My OSU – An awesome student-created video

I love this video from the OSthankU Video Contest. As someone who is “powered by orange,” I got chills when I watched it. For anyone who has ever attended Oregon State University, this video has amazing visuals and a terrific voice-over.

How I’m Powered by Orange

Eric Stoller is Powered by Orange

My last day at Oregon State University (OSU) is September 30th. I think it’s fitting as my first day at OSU was also in September. Six years ago I moved out to Oregon from Chicago, IL. It was a tremendous life transition. I had been working at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and the decision to leave UIC/Chicago was a big one for a young professional from the Midwest.

When I first started looking at graduate programs in higher education/student affairs I had no idea that I would end up moving to Oregon. I remember checking up on about 5 or 6 programs. I kept coming back to OSU as my first choice. Eventually, I decided to apply for the College Student Services Administration (CSSA) program at OSU. It was the only grad program that I submitted an application to. In hindsight, I probably should have applied to more than one school just in case OSU didn’t accept me. However, sometimes you have to put all of your eggs in a single basket and hope for the best. Concentrating on a single application made my process extremely focused. I was going to get into grad school at Oregon State. There wasn’t a “plan B.”

Continue reading How I’m Powered by Orange

OSU furlough details

The official OSU furlough numbers have arrived…here is the monthly furlough breakdown for 9-month and 12-month employees:

9-Month Employees
Monthly Base Salary Rate at 1.0 FTE* Total Number of Furlough Days per Academic Year at 1.0 FTE** Total Number of Furlough Days for 1/1/10 to 6/15/10 at 1.0 FTE** Amount of Furlough Time Off Per Month for 1/1/10 to 6/30/10 at 1.0 FTE**
$2,450 or less 3 days 1.83 days 2.66 hours
$2,451 to $3,105 4.5 days 2.75 days 4 hours
$3,106 to $5,733 5.25 days 3.2 days 4.66 hours
$5,734 to $8,333 6 days 3.66 days 5.32 hours
$8,334 to $10,934 7.5 days 4.57 days 6.65 hours
$10,935 and over 9 days 5.49 days 7.98 hours

12-Month Employees
Monthly Base Salary Rate at 1.0 FTE* Total Number of Furlough Days per Fiscal Year at 1.0 FTE ** Total Number of Furlough Days for 1/1/10 to 6/30/10 at 1.0 FTE** Amount of Furlough Time Off Per Month for 1/1/10 to 6/30/10 at 1.0 FTE**
$2,450 or less 4 days 2 days 2.67 hours
$2,451 to $3,105 6 days 3 days 4 hours
$3,106 to $5,733 7 days 3.5 days 4.67 hours
$5,734 to $8,333 8 days 4 days 5.33 hours
$8,334 to $10,934 10 days 5 days 6.67 hours
$10,935 and over 12 days 6 days 8 hours

* Monthly base salary rate is derived by dividing the employee’s annual base salary rate by either 9 or 12 appointment basis.
** Furlough time off will be prorated for employees working less than 1.0 FTE.

via the Gazette-Times

A bad day for the OSU web

Oregon State University web space hacked

I almost forgot to post this… A few weeks ago, I was meeting with one of my advisees. I wanted to show them something on the OSU Registrar’s web site. When I arrived on the Registrar’s URL, the “Reported Attack Site!” warning appeared in Firefox. It turns out that several high-level OSU sites were hacked and that several were still suffering from residual hack effects.

Regarding sites being designated as containing malware, many sites will still show up as being malware until the services that browsers use to detect malware sites rescan and update oregonstate.edu sites.

Central Web Services web servers were subject to an attack this weekend. Due to this, a number of services have been temporarily disabled to CWS sites, including ssh and ftp access. Personnel are currently working to clean up this incident. Central Web Services hosts oregonstate.edu and many other sites in the oregonstate.edu domain.

For users accessing a web page, you may receive a message that states something similar to: “Warning: Visiting this site may harm your computer…site contains malware”. If you see this visiting oregonstate.edu (the Home Page), the calendar, or the campus map the issue is resolved.

Flashmob: Oregon State University Valley Library

Hundreds of Oregon State University students took over the Valley Library on Thursday, October 1st. (via the Oregon State University Admissions Blog)

It was a successful flashmob, although I really think that OSU (Oklahoma State University) and UNC (University of North Carolina) have set the bar for successful university flashmobs:

Continue reading Flashmob: Oregon State University Valley Library

OSU football video fail

[flv:http://ericstoller.com/blog/audio/orange.flv http://ericstoller.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/knock-out-orange.png 455 255]

    “I am the last thing they see before the lights go out.

    I am the enforcer.

    I am a giant killer.

    I am Orange.”

I am not orange if this is the way that OSU Athletics is going to promote our football team.

We should not be using the act of making our opponents unconscious as a way to elicit a response from our fan base.

The theme of the video is basically all about gratuitous violence: We are giant killing enforcers who are going to knock you out.

This isn’t the “Beaver Nation” that I want to be a part of and/or associated with.

Update: There is another “I am Orange” video for OSU Football.

In this video, the athleticism of OSU’s football players is celebrated. It’s not about glorified violence, it’s about speed and skill…completely different from the “we’re going to knock you out” video.

Orientation video for incoming students

I shot about thirty minutes of video during commencement morning at OSU. It was a cloudy day (so unexpected here in Oregon!) so I amped up the color in iMovie. I asked our graduates if they had any advice for incoming students…”things they wish they had known as first-year students” ;-)

I had a lot of fun interviewing our students…I may make it an annual activity. We show the video at the completion of our college’s orientation session on day 1:

The hi-res version looks great on an auditorium screen.

Made with a Canon HF10, AZDEN Wireless Mics, and iMovie.

Snow in the Quad at OSU

OSU Snow in the Quad
The annual “Snow in the Quad” event occurred last week at OSU. It’s always interesting to see a giant pile of snow in the middle of the Memorial Union Quad in May.


Time lapse video courtesy of the web cam on the roof of Milam Hall.
Music is Tamacun by Rodrigo y Gabriela.

OSU Snow in the Quad