UNIVERSITY OF OREGON - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Instructor of Literature, Faculty Director of First - Year Experience

Job Titles:

• Associate Dean for Faculty for the Clark Honors College Professor

Job Titles:

• Acting Dean of the CHC Professor

Job Titles:

• Administration
• Associate Dean of Students
• Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies Senior Lecturer of Anthropology

Job Titles:

• Oregon President

Job Titles:

• Clark Honors College Administrative Staff Member
• Communications Director
• Communications

Job Titles:

• Professor

Ival McMains was honored May 5 as the first recipient of the Clark Honors College Alumni Achievement Award, presented at the inaugural Clark Honors College Convocation. Professor David Frank highlighted McMains' challenging college career, his achievements in business, his philanthropic and humanitarian contributions, and his loyalty to the University of Oregon. "As an ROTC officer in training in the late 1960s, Ival faced many challenges beyond the rigors of the Clark Honors College curriculum," Frank said. Following graduation from the honors college, McMains entered the business world, becoming a C.P.A. and fitness company executive. His company, Family Fitness Management, gradually became a multi-million-dollar, nationally recognized conglomerate. "Ival credits the honors college for his success, and the university and the honors college have benefited from this loyalty," Frank said, adding that McMains' interests in philosophy, religion, critical thinking, and business have transferred into support of several departments on campus. For example, in 2003 he jointly sponsored an interdisciplinary conference on Essentialism in Cognition and Culture at the University of Oregon, and his scholarship for ROTC students is one of the most generous offered in the Clark Honors College. McMains also has been an active volunteer and supporter of nonprofit groups local and international, including his role as treasurer for the Escondido, California chapter of PAWS (Pets are Wonderful Support) and his loyal support of the Next Generation Sierra Leone Project, a charitable organization helping education in the west African country. "Ival not only reaches out to test his strengths in various educational and business ventures, but he encourages a high level of education through volunteer efforts and financial support," Frank said. "In presenting this award we at the university and in the honors college are acknowledging that Mr. McMains truly reflects many of the substantial qualities of a Clark Honors College graduate: leadership, commitment, and accomplishment."

David Maier, PhD, is the Maseeh Professor of Emerging Technologies in the Department of Computer Science at Portland State University. [1] I was also fortunate to have had a campus job at the UO building computerized control circuits for Professor Klopfenstein in the chemistry department. That background helped out enormously when I was assigned as a TA to the digital logic class.

Job Titles:

• Fellow
• Editorial Writer

What they saw were the remnants of a long-neglected mental health system-adolescent girls who dragged their mattresses into the hall to sleep in safe view of staff, prison-like adult wards, crammed sleeping quarters-all in a ramshackle, sometimes creepy collection of buildings and additions dating from the 1880s to the 1950s. One of the most striking images, Bates said, were the thousands of corroding copper urns that held the unclaimed cremains of patients who died-stacked like paint cans in an abandoned wing of the 122-year-old hospital.

Job Titles:

• Director of Alumni and Community Engagement

Job Titles:

• Assistant Dean of Advising and Strategic Partnerships Instructor of Literature

Job Titles:

• Professor

Job Titles:

• Owner

Richard graduated from the Clark Honors College in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in marketing transactions and business environment. His honors college thesis was A Study of the Feasibility of Marketing Douglas Fir Lumber Products Abroad. In 1980, Richard earned his joint MBA and Master of Information Management from the American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird) in Glendale, Arizona, following which he and his wife Pamela spent a decade living and working in Washington, Germany and Switzerland. Returning to Oregon in 1991, Richard served as the president of Sycan B Corp. Sycan is a developer and operator of commercial, industrial and residential real estate. In 1994, he founded InnSight Hotel Management Group, which currently operates eleven hotels in Oregon and Washington. Richard has served as president since its inception. Richard and Pamela are also the owners of Iris Vineyards located in the southern Willamette Valley near Eugene. Their first vines were planted in 1996 and they bottled their first wines in 2001. Today Iris Vineyards wines are nationally distributed. Richard is an active volunteer in his community. He has served as a board member for Goodwill Industries of Lane County and the Eugene-Springfield Metro Partnership; vice chair for the Citizen Advisory Group, Gateway Refinement Plan; and member of the Springfield Conference Center Consortium and Springfield Blue Ribbon Consortium. Richard currently serves on the Oak Hill School Board of Trustees as past chair; as vice chair of Travel Lane County (2004 - present), and as a member of the Eugene Chamber of Commerce's Entrepreneurial Advisory Board (2009 - present), whose mission is to promote economic development in Lane County and the southern Willamette Valley. He is an emeritus member of the Clark Honors College alumni advisory board. Richard was celebrated with a prestigious Alumni Award at the 50th Anniversary Celebration Gala of the Clark Honors College.

