This thesis tells the stories of five Oregon women who transcended the customary roles of their era. Active during the waning years of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, each woman made a difference in the world around them. Their stories have either not been told or just given a passing glance. These tales are important because they inform us about our society on the cusp of the twentieth century. Hattie Crawford Redmond was the daughter of a freed slave who devoted herself to the fight for women's suffrage. Minnie Mossman Hill was the first woman steamboat pilot west of the Mississippi. Mary Francis Isom was a local librarian who went to France to deliver books to American soldiers. Ann and May Shogren were sisters who brought high fashion to Portland and defied the gender and social rules in both their business and personal lives. These women were not the only ones who accomplished extraordinary things during their lives. They are a tiny sample of Oregon women who pushed beyond discrimination, hardship and gender limits to earn their place in Oregon's history.

Now more than ever, speech clinicians are being required to justify the effectiveness of their work by showing results. There are different ways to measure outcomes. For example, outcomes may be measured by testing to determine if change has occurred regarding clinical goals, or by comparing the cost of the treatment to the benefit of the treatment to determine if the treatment was economically sound. Another type of measure is subjective outcomes, such as client satisfaction. Subjective outcomes are difficult to define and measure and few studies of this type have been reported in the literature. Because clinical outcome is dependent, at least to some extent, on client satisfaction (Williams, 1994), and because few studies have been reported in the literature regarding client satisfaction with speech and language services, this area became the focus of the current study. This study sought to answer the following questions: (a) Did the parents think their child benefrtted from the articulation intervention services received at the clinic? and (b) What were parents' attitudes regarding the clinical atmosphere and staff? The Consumer Satisfaction Measure of the American SpeechLanguage- Hearing Association (ASHA) was used in this study because it is broad in scope and contains statements relating to the research questions of the current study. Answers to the research questions were derived from the responses to the survey that was mailed to the parents of 86 children who had received articulation services from the PSU Speech and Hearing Clinic. Ninety-five percent of the parental responses regarding whether parents felt that their children benefited from services obtained at the PSU Speech and Hearing Clinic were positive, indicating that parents were satisfied with the services received. Ninety-one percent of the parental responses regarding parent's attitudes toward the clinical atmosphere and staff were positive. It appears that parents hold favorable views regarding the clinical atmosphere and staff and that they were satisfied with the services their children received at the PSU Speech and Hearing Clinic.

This study examined factors related to the teaching effectiveness of adjunct faculty in higher education. Specifically, it explored the relationship between personality, as defined by the Five-Factor Model, occupation, and student ratings of teaching effectiveness. Results indicate that personality is correlated to an instructor's classroom behavior and education goals, which in turn are related to teaching effectiveness. In addition, instructors with occupations in social services and education had significantly higher mean teaching effectiveness scores than those from other occupations. Finally, there was an inverse relationship between age and teaching effectiveness in this study, and a positive relationship between teaching experience and teaching effectiveness. Although instructors may not be able to change their personality, they can modify their behavior and teaching practices to increase their effectiveness as educators.

The ways in which sex workers have been studied and represented historically, socio-politically and academically do not take into account their voices, subjective experiences and participation in the process. Women working in the sex industry are seldom heard and their needs are consistently defined and represented by others. This contributes to the stereotyping and stigmatization of sex workers, while academic research is consistently being done on sex workers instead of with them. This study uses the arts-based research method of photovoice with individuals working in the sex industry in Portland, Oregon to understand their needs and aspirations through their own artistic self-representation. Understanding sex workers’ needs from their own point of view provides the opportunity for collaborative knowledge creation of important issues in order to enhance social service design and delivery, and advocate for social change. Valuing sex workers’ aspirations supports the acknowledgement of individual strengths, skills, and visions. Drawing from techniques of interpretive phenomenological analysis methods, the themes that emerge to illustrate the participants’ needs and aspirations include: sustainability of the body; nourishment of the heart; fostering of the mind and soul; social justice and activism; dreams and desires; and self-empowerment and identity. The participants create meaning from their photographs through the use of self, performance, bodies, emotions, imagination, intellect, humor and story-telling. The role of intersectionality informs the sex workers’ diverse experiences and their unique ways of self-expression. The researcher uses collage as reflexivity to illustrate, contextualize and reflect her physical, emotional, and mental experiences throughout the study. The multiple art exhibits that ensue from this study allow for the artists’ visions and voices to travel to a broad audience beyond academia, in order to reach influential community advocates and challenge stigma and stereotypes. This arts-based study presents the richness and complexity of alternative forms of data, invites new levels of engagement that are both cognitive and emotional, and provides creative ways through which to explore and understand the experiences of sex workers.

