University Of Portland

Some private universities in Oregon are offering extra assistance - from crisis counseling to emergency financial aid - to students who call Southern California home.

The university is offering a course this semester and a “decompression session” this week to help its community better understand differences — and find common ground.

When announcing its presidential search last year, the university’s Board of Regents said it would conduct an open, national search in order to attract diverse candidates, including lay people. Robert Kelly is UP’s first African American president who is also not a priest.

The private Portland university joins other schools that have made the shift to requiring boosters in the past few weeks including the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and Southern Oregon University.

Rev. Mark Poorman has been with the private Portland university for nearly a decade. In a statement, he said he will be taking a sabbatical before an anticipated return to teaching, writing and pastoral ministry.

The university last week announced one of its staff members was Oregon’s first reported case of the new U.K. variant of COVID-19. The university said that person did not have any prior contact with students, and that case does not change its plans for the upcoming semester.

How to recruit busy, impatient teenagers to your college? Four Oregon universities are giving immediate admissions decisions to high school seniors.