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Evan Mount

By Taylor Pedersen, CLA Student Writer - November 7, 2025

When Evan Mount arrived at Oregon State University, he imagined a future filled with greenhouses and microscopes. A passionate gardener raised in Seattle, he chose OSU for its prestigious botany program after a short stint studying chemistry at UC San Diego. Music, though ever-present in his life, was still just a side project or an outlet, not a career.

Now, as an incoming fifth-year in the music technology and production program at the School of Visual, Performing, and Design Arts, Mount has traded soil samples for soundboards. He’s a violinist in the OSU Symphony, a DJ at KBVR-FM, a former Reser Creative Scholar, and a current PRAx student advisory council member, as well as a tutor at the Writing Center. For him, music is no longer a hobby in the margins but the center of his academic and creative life.

“I think I realized it when I stopped going to science advisors altogether,” Mount said with a laugh. “I was only meeting with Kristen Rorrer, the music advisor, every quarter. At some point it clicked: not only do I love the music, I love the people in the department. I wanted to be around them more. That was when I knew.”

Mount’s musical story began at age five, when his mom gave him a choice: sports or an instrument. He chose the violin, and though his early practice sessions were reluctant, middle school changed everything.

“My middle school orchestra teacher was incredible,” he recalled. “She got us playing in the community, going to conferences, and connecting with the local scene. That’s when I thought: ‘I want to do this for me, not just because I have to.’”

By high school, he was well known in Seattle’s classical and chamber music circles, performing in school and city orchestras and building a reputation. Still, when it came time to choose a major, presumed practicality won out. “I didn’t think music could lead to a stable career,” he said. “There was pressure to pick something STEM, and I was good at chemistry. But I eventually realized that being in a lab wasn’t the life I wanted.”

Though he pivoted away from science, Mount sees echoes of his chemistry and botany background in his music work. “It’s funny, waves show up in both fields,” he said. “In chemistry, you learn about molecular vibrations, and in music technology, you’re learning how sound waves move in a studio. Resonance, acoustics… There are surprising overlaps.”

Gardening, too, remains an influence. His family’s massive flower garden back in Seattle still shapes his creative process. “It reminds me to step back and not get too analytical,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll get stuck overthinking chords or production choices. But if I go outside, put my hands in the dirt, it resets me. It’s grounding, literally and figuratively.”

At OSU, Mount thrives on bridging worlds. He performs classical violin in the symphony, mixes pop and electronic tracks on his KBVR radio show, and even merged the two when he performed computer-based DJ music with the OSU Symphony last year.

“It’s fun finding threads between genres,” he said. “The same chords that show up in a symphony piece might also be in a Top 40 hit. Putting them side by side is really satisfying.” That sense of connection extends beyond the music itself. Living with fellow artists from the School of Visual, Performing, and Design Arts, Mount describes feeling “comfortable” in a way he never did in STEM fields. “These are people who care about art, music, and writing. They’re not just classmates, they’re collaborators and friends.”

Outside of music, Mount tutors at the Writing Center and helped to organize the Peer Educator Conference for fall 2025. He sees these roles as extensions of his artistry. “It’s about collaboration,” he said. “Music can be really individual, but tutoring and leading a conference remind me how to work with a team, set goals, and adapt when things don’t go as planned. Those skills carry over into the studio, too.”

Looking ahead to his final year, Mount is eager to dive deeper into music production, especially pop. “I’ve mostly focused on performance and simpler production so far,” he said. “Now I want to explore the more complex side of it, making tracks with friends and experimenting with new sounds.”

Technology is another point of excitement. Recently, one of his instructors demonstrated an eight-channel audio setup—music composed for a circle of speakers surrounding the listener. “It blew my mind,” Mount said. “The idea that sound could move all around you, even in a 32- or 64-channel space, feels like the future. I want to be part of that.”

For Mount, the journey from botany to music hasn’t been about abandoning one passion for another but about finding where different parts of his life intersect. Whether it’s the science of waves, the patience of gardening, or the collaboration of teaching, he sees his past as feeding into his present.

“I’ve gone all in on music, and I like what’s happening,” he said. “But I also know I can spread out, try new things, and make connections. That’s what excites me: the possibility that music can hold all of it.”

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Holly Zell

By Taylor Pedersen, CLA Student Writer - November 7, 2025

By the time Holly Zell reached her fifth year as a Ph.D. student in psychology at the School of Psychological Science, she had already lived what many of her peers in academia might only study. For years, she sat across from clients in community clinics, navigating crisis after crisis, watching burnout loom over her colleagues and herself. Before that, she carried the personal weight of losing her father to suicide at age 16, a loss that left questions she would spend years confronting, first as a counselor, now as a researcher.