This thesis is an exploratory study of the effects of two job training programs for the poor in Portland, Oregon. It seeks to illustrate that training programs are designed around certain theoretical conceptions or models of poverty and that these theoretical conceptions ultimately have a strong effect on the enrollees in programs designed on the given theoretical model. Two general theoretical models have been extracted from the literature. The first is the "Culture of Poverty" model and the second may be called the "Closed Opportunity Structure" model. The culture of poverty model posits that the poor are unable to escape poverty because of certain cultural aspects of their conditions which inhibit them from taking advantage of increased opportunities when they are offered them. Some of the major aspects of the culture of poverty are: (1) The poor do not share the values of the dominant culture, e.g., that hard work brings rewards, and deferring immediate gratification also produces future rewards; (2) The poor do not participate fully in the major institutions of the society; (3) The inability to take advantage of increased opportunities is learned through the parents; and (4) This inability tends to perpetuate the culture of poverty. The closed opportunity model, on the other hand, posits that the poor do indeed share the values of the dominant culture but that they have been denied the opportunity to realize these values, i.e., the poor do not defer gratification because even if they did so their chances of receiving a future reward are low. The closed opportunity structure model sees the problems of the poor as being grounded in the larger society as opposed to being inherent deficiencies of the poor themselves. I have selected two programs for this study on the basis of their subscription to one or the other theoretical models discussed above. Portland Residential Manpower Center (PRMC), an urban Job Corps camp, was chosen because its program design conforms to the culture of poverty model in that it attempts to resocialize the trainee so that he may better fit into the society; conversely, the Portland New Careers Project was chosen because it subscribed to the closed opportunity model in that it does not see these socialization attempts as necessary, but rather, it places its trainees in social service positions with various governmental agencies and provides them with education which, hopefully, will enable the trainee to move into a more professional position at the agency. The study then attempts to describe the effects of each of these programs on its enrollees. The method of direct observation was chosen for several reasons: (1) The exploratory nature of the study; (2) The absence of a clear cut hypothesis to test; (3) inadequate statistical data available which would give me answers to the kinds of questions I had asked. The findings indicated that the two programs had very different effects on the enrollees. PRMC, because of its highly structured character and complete program of socialization, produced a high degree of distrust of the program on the part of the trainees. PRMC's socialization attempts were seen as largely unnecessary by the trainees and they felt that these attempts interfered with the primary task of skill training. New Careers, on the other hand, lacks a highly structured program. Aside from being expected to put in time at the placement agency and to attend his classes, the trainee is left largely on his own. This almost complete lack of structure has made it exceedingly difficult for many of the trainees to progress in the program because they have few guidelines for their training. The New Careerist learns what is expected of him through trial and error. The findings of this study suggest that social scientists should be aware of the consequences of their theoretical models on the people these models attempt to deal with. Both programs studies exhibited deficiencies which, in varying degrees, are the result of the theoretical models upon which the program is based.

This study examines the relationship between social class and adolescents conceptions of work. Four major areas of the adolescent's work experience are examined: (1) tasks and training, (2) relations with co-workers and managers, (3) organizational structure and change, and (4) family life and work. Forty female adolescent, nonmanagerial employees who worked part time at McDonald's franchise stores were interviewed.

