Think Out Loud

Community colleges, which usually see an increase in enrollment during a recession, were hit particularly hard by the pandemic. Nationally, enrollment at community colleges fell more than 10% in the last three years. This fall, that trend seems to be improving. For Central Oregon Community College, enrollment is up over 20%. We talk to Alicia Moore, Vice President of Student Affairs at COCC, about what those numbers mean, and what the future of community college looks like.

At 100 years old, the Portland Youth Philharmonic is the country’s oldest youth orchestra, with a rich and storied history. In the early 1920s a young classically trained violinist and teacher, Mary V. Dodge, conceived of what would become the Portland Junior Symphony. It formed in earnest after she convinced a renowned Russian conductor to take on the orchestra composed of students that she was teaching in her attic. The Oregon Historical Society is opening an exhibit on the PYP next month, which will chronicle its birth and achievements over the last century. Joining us are Musical Director David Hattner, PYP principal flutist Macy Gong and former PYP musician Tim McCarthy, who now plays with the National Symphony Orchestra.

A few years ago, when Gabe Piechowicz decided to change careers from logging to religious ministry, he didn’t imagine that his work would be almost exclusively focused on helping people get off the streets in Eugene. But shortly into his new career, he was calling local shelters to help find a place for some of his church’s neighbors and Dan Bryant answered his phone.Bryant is the founder and director of Opportunity Village, one of Oregon’s first village-model temporary shelters, informed by Dignity Village in Portland. Piechowicz ended up working at Opportunity Village but ultimately began his own ministry in a separate housing program he founded called Everyone Village. EV, as it’s called for short, is on a four acre piece of land that was essentially donated. There’s a warehouse that’s been converted into a community meeting space, kitchen and office, as well as a separate building with full plumbing that has showers, toilets and a washer/dryer. There are 60 structures here, all with electricity:  tiny homes called “cottages of hope,” white prefabricated sheds and RVs that are parked inside the lot.The village is self-governed, with expectations, rules and requirements. The people who live here are getting back on their feet, overcoming—and in the process of overcoming —a variety of social and economic challenges. Some of them joined us and shared their story when we visited EV recently and recorded a show as part of a solutions-oriented series focused on some of Oregon’s biggest problems. Our guests were: Dan Bryant of Opportunity Village; Gabe Piechowicz of Everyone Village; Brittany Quick-Warner of the Eugene Chamber of Commerce; as well as villagers Laura Dwinell, Sam Jones and Terri Kulick, and former Opportunity villager, Paul Miller.

We’re taking a deep dive into people’s work lives. We want to learn what it takes to do different jobs and how these professions change us.On the latest installment of our series, we visit Freeland Spirits in Portland, which is owned and run by women. Master Distiller Molly Troupe creates spirits, like gin and whiskey. She takes us behind the scenes and shares more about her craft and the rye whiskey—grown and distilled in Oregon—that Freeland recently released.

It’s been three years since the Labor Day fires burned more than 4,000 homes and about a million acres of land across Oregon. Since then, fire investigators have only publicly released the cause of one of the nine major fires. Zach Urness is the outdoor editor for the Statesman Journal and the host of the “Explore Oregon” podcast. He joins us to share why we still don’t have official answers and what this means for survivors of the catastrophic event. 

When Tove Danovich began keeping chickens in her backyard in Portland several years ago, she didn’t realize that what she was actually starting was research. That research would become a full-fledged book investigating the role these birds play in the larger culture and economy. Danovich also started sharing her journey on her Instagram, where most of the photos feature her “girls,” Loretta, Emmylou, Peggy and many more. Tove Danovich joins to talk about her book “Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them,” and why she became obsessed with chickens and their place in our lives.

Roughly 13,000 years ago, Ice Age animals such as saber-toothed cats, the American lion and mammoths started going extinct in the Los Angeles basin about a thousand years before their extinction in other parts of North America. To find out why, a team of scientists collaborated on a new study that argues that wildfires due to increased human activity in the region was likely to blame. The scientists made their findings based on fossil specimens extracted from preserved remains at the La Brea Tar Pits, along with sediment cores they dug up to provide a prehistoric timeline of wildfire activity amid a changing landscape. Edward Davis is the director of the Condon Fossil Collection at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History, and one of the authors of the study which was published in August. He joins us to talk about the study and its relevance in an era of extreme wildfires driven by climate change. 

Students at Portland Public Schools are nearly a month into the new school year, but their teachers and the district are at an impasse on contract negotiations. Meanwhile, recent test results from Oregon Statewide Assessments showed steady and improving rates in English language arts and math for grades 3 - 8 in PPS. Sharon Reese, chief of human resources for PPS, and Renard Adams, chief of research, assessment and accountability, join us to talk about what the district thinks students and teachers need to succeed.

Fall classes have started at the University of Oregon in Eugene with a new president at the helm: Karl Scholz, an internally respected economist who came most recently from University of Wisconsin-Madison where he served as provost. Meanwhile the university is getting ready to consolidate its Portland presence at a new Northeast campus, the former Concordia University. The property that was purchased in 2022 will house the university’s new Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health. UO also plans to move graduate programs currently housed at the White Stag building in the city’s Old Town neighborhood and is putting that building up for sale. We sit down with Scholz in our Portland studios to hear more about the Ballmer Institute, the university’s footprint in the city and how he’s thinking about the rising costs of higher education, both as an economist and a university president.

Oregonians voted to decriminalize drugs three years ago. Now, a new study from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine found that M110 did not lead to an increase in drug overdoses. Corey Davis is an adjunct assistant professor at NYU Langone Health’s Department of Population. He joins us to share more on the results and implications of the study.