Oregon Direct Action

Yesterday, I had a pretty sweet meeting with Bethany Johnson of the PPPM program at the University of Oregon. PPPM stands for Planning, Public Policy, and Management; I think the passionate students from the program would be a constructive addition to our projects. From the meeting, we identified a few ways for us to move forward. My brain is quite scattered at the moment, but I’ll run through them the best I can.

First, Bethany is really stoked about what we’re doing, and is interested in talking about ways Oregon Direct Action can be a program that is supported by PPPM. Originally, her idea was to advertise ODA as an internship opportunity for students in the program. I’d like to get the dedicated students more involved than a one term internship, though, so we’ll explore what a closer relationship might mean. Bethany was also a source of wonderful ideas, as a couple of years ago she tried taking students to Mexico on a service learning project. She suggested talking to both Bob Choquette, who teaches strategic planning and a grant writing class, and Nico Larco, who leads Design Bridge (a potential sister organization). I’ve recorded their information in our contact database. We should talk about how we want to approach them on Sunday.

Lastly, Bethany thinks we should definitely connect with the Study Abroad program. If we can get credit for the work we do, but have to pay for those credits, it might be possible to recycle the monies we have to pay back into the project. Clever, huh?

That’s what I’ve got from the meeting. I definitely did more talking than note taking. Thanks to Jason at Green Empowerment for the lead! Looking forward to seeing where this heads