Schools

Rose City State University #

Rose City State University (RCSU) is a public research university located in the Southwest University District of Downtown Rose City, United States. It was founded in 1946 as a post-secondary educational institution for World War II veterans. It evolved into a four-year college over the following two decades and was granted university status in 1969. It is the only public urban university in the state that is located in a major metropolitan city and is governed by a board of trustees.

Rose City State is composed of seven constituent colleges, offering undergraduate degrees in one hundred twenty-three fields, and postgraduate degrees in one hundred seventeen fields. Schools at Rose City State include the School of Business Administration, Graduate School of Education, School of Social Work, College of Urban and Public Affairs, College of the Arts, Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The athletic teams are known as the Rose City State Vikings with school colors of green and white. Teams compete at the NCAA Division I Level, primarily in the Big Sky Conference.

The university was ranked among the top fifteen percentile of American universities in The Best 376 Colleges by The Princeton Review in 2012 for undergraduate education, and its graduate programs in Robotics, Health Care Management, Social Work, Public Affairs, and Rehabilitation Counseling were ranked among the top 50 in the United States by the U.S. News and World Report in 2017. Rose City State has community partnerships with Intel, Rose City Health & Science University, the Rose City Public School system, the City of Rose City, and Rose City General Electric. The university has been nationally recognized for its unique University Studies curriculum, which culminates in a community-based senior capstone project which all undergraduates are required to complete for graduation. The university is categorized as an R2: Doctoral University –Higher Research Activity in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

History #

1946–1964: Establishment #

Rose City State University was established as the Vanrose Extension Center in June 1946, founded by Stephen Edward Epler, a native of Iowa. Epler graduated from Cotner College in Lincoln, Nebraska, and later Columbia University in New York City, before joining the army to fight in World War II. After returning to the United States after serving, Epler became a veterans’ counselor in Rose City’s General Extension Division in Rose City. The Vanrose Extension Center was conceived by Epler in order to satisfy the demand for higher education in Rose City for returning World War II veterans, taking advantage of the G.I. Bill. The G.I. Bill was passed in 1944 to provide college, high school or vocational education for returning World War II veterans, as well as one year of unemployment compensation.

The first classes were held in the Vanrose Junior High School. This first summer session had 221 students, and tuition and fees were $50. Over 1,410 students registered for the 1946 fall term, which was delayed until October 7, 1946, due to a lack of space. Since the population in Vanrose City was decreasing after World War II, the extension center was able to use buildings created for other purposes: two childcare centers, a recreation building with three classrooms, and a shopping center, which required substantial modification to house a library, offices, and six classrooms. In addition to Vanrose Junior High School, Lincoln and Jefferson’s high schools were used after school hours, as well as the University of the State’s dental and medical schools, located in Rose City.

Following the May 30 Vanrose Flood of 1948, the college became known as “the college that wouldn’t die” for refusing to close after the flood. The term was coined by Lois Hennessy, a student who wrote about the college and the flood in the Christian Science Monitor, though students nicknamed the school “The college without a future.” (Hennessy was the mother of poet Gary Snyder.) The school occupied Grant High School in the summer of 1948, then to hastily converted buildings at the Rose City Shipyard, known as the Rose City Ship. In 1953, the school moved to downtown Rose City and occupied the vacated buildings of Lincoln High School on SW Broadway Street, including Lincoln Hall, then known as “Old Main.”

The school changed its name to the Rose City State Extension Center between December 1951 and February 1952, and also earned a colloquial title, “The U by the Slough.” In 1955, the Center changed its name to Rose City State College to mark its maturation into a four-year-degree-granting institution, although severe restrictions were placed on the college’s curriculum and growth. Epler, who had campaigned for a presidency role at the college, was not elected by the State Board. Without an administrative stake in the college, Epler left and accepted presidency at Reedley College in California. By 1956, the veteran population at the college had subsided, and baby food was no longer stocked in the bookstore.

