May 23, 2024 | Curry Campus, News, Student Success
Southwestern Oregon Community College’s 2024 Commencement Ceremony will take place on Friday, June 14, 2024, at noon in Prosper Hall on the Coos Campus, 1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay.
Southwestern is proud of the 2024 graduates! This year the College is pleased to honor a total of 402 graduates, from 24 states and eight countries.
Degrees being awarded are:
164 Associate of Arts Oregon Transfer
96 Associate of Applied Science
48 Associate of General Studies
52 Associate of Science
100 Certificates of Completion (one year)
Southwestern also congratulates 15 local high school students who acquired their associate degrees at the same time they were completing their high school diplomas.
Guest attendance at the ceremony is by ticket only. The celebration can be viewed live via the College’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@SouthwesternOR.
Additional information for graduates and their families can be found on the Graduation webpage located at https://www.socc.edu/graduation.
May 22, 2024 | Community, Curry Campus, Curry News
The Second Annual Wild Rivers Film Festival (WRFF) in Brookings, Oregon is a few months away, Aug. 15 – 18, 2024, however, the community can get a sneak preview at the Curry Campus of Southwestern Oregon Community College on Thursday, June 13, 2024, from 12:00 to 1:00 pm.
Sue Wright and Kat Lidell, board members of the WRFF will be the presenters for this lecture. Each brings a wealth of experience to the film festival.
Dr. Sue Marie Wright, PhD, is Professor Emeritus at Eastern Washington University’s Department of Sociology and Justice Studies. As president of the Wild Rivers Film Festival, she leads efforts like the new summer filmmaking workshop for middle and high school students, showcasing her leadership and commitment to community development. Sue founded and directed the Children’s Studies Program from 2002 to 2012. Dr. Wright is dedicated to fostering creative expression among children and youth through research initiatives, community support, and educational grant proposals.
Kat Liddell, a Brookings native, wears many hats in the community. Liddell has spent the last seven years co-hosting The Insider Report entertainment podcast with Bruce Ellis, and is the Executive Director of Brookings’ newest nonprofit theater company, Threepenny Theater Co. Liddell received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Bushnell University in 2012 and a master’s degree in library science in 2018. By day, Liddell works as a librarian.
This year’s festival will feature a film made by local young people. Students are invited to learn the art and craft of film making through a week-long workshop at the Curry Campus. The youth workshop film will be presented at the festival. Registration for this free class is May 13-June 28. The Class will be held the week of July 15-21. More information is available at: https://www.wildriversfilmfestival.com/event-details/summer-youth-filmmaking-workshop.
The film workshop is funded this summer by grants through the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, The Ford Family Foundation, and Brookings Harbor Education Foundation.
Last year the festival organizers screened 60 independent films from around the world that were entered into a competition for cash awards. This year the festival organizers will screen many more films and are including a screenwriting competition.
The film festival is attended by film makers and film enthusiasts. It gives the public an opportunity to meet the film makers. Selected films will include a Q & A with the film makers after the show. The festival is a multi-day experience for south coast residents and attracts people from outside the region contributing to the local tourism economy.
This is a free program sponsored by the Friends of Curry Campus and will be held in the Community Room on Southwestern’s Curry Campus, 96082 Lone Ranch Parkway (off Highway 101), Brookings. Bring a friend and a brown bag lunch.
Stay tuned for upcoming talks in our speaker series. For more information contact the Curry Campus at 541-813-1667.
May 20, 2024 | Curry Campus, Curry News, News, Student Success
Southwestern Oregon Community College invites the community to join us on Thursday, May 30, 2024, at 6:00 pm, for our Annual Student Research Symposium. In addition to the student presentations, a poster exhibit will be on display starting at 5:30 pm in the Umpqua Hall Main Lobby. This is a free event; all ages are welcome.
Coos County residents can join us in-person in the Umpqua Hall lecture room 184 on the Coos Campus, 1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay.
Curry County residents can join us for a watch party in the Community Room on the Curry Campus, 96082 Lone Ranch Parkway, Brookings.
For those not able to attend in person the lecture will be streamed live on the College’s YouTube channel at: www.youtube.com/@southwesternOR/streams.
Southwestern’s student SPEAR (STEAM, Pathways, Experimental, & Academic Research) Team is actively working on a variety of science research projects. Participation on the team teaches students valuable skills and allows them to gain hands-on experience.
Students within Physics, Engineering, Geology, Computer Science, Biology, Agroecology, and Sociology will be showcasing their work for the community. Our SPEAR team is led by Krystal Hopper Meyers and mentored by Professors Aaron Coyner, Win McLaughlin, and Derek Morrelli.