Job Titles:

• Clark Honors College Administrative Staff Member
• IT & Communications
• Web Communications Technician

Job Titles:

• Clark Honors College Administrative Staff Member

Job Titles:

• Chairman of African American Studies

Dr. Allison Blakely is the George and Joyce Wein Chair of African American Studies and professor of European and comparative history at Boston University. Dr. Blakely, class of 1962, wrote his Clark Honors College thesis on The Peace of 1865, an assessment of the reconstruction period following the Civil War. Last spring, CHC student Lizzy Gillespie interviewed Dr. Blakely as part of Professor Suzanne Clark's course on the history and founding of the Clark Honors College. During the interview, Dr. Blakely summed up the importance of attending the honors college, stating that his undergraduate experience gave him "A very good start both for advanced studies and role models for academic life." Born into a family of sharecroppers in rural Alabama, Dr. Blakely grew up in north Portland, Oregon. Encouraged by his mother, who had only a sixth grade education, he spent many days reading in the Multnomah County Library. Through his personal experiences of racism and his reading, Dr. Blakely says he developed "an awareness of how historical analysis can at times provide a salve and a shield against the inherent psychological pain." In high school, he studied the Russian culture and discovered intermittent similarities between the Alabama culture into which he was born, and that of Russia. After attending Oregon State University on a small scholarship, Dr. Blakely transferred to the University of Oregon and completed his junior and senior years in the honors college. He recalled the honors college in its early days: "My favorites [professors] were special in different ways … Paul Holbo, Val Lorwin, and Earl Pomeroy in the history department. I also recall a fascinating visiting classics professor from England, Ernst Badian, who recovered well from his astonishment in discovering at our first class meeting that none of us knew Greek or Latin. Another favorite was Aaron Novick, a brilliant molecular biologist who was also unbeatable in ping pong during parties at his home." Dr. Blakely graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the UO and continued his studies on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, earning his MA in Russian history. Despite his personal opposition to the Vietnam War, he completed two years of service - including one year in Vietnam as an Army intelligence officer attached to the First Infantry Division - and rose to the rank of captain. He received both a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Upon his return to the United States, he earned his PhD at Berkeley in Modern Europe (Russia) in 1971, and began teaching at Howard University, a predominantly African American university in Washington, D.C. In his interview with Lizzy Gillespie, Dr. Blakely described his thirty years at Howard: "…[the Howard students] awakened my intellectual curiosity about the presence and role of blacks in European history. I also became personally swept into that history. In the course of research visits to the Netherlands in the early 1970s to exploit rich archival materials on Russian populism in Amsterdam, I began to experience racism after the independence of Surinam in 1975 suddenly brought a larger black population to the Netherlands. When speaking Dutch, I was mistaken for a black Surinamer, and was treated differently than earlier, when I had been seen as a professor from the United States." Dr. Blakely is the author of two books. Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial Imagery In a Modern Society was published by Indiana University in 1994. His first book, Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought (Howard University Press, 1986), won a 1988 American Book Award. In addition to his academic research and publications, Dr. Blakely served as President of the National Phi Beta Kappa honor society from 2006-09. He is also an editor for Phi Beta Kappa's award-winning publication, The American Scholar, and represented Phi Beta Kappa at the investiture of UO President Richard Lariviere last May. On November 3, 2010, Dr. Blakely will receive the 2010 Clark Honors College Alumni Achievement Award at a special luncheon recognizing him and his contributions to Phi Beta Kappa.

