UHDS News

University Housing & Dining Services is now hiring a student mentor for the 2012-13 CAMP Scholar Internship program.

The CSI Mentor supports the CAMP Scholar Interns (CSIs) in their transition to college and their personal, academic, and internship success. The CSI Mentor will serve as a direct liaison between the CAMP Scholar Interns and the Multicultural Resource Coordinator (MRC) in UHDS as well as other OSU departments.

The successful candidate will also be responsible for developing professional development opportunities, conducting weekly 1:1 meetings with each CSI, providing preliminary academic advising, and assisting with the overall leadership of the program. The CSI Mentor will also assist the MRC in the selection of the new class of CAMP Scholar Interns during Spring 2013. The successful candidate will also receive training in advising, coaching, mentorship, identity development, and social justice related topics.

The CSI Mentor will work approximately 15-20 hours each week. This position requires independent work as well as collaborative relationships with campus partners. (Note: Student staff may only work up to a total of 20 hours per week in any on-campus employment positions).

Online Application Form (Due March 23, 2012)

CSI Mentor Position Description

If you have questions about this job opening please contact Teresita Alvarez, Multicultural Resource Coordinator for University Housing & Dining Services at 541-737-8268 or email teresita.alvarez@oregonstate.edu.

Posted in Education | Comments Off on Now hiring: CSI Mentor

[Corvallis Gazette-Times, Feb. 23, 2012] — It was a Wednesday about 4:30 a.m. when Alvaro Llanos and Shawn Simons woke up to a fire alarm in their freshman dorm room at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. The two thought it might be a drill until they opened their door to find thick smoke. They began crawling on their hands and knees, searching for an exit. They had too much adrenaline to be scared.

“The number one thing we were thinking was we need to get out of here and we need to try to get out of here alive,” Simons said.

“We were in survival mode,” Llanos added.

The two men, who were 18 at the time, didn’t know they were crawling directly toward the fire. The ceiling collapsed, and a fireball fell on Llanos. He suffered third-degree burns on 56 percent of his body. Simons burned his hands and almost lost four fingers because the floor seared his hands.

That fire on Jan. 19, 2000, killed three students at the dormitory and injured 58 others. Simons and Llanos were two of four who were seriously burned. The fire had started in a communal lounge in the middle of their third-floor hallway when two residents had set a paper banner on fire.

The friends, now both 30, told their story to about 300 Oregon State University students and staffers Wednesday night while also presenting a documentary of their experience “After the Fire” with the film’s director Guido Verweyen. The film chronicles Llanos’ and Simons’ recovery and their friendship that helped them through it.

The presentation at the LaSells Stewart Center was organized by Fire Prevention Officer Jim Patton of the Corvallis Fire Department. It was paid for by 10 nonprofit organizations.

Read the full article by Emily Gillespie.

Tags: After the Fire, Corvallis Fire Department, documentary, dorms, osu, safety, Seton Hall University, survival
Posted in Education, Housing | Comments Off on ‘After The Fire’ documentary shown on campus: Dorm fire survivors share their trial by fire

[Daily Barometer, Feb. 23, 2012] — RecycleMania is now on its fifth week. Many events are already over, and were successful. Some are happening right now, including the Res Hall Competition. And more are still to come.

Besides the overall competition, the Beavers are leading the Civil War thus far. The results up to this point are Oregon State University at 8.5 pounds per person and University of Oregon at 5.9 pounds.

“The Res Hall Competition is going on through the week,” said Andrea Norris, the outreach coordinator for Campus Recycling. “It seems to be going pretty well. It improved a lot from week one to week two, so there seems to be a pretty good awareness of what’s going on.”

Currently McNary Hall is ahead with 2.6 pounds per capita of recycling. Each hall has an “Eco Warrior,” who is that hall’s contact for the challenge. Sackett Hall’s Eco Warrior is holding a competition for who can make the best sculpture out of recycling.

Many events are still coming up, the details of which can be found online at recycle.oregonstate.edu. …

Read the full article by Gwen Shaw.

Tags: competition, dorm, hall, Oregon State University, osu, RecycleMania, recycling, res hall, residence hall, winner
Posted in Education, Housing | Comments Off on OSU RecycleMania continues activities, out-competes UO

[Sustainable Business Oregon, Jan. 10, 2012] — Students at the University of Portland and Oregon State University are joining a national competition this month, going head to to head with students at schools around the country to reduce their electricity and water use.