Invasive species degrade ecosystems by altering natural processes and decreasing the abundance and diversity of native flora. Communities with major fluctuations in resource supply allow invasive species to exploit limiting resources making the community prone to invasion. In the Pacific Northwest, urban forests characterized with limited light and seasonally limited soil moisture are being dominated by nonnative English ivy (Hedera spp). Three observational studies were conducted in the Southern end of Forest Park within the Balch Creek Subwatershed in Portland, Oregon in order to understand 1) how English ivy changes over three growing seasons, 2) how the native understory composition responds to English ivy, 3) if the dominance of English ivy reduces soil moisture to neighboring plants, 4) how English ivy and two co-occurring native herbs (Hydrophyllum tenuipes and Vancouveria hexandra) physiologically respond to seasonal changes in soil moisture. Percent cover of the understory community was collected in both 2010 and 2013 growing seasons in 54 plots in order to understand the change in cover over time. Community response and the relationship with soil moisture was analyzed using percent cover of the understory community and associated environmental variables including soil moisture collected in 128 plots during the 2013 field season. Finally, 15 plots with co-occurring Hedera spp, H. tenuipes and V. hexandra were sampled for stomatal conductance, leaf water potential, and associated environmental variables. Results show ivy cover increases on average 14% between 2010 and 2013 while native understory cover increased on average < 1%. Once ivy forms dense cover over 44% there is a reduction of native richness, diversity and herb cover while also an increase in available soil moisture and deciduous canopy cover. There were disparate impacts to different functional groups and between species. As functional group, the herbaceous community was the most impacted by ivy invasion. The shrubs and fern community had a variable response to ivy invasion. Many of the fern and shrub species least impacted by ivy also had associations with high soil moisture and deciduous canopy cover. Finally, data suggests that ivy does not take advantage of seasonally limiting soil moisture to invade the understory community. This study indicates that English ivy is both efficient at water use and may have the ability to obtain water from distant locations throughout the forest. Once established, ivy has the ability to alter the community composition. Ivy removal and habitat restoration are essential in order to maintain and enhance biodiversity in Forest Park.

Since the late 1990's, "food deserts" have dominated the academic and policy literature on food access and food security. Food deserts are defined as areas that lack easy access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food, and are typically measured using Geographic Information Systems and spatial data sets. However, while food deserts may provide a useful measure for identifying food insecurity at a broad scale, they fail to account for individual definitions and perceptions of food access (Barnes et al. 2015; McEntee 2009). Furthermore, the food desert model assumes a lack of agency on the part of low-income populations (Alkon et al. 2013), and ignores other factors of food access, such as walkability, grocery store safety, customer service, and personal preference. In this research, I examine the food access perceptions of residents, non-profit employees, and business owners in the Lents neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Although Lents is classified as a food desert, there is also an abundance of ethnic grocers and specialty markets within the neighborhood. These grocers reflect the neighborhood's racial and cultural diversity, and are often overlooked by the spatial datasets typically used to measure food access. The research that I conducted in Lents revealed a disconnect between how the residents I interviewed perceive their food environment, and how government, non-profits employees, and business owners within the neighborhood view local food access. The findings underscore the importance of factors other than physical proximity when measuring food access, and also show the importance of ethnic and specialty markets in the landscape. These findings support the assertion that binary measures of food access often fail to capture the complexities of individual perceptions of food access (Alkon et al. 2013).

