UO President Michael Schill and a contingent of faculty, students and administrators participated this week in the annual Oregon Coastal Caucus 2015 Oregon Coast Economic Summit at Grand Ronde, joining a group of more than 400 leaders that included the governor, Oregon congressional delegation, leadership of Oregon's tribes and state legislators.
The theme of the first day of the conference was the role of education in creating healthy economies and the particular needs of rural and coastal communities. The Wednesday session featured a lunch panel with university and community college presidents, where Schill emphasized UO's commitment to access and degree completion.
“The No. 1 way we can create economic development is by providing access for the students of Oregon to the benefits of higher education,” Schill said. “It is the path to upward mobility. It is the way we create a skilled workforce to attract businesses, and it is the way we foster innovation and discoveries that create jobs.”
Assistant Vice President Jason Younker, the UO’s tribal liaison, moderated the first panel of the conference. It focused on the efforts by Oregon's nine federally recognized tribes to develop curriculum reflecting the culture and history of Oregon's first peoples as well as scholarship programs to ensure a path to higher education.
Other sessions emphasized natural resource issues. Law professor Adell Amos told the conference on Thursday that water law will become more prominent as water curtailment becomes a tool to address the distribution of water in drought cycles.
Biology professor Michelle Wood participated in a panel on ocean acidification. She described the effects of changing ocean chemistry on a range of marine organisms and spoke to the benefits of science-based monitoring.
Oregon Economics Forum director Tim Duy moderated a panel analyzing the revenue forecast. And Congressman Peter DeFazio recognized UO's earthquake early warning monitoring and the Community Service Center's Oregon Partnership for Disaster Preparedness in his keynote remarks.
The conference is in its fourth year. It is a forum for statewide discussion about economic development activities and contributes to the development of the caucus' 2016 state agenda.
“I’d like to thank the legislative members of the coastal caucus, especially Sen. Arnie Roblan and his staff, for organizing this event and making education a key part of the summit,” Schill said.
—By Jennifer Winters, Public Affairs Communications