In 1993, Charles Moose became Portland, Oregon's first black police chief. A nationally recognized student of the developing theories of community policing, Chief Moose's promotion was also hoped to help strengthen the diversity of the Portland Police Bureau. Ultimately, Portlanders were unable to look past Moose's public outbursts and demeanor and recognize his accomplishments. As a city, they missed an opportunity. This thesis uses transcripts of speeches and policy papers to present some political history to the reader, but also letters to the mayor's office, letters to the editor and the like to consider the social history of 1990's Portland. Some specific touchpoints of Moose's administration are considered, including when he and his wife Sandy moved to the King Neighborhood, the Daniel Binns birthday party and the resulting march on Moose's home, his outburst at the City Council, and other examples of his legendary anger. Moose's role in gentrification, and the policies he created for the Portland Police Bureau to lead that charge will not be ignored. All the while, the context of Oregon's racist heritage is forefront in this paper. By 1999, Charles Moose had left the bureau and accepted a job in Maryland. He was selected for many of the accomplishments that the Portland public had criticized him for. Ultimately, this study will show that Portland missed an opportunity to discuss how they wanted to be policed, and what philosophies they wanted their enforcers to personify.

Soviet Evangelical high school students have experienced a slow and difficult transition to the American classroom. The students were often negatively characterized by their ESL teachers and other school personnel as "difficult" due to their classroom behaviors. Many times, these behaviors did not meet the ESL teacher's expectations, resulting in a culture clash between the teacher and the Soviet Evangelical students. The study found that Soviet Evangelical high school students came to the United States with high expectations of a new life, but little knowledge of the U.S. or the American classroom. Feelings of loneliness, homesickness and frustration quickly set in upon encountering the new language, new school routines and rules and regulations, some of which made no sense to the students. The educational and cultural values that form the Soviet Evangelical students' orientation toward learning and the classroom were found to play a strong role in the transition process and also helped to account for the behaviors ESL educators found so difficult to deal with. These factors. combined with the students' strong in-group identity as Soviet Evangelicals. all contributed to their slow and difficult transition to the American classroom. The study concludes with recommendations for ESL educators and other school personnel focusing on easing the transition for Soviet Evangelical students. Teaching new students the skills and background knowledge necessary for interacting in an American classroom is stressed, along with using the students' church as a resource in order to foster a trusting relationship with both students and their parents.

Generally, Oregon historians begin Portland Civil Rights history with the development of Vanport and move quickly through the passage of the state's public accommodations law before addressing the 1960s and 70s. Although these eras are ripe with sources and contentious experiences, 1945 to 1953 provide a complex struggle for civil rights in Portland, Oregon. This time period demonstrates the rise of local leaders, wartime racial tensions, and organizational efforts used to combat inequality. 1945 marked a watershed moment in Portland Civil Rights history exhibiting intergroup collaboration and interracial cooperation converging to eventually provide needed legislation. Although discrimination continued after 1953, the era between 1945 and 1953 provided an era of change upon which subsequent movements in Portland were based. My thesis uses material from various collections to piece together the early struggle for civil rights in Portland, and more broadly, Oregon. These documents show that the local struggle started before the classical phase of the Civil Rights Movement, usually defined as Brown v. Board of Education to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By focusing on the classical phase of civil rights, historians miss the building of a strong foundation for Portland's Civil Rights history. My research proves the existing nuances of the fight for equality by looking at local movements rather than the national struggle. This study demonstrates the nuances by focusing on rising racial tension, the efforts to document them, and the strategies used to combat discrimination.

In June of 2010, two permanent research plots were established in Forest Park, based on their differing proximities to downtown Portland, Oregon. As part of a long-term ecological research project that seeks to explore the ecological status and human thumbprint on this 5,100 acre forested reserve, the 2010 tree data was investigated for emergent compositional and spatial patterns. Stand composition, tree size, growth rates, and spatial patterns were analyzed, along with ecological and land use histories. Results indicate that the Balch plot, more closely located to the urban center, has different stand composition, condition, and vegetation growth rates, compared to the more rural Miller site. This study supports findings from a study done by Broshot in 2009, where more urban plots demonstrate a different stand composition and recruitment pattern than rural sites. The study is an initial step for exploring questions regarding the ecological status of Forest Park and how land use and disturbance, past and present, shape Portland's forested reserve.

Transit travel time is affected by many factors including traffic signals and traffic condition. Transit agencies have implemented strategies such as transit signal priority (TSP) to reduce transit travel time and improve service reliability. However, due to the lack of empirical data, the joint impact of these factors and improvement strategies on bus travel time has not been studied at the stop-to-stop segment level. This study utilizes and integrates three databases available along an urban arterial corridor in Portland, Oregon. Data sources include stop-level bus automatic vehicle location (AVL) and automatic passenger count (APC) data provided by the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet), the Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS) signal phase log data, and intersection vehicle count data provided by the City of Portland. Based on the unique collection and integration of these fine granularity empirical data, this research utilizes multiple linear regression models to understand and quantify the joint impact of intersection signal delay, traffic conditions and bus stop location on bus travel time and its variability at stop-to-stop segments. Results indicate that intersection signal delay is the key factor that affects bus travel time variability. The amount of signal delay is nearly linearly associated with intersection red phase duration. Results show that the effect of traffic conditions (volumes) on bus travel time varies significantly by intersection and time of day. This study also proposed new and useful performance measures for evaluating the effectiveness of TSP systems. Relationships between TSP requests (when buses are late) and TSP phases were studied by comparing TSP phase start and end times with bus arrival times at intersections. Results show that green extension phases were rarely used by buses that requested TSP and that most green extension phases were granted too late. Early green effectiveness (percent of effective early green phases) is much higher than green extension effectiveness. The estimated average bus and passenger time savings from an early green phase are also greater compared to the average time savings from a green extension phase. On average, the estimated delay for vehicles on the side street due to a TSP phase is less than the time saved for buses and automobiles on the major street. Results from this study can be used to inform cities and transit agencies on how to improve transit operations. Developing appropriate strategies, such as adjusting bus stop consolidation near intersections and optimizing bus operating schedules according to intersection signal timing characteristics, can further reduce bus travel time delay and improve TSP effectiveness.