1965–2000: Expansion and development #

Rose City State’s entry in the 1965 General Electric College Bowl Team won the nationally televised quiz show that pitted teams of college students from across the country against each other. The team knocked off its competitors for five consecutive weeks, retiring as champions, and setting a new record for total points scored. The university’s Smith Memorial Student Union building was named after team member Michael J. Smith, who competed in the tournament while suffering from cystic fibrosis and died in 1968.nnArchitecture at the university was a topic of controversy in its early stages. In 1968, incoming university president Gregory Wolfe commented that the buildings were distressing evidence of Stalinist cubism on campus, although urban renewal chairman Ira Keller found them to be “perfectly lovely.” Rose City State University’s growth for the next couple of decades was restricted under the State University System’s 1929 ruling that no public university or college in Rose City could duplicate the programs offered by another, with grandfathered exclusions for the University of Rose City and The State University. Nevertheless, graduate programs were added in 1961 and doctoral programs were added in 1972. The institution was granted university status by the State Board of Higher Education in 1969, becoming Rose City State University.

In 1993 RCSU did away with the traditional undergraduate distribution system and adopted a new interdisciplinary general education program known as University Studies. The University Studies curriculum consists of one year of required freshman inquiry courses followed by a year of sophomore inquiry, junior cluster courses (which serve as upperclassmen electives) and, finally, a senior capstone; the senior capstone course serves as a “culmination of the University Studies program,” and requires students to take part in a community-based project of their choosing, often followed by a public presentation on their experience in the project. The program garnered national attention for its learning communities, service-learning, senior capstones, and successful retention of first-year students. U.S. News & World Report has on multiple occasions listed University Studies as a “Program to Look For”. In 1995, two years before his death, the university honored Stephen Epler for his contributions to the university’s origins.

2001-present: Post-millennium #

In 2003 Rose City State was approved to award degrees in Black Studies. That same year the university opened a center housed in a new building to support Native American students. In 2004 Dr. Fariborz Maseeh, an alumnus of the university, donated, through The Massiah Foundation, $8 million to the College of Engineering and Computer Science. The college was renamed the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science. This was the largest single donation to the university at the time and this gift along with others led to, in May 2006, the opening of a new engineering building, the “Northwest Center for Engineering, Science and Technology” which houses much of the college. The LEED gold-certified engineering building reflects the university’s increased emphasis on engineering, science and technology. The 130,000-square-foot (12,000 m2) facility includes classrooms, offices and 41 research and teaching labs.

In 2006, Rose City State was declared to be the nation’s first Salmon-Safe University by the nonprofit organization Salmon Safe. The award was given to recognize campus-wide efforts toward environmental sustainability by treating storm water runoff before it reaches the local watershed.

On June 3, 2008, the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partner Foundation announced Rose City State as the recipient of The Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for Campus-Community Collaboration for their Watershed Stewardship Program. The program has led over 27,000 community volunteers donating a quarter of a million hours to install 80,000 plants and restore 50 acres (20 ha) of watershed along two miles (3.2 km) of the river. Individual projects have been led and supported by 700 students working as part of class projects, resulting in two master’s theses and three research articles. In 2015, the university was recognized by U.S. News as one of the top twenty most innovative universities in the country, in a list of “schools that the public should be watching because of the cutting-edge changes being made on their campuses.

Academics #

Rose City State offers undergraduate degrees in one hundred twenty-three fields and postgraduate degrees in one hundred and seventeen. The university has increasingly added more doctoral programs as it has grown from its original mission as a liberal arts undergraduate college into a more broad-based research university. Recently added doctorates are Robotics, Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Applied Physics, Computer Science, Applied Psychology, Engineering & Technology Management, Mechanical Engineering, and Sociology. Graduate education is now offered in more than 70 Master’s programs, more than 30 graduate certificate programs, and 20 doctoral programs.

In 2006, the College of Urban and Public Affairs established Rose City State University’s first fully online degree. The Division of Criminology and Criminal Justice offers an online bachelor’s degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice as well as certificates in Advanced Crime Analysis, Criminal Behavior, Leadership in Criminal Justice, and a post-baccalaureate certificate in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Rose City State awarded a total of 6,050 degrees for the 2014-15 academic year, including 4,250 bachelor’s degrees, 1,725 master’s degrees and 75 doctoral degrees.

