WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 2010 • PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY • VOLUME 65, ISSUE 2
Event of the day Attend the “Tour the World” free lecture series today titled “Environmental Public Awareness: Development Status, Visions and Needs.” The series showcases selected Portland State international visiting professors. This lecture features Dr. Azra Jaganjac of the University of Sarajevo.
When: Noon Where: SMSU, room 236
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INSIDE
GUILTY
NEWS
Except for Insanity
New face at PSU Cathlene McGraw fills new position in Queer Student Services PAGE 2
ARTS
A thinking person’s comedy Cyrus makes the viewer work for their payoff PAGE 4
Headed in the right direction Violetta opens its doors to the travelers of Director Park PAGE 5
OPINION Supreme Court Shoots Down Gun Ban Relaxed gun laws may put people at risk PAGE 6
PSU documentary captures lives of five patients at Oregon State Hospital Tamara K. Kennedy Vanguard staff
A new documentary film, which is currently on its way to international viewing, began at Portland State in the fall of 2007 as a gender and madness class project. Written and directed by psychology professor Janice Haaken, Guilty Except for Insanity—Maddening Journeys through an American Asylum portrays human dilemmas behind public stereotypes for the criminally insane. In order to gain community feedback before the final cut, an opinion screening for the film was held on June 27 at Whitsell Auditorium as part of the Northwest
Heather Noddings/Portland State Vanguard
Janice Haake
Film School’s Visiting Artists Program. According to Haaken, so many people attended the event that they were forced to turn away approximately 100 people. The film began as part of a group project that involved students taking an informal survey on responses to media coverage concerning the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, according to Haaken. The project grew into a documentary that involved about 80 PSU students over the course of two years. Students worked as crew members, production assistants and gaffers. In addition, 12 students transcribed 70 interviews with the patients, Haaken said. Most students on the crew were also part of ongoing research seminars. Though Haaken wrote the script, the students drew out key themes from 600 pages of transcripts, she said. Jimena Alvardo, a PSU doctoral student in community psychology who has consistently worked on the film project since 2008, spoke of having conversations with patients that involved different perspectives rather than sensationalist fear messages often seen in the media. “Giving people in the psychiatric system a real voice and showing their humanity lets us move away from the discrimination and stigma they face every day,” Alvardo said. Alvardo attended a hearing where one of the five patients featured in
New initiative supports Latino students Task Force identifies priority tasks, including more scholarship funds Catrice Stanley Vanguard staff
After nine months of studying data, reviewing literature and evaluating successful endeavors at similar universities, the Task Force on Latina and Latino Student Success has completed the assignment it began in the fall of 2009. On June 9, the task force released a report outlining the decisions the committee made during the previous months. This report can be viewed in its entirety at www.pdx.edu/diversity. The new initiative has been allotted $250,000 to support Latino students at Portland State in the upcoming academic year. The task force, assembled by President Wim Wiewel, was designed to decide where the funds would be most useful for Latino students.
According to Wiewel, the money will be withdrawn from the general university funds, which are supplied by state funds and tuition money. Although the specifics are still being decided upon, the money will help fund initiatives to promote four tasks that were identified as high priorities by the committee. The first task—deemed the most important—is to increase funding for scholarships offered to
the film, Brandy Adams, challenged her bipolar diagnosis. “It seemed like such a perfect moment of validation, where she finally had a voice in the process,” Alavardo said. Guilty Except for Insanity documents the lives of five patients at OSH, a hospital that has been notorious for its alleged patient abuse, according to the press release. “The film in some ways addresses the ancient question of how to assign criminal blame,” Haaken said. In order to emphasize the dilemmas encountered by those who successfully used the insanity defense, Haaken used animation
sequences, as well as clips from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which was filmed at OSH in 1975. Though the insanity defense delivers defendants from criminal responsibility, it may result in longer confinement than if the patients had served a regular prison sentence, according to the press release. According to Haaken, part of the film’s intent is to open up viewers’ thoughts for alternatives to incarceration and forced confinement. Of the five patients in the film, one killed his father, three
DOCUMENTARY continued on page two
ROOTING FOR THE DUTCH
Heather Noddings/Portland State Vanguard
Yesterday, Portland State President Wim Wiewel visited the Cheerful Tortoise to cheer on his home team from the Netherlands as they faced off with Uruguay in the 2010 World Cup. According to Portland State’s website, Wiewel was raised in Amsterdam before moving to the U.S. to attain a Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University.
Latino students. The second task is to increase the amount of Latino faculty and staff on campus. According to the report, the number of Latino faculty at PSU is modest. The ratio of Latino faculty to the total student body is currently lower than the ratios at University of Oregon, Oregon State University and Western Oregon University. The third task identified by the task force is to design and fund a cultural center on campus for Latino students, which will be called La Casa Latina. Although very little about the center
Heather Noddings/Portland State Vanguard
Initiative: Task Force outlines five high-priority tasks to help Latino students at PSU.
has been established, the report recommends that efforts to create the new building begin immediately. Lastly, the task force acknowledged the need to recruit more Latino students through both high schools and community colleges. “The task force has done a great job of looking at best practices elsewhere, and then talking to our community,” Wiewel said in a press release. “We will be working on implementing as many of the recommendations as quickly as we can.” Wiewel also stated that PSU will raise additional money for the scholarships. The idea for the Latino Student Success task force originated when Wiewel first arrived at PSU in August of 2008. It was at this point that Wiewel became aware of the rapid growth of the Latino population in the Portland area. According to Wiewel, Oregon schools have seen the percentage of Latino students in K–12 schools nearly double in the last 10 years. However, he did not see this same growth reflected in PSU’s student population.
TASK FORCE continued on page three