LIFE@OSU

Teressa Hartley’s internship this past summer provided the perfect opportunity to honor her African American heritage and practice her interior design skills.

The OSU Extension Service recently launched Food Hero – an initiative to encourage low-income Oregonians to eat a well-balanced diet with more fruits and vegetables.

At 9:09 a.m. on the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year of 2009, the Hallie Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families was officially launched. As the ceremony began, the chimes atop the Memorial Union played the OSU fight song and children built a pyramid of giant blocks, topping it with a “Thank You” to the late Hallie Ford, and to her children and grandchildren who attended the ceremony.

Each year through the OSU Women’s Giving Circle, a group of alumnae and friends pool their donations of $500, $1,000, or more to fund grants for university programs relevant to women.

“It wasn’t really until junior high that I felt any awkwardness,” says Kerri Vanderbom whose older sister Mari and brother Tobi taught her to play baseball, basketball and cruise around their neighborhood.

We made special trips to Venice and Rome and visited Sienna and other cities. I really enjoyed the classes I took there, which were the art and architecture of Florence and the villas and gardens of Tuscany. The days were long in “class” but class was traveling around looking at art and architecture all over Florence and Italy.

Her eyes still tear up as she tells the story of the woman who brought her 15-year-old son to the remote village clinic. “He was very sick with rheumatic fever – he couldn’t walk, he had a high fever and was in a lot of pain, and he needed help immediately or he was going to die,”

My father was a migrant worker and we moved from Mexico to Milton-Freewater when I was 11. My parents always emphasized the importance of education, of reading, of studying hard. And they taught me to dream.

Nancy Perez Flores used to think that college wasn’t in her future. Now the OSU sophomore dreams of becoming a bilingual pediatrician.

For her commitment to equality, her passion for social justice and her leadership for Latino causes, Doris was recently awarded an impressive scholarship from the Oregon Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber in Portland.