CAS Connection - Jan 2025 Issue

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Timothy Chadwick

Serenade for La La Land

Cinema studies students gain show business experience working behind the scenes in
LA on the set of a CAS professor’s upcoming feature film, La Serenata.

By Henry Houston

Experiential Learning  |  Research & Innovation  |  Community Impact  |  Career Preparation  |  Teaching Excellence  |  21st Century Liberal Arts  |  Building Community  |  Good Vibes  |  CAS Spotlights  |  All Stories  |  Past Issues
 

College of Arts and Sciences alum Devan Chandler on set of show ‘Ghosts.’

Good Vibes

Get Your
Winter Binge On

Need something to watch? Check out our list of movies and TV shows featuring CAS faculty and alumni.

By Nicole Krueger

Kaley McCarty

CAS Spotlights

Growing Global
Connections

Environmental studies alumna Kaley McCarty attends the world’s biggest climate change conference.

By Grace Connolly

Newspaper clipping of an old article

All Stories

Fueling Cultural
Debates

Professor Mark Whalan explores how media coverage of a 1920s criminal trial sparked a national debate.

By Grace Connolly

headshot of Brice Kuhl standing in front of a brick building

CAS Spotlights

Unlocking
Memory

Brice Kuhl receives the Posner Professorship for his investigation of how our brains encode memories. 

By Leo Brown

An exoplanet orbiting a sun with stars and galaxy in the background

Experiential Learning

Strange New Worlds

Could life exist elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy? A group of undergraduate planet hunters are helping NASA discover unknown worlds beyond our solar system. 

By Nicole Krueger

Experiential Learning

Learn Today, Change Tomorrow

Research and scholarship in the College of Arts and Sciences are so forward-thinking at times, they almost feel like science fiction. That’s what real innovation looks like—and our undergraduate students are getting in on the action through experiential learning opportunities that prepare them for cutting-edge careers.

Discover what Dean Chris Poulsen has to say about how experiential learning propelled him toward a career as a climate scientist.

CAS News

three people dressed in Shakespearean costumes
Shakespeare’s beloved comedy opens winter season at University Theatre
THEATRE ARTS — Love, mischief and mistaken intentions take center stage this winter as University Theatre presents “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare. Directed by Jerry Ferraccio, the production marks the grand reopening of Robinson Theatre and runs Feb. 13, 14, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28 and March 1.
an illustration of a black hole
CAS physicist finds a black hole spewing more energy than Death Star
PHYSICS - A supermassive black hole with a case of cosmic indigestion has been burping out the remains of a shredded star for four years — and it’s still going strong, new research led by University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences astrophysicist Yvette Cendes. Cendes and her team published findings about this one-of-kind black hole in the Feb. 5 issue of Astrophysical Journal Astrophysicists.
a person sits on a couch in front of a red wall
A researcher takes on one of the unsolved mysteries of the universe
PHYSICS - Fascinated by the unexplored corners of the universe since childhood, physicist Tien-Tien Yu has made dark matter the pillar of her research career. In her quest to understand, she’s co-founded a major experiment in collaboration with physicists at other institutions, all of whom are trying try to bring light to the dark.

All news »

From the Media

an illustration of animals above colorized liquid
The Bloody Palette of the Animal Kingdom Goes Far Beyond Red
Humans are used to seeing red in blood — but red blood isn't universal in the animal kingdom. For some creatures, this vital fluid is purple; in others it’s yellow, green or even white. Smithsonian Magazine spoke with John Postlethwait, a developmental geneticist in the Department of Biology about Antarctic blackfin icefish of the family Channichthyida, the only known vertebrates that don’t make hemoglobin and do not have red blood cells. Their blood is a milky, translucent white. “They really are kind of ghostly," he said.
a group of people stand outside a school
Bend’s Silver Rail Shooter Was Chronically Absent. Then He Disappeared.
Nearly two weeks after the Oct. 15 shooting at a Bend-La Pine school, the shooter's absentee status from school raises questions about who should step in when kids don’t go to school and whether there are enough tools to pull them back to class. “There’s pretty strong evidence that rather than serving a deterring effect for these kids, justice system involvement is actually a promoter of delinquency,” CAS sociologist Stephanie Wiley told Bend Source Weekly.
people in orange shirts stand in a greenway
In a post-CAHOOTS Eugene, peer navigators connect vulnerable people to services
Eugene’s long-running mobile crisis service, CAHOOTS, shut down in the city more than a year-and-a-half ago. KLCC spoke with Rori Rohlfs, CAS data scientist and co-author of recent research about CAHOOTS. The nature of calls for welfare response changed and law enforcement responses changed, Rohlfs said. “After CAHOOTS stopped service, the arrest rate for those calls has doubled,” Rohlfs said.

All media news »

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CAS Connection is produced by the CAS Communications Department and edited by Nicole Krueger.

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