At Portland State, this revamped building centers inclusion and Indigenous values

This story originally appeared on Underscore Native News.

Portland State University’s newly revamped Vernier Science Center, a transformational project four years in the making, is designed to create a more welcoming and inclusive learning environment grounded in Indigenous values that benefits all, especially BIPOC students in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) disciplines.

PSU officials say the center, which opened in the fall, is unique in the college’s history due to its emphasis on incorporating the perspectives of BIPOC students throughout the planning and building process. They say it’s also unique on a national level in its uplifting of Indigenous knowledge alongside Western science.

“This is really a nationally distinctive model of community science design,” Todd Rosenstiel, Dean of PSU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, told Underscore Native News in a media tour of the new building last September. “I think what makes this building so powerful is we spent almost nine months really centering the voices of students who often don’t feel included, or have been historically excluded from the sciences.”

A student advisory panel, composed of students from underrepresented groups in STEAM, spent months working with Bora Architects, campus planners and facilities management to inform the project.

“This project is like no other capital project in PSU history, in that it was incredibly student and community engaged,” Suzanne Estes, Ph.D. Associate Dean for Undergraduate Engagement College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Professor of Biology, said.

Much of PSU’s transformation of the Vernier Science Center (VSC) was deeply influenced by the lived experiences and perspectives of BIPOC students. Their voices provided valuable insights into how education can be improved, which Rosenstiel calls a “game changer” for students. He hopes the changes will ultimately contribute to the university’s broader goal of diversifying science in Oregon.

Motutama Sipelii, who goes by Motu, is a first-generation Pacific Islander from American Samoa who works as a partnership coordinator for the Center for Internship, Mentoring, and Research at PSU. He served on the student advisory committee.

“We told them our vision, and now it’s actually what we see today,” Sipelii said. “It’s very meaningful, and I’m hoping that a lot of students will also see it that way, since it was built based off of what students want.”

Sipelii said it was exciting to see that students’ input and perspectives can be key to designing spaces like the VSC that will support Oregon’s underrepresented student populations.

“W​e built an entire building based on stories of people,” Rosenstiel said. “I think that’s a pretty radical transformation for most science.”

Uplifting Indigenous knowledge

After nearly four years and $84 million, mainly from state funding and philanthropic support, the renovations — transforming the aging Science Building 1 into the new state-of-the-art center — were completed in September of last year, just in time for the start of the fall quarter. The end result, a blend of cutting-edge labs and classrooms rooted in design elements that reflect Indigenous cultural values, may be unlike any other institution in the country.

“PSU really wanted to uplift Indigenous sciences alongside and equal to Western science in a STEM academic building, and I don’t know that there are a lot of examples of that elsewhere, maybe none,” Estes, Chickasaw and Choctaw, said. “So it’s really unique in that perspective.”

The center is named in honor of longtime PSU advocates and STEAM industry leaders Christine and David Vernier, founders of Oregon-based Vernier Software & Technology. The Verniers, who are passionate about science education, have pledged more than $10 million to PSU over the years.

Walking into the building, visitors immediately see Indigenous artwork and cedar wood carvings. Each floor of the building is named after a plant or animal relative like tchíalash, which translates to Salamon in Klamath, or ch’uu-‘it, which translates to Juniper in Athabaskan.

QR codes on signage give visitors and students the opportunity to listen to audio recordings of each floor’s name spoken in Native languages and see the bios of the speakers. Even the paint colors of the walls are a nod to plant relatives and the colors found in nature, like greens and purples that represent blooming camas lilies that were once abundant in prairie ecosystems across Oregon.

Emma Johnson, Cowlitz, who has served as the Indigenous Traditional and Cultural Knowledge Coordinator at PSU for three years, says STEAM has never been very “welcoming” to Native students even though Indigenous people have been scientists, engineers, botanists and more since time immemorial.

Johnson says she is happy to help PSU shift that Westernized way of thinking and looks forward to what the future holds for the VSC.

“Having access to a library space and gathering spaces, classrooms and the food lab really provides not only our students, but also Native community members in orgs that we work with, an opportunity to connect and share in a way that we haven’t been able to support before,” she said.

“This building is there to welcome you in the best way and acknowledge that your traditional knowledge is equal to Western science, if not, in my opinion, more important,” Johnson added.

First Foods Lab

Hailey Maria Salazar, Yoeme or citizen of the Yaquis of Southern California, a first-year Assistant Teaching Professor in the Indigenous Nations Studies department at PSU, said uplifting Indigenous science and Indigenous ways of knowing in all aspects of the project, including in the cutting-edge university labs and classroom facilities like the state-of-the-art First Foods Lab, is needed across the county.

“This is groundbreaking,” Salazar said. “When I think about it, I don’t see any other programs like the ITEK (Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge) program anywhere in the country. I don’t see anything like the Vernier Science Center anywhere in the country. This is really setting some groundwork and it’s setting a foundation for the future of other institutions across the country to listen to what’s being asked of by the people that these institutions are supposed to be serving.”

Salazar says higher educational institutions should not just serve one specific demographic or one specific economic status, but that they should serve everyone. She says Indigenous students deserve buildings like the VSC.

“We deserve to be here,” Salazar said. “Indigenous knowledge systems and traditional ecological knowledge deserve this amount of care, and they deserve a space like this to make sure these knowledges can continue to be passed on.”

One of the classes Salazar taught last quarter was Teosinte to Today: Exploring the History of Corn. Students learned, among other things, to weave, make natural dyes and make foods like Blue Corn Mush, empanadas and tortillas. Students learned about all the different places that corn has touched across the globe, Salazar said. She even created a video game approach to help keep students engaged.

“I think about when I was a student, if I had a space where there were Native languages, where there was Native art, and the actual architecture and the design was actually created by BIPOC students, Native students, that is exciting to me,” Salazar said. “I am excited for students to come in from diverse backgrounds and feel like they belong here, and their ways of knowing and their lived experiences informing the ways that they come to this space is valid and it’s legitimate, and we welcome it here.”

Underscore Native News is a nonprofit investigative newsroom committed to Indigenous-centered reporting in the Pacific Northwest. We are supported by foundations and donor contributions. Follow Underscore on Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok.

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