Job Titles:

• Clark Honors College Administrative Staff Member
• Events and Forensics Operations Coordinator

Madeline Bailey, BA '11, will never forget the way her client's face lit up when the verdict was read. The woman was 22 years into a life sentence and had been denied parole seven times. "She never had a good advocate, never had an attorney sit down and spend a significant amount of time with her since she began her sentence," says Bailey, valedictorian of the University of Oregon's Robert D. Clark Honors College in 2011 and now a third-year law student at University of California at Berkeley. "Along with another Berkeley law student, I was able to help her understand what the parole board wanted to see from her. The board is very focused on making sure that a person has insight into what they have done, but no one had ever spent the time to talk with her about that before." Bailey was able to spend considerable time with the client, helping her prepare for a hearing that eventually set her free. "It was amazing to see her have hope again," she says. And when the woman was eventually released from a prison in California's Central Valley, Bailey and a classmate were there to pick her up and drive her to transitional housing in the Los Angeles area. After graduating from the UO, Bailey worked for the Prison Law Office, a Berkeley-based nonprofit that litigated Brown v. Plata, the 2011 case in which the US Supreme Court ruled that the level of prison overcrowding in California at the time was unconstitutional. Bailey worked for the organization for two years prior to entering law school, visiting prisons with attorneys to see whether conditions were in compliance with the law. That experience inspired her interest in prisoners' rights and post-conviction advocacy. Since starting law school at Berkeley, she has worked with an Oakland-based nonprofit called UnCommon Law to help two individuals serving life sentences gain parole. (In addition to the woman described previously, Bailey served as an advocate for a man who had been sentenced to life at age 17. Upon his release, Bailey was able to see him reunited with his family.) She has also worked for the ACLU National Prison Project in Washington, DC, and several public defender offices across the country.

Margaret is the first graduate of the Clark Honors College. Previously part of the University of Oregon Sophomore Honors Program, she joined the newly minted honors college during its first year of operation, for her senior year 1960-61. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in education. Margaret is a member Phi Beta Kappa, Mortar Board, and Pi Lambda Theta, an education honorary. During her senior year, she chaired the Honors College Board. As a sophomore (1958-59), she was editor and managing editor of Oregana, the university yearbook. After graduation, Margaret devoted herself to education, earning her master's in educational psychology from the University of Washington in 1979. She began working in the Issaquah School District, a suburban district east of Seattle with approximately 16,000 students, the same year. Until her retirement in 2003, Margaret held administrative responsibility for gifted programs, special education, vocational education, technology, student discipline, and served as school psychologist (1979 - 92), assistant to the superintendent and then assistant superintendent (1992 - 03). Since retirement, Margaret has held leadership positions in many family support agencies in her community such as the United Way Eastside Community Council, the Educational Tutoring and Consulting School, and the Eastside Human Services Forum. In 2007, she was instrumental in creating and still administers the Ruth Roy Memorial Scholarship for gifted students. During her tenure, the Eastside Baby Corner (EBC), an organization providing clothing, supplies and equipment for children from birth to age twelve, moved from an all-volunteer agency to professional board and staff. Today, the EBC serves more than 160 major human service agencies in King County with a budget of over $4 million. Currently, she co-chairs a regional effort to create the Issaquah Human Services Campus, a joint service center for multiple agencies to provide needed services under one roof. Margaret received the Superintendent's Award for Excellence form the Issaquah School District in 1990. In 2003, she was named Issaquah School District Employee of the Year, an award presented by the Issaquah Rotary, and received a Catalyst Award for Leadership. Margaret was celebrated with a prestigious Alumni Award at the 50th Anniversary Celebration Gala of the Clark Honors College.

Job Titles:

