed."

If PSU alums, student and those whose would like to support the university attend a game, unless their perceptions have not been first upgraded, the investment and effort will ultimately not result in the desired punctuated effect.
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"The best way to make lasting change is to start with the perceptions, then move to emotional responses and the combination of these two result in externalized behaviors."

Emotional responses are valuable but are overridden by overriding perceptions. Until these have first been successfully addressed, the result will be mere window dressing to what will turn out to be a failed campaign: Getting people to the game.
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First things first.

Click on chart to see it fully.

This responsibility is in the hands of the university's leadership. We need to begin a public relations media campaign that will create this change in perception.