Some of the projects include:
- attempting to increase flight time for an electrical aircraft using magnetic induction,
- recent developments in nuclear propulsion,
- searching for micrometeorites within local storm drains and investigating if they were significant in supporting early plant life,
- researching the fossils, chronology, and relationship to Cascadia megathrust earthquakes at Fossil Point,
- comparing the composition and extent of the Oregon Coast basalt and if it correlates with Yellowstone hotspot or not,
- interplanetary ion population modeling working with a Lead Scientist at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio,
- locating never found before asteroids using data sent to us from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (PAN-STARRS) located at the Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii,
- statistical analysis of King Tide heights and frequencies working NOAA tidal data.
Many of these projects are supported by grants awarded through Oregon NASA Space Grant Consortium.
Additionally, Professors Jason Bennett and Maria Farinacci have two students who will be presenting research on invasive Green Crabs. These students recently finished an internship with South Slough National Estuary Research Reserve Lead Scientist, Dr. Shon Schooler. Posters from Professor Dana Pertermann’s Sociology students’ will also be on display. Topics from their research include Indigenous culture and raising grandchildren, Japanese marriage customs and culture, the study of forensics in time over the last 100 years, and changes in the human diet.
Please join us and help support these students while learning more about the exciting things happening at the College within our STEAM programs!
For more information contact Krystal Hopper Meyers, STEAM Pathways Assistant, at 541-888-7416, or krystal.hopper@socc.edu.
To learn more about STEM degrees at Southwestern visit: https://www.socc.edu/programs-classes/stem.
May 20, 2024 | Community, News
Students, fire crews and maritime workers will benefit
Southwestern officially opened its new Training Tower on its Coos Bay campus on Thursday, May 23!
The tower will serve as a fire and rescue operations training hub for Southwestern’s students pursuing careers in structural firefighting and emergency response. That’s not all. The college anticipates this $1 million investment also will enhance annual disaster response training events that bring together lifesavers from fire departments, the U.S. Coast Guard, medical facilities and ambulance firms.
Now regional municipal and volunteer fire departments from western Douglas, Coos and Curry counties will have ongoing opportunities to train at our college close to home without leaving the region. Our partner school Columbia Pacific Maritime also will have the ability to provide professional mariners with maritime firefighting certification classes.
The modular 36-foot-tall, four-story steel structure meets International Building Code/National Fire Protection Association standards. It provides students, volunteers and professionals space to practice:
- Interior search and rescue,
- Live fire drills to learn fire behavior and suppression,
- Safe ventilation operations,
- Aerial firefighting,
- Rappelling and ladder training,
- Day and night fire drills, response and rescue,
- Maritime/vessel fire response and rescue.
“It took us three years of planning with local fire departments to complete this project that will ultimately help students achieve even greater success,” said College President Patty Scott. “We could not have done it without dedicated partners at the cities of Coos Bay, North Bend, Charleston and Reedsport, the airport, and rural fire departments in Coos County. Thank you!”
Photo of fire science students: Henry Hood, Kimber Privetts, Craig Edera, Kade Spini, Karsten Jensen
May 16, 2024 | Community, News
Southwestern Oregon Community College will unveil a life-sized sculpture of Albert Einstein at our Health & Science Building, Umpqua Hall, on the Coos Campus (1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay) on Tuesday, May 28, 2024. The event will occur at 12:00 noon on the first floor, near the lecture hall, room 184.
A procession of students and staff will walk across campus carefully wheeling the sculpture from Eden Hall to Umpqua Hall delivering it to the reception site, leaving Eden Hall at 11:40 am. Upon its arrival at Umpqua Hall the sculpture will be welcomed with brief comments from the college president, the artist, and others. To access Umpqua Hall use parking lot #1.
The sculpture, titled “My Friend Albert” was created by artist Kathleen Zappelli, a resident of Coquille, OR. Ms. Zappelli graduated from the University of Oregon in 1999, and this piece was part of a capstone project for her Bachelor of Fine Art degree. The life-sized, full-length portrait of a standing, laughing Albert Einstein is made of stoneware clay about an inch thick and weighs about 400 lbs. Ms. Zappelli is currently a board member of the Coos Art Museum.
The sculpture was donated to Southwestern last year. Since then, Art Professor James Fritz designed and fabricated a base to secure the sculpture for public display and looked for the best place to exhibit it. Physics Professor Aaron Coyner immediately wanted it for display in Umpqua Hall, preferably near the Physics Lab.
The sculpture is titled “My Friend Albert” because of its whimsical approachability. It breaks down the barrier that often stands in the way of our understanding of a “genius” figure like Einstein. He was one of the great physicists of the early 20th century whose theories paved the way for research into atomic fission, modern cosmology, and understanding of the universe.
