The purpose of this exploratory descriptive study was to provide a first step in clarifying the role of the high school academic department chair as it is currently practiced in the state of Oregon. The study examined from the administrative perspective the potential for the continued development of the educational leadership role of the department chair as an administrative resource for instructional improvement. A researcher-constructed questionnaire was used to gather data from 27 Oregon school district superintendents, 34 high school principals, and 118 high school department chairs from English, math, science, and social studies departments in those same high schools.

Job status and salary inequities between men and women have only recently been documented (Kravetz 1976). The federal government, over the past few decades, through various acts and executive orders, has created legislation to prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion or national origin in all employment practices. The question is to what extent this legislation has permeated social service agencies and affected their employment patterns, particularly with respect to administrative positions. In 1976, the Women's Issues Committee of the Oregon Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), addressed this question by initiating a study of social work employment in Oregon. The first part of the study examined the salaries and positions of NASW members in this state. The second part of the study was designed to study more specifically the employment patterns of women MSWs in Oregon's social service agencies. Under the auspices of the Women's Issues Committee, the second part of the study was designed and conducted by eight graduate students at the School of Social Work at Portland State University. One objective of the study was to find out the proportion of men and women filling the management positions in local social service agencies. But the primary purpose of the study was to examine the management-executive employment patterns in agencies before and after affirmative action programs were instituted. An attempt was then made to determine the effects, if any, of such programs. It was hoped that the results would clarify how agencies implement their affirmative action programs, the effects of implementation, and the barriers to the employment of women in management positions.

Within the past decade the emphasis in school finance research has been toward formulating financing models to solve the inequities in educational opportunity. School finance research has concentrated, generally, on structuring school finance alternatives based on school district fiscal behavior. However, these studies did not analyze in detail the school finance alternatives' impacts on the individual taxpayers. The problem remains that, while various school finance alternatives may attain equal educational opportunity by equalizing the level of expenditures among school districts, they could expand the tax burden distribution inequities. Policy analysis allows one to develop a rational policy procedure on empirical evaluation of policy alternatives designed to achieve a set of objectives. The analytical methods employed by policy analysis procedures are the foundation of this research's conceptual framework. This research is oriented toward decision-making and intends to be a guide to policy action. Policy suggestions for reform concentrate on three crucial areas: (1) to change the content and the elements of the equalization formulas; (2) to increase the level of state support; (3) to adopt a full state assumption of public education finance. These policy suggestions focus on the revenue formation and revenue distribution functions. This dissertation analyzes the operating school finance system from a school district fiscal profile perspective. It also constructs an analytical model and tests the school finance alternatives' impacts on the individual taxpayer-voter from a tax burden redistribution perspective. The fifteen unified school districts in the Portland metropolitan area of Oregon were chosen as the test ground for this research. The procedures for this policy research study are as follows: (1) the social objectives, equal opportunity and equity in tax burden distribution are defined as the basis by which the school finance policy alternatives are analyzed; (2) alternative school finance policies are identified and selected according to a criterion of political feasibility; (3) the necessary data is collected and simulated according to the specifications of the policy alternatives; (4) the resultant tax burden redistribution of policy alternatives are identified; (5) results are analyzed to determine the comparative advantages of alternative school finance policies. Analysis of the school district fiscal profiles under the 1975-1976 school finance system indicates considerable differences in school district fiscal capacities. Moreover, state aid distribution based on the property wealth of school districts is not sufficient to equalize these differences. It is evident that the state of Oregon's share in financing public schools is insufficient to override the horizontal and vertical burden distribution inequities. This research indicates that, changing the state aid distribution formulas without increasing the level of state support, may reduce disparities in fiscal capacities among school districts. However, it is evident that such reform alternatives are not effective measures to reduce the existing tax burden distribution inequities among individual taxpayers. This study concludes that centralization of revenue formation functions, by, increasing the level of state support to public schools, will reduce the existing inequalities in tax burden distribution.

