Welcome Home Mounties

Two new members of University Advancement returned to their alma mater to further engage alumni and enhance student experiences through the EOU Foundation. Michelle Mudder, ’14, Assistant Director of Annual Giving & Alumni Engagement Q: What’s something you are working on that you’re excited about?     A: Growing our Alumni social media presence and continuing […]

Message from the President

Friends and Fellow Alumni,  Excellence in teaching and learning are at the center of EOU’s identity, and you’ll find these themes woven throughout this issue of The Mountaineer. Our shared legacy includes nearly a century of preparing teachers to serve schools throughout our region. These last several years have only highlighted the all-important role classrooms […]

A legacy of care

Caring professors and coaches made a lasting impact on Wilda Stratton, ’72, and now she’s determined to pay it forward.  Stratton and her husband Marcus Watt have set up a $2 million estate gift to the EOU Foundation that will benefit women in STEM fields and student-athletes. Adding this legacy to their will ensures a […]

Mountaineer Tracks

Weddings Shaylee Nielsen, ’11 and ’12, married Kimberly Judd on Sept. 3, 2021. Nielsen earned her Physical Activity and Health degree from EOU, followed by a Master of Arts in Teaching. She played basketball for the Mountaineers from 2009 to 2011 and was the team’s graduate assistant in 2011-12. She now teaches Health and PE […]

Film fellows

By Katy Nesbitt Growing partnerships with the Liberty Theatre and EOU are giving the Eastern Oregon Film Festival (EOFF) room to spread its wings, providing more creative experiences for filmmakers and movie enthusiasts alike. Coming into its 13th year, EOFF Director Christopher Jennings said when renovation is complete at the historic Liberty Theatre in La […]

Student futures built on real work

Garrett Christensen  In times of uncertainty, the simple act of being listened to goes a long way. This fall, Assistant Professor of Public Administration Daniel Costie and the Rural Engagement and Vitality Center (REV Center) helped bring a voice to several rural Oregon communities.  REV partnered with Euvalcree, a nonprofit community support organization based out […]

Special Education, One License at a Time

Garrett Christensen  Accessibility to education encompasses teachers as much as students. Years of rigorous schooling and graduate study can create a qualification bottleneck. At Eastern Oregon University, however, the field of special education is opening to a new generation of educators at the undergraduate level.   The College of Education’s new Special Education Initial Teacher Licensure […]

Raising better readers: Modern methods promise improved literacy

By the end of third grade, about half of Oregon students have fallen behind in reading comprehension. Difficulty reading at this early stage often leads to lower achievement in school, as well as in adult life.  A new program developed by Eastern Oregon University’s College of Education aims to equip teachers with tools and strategies […]

At the hub: College of Education links PNW rural schools

Established as a teacher’s college and long esteemed as a source of teacher instruction, EOU recently partnered with the Rural Schools Collaborative to bolster rural teacher preparation and community engagement.  The Rural Schools Collaborative is a national nonprofit based in Illinois with 12 regional hubs that facilitate shared work. As the Pacific Northwest Hub, EOU […]

Life Lessons on and off The Court.

Ryan Looney’s, ’98, skill at building teams has proven successful—and those successes culminated into an opportunity to be the head coach of an NCAA Division 1 basketball team. There were a lot of stops along the road to the Division 1 job, but that was never the plan. “Each time we moved, there was an […]

Every room a classroom

Room 214 in Inlow Hall is not a classroom, but it’s where two recent graduates learned critical skills, discovered mentors and applied theoretical knowledge.  Briana Rosenkranz, ’20, and Samantha Wegermann, ’20 and ’21, earned degrees in business from EOU, while gaining real-world experience through on-campus jobs and internships with the university’s marketing team.  After graduation, […]

A student’s teacher, and a teacher’s student

Jose de Jesus Melendez went to college at the age of 27 in order to expand his career opportunities. By the time he graduated, education was both the journey and the destination. Born and raised in a remote village in Mexico with no electricity or services of any kind, Melendez said he  was barely literate […]

Kindergarten Queen

Katy Nesbitt Somewhere between a miscommunication and the eagerness to start a new career, Lynette Longchamps found herself teaching kindergarten, a job she vowed to never have. After graduating from EOU with a bachelor;s degree in education Longchamps interviewed for a third grade position in Shoshone, Idaho. “After the interview I was told the job […]

Writing Under a Western Sky

Garrett Christensen  Home means something different to everyone. Amelia Ettinger, a 2021 MFA graduate, expresses home, or rather how to find home, through poetry in her 2020 collection “Learning to Love a Western Sky.”   “It really is looking for home in many ways,” she said. “I think that a lot of the collection is a […]

Students, scholarships and one very special staircase: State funding makes an impact on campus

Following Oregon’s 2022 legislative session, EOU will see several important investments in student support services, scholarships and its iconic Grand Staircase.  “We are happy to announce that Eastern Oregon University had a very successful February session with several significant investments from the state,” EOU President Tom Insko said. “I greatly appreciate the hard work and […]