Your Beaver Bragging RightsFall 2024

Forgive me if this column sets aside Oregon State’s usual inclination toward modesty. Many of you have told me you wish we bragged more, like a nearby university known for flaunting its duck feathers. So allow me to do just that.

Let’s start with the magazine in your hands. This summer, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) recognized the Oregon Stater with four distinguished awards. Our redesign, which debuted this time last year, was named the best of the best — “a standout from cover to cover.” The winter issue’s shark adventure, “Fear in the Water,” by Cathleen Hockman-Wert, merited a gold award for feature writing. We also received two awards for opinion writing — a silver for “The Jaws Effect” by editor Scholle McFarland and a bronze for “When Beavers Unite” by yours truly.

I’m also proud to share that the OSU Alumni Association was honored by Insight Into Diversity magazine for our progress in, and commitment to, encouraging a culture of belonging and connection for our alumni.

National honors are nice to receive. They position OSU as a destination for talent and best practices, and they help reward hard work and ingenuity — work that builds our community of Beavers. As I see it, each of these acknowledgements is a manifestation of momentum occurring throughout this great university. Let’s brag about that, too.

In the last few years, OSU has successfully completed a state-of-the-art football stadium renovation, as well as capital projects for gymnastics, softball, baseball and track and field. Along the way, our awe-inspiring student-athletes have won on and off each playing surface. Jade Carey has just earned two medals in gymnastics — her second gold and a bronze — at the Summer Olympics, and OSU is the only school this year with first-round draft picks in baseball, football and soccer.

In 2024 alone, we elevated the university’s arts and sciences, opening the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts and breaking ground for OSU’s ambitious venture into next-generation technologies, the Jen-Hsun Huang and Lori Mills Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex. 

Then there’s you. This past year, more alumni and friends than ever participated in OSU events and volunteered to benefit students and university pursuits. And more
donors are providing more dollars than ever before. 

This Oregon Stater reflects the importance of optimism. These are just a few of the reasons to feel optimistic about this wonderful university. Keep on bragging, Beaver Nation. We are DAM PROUD!