Oregon Institute of Technology, Wilsonville

History

Oregon Tech's four locations in the Portland metropolitan area were consolidated into a single campus in 2012 at InFocus' former headquarters in Wilsonville following a rebranding campaign launched in the same year. The Oregon Tech Wilsonville campus was officially operational in 2012. The last major renovations at this campus were complete in June, 2015. This included the addition of four new offices for staff on the second floor of the campus and the renovation of a classroom on the fourth floor. Minor improvements to individual classes and the usability of space and resources was still in process until early 2016 when resources to all departments had been allocated.

The original In-Focus building began construction in 1999 and was completed in 2001. After purchasing the building from In-Focus in 2008, Oregon Tech planned to keep much of the original "modern" design and architecture. The Wilsonville campus currently occupies the first, second and fourth floors of the building, while Rockwell Collins, an Iowa-based aviation-electronics company, occupies the third floor.

Plans for expansion of the Klamath Falls campus were discussed in 2007 and 2008 to merge the Portland area sites, allow for a threefold increase in the number of students it serves and spur the creation of new degrees in specialized scientific and technical fields.

In 2012, Oregon Tech university president, Chris Maples, commented that the metro-area enrollment had spiked 20-percent for the current term and noted that:

"We’ve been in the Portland Metro area for almost 30 years now. And most people had no idea we were here, and I’ve already run into a couple of people who didn’t realize we were in Klamath Falls. So we’re already getting some really positive benefit from people driving by and seeing the sign, and seeing the university"

Chris Maples speculated that the urban campus in Wilsonville could serve as many as 2,000 students. Current enrollment at this campus is about 750 to 1,000 students per term. Oregon lawmakers approved using $20 million in lottery-backed bonds to cover two-thirds of the building's cost, $20.6 million to purchase the structure and $9.4 million for renovations and related costs. Many undergraduate students typically intern and work professionally while working towards a degree in Wilsonville.

While offering many of the same programs that the Klamath campus has, there are two signature programs at this campus: clinical lab sciences, in partnership with the Oregon Health and Science University, and renewable energy engineering.

End of the OUS (Oregon University System)

Portland State University, Oregon Tech and Oregon State University were the last holdouts of the Oregon University System before its legal abolishment in July 2015. The decision left Oregon state universities to be will be run by their own independent governing boards, such as Oregon Tech Klamath Falls which now governs all Oregon Tech campuses under an independent board. All records from the OUS have been transferred to the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC), which has more limited powers than OUS did.

Organization and Administration

The mission statement of Oregon Tech Wilsonville reads:

Oregon Institute of Technology, an Oregon public university, offers innovative and rigorous applied degree programs in the areas of engineering, engineering technologies, health technologies, management, and the arts and sciences. To foster student and graduate success, the university provides an intimate, hands-on learning environment, focusing on application of theory to practice. Oregon Tech offers statewide educational opportunities for the emerging needs of Oregonians and provides information and technical expertise to state, national and international constituents.

Oregon Tech Wilsonville is a public university governed by 13 publicly appointed board of trustees at the Klamath Falls campus. It is still under the umbrella of the Oregon Tech oversight and is allotted separate funding from Klamath Falls and the rest of the four campuses.

Campus life

Oregon Tech Wilsonville is situated around several technology companies which periodically enroll employees into the universities' student body as well as pool new graduates. Students typically purchase food from vending machines on site or walk to either Argyle square or the Wilsonville city center.

Library

The campus has one library located on the fourth floor. Due to few materials in the Wilsonville library, students can checkout an item at a different university and ship it to the campus. A bulk of the resources for research are eBooks which can be checked out via the Oregon Tech library website with a valid student ID. The library also has a small student lounge and rooms that students can check out for studying or for group collaboration and functions as the hub for many school and industry related projects around campus.

Tutoring

Oregon Tech has a free and open tutoring service for students dubbed "Peer Consulting" which is located on the fourth floor, opposite of the campus library. The objective of the center is to have students who have a 'B' or higher in their classes assist their peers by providing direction in their study or work. The Peer Consulting center is unique because it attempts to de-stigmatize academic assistance, provide a space for students to ask questions and connect with their peers.

Intel workstation donation

Intel donated the workstation computers on the fourth floor of the campus and an Atom workstation in 2012 for EE students.