“I used to say it didn’t influence me at all,” Zell said about her father’s death. “But of course it did. It gave me a comfort level with the topic of suicide that not everyone has. I don’t feel like I’m trying to investigate how my dad died; that’s not something I’ll ever fully understand. But it did spark an existential curiosity about why people make that choice, and that curiosity has never left me.”

Born in Ontario, Canada, Zell began her undergraduate studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, where she majored in business. But by the end of her first semester, she felt out of place. Microeconomics and calculus didn’t resonate, but psychology did. “Intro Psych was the only class I liked,” she said. “I remember my mom once joking that marketing was about selling people things they don’t need, and I thought: ‘is that really what I want to do?’”

She switched majors, drawn in part by her own lived experience after her father’s death. “Psychology gave me a language for questions I’d already been asking,” Zell said.

When her family later moved to Colorado, Zell followed and enrolled in a master's program in clinical mental health counseling at University of Northern Colorado. There, she earned her counseling degree and began work in community mental health.

Zell and her husband eventually relocated to Oregon, where she worked at the Yamhill County community mental health center. She also served on the center’s suicide intervention team. The work was vital,but it was exhausting.

“Caseloads were high, the pay didn’t reflect the workload, and so much of what clients brought into therapy was tied to systemic inequalities we couldn’t fix,” she recalled. “What they really needed was stable housing, food security, and transportation. Therapy can help people cope, but it can’t erase massive income inequality.”

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic only magnified the strain. Overnight, her practice shifted entirely to telehealth, something she had been trained to avoid. “We were told, ‘don’t do telehealth if you can help it,’ and suddenly it was the only option,” she said. “What I learned is that it isn’t inherently worse. For rural clients, it can actually be a lifeline.”

Still, the constant pressure left her burned out. “I realized I do my best therapy work when I’m not doing therapy full-time,” Zell said. “I couldn’t sustain it forever.”

Burnout gave Zell the space to consider a different path, one she had once thought closed to her. Years earlier, she applied to clinical psychology Ph.D. programs and was rejected across the board. “It devastated me,” she said. “I thought it meant I wasn’t good enough. I had to work through a lot of what I was holding that to mean about myself.”

This time, she applied to just one program: Oregon State’s psychology Ph.D. “It was a long shot. I told myself, ‘I probably won’t get in, but maybe this will give me something to hold onto while I figure out what’s next.’” To her surprise, she was accepted.

Now a member of Dr. David Kerr’s lab, Zell is focused on suicide prevention in young adults, with her dissertation examining suicide risk among transgender young people and the protective role of support systems such as family, peers, and schools.

The topic is both professional and personal. As a queer, nonbinary researcher and counselor, Zell has worked closely with LGBTQ+ clients throughout her career. “In community health, younger queer and trans clients were often placed with me, partly because I was out,” Zell said. “Later, in private practice, I made my identity clear on my website so people knew they’d have a safe space.”

Her research is driven by those lived encounters. “There are models of suicide risk that completely ignore systemic oppression,” she said. “But for trans youth, discrimination is central to suicide risk. I want to push toward models that explicitly account for how systemic injustice fuels suicidal thinking.”

Her findings so far underscore what many advocates already know: family support can be life-saving. “When trans youth are respected by their families—when parents use their name, their pronouns, and help them access care—their suicide risk doesn’t increase compared with cisgender youth,” Zell said. “But rejection can be devastating. In those cases, chosen family and queer community become critical.”

Because of her identity and personal history, Zell is no stranger to the critique that she is “too close” to her topic. She doesn’t buy it. “I don’t believe in perfectly objective research,” she said. “Whether you’re inside or outside the community you study, you bring bias. The key is checking your work through collaboration, feedback, and evidence.”

Her stance reflects her counseling background: honesty about subjectivity paired with a commitment to rigor. “I’m not trying to find out if trans people face oppression. That’s a fact. My work asks how those sociopolitical factors interact with suicide risk and what can be done to intervene.”

Looking back, Zell sees her path from a burned-out therapist to a fifth-year doctoral candidate as a process of redefining what success means. “In the past, I measured worth by grades, by productivity,” she said. “Now I think more about balance. How to prioritize wellness over constant output.”

Her research may be rooted in tragedy, but her approach is grounded in hope: that by asking better questions, she can help build a system where fewer families face the loss hers did.

“Suicide is complicated,” Zell said. “But if we can understand the protective power of support, maybe we can make it less common.

