Our focus has timely significance also in OSU's wider community. This year's Tcha Tee Man Wi Storytelling Festival will be February 1 –4. OSU’s connection in the inaugural years of the popular, free festival has included some credit arrangements, for student attendance; story-sharing by faculty and staff; and support from several OSU centers, colleges, and departments — for instance, the Center for the Humanities (through its Peter J. Copek Fund) has been a generous contributor for three years.
Details about the festival are available on the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library site, thebestlibrary.net/corvallis/storyfest/

"It has become clear to me that personal narrative can express deep values of the community. Whether it's collective celebration or collective loss, sometimes the need arises for a story or poem to express our feelings.

Kathy Moore continues to speak for us with an uncommon voice. Her essay, delivered at the June 2006 Commencement, was deeply moving and resonated with all who attended.

I am pleased that Kathy has agreed to serve as the University Writer Laureate. It is a privilege to recognize and honor someone so special.
- OSU President Ed Ray. He announced at the October, 2006 Faculty Senate meeting that Kathleen Dean Moore had accepted the position of OSU's Writer Laureate.

"I feel deeply honored to serve as Oregon State's Writer Laureate. In my view, the creation of this position says something important about the University and about President Ray's vision. It recognizes the necessity of the arts in a university, especially one that emphasizes science and technology. It honors the power of the arts to explore the human meaning of events and to create a community of shared values.

There are wonderful writers on this campus. I'm grateful to them for collegiality that is as nourishing and generous as any I have known. I'm grateful, too, for students and colleagues all across campus — from fisheries to philosophy to forestry — who explore the uses of story in their work. Most of all, I'm grateful for the opportunity to try to find words for the energy and excitement of our university's search for meaning, words for the depth of our shared sorrow or celebration."

-Kathleen Dean Moore

"But, now the proposed increases have all been undercut."

Clark explains that as a part of the White House's American Competitiveness Initiative (see http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2006/aci/ ) , President Bush had called for doubling the money for science over a decade. "Congress responded favorably," she says, and benefits were going to be seen soon. The physical sciences in particular were being favored.

Any conversation with Dale Pehrsson is peppered with stories – and stories about stories.

The Associate Professor for Counselor Education especially loves to talk about the therapeutic value of literature. In her clinical practice, she discovered various ways to use stories as tools. She would tell a fictional tale; invite children to make-up stories with her; or entice them into playing, and then listen to the stories that spontaneously came out.

"We're wired for stories. We're tuned in to beginning, middle, end. Stories are what being human is about."

"My life is all about the Story"

"There is something about the telling of a tale . . ."

"Stories are how families teach their children."

"Stories work."

“. . . And then . . . What do you think happened next?”
                           - Dale Pehrsson

“Stories help children to open up about problems,” she says. “And stories help them look at new possibilities.”

These days, in both her research and teaching of graduate students, she continues to focus on myth, metaphor and meaning in therapeutic processes.

• See the pod cast about her bibliotherapy project with OSU Librarian Paula McMillen.
• Pehrsson's work will be featured in the upcoming issue of Terra.

Wikipedia & OSU: Many Stories, Many Authors, Many Editors

In the December issue, Update asked readers to tell about their use and opinions of Wikipedia, the popular on-line anyone-can-edit encyclopedia. Below we share the diverse comments of four of the respondents:

Do you access Wikipedia for information in your own field of expertise?

DW - No

JB - Not often, but on occasion when I want some general information or references.

DW -- Yes, quite often, mainly for biographies or pop culture topics. And
my research lab web site ("Davey Jones Locker") actually links to a
Wikipedia entry on Davey Jones, as I am constantly getting emails from
all over the world about him after people find my site. The entry on
Davey Jones is quite thorough.

JB - Yes, particularly historical and general information.

TR - I love Wikipedia and use it frequently for general information and current events (i.e. Katrina, Gulf War, emerging technology, etc). It even has some current information about OSU faculty and events.

RH - I have looked at Wikipedia only a couple of times, mostly on social-type issues.

Do you access Wikipedia for information on other topics?

Have you found the information on Wikipedia to be accurate?

DW -- As far as I can tell, what I have accessed appears to be accurate.

JB - I can only evaluate for the topics directly related to my field, and yes, it does seem to offer good concise reviews. While accurate, the information selected, as in any short review, may be reflective of the contributor or of the article it was drawn from.