Annual Events

Healthy Active Challenge

This challenge was started in 2016, "... to help manage weight through increasing physical activity and decreasing calorie intake by making small daily dietary changes. Participants will earn points during the weekly nutritional and physical challenges. There will be a different winner each week." The event runs from Monday, April 18 to Monday, May 23.

Student Project Symposium

This official university event at the Wilsonville campus allows students to showcase the projects that students conduct during their studies. The event is held annually towards the end of Spring term, and it provides an opportunity for students from different programs to share their work, as well as get to see other projects.

The Symposium includes project posters, demonstrations, and oral presentations and typically lasts two hours long. Students, faculty, family members, employers, educational and industry partners, as well as members of the public typically attend each year.

TECH Talks

TECH Talks is a free, one-day seminar produced entirely by students, featuring speakers who are contribute to the fields of Technology, Engineering, Creativity and Health. The speaking event is modeled after TED Talks and allows students and the public to listen to current innovation in the technology sector. The idea is to help to connect students industry leaders to prospective employers. The event also introduces to industry leaders, the opportunities Oregon Tech students have to develop their non-technical skills.

Pranks

Around 2013, after Oregon Tech purchasing the old Wilsonville building from InFocus, rumors of the University of Oregon purchasing the building and converting it into a "flagship tech-focused" campus arose among the staff, despite there being no hard evidence to support this rumor. A picture of a duck pushing an owl out from a building, presumed to be the Wilsonville Campus, was found in the student commons and was later removed.

Rivalry with the Klamath Falls Campus

Students from the Wilsonville campus often compete academically with the Klamath Falls campus each term.

Rivalry with Caltech

Since Mid-2012, Oregon Tech Wilsonville and Caltech have been rivals after Oregon Tech rebranded from its stylized OIT logo and focused on being the number one institute of technology on the West Coast.

On September 18, 2014, students handed out shirts in the first floor commons to newly admitted students that read "Caltack on Titan" on the front and an image of a beaver, Caltech's mascot, running away in fear while Hootie, Oregon Tech's mascot, plays a Fender Telecaster guitar.

in December 10, 2015, a cardboard cutout of Sheldon from the Big Bang theory sporting the thumbs-up sign was placed in the stairway leading to Rockwell Collins with a speech-bubble that read, "Oregon Tech. It's above California Tech. That's why I moved!" The prank was presumably a pun on the newly aired Oregon State Lottery commercial "All things Oregon."

Active Clubs

The following are clubs that maintain an active presence on campus and are a registered club in accordance with ASIOT (Associated Students of Oregon Tech).

3D Print Club

Oregon Tech Wilsonville has a 3D print club which will start to make prints for students in Fall term of 2016. Since its founding in early 2014, the 3Dprint club is only allowed to makes prints for students' senior projects; however, there are plans to allow its use be made available to all students, provided a usage fee be paid. The club is actively sponsored by Xerox and 3DWorks.

IEEE Oregon Tech Wilsonville

This club is part of the Oregon Institute of Technology Wilsonville Student Branch of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The club's mission is "to further the knowledge of electrical engineering, promote student professional development, and pursue technological innovation for the benefit of humanity."

Society of Women Engineers

The Oregon Tech Wilsonville Society of Women Engineers Collegiate Section focuses on encouraging women to excel as engineers and leaders and to foster universal success in engineering by inspiring students to pursue STEM careers, promoting an inclusive community within the college, and providing networking and professional development opportunities.

Solar Hope

The Solar Hope club works with the Foundation “Solar HOPE” (non-profit) dedicated to providing renewable energy solutions to underdeveloped regions of the world.

Tech Owls in Action

The purpose of TOA is to bring together students with interest in clean energy to provide development in leadership, professional, and project planning abilities, access to clean energy information, at least one clean energy event on campus, and to ultimately exercise teamwork to implement student led solutions that benefit the Wilsonville community.

Gravity and Space (GRASP)

GRASP Research is an organization that facilitates and conducts space experiments. It brings students and faculty of diverse backgrounds together to carry out various hands-on aerospace projects. As of March 2016, Oregon Tech Wilsonville has started partnering with SpaceX to test new designs and projects.

Other Clubs

Inactive Clubs

These are clubs that have been discontinued after moving from the Portland Campus in 2012.