The purpose of this study has been to present a description of an inner-city neighborhood in the Northwest District of Portland, Oregon, and to identify educational needs and opportunities in broad terms. It provides a detailed description of the community, the educational institutions located within the community or utilized by students from the community seeking a high school education, and a community based agency, Friendly House, Inc. Other purposes have been to inventory available community resources, to establish criteria for the purpose of constructing a delivery system to strengthen the effectiveness of existing services, or where necessary to initiate services to meet unfulfilled needs and to idenlify the part that could or should be implemented by the 11 settlement house'' or 11 community center'' in the creation and functioning of this adjunctive model to the educational system. Two primary so1~rces of information were utilized. One source was interviews and conversations with students, parents, educators and related school personnel. The second source was that of t.he participant observer seeking information from the welfare case worker, the public health nurse, the community worker, the ministers, the mailman,. the grocer, the bartender or business man and representatives of the aging population. This body of information was correlated with numerous demographic and social studies compiled by this student, other graduate students, public agencies and the neighborhood organization. One assumption was that educational opportunities in Northwest Portland which were provided by formal educational institutions were utilitarian, goal oriented and extrinsic. This was confirmed with one exception, the Metropolitan Learning Center. A second assumption was that educational opportunities were largely confined to the traditional age for elementary and secondary students with limited offerings to adults and almost none to the elderly. This also was substantiated. The third assumption was that there are elements in the lives of individuals and in the community that are considered outside the purview of what is generally considered as formal education which are in fact educative in nature and which hold intrinsic value. Based on these findings we suggest a neighborhood based model which we call A Coalition of Neighborhood Centers and Services that includes public and private efforts to enhance the quality of life in the inner-city. Friendly House, Inc., as a private voluntary agency, is prepared as a significant channel to bring this coalition into existance by carrying out 1) an enabling role, 2) a participciting role, 3) an implementing role, 4) an interpretative role, and 5) a monitoring role.

Agritourism is one way to sustainably conserve open space. Its potential to supplement Oregon ranchers’ income may also preserve ranching culture. Research on agritourism in Oregon and elsewhere, however, is scarce. This study focused on the motivations of Oregon ranchers to diversify into agritourism, the congruence of conservation easements and agritourism, the feasibility of using sustainability indicators as tools to measure agritourism sustainability, and the future of agritourism in Oregon. This study mimics the one conducted by Nickerson, Black, and McCool (2001), using a mailback survey. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed to Oregon cattle ranch owners during the summer of 2002. Of those received, 177 were useable, for a response rate of 44%. Agritourism is hardly pervasive in Oregon; only 21% of respondents indicated they engage in agritourism enterprises. Of those who do, working ranch and fee hunting/fishing are the main activities offered. Top reasons for cattle ranchers to operate an agritourism business are to fully utilize ranch resources, capture additional income, to offset fluctuations in ranch income, and to educate the consumer. Major barriers to agritourism are insurance and liability concerns, lack of time, regulations, and lack of financial assistance and resources. Only 10% of Oregon ranchers and 19% of ranchers in agritourism had land protected under a conservation easement (both open and closed to the public). Although none of the hypotheses were supported, significant relationships were found between cattle ranchers in agritourism and the number of years cattle ranchers have been in the ranching business and the presence of family members who work off-ranch part-time year round; and gross annual household income and the hiring of non-family members who work part-time year round in the agritourism business. The majority of respondents rely on livestock production as a source of income, but livestock production is responsible for only about half of ranchers’ gross annual household income. Off-ranch income is the second major source of income. Findings indicate that agritourism may provide a profitable source of income allowing more ranchers to work full-time on the ranch while maintaining their ranching livelihood. / Graduation date: 2005

Much outdoor recreation occurs on publicly owned land and water resources, or involves use of these public resources. Consequently, an economic problem arises concerning the value of recreational resources which do not have a conventional market price. Without a price to guide the allocation of resources, it is difficult to obtain optimal decisions in allocation of these publicly owned natural resources among alternative uses, including recreation, timber, and domestic livestock production. In Oregon, the big game resource has a great impact on the economy of the state. Positive values of this resource are related to recreational use and to income generated which benefit local economies. Negative values of big game include its competition for resources used for timber production and/or livestock grazing. In order to better assess the value of the big game resource, an attempt has been made in this thesis to improve demand models from which the net economic value of the Oregon big game resource can be derived. The data used in this study were obtained from the questionnaires mailed to a random sample of Oregon big game hunters during the fall of 1968. The travel cost method was used to estimate the demand for big game hunting, based on the actual behavior of the hunters. Several algebraic forms of the travel cost demand equation were estimated for the Northeast and the Central regions of Oregon. The concept of consumers' surplus was used to estimate the net economic value for the Oregon big game resources. Net economic value for the Northeast and Central regions of Oregon in 1968 dollars was approximately $14.3 million, based on the exponential demand function. Net economic value for the same two regions was approximately $11 million, based on the linear demand function. An attempt was made in this study to predict the changes in consumers' surplus from changes in the number of deer and elk harvested. Note that the regression models in this thesis implied that a ten percent increase in harvest would increase the consumers' surplus of hunters by more than ten percent. However, the hypothesis that a ten percent increase in harvest would increase consumers' surplus by exactly ten percent was not rejected by a statistical test. Therefore, a good deal more research is needed to determine the value of marginal changes in the number of deer and elk harvested. It is thought that the estimation of net economic value in this study for the Northeast and Central regions of Oregon will be useful from the viewpoint of big game management and resource allocation in Oregon. / Graduation date: 1981