RH - Wikipedia might be a nice place for possible background information, but it is probably far from definitive. With uncontrolled information postings and the (now only slightly controlled) ability for people to change listings, I would think this NOT a primary source for scholarly information.

JB - I have contributed, but it was because I was requested to review and edit several topics in my field.

Have you contributed information about your professional field of
expertise? About other topics?

What experiences have you had with students using Wikipedia?

DW -- Not much. Students have not yet cited it very much for assignments in my classes. However, in anticipation of this for the future, I am going to adopt the Wikipedia guidelines of UCSB English professor Alan Liu, as published in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

--- Wikipedia can be cited "when the point being supported is minor, noncontroversial, or also supported by other evidence. In addition, Wikipedia is an appropriate source for some extremely recent topics (especially in popular culture or technology) for which it provides the sole or best available synthetic, analytical, or historical discussion."
--- Wikipedia should never be used as a primary source for information on "anything that is central to an argument, complex, or controversial."
--- if Wikipedia is indeed cited, the student must note not only the
date, but the local time that the entry was accessed.

JB - None, but I would suggest they use this information as a starting point and recheck the facts in the references provided.

DW - - None of that nature.

JB- I haven't really followed this closely, but any additions or changes appear to be accurate.

Please describe your experiences with Wikipedia, such as finding that
other editors have revised or deleted your contributions.

Additional comments

DW - You may also be interested in this video by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, in which he explains how Wikipedia works and why it succeeds. It was recorded in 2005 at TED2005 (Technology, Entertainment, Design): www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=j_wales

TR - I think Wikipedia is a very interesting concept that is dynamic and emergent. In many ways it embodies what we're trying to achieve with diversity because it makes room for voices and perspectives that are not always heard.

What I like is, if I have a complaint or another way of seeing something, I can voice it, they will check it out for accuracy and if it’s correct, it becomes part of their encyclopedia. That's profound. If we had something available like that when I was a kid, we'd have a completely different understanding of history. It's a great equalizer, like an open-source for information. This is why Time magazine has named “You” the person of the year.

Senior Ryan Scholz, a recipient of the URISC Award, was honored with the American Star in Agriscience award of the Future Farmers of America. The animal sciences and bio-resource research major found ways to protect the university-owned McDonald-Dunn forest from a prevalent non-native weed. The rapid growth of the slender false brome threatens Kincaid's Lupine, which is essential as host to the endangered Fender's blue butterfly. Scholz had success encouraging sheep to graze on and thus control the brome.

Scholz hopes to go to veterinary school and then into private practice or veterinary research.

Two students recently received scholarships to help fund research overseas through awards funded by the URISC International Program.

Kelly Minks, senior in Human Development & Family Science and International Studies received $1,500 to assist with her research on private social services agencies. She recently returned from an internship in Chile, and used the funding to research the risk factors associated with homelessness in youth there.

Alyssa Harris, junior in Biology and International Studies, received $2000 to assist with research on global warming in the Galapagos, particularly the effects of thermal stress on seaweed growth. See the blog on her scientific activities and on her cultural/adjustment activities. "I am very grateful for the funding that I received through the International Research Scholarship," she said. "It has provided me an opportunity to study, learn and conduct research on seaweeds in the Galapagos and to have a better understanding of science on a global scale."

Gertseva is assistant professor and senior researcher in the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resource Studies. Her work on a conceptual model, determines abundance and spatial distribution of fish in marine ecosystems. This, and her further planned research on quantitative predictions of fish distribution, will help in interpretation of survey data and estimation of population abundance, which will take some of the guesswork out of fisheries stocking.

This study recently became number three of the top-read articles in the journal "Fisheries Research."

Gertseva's co-author, by the way, was her father, V.I.Gertsev, a professor of Mathematics in Rybinsk State Academy of Aviation Technology in Russia.

Attention is not new to the pair. They published a paper that became the most-read paper of 2004 in the journal "Ecological Modeling." It was about various classes of mathematical models to help ecologists, biologists and environmentalists navigate the diversity of methods and techniques. It was also named number three among the most downloaded publications in the journal in the years 2000 —2005.

In 2003, they published an explanation of the popularity of The Beatles from the scientific point of view, introducing a principle of "mutual involvement," in both music and natural science. Readers of Russian can find out more in From Me to You Magazine.
Another of their papers addresses the appeal of the blues . Through the analysis of blues harmony and structure, it proposes fundamental psychological and physiological reasons why the blues is popular among people, independent of their background, education, and location.