Ms. Zappelli’s sensitive rendering of Einstein as a laughing professor in a suit-and-tie highlights the great man’s humanity and genial nature. The sculpture had been on public display for 20 years at the Oregon State University Extension Office in Myrtle Point. Concerned that it was not quite the right fit for the Extension Office and looking for a more appropriate home, the Extension Office and Ms. Zappelli made the donation and transfer to the Southwestern Art Department.
The College gladly accepted the donation and planned this public event to unveil the sculpture in its new home in Umpqua Hall. Part of the unveiling is “A walk across campus with Albert Einstein” with college faculty, staff, and students. This will be a light-hearted experience for all to walk across campus with the most famous college physics professor of the 20th Century.
This is a wonderful opportunity for the public to help welcome this sculpture donation and celebrate our STEAM programs (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, & Mathematics) at Southwestern. For more information contact James Fritz, 541-888-7322 or jfritz@socc.edu.
May 14, 2024 | Community, Curry Campus, News
COOS BAY, OR – Southwestern Oregon Community College invites the community to join us on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at 6:00pm, for “Ice Age Horses of the American West” with vertebrate paleontologist, Eric Scott. This is a free event; all ages are welcome.
Coos County residents can join us in-person in the Umpqua Hall lecture room 184 on the Coos Campus, 1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay.
Curry County residents can join us for a watch party in the Community Room on the Curry Campus, 96082 Lone Ranch Parkway, Brookings.
For those not able to attend in person the lecture will be streamed live on the College’s YouTube channel at: www.youtube.com/@southwesternOR/streams.
Southwestern’s Professor of Geology, Dr. Win McLaughlin welcomes Eric Scott, a vertebrate paleontologist specializing in extinct Ice Age mammals, particularly horses and bison. Horses have a long history in the Americas before going extinct at the end of the ice ages… only to be brought back a few thousand years later! During the ice ages North America supported a diversity of fossil horses ranging across the landscape. Tune in to learn about these beasts in Oregon and elsewhere and what our rich fossil record can tell us about them.
Scott studies the evolution and extinction of North American Pleistocene megafauna, with a focus on biogeography – particularly, how the geographic distribution of species can change through time, and how this can inform our understanding of Ice Age extinctions.
He has worked throughout western North America as well as East Africa. He is Vice President and Principal Paleontologist of Cogstone Resource Management, Inc., and an adjunct lecturer at California State University, San Bernardino. He is emeritus Curator of Paleontology for the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands, California, where he worked for 24 years. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles.
For more information about the lecture series contact Dr. Win McLaughlin, Assistant Professor of Geology, at 541-888-7002, win.mclaughlin@socc.edu.
For more information on upcoming lectures contact Krystal Hopper Meyers, STEAM Pathways Assistant, at 541-888-7416, or krystal.hopper@socc.edu.
To learn more about STEM degrees at Southwestern visit: https://www.socc.edu/programs-classes/stem/.
May 10, 2024 | Community, Curry Campus, News, Student Success
Southwestern Oregon Community College invites the community to hear biology student Caleb Lafrombois and agroecology student Michelle Riley present their internship research work “Invasive Five-Spine Crabs: What You Can Do to Help”. Please join us Thursday, May 23, 2024 at 6 pm. This is a free event.
Coos County residents can join us in-person in the Umpqua Hall lecture room 184 on the Coos Campus, 1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay.
Curry County residents can join us for a watch party in the Community Room on the Curry Campus, 96082 Lone Ranch Parkway, Brookings.
Lafrombois and Riley have spent spring term working with Dr. Shon Schooler, Lead Scientist at the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. Invasive five-spine crabs, or European green crabs, have been wreaking havoc on the East Coast for over a century. In the past few decades, they have spread to the West Coast. Green crabs are vicious predators, linked with the decline of native populations such as native eelgrass, Olympia oyster, and clam populations, which once flourished along our coastlines. Come learn about what you can do to help slow this invasion and protect our coastal ecosystems.
This is a free event and will be livestreamed and recorded for later viewing via the College’s YouTube channel. To watch the livestream from anywhere go to https://www.youtube.com/@SouthwesternOR/streams.
For more information, please contact Krystal Hopper Meyers, STEAM Pathways Assistant at Southwestern at 541-888-7416 or krystal.hopper@socc.edu.
For more information about the South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve visit https://coast.noaa.gov/nerrs/reserves/south-slough.html.
For more information regarding science programs at Southwestern visit the STEM Pathways & Degrees page of our website. (https://www.socc.edu/programs-classes/stem/).