• Medical Research Scientist

Mary (Brennan) Goldring, an internationally recognized medical research scientist, is a world expert on cartilage biology and molecular biology, particularly as it relates to the behavior of arthritis. She developed in vitro methods for the study of the degeneration of human cartilage in osteoarthritis and inflammatory joint diseases, disorders that affect millions of people worldwide. "Dr. Goldring is a pioneer in her field," said University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer. "She is noted for her multiple awards, including a New Investigator Research Award from the National Institute of Health, and the highly competitive Searle Arthritis and Prostaglandins Research Challenge grant. She is also a three-time recipient of the prestigious Arthritis Foundation Biomedical Research Grant." Now a senior scientist at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City - a position that includes an affiliated position as lecturer at the Weill Cornell Medical College at Cornell University - the focus of Dr. Goldring's laboratory is on defining the molecular and cellular mechanisms that lead to alterations in remodeling of cartilage in osteoarthritis and inflammatory joint diseases. Osteoarthritis, a leading cause of disability, particularly among individuals over 65, is the most common type of arthritis and affects an estimated 12.1 percent of the U.S. population or more than 20 million Americans. As the population ages, the number of people with osteoarthritis will grow and it is predicted that by 2030, 20 percent of Americans - about 72 million people - will be at high risk for the disease. Goldring is moving forward with her research efforts. She is even undergoing injections of trial medication in her arthritic left thumb in order to broaden her knowledge in the field. Goldring traces her scientific curiosity back to her elementary school days in Reno, Nevada. "The Sputniks went up in the late fifties, and there was a lot of hype about pushing science in schools," she says. "If you tested well, they were pushing you to do math and science all the way through high school." At that time, she notes, girls were not exactly encouraged to pursue medicine as a career. "I didn't even think about doing pre-med, but I was helping all these pre-med guys with their work in our organic chemistry classes!" Goldring immersed herself in her high school laboratory studies, and worked as a teaching assistant for her biology teacher who recommended Oregon as a university with a well-rated science program. At the honors college, Goldring quickly found her niche in biology classes with Professor George Carroll, a noted mycologist of the time. Selected for a National Science Foundation Undergraduate Research Participant (URP) Fellowship, Goldring completed a research project for her honors college thesis, An Analysis of Ultra-Structural Aspects of Sporulation in Imperfect Fungi, while working with Carroll. "I really do credit him for giving me the opportunity to assist him with his project," she says. "Even though I ultimately didn't end up working directly in basic biology with fungi, it really gave me a taste for independent research." Throughout her career, Goldring has also functioned as an educator and mentor, beginning with several years teaching biology for the Peace Corps in Peru after completing her undergraduate degree. Goldring currently supervises students at HSS, guiding their research projects. Clinical trials go on for years, she says, "But there are new developments and discoveries made on an ongoing basis. That's what's exciting to me; I'm working with this group of eight very talented postdoctoral students. It's great to see that I've guided them in the right direction." Dr. Goldring accepted the 2009 Clark Honors College Alumni Achievement Award at the CHC's commencement banquet on Friday, June 12, 2009. Selected by a subcommittee of the CHC Alumni Advisory Council, Goldring has distinguished herself as a leader in the field of chondrocyte biology.

Job Titles:

• Executive Assistant to the Dean
• Executive Support

Job Titles:

• Clark Honors College Administrative Staff Member
• Director of Admissions
• Director of Admissions, Belonging and Family Engagement

Job Titles:

• Assistant Dean
• Associate Dean
• Clark Honors College Administrative Staff Member
• Associate Dean of Administration

Job Titles:

• Office Specialist II
• Operations Support

Hometown: Bend Song on Repeat: "Music is Math" by Boards of Canada. "Storm Queen" by Grace Cummings. But I hate listening to songs on repeat. Give me some variety. Coffee or Tea: Espresso Role Model: They are all dead. Hobbies: Drawing and painting, hiking, fishing, cats. Favorite Part of My Job: Working with the student staff at reception.

Job Titles:

• Professor

Job Titles:

• Forensics Director, Senior Instructor of Information Science

At age 18 in September 1958, I migrated from West Virginia to the University of Oregon. Nine months before, I took a day off from work to nurse an injury, a chemical burn from cleaning carbon-encrusted walls inside a big mixing machine at the giant aluminum plant where I worked as a new hire. The only way I could do the work was to wrap my legs around the mixing blades. It was a frightful job: what if it turned on somehow? Another newbie my age replaced me the day I stayed home. While he was inside, the machine turned on. He died instantly. It should have been me. Fate and chance said no. To what end? I worked hard, saved, and left West Virginia. I brought my working-class heart and soul to the honors college ethos. Not a self-less lad, I was molded by caring HC professors, including Lucian Marquis, to start giving back right away. With other HC freshmen, I cowrote an irregular column for the Oregon Daily Emerald called "We Dissent" that criticized unequal treatment of women under in loco parentis. The housemother system on the UO campus was dismantled a few years later. As a senior, I was the yearbook's poet, lamenting the loss of privacy as we entered the cyberage. In 1963, as a grad student in East Asian Studies, I joined the first-ever Eugene demonstration against the escalating Vietnam War. I became a community organizer-in Lyndon John-son's war on poverty. With my thesis advisor, I wrote a book: Scouting the War on Poverty: Social Reform Politics in the Kennedy Administration. That book became my doctoral dissertation.