OREGON EDUCATION

News on public, private and state schools and teachers

LA GRANDE -- Citing projections that the state government faces $142 million shortfall in revenue, Eastern Oregon University says it plans to cut $433,000 in spending between now and the end of the academic year.

President Dixie Lund says the school plans to scale back on supply and equipment costs, and travel. Lund says she has suspended a dean search, and two professors will serve as associates in the interim.

Michelle Keele/Special to The OregonianChris DuVal (right) of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival brings the Bard alive to Lake Oswego students: Peter LeChevallier (from left), Talia Reinhart, Nate Miller, Rachelle Hug and Tyler Brisbee.

Rafael Untalan hadn't strolled through the halls of Lake Oswego High School in 25 years, but the well-traveled actor returned last week with a message to students: It's cool to dig Shakespeare.

With little more than a suitcase of costumes and props, Untalan and his acting partner Chris DuVal, both members of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival company, spent the day showing students how to transform Shakespeare's words into spirited movements and dramatic interplay with their classmates.

Portland State University's student growth is attracting private developers who want to provide student housing. A Eugene firm is proposing a six-story apartment complex at the southeast corner of Southwest College Street and Fifth that would provide 49 apartments above ground-floor retail.

Exterior walls facing the two streets would be canted slightly high above the sidewalks. Architect Barry Smith would like to clothe the upper stories in wavy, blue metal panels, "something you don't see every day."

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BETHANY - A student at Westview High School was injured this morning when he jumped from a two-story school building.

Neither the name of the student nor his year in school were immediately available.

The student complained of leg pain after he jumped from a second-story balcony on campus at 4200 N.W. 18th Ave., according to Karen Eubanks, a spokeswoman for Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue.

OHSUOHSU, Portland's largest employer, has decided to freeze salaries and hiring.

In a sign of how badly the economic downturn continues to hurt Oregon Health & Science University, the university has instituted a hiring and salary freeze and is planning an unspecified number of layoffs and possible benefit reductions.

The cuts, announced this morning in a memo to OHSU's leadership team, come on top of deep expense reductions and layoffs announced last January after the Oregon Supreme Court eliminated a state tort cap that had protected OHSU from large malpractice awards.

The Oregon Court of Appeals has affirmed a decision by the state Land Use Board of Appeals, allowing Pacific University to build up to four stories at a second site in downtown Hillsboro.

The Court of Appeals ruled without opinion Nov. 12.

Pacific University has leveled the site for the proposed building but is waiting on construction until after the Dec. 17 deadline passes for a potential final appeal to the state Supreme Court, said Sara Hopkins-Powell, executive dean of Pacific's College of Health Professions.

Brent Wojahn/The OregonianChristopher Hernandez displays a video game he created. Hernandez has wanted to design video games since he was a kid. Now, he's taking classes at Mt. Hood Community College to learn design skills.

At age 7, Christopher Hernandez created a video game out of paper. He drew characters, painstakingly cut them out, then arranged them on his bedroom floor for his younger brother to pretend to play.

He didn't have a computer. He had never heard of someone making a living as video game designer.

Stephanie Yao/The OregonianReed College students pass by Eliot Hall, the main administrative offices at the private liberal arts college in Southeast Portland. The college, which depends on its endowment for 30 percent of its budget each year, is one of many private colleges in Oregon preparing for economic uncertainty by trimming expenses and boosting financial aid.

Colleges and universities that depend on healthy investment returns to pay for everything from scholarships to faculty positions are bracing for a financial hit from the volatile stock market.

Endowment funds at many private campuses in Oregon fell by more than 10 percent from January through September, and they are expected to continue to plunge in the final three months of the year.

Fredrick D. Joe/The OregonianInternational students savor Thanksgiving dinner hosted by Portland State University's president, Wim Wiewel, and his wife, Alice, on Thursday in his Dunthorpe home. Among them are (clockwise from front) Meead Saberi of Iran, Yvanne Rivoallan of France, Anri Zama of Japan, Jienn Choi of Japan and Suhee Kim of South Korea.

A week ago, Danxi Li received a Thanksgiving invitation.

She read it over and over before its meaning sank in: The new president of her university, Portland State, wanted her to share dinner at his house Thursday.

"It was hard to believe," said Li, 19, who came from Suzhou, China, to study accounting. "The president, asking me!"

BELLINGHAM, Wash. -- The chief of a rural school district in Whatcom County has been named the state's superintendent of the year.

The Bellingham Herald reports that Mark Johnson of the Nooksack Valley school district was named superintendent of the year last week by the Washington Association of School Administrators.

A sprawling schoolyard of barren asphalt is barren no more.

In a project several years in the making, 15,000 square feet of blacktop behind Vestal School on Northeast 82nd Avenue have been replaced with a grass playing field. Last week more than 400 students planted 20 trees and 576 shrubs along the grass and elsewhere on the grounds.

Ross William Hamilton/The OregonianThree landscape paintings by Robyn Bachman hang in Garrison's Fine Wines in preparation for an art auction Dec. 4. The auction will benefit the Glencoe Elementary School Foundation. Travis Fantz (left), who runs Garrison's Fine Wines, talks with foundation board member Bridget Hart Schumock (right) as she checks the art display.

Hollywood came calling in the Mt. Tabor area last summer and, at first, the neighbors weren't pleased.

A movie crew, in town to shoot scenes for a movie based on Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalypse novel "The Road," wanted to film a house on Yamhill Avenue. Only problem: The shooting schedule coincided with the third annual weekend Mt. Tabor Art Walk. For some of the 50 artists who participated, it was their only chance all year to publicly exhibit their work.

Stephanie Yao/The OregonianStudents at the Community Transitional School for homeless students share a Thanksgiving lunch with donors and volunteers Wednesday. Mhichael Sanders (center) a sixth-grader, entertains his luncheon companions with a string game the students learned from a storyteller last week. Jesse Valdez, (left) a graduate of the school and a freshman at Roosevelt High School, joined the lunch. For many students, it's the only Thanksgiving they'll have.

Today, as Oregon families gather at tables stacked with turkeys and trimmings, 10-year-old Kyla Smith will probably wait in the dark for the day to pass.

PULLMAN, Wash. (AP) -- Washington State University has been told to slice an additional $4.4 million from its budget for the current fiscal year.

WSU President Elson Floyd said today the new cutbacks are part of a new round of statewide budget cuts ordered by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

The Moscow-Pullman Daily News reports the new reduction comes on top of a $6 million WSU budget cut ordered in early October.