The objective of this study is to analyze empirically the demand structure for the following important farm production inputs in Oregon: hired labor, chemical fertilizer, farm machinery, repairs and operating costs of motor vehicles and other machinery designated as "machinery supplies," purchased feed and miscellaneous inputs. Twenty-year data (1950-69 except 1951-70 for hired labor) were analyzed with the aid of simple equation least-squares multiple regression techniques for all inputs. In addition, a simultaneous-equation model is applied to hired labor data. The demand for each input is predicted through 1975. This study indicates that hired farm labor employment depends heavily upon wage rates. Contrary to earlier national and regional studies, the short-run demand for hired farm labor in Oregon during 1951-70 was found to be elastic, -1.2 to -1.5 and -1.5 to -2.6 in the single-equation and the simultaneous-equation demand models respectively. This implies that if farm wage rates rise, the number of workers employed declines in greater proportion than the wage rate rise. Conversely, if wage rates fall the number of workers employed will increase disproportionately. The number of hired workers employed on Oregon farms declined by 40.6 percent (37 thousand to 22 thousand) between 1950 and 1970. A further 25 percent decline is projected by 1975. The demand for fertilizer and purchased feed are comparable in many ways. The demand for each is inelastic (-0.45 and -0.58) in the short-run, and moderately elastic (-1.05 to -1.35) in the long-run. The adjustment coefficient, which indicates the percent of the required adjustment that can be made in one year in feed or fertilizer purchases, in both cases are about the same--around 0.50. However, profitability of livestock enterprises as an independent variable (RL subscript [t]) is statistically significant in the demand equation for purchased feed, but profitability of farming as a variable (R subscript [t]) is not significant in the fertilizer models. Furthermore, fertilizer purchases continued to increase in spite of static or slightly decreasing crop prices. Although the input price variable is statistically significant in the demand models for both fertilizer and purchased feed, decreasing fertilizer prices have probably contributed heavily to the increase in the use of fertilizers in Oregon. If the past declining trend in the "real" price of fertilizer continues and other relationships do not change materially, there will be a 43 percent (381.8 thousand tons to 547.5 thousand tons) greater consumption of fertilizer in Oregon over the next six years. Based on past experience, such an increase is undoubtedly within the capability of the fertilizer industry to meet the requirement. The expenditure for purchased feed is projected to be 9 percent greater in 1975 than in 1969 in terms of constant 1957-59 dollars. The increase becomes 25 percent when expressed in terms of what feed prices are expected to be in 1975 dollars. Unavailability of data on annual capital outlay for the purchase of machinery and equipment by Oregon farmers is a serious problem in the estimation of the demand structure for farm machinery. However, annual inventories of machinery and equipment on Oregon farms is used as a substitute variable. The analysis indicates the demand for machinery and equipment inventories to be inelastic. The demand for "machinery supplies", a variable with considerable complementarity with machinery and equipment inventory, was also found to be inelastic. A 10 percent increase in the price of farm machinery or price of "machinery supplies" is associated with a 4.5 percent decrease in the total machinery and equipment inventory, and a 6.3 percent decrease in "machinery supplies" purchased. The estimated elasticities may be biased due to high multi-collinearity problems in their demand models. However, the prediction ability of these models is undoubtedly good. It is expected that there will be a $32 million increase (1957-59 dollars) in the value of machinery inventories on Oregon farms by 1975 over the 1969 level. The increase is $104 million in 1975 dollars. The expenditure for repairs and operating costs of motor vehicles and other machinery (machinery supplies) are expected to be fairly constant during this period in terms of 1957-59 dollars. This peculiarity of increasing inventory of machinery and equipment in 1957-59 dollars and a constant expenditure for "machinery supplies" is judged to be due to the fact that the machinery inventory effect and the price effect seem to cancel out and maintain the constant expenditure for "machinery supplies." Prices of "machinery supplies" have tended to decline over the period of the study. The projection of expenditure for "machinery supplies" in terms of current dollars indicates a 12 percent increase by 1975 which is wholly accounted for by expected inflationary tendencies in the economy. In contrast to chemical fertilizer, purchased feeds, machinery and equipment inventories and "machinery supplies," miscellaneous inputs (interest, electricity, veterinary supplies and services, etc.) has a very high elastic demand. Due to the evidence of there being two distinct trends in expenditures for miscellaneous inputs, the data were analyzed on the basis of the two periods. The dummy variable approach developed by Damodar Gujarati fails to reject the null hypothesis of the discontinuity in the demand curve for miscellaneous inputs during the 1950-69 period at the 5 percent test level. The mean price elasticity of demand was found to be -1.22 for the period 1950-57 and -4.28 for the period 1958-69. Such a high elasticity is probably due to a strong complementarity between miscellaneous inputs and the increasing total agricultural plant size, and the substitution effect due to gradually falling relative prices of miscellaneous inputs. A 23 percent increase (1957-59 dollars) in expenditure for miscellaneous inputs is projected by 1975 compared to 1969. The increase in terms of 1975 dollars amounts to 46 percent: from $72.8 million to $106.4 million. It is anticipated that the information regarding the demand structure for farm production input factors discussed in this study will be useful to people involved in farm labor policy-making, and decision making in farm supply business firms, credit agencies and farming businesses in planning for the extension of their volume of operations in the next few years. The future demand for these farm inputs, among other factors, will largely depend on the trend of their "real" or relative prices. The projected amount of expenditures for these inputs in current dollars will be modified by any changes in the extent of inflationary tendencies in the economy. / Graduation date: 1972

