President Wim Wiewel spoke at length about PSU’s current approach to the tuition issue during a press conference on November 21, 2011. The University plans to advocate strongly in the state legislature “to prevent further cuts in the state allocation and eventually increase the state allocation again… Another focus is on philanthropy and increasing charitable donations to the university…The third important piece is a greater recruitment of out-of state students.” The drastically increasing recruitment of out-of-state students has been a somewhat contentious issue as of late.

Get Rid of the 1%
by Grant Booth

I was getting over a cold, and it was very, very chilly outside. I’d just woken up from a nap in a patch of sun on December 12th, at Terminal 6 of the Port of Portland. The ILWU had honored our community picket line, and we had successfully shut down the Port of Portland. I was speaking groggily with a retiree from the Teamsters’ Union; I can’t remember his name for certain but I think it was BIll. We were discussing the current state of the Occupy Wall Street movement. We were both extremely excited that it had turned toward labor solidarity as part of the struggle for social and economic justice.

Wael Elasady

In Portland, Ore., 500 Occupy supporters participated throughout the day in the protest against "Wall Street on the Waterfront," which was organized around an early morning mobilization and a rally later in the day. The demonstrators shut down operations at the largest terminals at the port.

Portland State alum Josh Gross (former Editor-in-Chief of The Rearguard) has proven that there is life after college by self-publishing process his debut collection of short fiction, Secrets and Lies. I had the opportunity to interview Gross about his book, the publishing process and the future of the book publishing industry.

RG: The concept and title of the book are both focused on secrets and lies. How much of the work is a confessional and how much is purely imaginative?

Gross: Though it’s certainly true that some of the pieces in the book might be better labeled as memoir, they are all stories, and even the truest of stories is still shaped in large part by the author so as to often be further from the truth than a story plucked purely from the imagination.

You may have seen her face plastered across the street from Powell’s Books last year during the ad campaign for the Timbers. Clad in red flannel and wearing a stoic expression, she was holding an axe. You may have caught a glimpse of her in Gus Van Sant’s 2007 drama Paranoid Park or James Westby’s recently released black comedy Rid of Me­.

Emily Galash, 22, has acted in four feature-length films, a television pilot and two commercials in addition to doing a half dozen modeling gigs. Although her fearless pursuit of her dreams and interests does not necessarily guarantee her success, it illustrates the possibilities that are out there for other young, talented people who might otherwise go their whole lives without ever trying.

Kirk Patrick Kirkpatrick, aka DJ Wicked, has been tearing up the turntables and driving the ladies of the Northwest wild for over twenty years. Born and raised in Portland, Wicked has established himself as “a staple in the Northwest Hip Hop scene,” having shared the stage with too many big names in the music industry to even mention here. Despite this, he’s never met with much commercial recognition. Until now.

Wicked is of the old guard, a self-proclaimed “vinyl purist to the core,” and has always strived to remain true to Hip Hop’s roots, preferring sacred old school classics and raw underground musical gems.

How Portland youths are turning their lives around through art.