This study examines two groups -international and domestic students at Portland State University (PSU) - in terms of their motivations to seek university-health services, and their satisfaction with university-health services. The Theory of Motivated Information Management (W. A. Afifi & Weiner, 2004) served as the foundation for this study to examine the preferences of students in terms of the ways they seek information about their health concerns. Differences in international and domestic students' anxiety, efficacy, and satisfaction with physicians were supported. International students reported more anxiety than domestic students. Domestic students reported being more efficacious than international students when talking to a medical provider about a current medical issue. Also, international students reported higher satisfaction with a medical provider at their last university health services visit. First, subjects were asked if they currently have a medical concern for which they might consider consulting a physician at PSU health services. If this scenario applied, subjects were asked to rate a variety of possible, theoretically informed motivations for seeking medical information by consulting a physician, to test the Theory of Motivated Information Management. Second, subjects were asked if they have previously consulted a physician at PSU health services. If this scenario applied, subjects were asked to provide satisfaction ratings of the physician and staff. The results contribute to the understanding of information-seeking processes and support the theory's effectiveness in this situation, explaining where international and domestic students are significantly different in regard to their responses.

The nature of this study is exploratory. It aims to explore the financial situation and the resources which students can use to cope with their problems. The primary purpose is to obtain a clearer picture of the situations of certain Chinese foreign students, to help those who intend to study abroad with their budgeting and planning. A secondary aim is to draw the attention of authorities concerned to improve or expand services to foreign students who already have overwhelming adjustment problems and who still have to carry the additional burden of pressure from restrictive regulations.

Sustainability has emerged in mainstream higher education over the last few years, and the fields of community-based learning and sustainability education are closely linked through their emphases on active, experiential learning in place-based contexts. In order to create ecologically literate citizens to more adequately address environmental problems, there is a logical connection between teaching about sustainability and engaging students in the community, which can serve as a relevant forum to address sustainability issues. However, there is a problem in that educational programs and courses dealing directly with sustainability topics across the higher education landscape often do not emphasize or include experiential, community-based elements. Understanding this relationship is crucial to advance the field of sustainability with meaningful community engagement. This research investigated the pedagogical strategies and frameworks that are foundational in undergraduate capstone courses that include sustainability education and community-based learning. A sample of five community-based, interdisciplinary senior capstone courses at Portland State University was examined through semi-structured interviews with course instructors and syllabi review. Three broad themes emerged as common values among the instructors: connectedness and relationships, community and place, and diversity and inclusiveness. Reflection was a tool utilized universally by instructors to personalize the learning process, cultivate understanding of connectedness and relationships, and incorporate feelings into the learning process. Competencies and skills related to sustainability and those related to civic engagement were very similar; engagement in community is a sustainable practice. This study provides cogent support for the notion that achieving meaningful, transformative sustainability learning requires community-based learning.

Communities across the United States are experiencing a "civic revival" that is reconnecting community members with local decision-making and civic life in their communities. Since the 1980s, academic researchers and local governance reformers have advocated for a shift away from the traditional top-down, expert-driven approach to governance and toward a governance model in which government leaders and staff and community members work as partners to shape the community and make local decisions. Portland, Oregon, since the 1970s, has been known nationally and internationally as a city with a tradition of strong community involvement. Portland's successes and failures offer a valuable case study into what it takes to develop, implement, and sustain policies, structures, and programs that encourage greater participatory democracy. This dissertation reviews the evolution of Portland's community and neighborhood system from its creation in the 1970s through 2013 through an examination of the many reviews of the system over the years supplemented by reviews of newspaper accounts and informal, unstructured interviews with individuals who were involved in different processes and programs. This dissertation investigates which elements are important to the success of a city-wide community and neighborhood involvement system, the factors that help or hinder the adoption and implementation of system reforms, and strategies that help embed system advances to prevent them from being eroded or undone. This dissertation argues that a community that wants to move toward much greater participatory democracy and community governance must develop and implement a comprehensive strategy that accomplishes three goals: involving many more people in the civic life in their community, building community capacity to organize and be involved in local decision making, and significantly improving the willingness and ability of city leaders and staff to work in partnership with community members and organizations. This dissertation also argues that community and neighborhood involvement systems need to include not only traditional geographic-based neighborhood associations but also communities of people who find their community through shared identity.

Many programs exist across the United States to prepare non-native English speaking students for academic work. The effectiveness of these programs has been the subject of various research projects, with mixed results. Some have found that the programs they have examined seem to have led to higher achievement among participants. Others have found that it is difficult to show any effect. However, the amount of time and resources devoted to such programs warrants continuing efforts to evaluate their success. This study compares the academic records of non-native English speaking students who were enrolled in the English for Non-native Residents Program (ENNR) at Portland State University (PSU) with those of a group of similar students who did not enroll in the program, with the goal of answering the following questions: (1) Does enrollment in the ENNR program have a positive effect on academic performance at PSU? (2) Does enrollment in the ENNR program have a positive effect on performance in composition classes? (3) Does enrollment in the ENNR grammar workshop have a positive effect on performance in the basic composition course? (4) Does enrollment in the ENNR program have a positive effect on performance in PSU courses requiring relatively more reading?