Food

Since the founding of the campus in 2012, there has been no functioning cafeteria on campus in use; however, there are several vending machines that allow students to purchase meals, drinks and other items throughout the day. After a year of deliberation between students and administration on how food services should be handled, the university had launched an early 2016 pilot program to allow food carts in the surrounding businesses to be used freely by students.

Ties to SMART

Aside from providing free transportation to Wilsonville residents and Oregon Tech Wilsonville students, SMART (South Metro Area Regional Transit) has often recruited students to work on Renewable Energy projects.

On January 26, 2016, Oregon Tech students took a shop tour of SMART facilities in the city. The students received a City of Wilsonville SMART Bus and converted it to an all electric vehicle and then ran it on a bus line within the city of Wilsonville. SMART employees originally researched and built the city bus in 2011. The event had been completely hosted by students with direction from Stephan Lashbrook, City of Wilsonville Transit Director.

Affiliation with Microsoft

After acquiring Pixel Perfect in 2012, Microsoft set up manufacturing near the Oregon Tech Wilsonville campus. After the move, Microsoft started recruiting students for lean manufacturing to produce the Microsoft Surface Hub in mid-2015. AT the 2016 TECHTalks event in the university, a Microsoft spokesperson from the factory detailed the future of tablet computing and ways in which Oregon Tech students can benefit. Shortly after the event, Oregon Tech purchased two of the Surface Hubs on display.

Academics

_{Fall Freshman Profile}

For the Fall 2015 academic year, the university received about 200 freshman applications. U.S. News & World Report in 2015 considers Oregon Tech to be the #1 Public University in the regional West part of the United States. Forbes in 2015 rated Oregon Tech #98 among all West Coast universities and considers it to be "innovative" and "very competitive."

The Wilsonville Oregon Tech campus was officially operational in 2012 and is located on Parkway Avenue in the remodeled InFocus building. The last major renovations at this campus were complete in June, 2015. This included the addition of four new offices for staff on the second floor of the campus and the renovation of a classroom on the fourth floor. The Wilsonville campus currently occupies the first, second and fourth floors of the building, while Rockwell Collins, an Iowa-based aviation-electronics company, occupies the third floor.

Engineering degrees at the university are accredited by the Engineering Technology Accreditation Commission of ABET. The current university president of all Oregon Tech campuses, President Maples, claims that "Oregon Tech graduates achieve over 88% graduate success, which is defined as being employed or continuing an educational path, within six months of receiving a degree" and that "The average starting salary for an Oregon Tech graduate is $54,000 per year."

Institution Philosophies

Oregon Tech prides itself in having student-to-faculty ratio of approximately 20:1, allowing the staff to have a personal connection with the student as they make an individual progression towards a degree. The Wilsonville campus has a focus on a hands-on learning style, "... guided by a willingness to try, fail, learn, and try again, is one that encourages students to dream big and set high standards with measurable goals for themselves."

Oregon Tech also favors hiring faculty members with decades of experience in professional settings and "understanding of principles that will guide our graduates both to short-term successes in the workforce and long-term successes in their chosen professions" according to the University. The university is noted as having the highest return on investment (ROI) of any colleges or universities in Oregon according to the 2016 April Payscale report.

Projects on Campus

In the time since Wilsonville has opened, students have created projects that have went to SOAK, the regional Burning Man festival. One such flagship project that still resides on the campus is the Space Station Project which students call the "SpaSta" arcade.

SpaSta Arcade

The Space Station arcade was designed by Kevin Fessler and Peter Tucker in Spring 2016. Nicholas Olson worked on panel design and Alonzo Lopez and B. Cleary helped acquire the necessary supplies to complete the project.

"Despite running on a $120 budget, we wanted to build a machine that was every bit 1970s NASA retro as modular which allowed us to disassemble it in the shortest time possible. Many of our sponsors did not believe that we would be able to finish in the five week period before Burning Man... However, when our project was complete on week three, it took Peter only 2 minutes to set it up from the bare bones. Needless to say, we didn't want to set it on fire at Burning Man!"

- Kevin Fessler, Summer 2016 Interview

Transportation and housing

The Wilsonville campus does not offer housing since many students live in surrounding cities such as Clackamas, Portland, Wilsonville, Tigard and Tualatin. Oregon Tech students can ride the S.M.A.R.T. (South Metro Area Transit) buses in Wilsonville and Portland to and from campus for free with a valid student ID.