May 9, 2024 | Alumni, Community, Foundation, News
Southwestern Oregon Community College will officially open its new Fire Training Tower on Thursday, May 23, 2024 on the Coos Campus, 1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay. The College invites the public, students, firefighters and other partners to celebrate this accomplishment and tour the four story, state-of-the-art firefighting lab from 4 to 6 p.m. Local fire department personnel will be on site, along with the college’s student firefighters.
The tower will serve as a fire and rescue operations training hub for Southwestern’s students pursuing careers in structural firefighting and emergency response. That’s not all. The College anticipates this $1 million investment also will support regional safety and enhance annual disaster response training events that can bring together lifesavers from fire departments, the U.S. Coast Guard, medical facilities, and ambulance firms.
With this investment, regional municipal and volunteer fire departments from western Douglas, Coos and Curry counties will have ongoing opportunities to train at the College close to home without leaving the region. Southwestern’s partner school Columbia Pacific Maritime also will have the ability to provide professional mariners with maritime firefighting certification classes, which represents a new opportunity for mariners.
The modular 36-foot-tall steel structure meets International Building Code/National Fire Protection Association standards. It provides students, volunteers, and professionals space to practice a variety of skills:
- Interior search and rescue,
- Live fire drills to learn fire behavior and suppression,
- Safe ventilation operations,
- Aerial firefighting,
- Rappelling and ladder training,
- Day and night fire drills, response and rescue,
- Maritime/vessel fire response and rescue.
“It took us three years of planning with local fire departments to design and complete the project. This work has made our relationships stronger and the College’s fire science program more advanced, which helps students achieve even greater success,” said College President Patty Scott. “It also ensures quality training opportunities for rural volunteers so that the College is able to keep a pipeline of highly trained firefighters moving into departments as older professionals retire.”
Previously, the College used a wood-frame tower built by volunteers with donated materials in 1981 for limited training. The wood structure did not meet industry standards, and could not be used for live fire or rescue drills. With the new tower, the College also was able to expand and improve the training area around the tower, allowing better access and more people to train together at one time.
“Through hard work and determination by College staff and local fire agencies, the new fire tower is ready. This will serve as a symbol of pride for years to come, and provide an effective manner in which to train not only today’s firefighters, but tomorrows as well,” said Coos Bay Fire Chief Mark Anderson.
The project was funded with grants and donations. Organizations that made this project a reality are SWOCC Foundation, Ford Family Foundation, Bandon Dunes Charitable Foundation, City of Coos Bay, North Bend Volunteer Firefighters Association, Central Coos Fire & Rescue; and the State of Oregon via the work of Sen. David Brock Smith, Sen. Dick Anderson and Rep. Boomer Wright.
May 7, 2024 | Curry Campus, Curry News, News
Southwestern Oregon Community College is excited to announce that selected credit classes during summer term are being offered on a “Two for One” deal. Register for one summer class and take another course for FREE!
Our “Two for One” summer deal allows students a cost-effective way to explore their options and career pathways. Do you need to get ahead on credits over the summer? Are you looking for a way to broaden your horizons? Maybe you only have a few credits left to earn your degree. There’s no better time to enroll at SWOCC.
Both classes students register for must be for credit. This offer excludes Oregon Coast Culinary Institute courses. All required fees and books are the student’s responsibility. The second class must be of equal or lesser value. Classes may be in-person or online and must be a minimum of three credits, with a maximum limit of two free classes. Tuition waiver will be added to student’s accounts on July 3, 2024.
Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to double your learning potential this summer at Southwestern!
For more information and to register contact the Student Success Center at 541-888-7352 for the Coos Campus, and 541-813-1667 for the Curry Campus.
May 7, 2024 | Community, News
Southwestern Oregon Community College (SWOCC) athletics is pleased to host a one-day soccer camp for players 6-18 years old on Saturday, June 1 from 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. on the Coos Campus (1988 Newmark Ave., Coos Bay). Registration is $75 per player, with all proceeds directly supporting SWOCC women’s soccer team.
Led by coaches and players of the 2023-24 women’s soccer team, the camp is designed to provide young athletes in the community with valuable skills and training as they prepare for the upcoming soccer season. Participants will have the chance to learn from experienced coaches and players while engaging in drills, exercises, and friendly matches.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own shin guards, cleats, water bottle, and lunch. Snacks and water will be provided throughout the day.
Pre-registration for the SWOCC Soccer Kids Camp is available online: https://swoccathletics.com/sb_output.aspx?form=26. Payment can be made on-site at the event. On-site registration and payment will also be available on the day of the camp.
For any additional information or questions, contact SWOCC’s head women’s soccer coach Emma Meyer: emma.meyer@socc.edu or 541-888-7711. Don’t miss this exciting opportunity to join us for a day of soccer fun in a positive, supportive environment!