Portland's Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard illustrates commercial gentrification in progress. Once a declining service district, "Hawthorne" is now one of the city's most popular shopping streets. Tracing and classifying businesses, using address listings from city directories, gives an accurate picture of changes since 1980. Three parallel trends can be distinguished in the makeup of the business mix: a shift from services to retailing; a move towards a regional, rather than a neighborhood, market area; and a cultural upgrading associated with the influx of increasingly expensive stores. Classification also aids in the definition of a tipping point at which revitalization became gentrification. The actions of individual entrepreneurs in the revitalization process were complemented by the Hawthorne business association's participation in the Main Street program, a national project to improve declining retail districts. The program helped the Hawthorne district become more successful by encouraging physical improvements, special promotions and greater communication among merchants. Hawthorne has experienced dramatic increases in the numbers of restaurants, gifts shops and clothing stores, and a decline in convenience and household goods. Its changing role and evolving image exemplify the national trend towards specialized, recreational retailing. The district has retained its longstanding reputation as a focus for used books and stereo equipment and, in spite of becoming a regional magnet, still reflects the character of its surrounding neighborhoods. The commercial was accompanied by a shift in business orientation. The conspicuous consumption and high prices usually associated with gentrification are moderated by a large number of stores that advocate "political correctness" and promote recycling. Hawthorne is typified by the presence of alternative subcultural groups such as bohemians and gays. The district's continued accessibility to poorer sectors of society is apparent in the large number of stores se11ing secondhand goods. Coincident with its bohemian image, many stores have a strong feminist slant. Hawthorne as a whole serves as a focus for Portland's lesbian community. Hawthorne's multi-faceted image is created by the stores and their advertising, and by planned ventures of the business association. The well-educated, low-income, female-focused nature of many stores reflect the character of neighborhood while drawing like-minded people from all over the city. Hawthorne's neighborhoods have a lower rate of owner occupancy, more non-family households, and a higher percentage of women than the city as a whole. The five census tracts adjacent to Hawthorne have above average education levels but lower household incomes than the city median. The significance of gentrification lies in it being a manifestation of broader changes affecting society as a whole. Changes in gender divisions, the break-down of the traditional household, the evolution of lifestyle-based neighborhoods, and the increasing appeal of diverse central city neighborhoods are all creating new places and new forms of consumption. The Hawthorne district is an effective example of successful commercial revitalization and the creation of a gender-based commercial landscape.

The Firebrand was an anarchist communist newspaper that was printed in Portland, Oregon from January 1895 to September 1897. The newspaper was a central catalyst behind the formation of the culturally American anarchist movement, a movement whose vital role in shaping radicalism in the United States during the Progressive Era has largely been ignored by historians. The central argument of this thesis is that the Firebrand publishers' experiences in Gilded Age Portland shaped the content and the format of the newspaper and led to the development of a new, uniquely American expression of anarchism. Anarchism was developed in response to the great transformations of the nineteenth century and the anxieties of a society that was being entirely restructured as industrialization and urbanization took hold across the globe. The anarchism of the Firebrand was a regional response to these same changes, an expression of radical discontent at the way in which life in Portland and the Pacific Northwest was rapidly changing. According to the Firebranders, the region had transformed from a place of economic opportunity and political freedom into a region driven by economic and political exploitation. Thus, the newspaper developed a uniquely western American perspective and expressed a formation of anarchist communism that was steeped in the history and culture of the United States. The newspaper was just as influenced by centuries of American libertarian activism as it was by outright anarchist philosophy. As a result, the newspaper frequently included articles about free love and women's rights, issues outside of the typical purview of anarchist communist political philosophy. This Americanized expression of anarchist communism allowed the newspaper to expand beyond the movement's core urban, immigrant audience and attract culturally American, English-speaking radicals to the cause. In the Fall of 1897, after two years and eight months in publication, three of the Firebrand publishers were arrested for the crime of sending obscene materials through the mail. The Firebrand's frank discussions of sexuality, women's rights, and free love offended the local censor and gave law enforcement an excuse to prosecute Portland's anarchists. The ensuing trial would result in the newspaper's closure. Nonetheless, a new intellectual movement had been established, and though the movement would remain small, it would play a disproportionately large role in shaping radical American politics and culture for the next two decades.