The Campus Conservation Nationals competition will run from February 6 and April 23 — schools pick a three-week window within those dates to run the program on their campus. Building dashboard software by Lucid, an Oakland, Calif.-based software company, will track each university’s progress including individual dorm performance and a national goal to save one gigawatt hour of electricity through the competition. A total of 250,000 students are expected to participate in the competition.

On the University of Portland campus, individual dorms will compete against each other for a $500 prize. The school also has laid down a challenge to its sister school, Notre Dame University.

The competition is organized by the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council.

Officials at UP say the efficiency competition is just latest in a stream of sustainability efforts. The school was the first college on the West Coast to discontinue the sale of disposable plastic water bottles on campus, has set a goal to be carbon neutral by 2040 and has reduced food waste by 70 percent in its dining halls.

Oregon State University also brings considerable sustainability cred with it to the competition. The school was last month named No. 4 in the nation for its green power use and last year received a gold designation from the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System.

Article by By Christina Williams. See the original post.

Tags: electricity, green schools, oregon state, osu, portland state, power, sustainability, US Building Council, water
Posted in Housing | Comments Off on OSU, UP students join national efficiency competition

[The Daily Barometer, Feb. 9, 2012] — Oregon State University houses a plethora of conveniently placed cafés that offer a wide variety of delectable delicacies. Depending on your cravings, these eateries can offer you anything from a mid morning snack to a full-blown meal. We feel that these “birds” have flown under the radar and have been greatly underutilized for far too long. It’s time the public knows the truth about the magic happening in and around these refectories on a daily basis.

Alexander Crawford and Kyle Hart decided to let their ferocious appetites fuse with the power of the pen to bring you our list, ranking the best eateries on campus. This list excludes eating establishments that are currently in dining centers. Components that were considered in our write-up include, but are not limited to: customer service, timeliness, creativity, ingenuity, and general taste.

…

6. Bing’s Café

(Weatherford Hall): Let me start off by saying that although Bing’s is at the bottom of this list, it is by no means a bad spot to eat.  We just felt that the other five eateries we explored were either tastier or had more to offer.  Bing’s is a classic café-sandwiches, coffee, gelato and a modified calzone called a calzini. The sandwiches at Bing’s are always fresh and they allow for you to include a myriad of different veggies.  It is also worth noting that the coffee at Bing’s is from Starbucks.  Every other coffee location at OSU is serves either Allann Bros. or Portland Roasting Company (expect for the Peet’s Coffee in the new International Living-Learning Center which serves…well… Peet’s).  The number one reason to visit Bing’s is actually not the food, but an opportunity to talk to Carol — the Bing’s manager — a legend on the OSU campus.

Read the full article by Alex Crawford and Kyle Hart.

Tags: Barometer, bing, Dining, on campus, restaurants, UHDS
Posted in Dining | Comments Off on Famished? We rank the best places to eat on campus

Looking for a job that will help you enhance your leadership skills, share your knowledge about OSU and to connect with prospective students?

The Office of Admissions and University Housing and Dining Services (UHDS) are now accepting applications for the Ambassador position for the 2012-2013 school year.

U.S. News and World Report listed on-campus tour guide as the best college job to boost your resume.

Applications need to be received by Feb. 17 in order to be considered.

The form below will allow you to submit an application for two different positions. One is as a Tour Ambassador with the Campus Visitor Center; the other is as an ambassador for University Housing and Dining Services (UHDS).

Campus TOUR Ambassador Position Description

UHDS Ambassador Position Description

Online Application Form

Ideal Candidates:

• have a wide range of OSU experiences
• enjoy working with people
• have public speaking skills
• are outgoing
• are self-motivated

Benefits of Being a TOUR or UHDS Ambassador:

• excellent work experience in a professional setting
• positively impact future OSU students and families
• work within a dynamic team environment
• competitive pay
• leadership credit and a resume-building experience

Qualifications:

• Current undergraduate student in good academic standing.
• All Ambassadors must maintain full time student status and a minimum 2.75 institutional cumulative grade point average during their period of employment.
• Full time student at Oregon State University for at least three terms with the intention of remaining a full-time student during the 2012-13 academic year.
• Demonstrate excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to effectively and positively represent Oregon State University.
• Commitment to promoting diversity.
• Knowledge of resources and services at Oregon State University.
• Well-rounded academic and co-curricular experiences at OSU.
• Exhibit leadership, initiative, dependability, discipline and self-confidence.
• Possess a current, valid driver’s license.

