How well-heeled are Portland State alums comparatively?

[5thAvenueVik]

Oregon alums tend to do quite well. They have a lot of alums from pretty well-to-do families but also have their share of poverty-stricken persons. Oregon State alums have worked hard and are usually rewarded by finding their way into better employment as a group statistically over Oregon alums, at least initially.

How about Portland State alums? Our engineers tend to get hired by Boeing and other firms employing engineers. We are a well-regarded accounting school. Portland State also has more pre-med students gaining enrollment at OHSU than either Oregon or Oregon State. So we have a good number of physician alums. The business school is vital and so is education.

As a group, how do our alumni compare with those of Oregon and Oregon State monetarily? My guess is that if Berkeley alumni rated a 9, then Portland State would be about a 5, Oregon State a 6 and Oregon a 7. Is this an accurate read?

Politically, we tend to lag way behind. Why is that? Shouldn't the next mayor of Portland, for example, be a Portland State alum? Should we not start to emerge from out of our relative obscurity and begin to assert ourselves more politically now?

 

[5thAvenueVik]

I think some of us are really well off and some of us continue to struggle in a way that is unfulfilling to our expectations. When the alumni are called upon to pass the hat, some have little trouble whereas others struggle as much now as when they were students. I think quite a few of us really struggle and, as a group, we are pretty strapped when it comes to money. Is this meagerness an accurate perception? Are we, by necessity, kind of stingy? Or is it otherwise?

We have an unusual set of alumni---strugglers, burdened and overcomers. Our student body (though that is in the process of juvenation) was uniquely older and more focused on the side of pragmatic goals. Does that make us like a bunch of robotic droids? I think we must have some degree of artistic culture and life.

What about our emotion vitality? Our collective emotional endowment? Greatness of emotional leadership? Garnering of emotional rewards? Our emotional charges and associations?

I think what we need is to work on getting emotional rewards to Portland State alums who have struggled so painstakingly in the pursuit of their educational goals---the kind of thing that will give us life and pleasure associated with being a PSU alum.

We need PSU alums who are gifted with the best and brightest emotional endowments to step forth and make the Portland State Viking image hip and fashionable and have this emerge as if from Portland's political underground. Original and really clever Viking image ideas, say, home-made, on T-shirts (and in other vairous artistic forms) good enough for Madison Avenue but fit for 23rd Avenue and Nob Hill and down to the South Waterfront. How best to instill the power of "Viking Fever" for the rewarding pleasure, benefit and well-being of all those associated with Portland State University?

 

[5thAvenueVik]

The political economic identity of our alumni is part and parcel of our identity as a university. Are we scrappers, well-endowed or plain vanilla average? /users/31/07/37/smiles/noidea.gif

The more we can reflect who we are in the mission of the university---especially expressed though our athletic component---the more the university's true identity will be quickened and realized. Then we will know with a confident degree of certainty that we are building our university's image on a solid foundation.

Are we friendly like the Kansas Jayhawk? Prideful like Notre Dame? Enigmatic like the Stanford Cardinal? Possessed and determined like the Wake Forest Demon Deacons?

Right now, the university is hanging its hat on four descriptive terms:

Diverse, Engaged, International, Sustainable.

But these terms do in no way define our uniqueness. All public universities have diversity and international focus. Are we "sustainable" because we say we are? And what exactly is it that we are so "engaged" in?

If you ask me, Marketing and Communications does not apply its collective brain to the task at hand with much vigor. They enjoy job incumbancy but without the respect and legitimacy that comes with results. /users/31/07/37/smiles/eusa_sno.gif

I like the Victor Viking image. If we win, he's saying "Aaarrgh!" with gusto and if we lose he's still saying, "Aaarrgh!" but vengefully powerful and bloody determined. /users/31/07/37/smiles/595146.gif

Is that more who we are: Powerfully and bloody-from-our-wounds determined?

 

[ManOfVision]

I don't know how I missed this thread the first time around, but I'm quite interested in the questions it poses. My guess is that the average or median income of PSU alumns stacks up well compared to counterparts at Oregon and OSU. Keep in mind that PSU alumni includes more students who already had careers and went back to school to better themselves in some way or another. I don't think PSU has as many high income earning individuals in their alumni base as Oregon or OSU, but I don't think PSU has as many low income earning grads either. My guess is that fundraising futility is more a function of grads not feeling connected to campus than of grads not having the money to donate.

 

[PortlandStater]

According to a study reported on by the Vanguard last year, PSU overall has an excellent job placement rate - better than most other schools in the NW. Job Satisfaction is also pretty high if I remember correctly.

One problem: When you go to school in Corvallis, Eugene, Pullman etc. you will most likely leave the place after graduation and apply all over the state/US. In Portland, many try and stay in town. This is nice for Portland (it's one of the most highly educated cities in the country), but obviously makes it very hard to make a decent living even with a degree.