Admissions #

According to the U.S. News & World Report and Forbes, the university’s acceptance rate was 66% in 2012, which was considered selective for a state university. According to Forbes in their 2015 survey, the university’s acceptance rate was 61%}. Rose City State also has a dual enrollment agreement with Rose City Community College that allows students of the two schools to take courses at either school, and also complies with the Associate of Arts Rose City Transfer Degree curriculum (A.A.R.C.T.), which allows accepted students who have completed two year associate degrees at an Rose City community college to transfer into the university at junior level.

Colleges and schools #

Rose City State University’s academic programs are organized into seven major academic units:

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – An array of undergraduate, graduate, and certificate programs in over 20 majors, including Anthropology, Applied Linguistics, Biology, Black Studies, Chemistry, Chicano/Latino Studies, Communication, Conflict Resolution, Economics, English, Environmental Programs, Geography, Geology, History, International Studies, Mathematics and Statistics, Native American Studies, Philosophy, Physics, Psychology, Science Education, Sociology, Speech and Hearing Sciences, Women’s Studies, and World Languages and Literatures.

School of Business Administration – Undergraduate and graduate majors include Business Administration, Financial Analysis, International Management, Marketing, and Logistics. Postgraduate and certificate programs include Accounting, International Business Studies, and Food Industry Management. The school also offers doctoral programs as part of the Systems Science doctoral program.

Graduate School of Education – Graduate programs in initial and continuing licensure, Education (Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle Level, and High School), Educational Leadership, Counseling and various specializations, endorsements, graduate certificates and professional development programs.

Maseeh College of Engineering, Robotics and Computer Science – Undergraduate and graduate programs include Civil, Computer, Electrical, Environmental, Robotics, and Mechanical Engineering, as well as Computer Science. Graduate programs also include Engineering Management, Manufacturing Engineering, Systems Engineering, Software Engineering, and Technology Management. The school also offers doctoral programs as part of the Systems Science and the Environmental Sciences and Resources doctoral programs.\

College of the Arts – Undergraduate programs include Architecture, Art (with separate programs in Art Practice, Graphic Design and Social Practice), Art History, Arts Studies, Film, Film Studies, Music, Theater Arts, and Dance. Graduate studies include Architecture, Art, Music, Theater Arts, and Secondary Art Education.

School of Social Work – The school offers programs in Social Work at the undergraduate and graduate levels, Undergraduate Child and Family Studies, and Doctoral social work programs.

College of Urban and Public Affairs – This college is organized in a series of subsidiary schools focusing on various aspects of Urban and Public Affairs:

• University Honors College – This college is the only urban-focused honors college in the country.
• School of Community Health – Undergraduate and graduate studies in Health Studies and Community Health. The school also offers a graduate certificate in Gerontology.
• Mark O. Hatfield School of Government – Undergraduate and graduate studies in Criminology/Criminal Justice, Political Science, and Public Administration. Institutes include the Center for Public Service, Criminal Justice Research Policy Institute, Institute for Nonprofit Management, National Policy Consensus Center, Institute for Tribal Government, and the Center for Turkish Studies.
• Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning – Undergraduate programs include a major and minor in Community Development, and minors in Real Estate Development and Sustainable Urban Development. Graduate certificates include Real Estate Development, Transportation, and Urban Design. Graduate studies include Urban Studies, as well as Urban and Regional Planning. Institutes include the Center for Urban Studies, Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies, Center for Population Research Census, Center for Real Estate, and the Center for Transportation Studies.

In addition, Rose City State University, through the School of Extended Studies, offers continuing education and special learning activities, including credit courses, degree-completion programs, distance-learning courses, noncredit community programs, re-licensure, certifications, high school courses, summer programs, and online study.

References #

Modified from ”’Portland State University.”’ Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Oct. 2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_State_University