The size of elk herds in Eastern Oregon has become a controversial issue. Trade-offs exist between the numbers of elk and domestic livestock on a given area of land, and also between elk and commercial timber harvesting policies. Disputes arise from differing views as to proper use of the natural resource base, specifically, public forested and grazing lands. Economic comparisons between elk and alternative uses of the land are complicated by the non-market nature of the elk resource, as this necessitates using a method to value the resource which may not be familiar to many decision makers. The objectives of this thesis were: (1) to analyze the demand for antlerless elk tags in eastern Oregon and to use the analysis to examine alternative pricing policies for allocating these antlerless tags, (2) to evaluate alternative elk management strategies from an economic perspective, and (3) to optimize societal benefits from the land base over time. Objective (1) was met by using the travel cost method. Results indicate that state hunting revenues would rise substantially if tag prices were increased so as to equilibrate quantities demanded and supplied. Objective (2) was met by using a computer simulation model to ascertain the impacts of harvesting and management policies upon the herd's stability and productivity. The results, placing emphasis on the antlerless animals, indicate that a slight reduction in current herd levels is economically desirable. This result is caused in part by the decreasing returns to scale from the elk herd as measured by total harvest per 1000 summer adult elk. Limitations of these conclusions with respect to bull elk demand are documented. Finally, objective (3) is met by formulating the dynamic relationships between elk, domestic livestock, and timber as a system of dynamic Lagrangian multipliers. This allows optimal inter-temporal allocation of resources by discounting future returns from these resources and equating marginal benefits of present and future use. The decision rules are examined, and economic implications of the multipliers are discussed. Although a theoretical model, some data is discussed, as are directions for future research. / Graduation date: 1983

The Reclamation Act of 1902, as amended, is the basic legislation governing the distribution of water from federal projects for irrigation purposes. In the three-quarters of a century since the passage of this Act, technological, economic, and legal developments have forced a reappraisal of the original intent of the Reclamation laws. Several proposals have been made to amend these laws and enforce provisions that put the current distribution of the rights to public water and related land resources in jeopardy. This study attempts to evaluate these proposed amendments in terms of the irrigation rights that would be displaced if the amendments were rigidly enforced in three of Oregon's largest federal irrigation districts. The method of analysis proceeds by combining secondary data on land ownership with primary survey data on leasing arrangements to generate a distribution of farm sizes for each district. Each farming unit as a whole is then evaluated for any excess acreage that would be displaced from applying the ownership, leasing, and residency provisions of each of the proposals. Excess acreage is summed and extrapolated over the irrigation district to provide an estimate of the effect of enforcing each proposal in each district. The results of the analysis indicate that the various proposed restrictions will result in widely different sets of effects. Two of the proposals, that of the Department of Interior and that of National Land for People, are restrictive enough to cause 17,000 and 23,000 acres of excess land, respectively, across all three irrigation districts. The other two proposals analyzed, that of Senators Church/Hatfield, and that of Farm/Water Alliance, will result in little or no excess land in these districts. / Graduation date: 1980

The passing of the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution has given to individual states the authority to regulate the sale, distribution and taxation of domestically produced wines, and made the wine trade potentially significant as a means of augmenting state revenues. In the state of Oregon, table wines have been taxed at the rate of 23 cents per gallon irrespective of origin. The objective of this study has been to evaluate the nature and price elasticity of Oregon's wholesale demand for California table wines with a view to determine the effectiveness of the utilization of the tax. The multiple regression analysis technique is the instrument used in this determination. A two part statistical model was employed, but the number of variables used had to be restricted because of certain data limitations. Only 78 percent and 50 percent of variation was explained in the price predicting and demand segments of the model respectively. The results of the statistical analysis indicated a positively sloped demand curve. This rendered any application of the concept of price elasticity of demand as a means of assessing how effective the tax was being used meaningless. In view of this, no recommendations have been made, but the need for further research as more data become available has been pointed out. / Graduation date: 1971