Period of Employment:

July 1, 2012-June 30, 2013 (including some or all of winter and spring breaks)

Spring Term 2012 Training/Leadership class: Students selected as TOUR Ambassadors are required to participate in AHE 406 during spring term.

Want to be student ambassador but cannot commit to all these dates?

We will be evaluating applicants to be part of our on-call tour guide program for recruitment programs and special group tours. Simply submit an application and indicate that you are interested in being an on-call tour guide. The interview process will be the same.

Tags: admissions, campus, hiring, jobs, osu, tour ambassadors
Posted in Education, Housing | Comments Off on Now hiring: Tour ambassadors

[Corvallis Gazette-Times, Jan. 30, 2011] — When Oregon State University President Ed Ray told an audience of 60 at LaSells Stewart Center during a presentation on the university’s $2.06 billion economic impact Jan. 19 that students annually spend about $11,000 on non-academic expenses, he didn’t divulge the details of this area of the report.

“We don’t want to get into what they spent their money on,” Ray joked; member of the audience giggled in response.

However, a closer look at the numbers found by ECONorthwest, a Eugene-based economic consultant group hired to examine the impact of OSU, shows that full-time students aren’t spending money so much on debauchery — hinted at by Ray and the presentation’s audience — as they are on off-campus housing.

The findings further illuminate a growing housing issue in Corvallis, where high demand fueled by skyrocketing student enrollment has caused rental prices to increase and availability to plummet — so much so that the area’s rental vacancy rate has hovered around 1 percent for much of the past year.

ECONorthwest gathered data from OSU’s financial aid and scholarships office and from university budget reports, including the estimated $9,444 students will pay for room and board, an average total that the financial aid and scholarships office determined after surveying students, examining local rental rates and using University Housing and Dining Services’ on-campus housing prices.

After subtracting on-campus housing and parking fees and various student fees, ECONorthwest found that the university’s students spent $250 million on off-campus expenditures in the 2010-11 academic year, said Paul Thoma, an economist for ECONorthwest, in an email.

Dividing that total by 22,977, the average number of full-time students enrolled at OSU’s Corvallis and Bend campuses during 2010-11, yields a total of $10,880 in off-campus expenses.

That total includes spending by students living on campus whose housing costs aren’t figured in to the nearly $11,000 average (on-campus students numbered 3,989 in fall 2010), and it takes into account spending on books and supplies, personal items, travel and miscellaneous fees. …

Read the full article by reporter Gail Cole on the Corvallis Gazette-Times site.

Tags: corvallis, expenses, rent, university housing and dining services, vacancy rate
Posted in Housing | Comments Off on Housing a large portion of students’ spending

Campus Alert: Oregon State University’s main campus will be closed on Friday, January 20 due to continued flooding, road closures, and possible additional dangerous conditions as rivers and creeks crest during the next 12 to 24 hours.

Information regarding the OSU – Cascades Campus in Bend is available via http://www.osucascades.edu/, and regarding the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport at http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/.

For updated information as it becomes available, phone 541-737-8000 or visit alert.oregonstate.edu, the university’s emergency information portal.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on OSU main campus will be closed on Friday, Jan. 20

CORVALLIS – Oregon State University’s main campus will delay its normal opening time until 10 a.m. for Wednesday morning (Jan. 18), in light of potentially hazardous road conditions. This will be the second day of canceled morning classes.

With weather forecasts now calling for additional snow on top of rain and snow melt from earlier in the week, university administrators continue to be concerned about hazardous road conditions for those driving, bicycling and commuting to work. While faculty, staff and students are not expected to be at work or in class prior to 10 a.m., essential university personnel must still report for work.

Unlike Tuesday, evening classes are scheduled to go forward as planned on Wednesday.

Information on OSU-Cascades in Bend is available via http://www.osucascades.edu/, and on the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport at http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/.

For updated information on OSU-Corvallis as it becomes available, phone 541-737-8000 or see http://alert.oregonstate.edu, the university’s emergency information portal.

Prepare for winds, outages on Wednesday

There is a high wind watch for Corvallis on Wednesday. UHDS encourages on-campus residents to take the following actions today to get ready:

1) if you have a personal flashlight make sure the batteries are good, if you don’t have one consider getting one

2) if you have a cellphone be sure to have it be fully charged by Wednesday morning

3) consider getting a few non-perishable/easy to eat snack and drink items to have on hand

4) pay attention to the weather, your room voice mail and your onid email today and Wednesday. The national weather service website is http://weather.gov and OSU’s alert site is http://oregonstate.edu/main/alerts.