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Mayah Garcia-Harper

By Jessica Florescu, CLA Student Writer - November 4, 2025

Before starting her college education at Oregon State, Mayahuel Garcia-Harper, ‘25, had a different plan. Her experience growing up on a farm outside of Portland led her to considering zoology, specifically at Colorado State University. 

“I was always a huge animal lover,” said Garcia-Harper. “I was exploring the natural areas around my family’s farm, identifying insects, reptiles, and anything else that moved. I felt a connection between me and critters of all shapes and sizes.”

But the COVID-19 Pandemic derailed Garcia-Harper’s plans. She decided to defer her enrollment at Colorado State and take a gap year. Over fall 2020, Garcia-Harper went on a three month backpacking trip through Utah and Wyoming, led by the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). 

“Taking that time in the wilderness was the best thing that I could have done,” said Garcia-Harper. “I proved to myself that I could accomplish physically and mentally challenging things. My self-confidence grew exponentially.”

Returning to Oregon from isolation in December 2020, Garcia-Harper considered reapplying to college. There was still uncertainty in 2021 as to whether in-person classes would be offered, so Garcia-Harper decided to stick close to home and enroll in Oregon State’s zoology program at the College of Science.

Garcia-Harper began her first year at OSU as part of the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program, managed by the Educational Opportunities Program (EOP), and lived in Sackett Hall while classes were still part in-person and online. Although Garcia-Harper was fascinated with animal behavior studies, she ended up switching her major to psychology, after a stint in the University Exploratory Studies program, to gain more of a school-life balance. 

Garcia-Harper explained, “I was doing really well in my classes, but my social life struggled, because I needed to lock in so much with school. I was sometimes overwhelmed with the STEM curriculum and that was when I started looking into different avenues to get myself to the same end goal: learning more about the strong connection that animals have with humans and vice versa.”

Garcia-Harper began working as a research assistant in the Human-Animal Interaction Lab through the College of Agricultural Sciences, where she was able to explore animal behavior, cognition, and attachment theory, facilitating training sessions with family pets and children. 

As a student in the School of Psychological Science, Garcia-Harper was introduced to how manmade and natural spaces can impact people’s behavior and cognition. Through Professor Sabine Huemer’s Conservation Psychology (PSY 492) course, students learn more about what motivates people to practice sustainable actions. Garcia-Harper connected these concepts to the interactions between humans and nature in relation to built environments. 

Garcia-Harper joined Dr. Huemer’s Nature Engagement Studies (NEST) Lab as a research assistant and for her Honors College thesis, she explored the learning outcomes of increased daylight, greenery, and natural elements (wood) in K-12 classroom settings. 

“There isn’t much previous research available that looks at this specifically in educational settings,” said Garcia-Harper. “The biophilia hypothesis states that humans have an innate desire to connect with the natural world. It has been suggested that incorporating natural elements in indoor settings can improve things like productivity, learning, even happiness in humans. I was investigating if this can be seen in educational settings.”

Garcia-Harper was also partially inspired to explore this hypothesis after working in her mother’s early childhood center, Escuela Viva, as a young adult. “I worked with children from ages six months through five years old and observed how our classroom turtles, named Mertle and Gertle, helped facilitate a calmer transition that positively shifted the kids’ focus when their parents dropped them off.” 

Now, she’s returned to working at Escuela Viva for the time being before finding a Ph.D. program that’s right for her interests in environmental psychology.

For current students, Garcia-Harper recommends becoming part of campus EOP programs to find community and build a support system. For those studying psychology specifically, explore all of the different facets of psychology and what careers are available after graduating. 

“I knew I didn’t want to become a therapist, mainly because of my personal difficulties of compartmentalizing things paired with being highly empathetic,” explained Garcia-Harper. “But that doesn’t mean you have to either when majoring in psychology. The field is broad and diverse and I encourage students to explore and become self-aware of their own interests for the future, in order to find the best personal career path.”

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Gordon Gilkey demonstrating a printmaking technique in 1951 |Credit: OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center (SCARC) 

By Jessica Krueger, CLA Student Writer - November 14, 2025

Gordon Gilkey’s retirement, by his estimation, lasted only two weeks. 

It was the late 1970s and Gilkey was in his mid-sixties. A devoted art teacher and tireless college administrator, Gilkey had spent his last thirty years at Oregon State University—first as a professor and head of the art department, then as dean of the College of Liberal Arts from 1964 to 1977. 

It was Gilkey, in fact, who had led efforts to establish the CLA in the first place. When Oregon State hired Gilkey in 1947, it offered no degree programs in the humanities and fine arts. OSU’s focus was on agriculture and the “hard sciences.” Gilkey strongly believed in the value of a liberal arts education, and over the course of many years, convinced the university's administration of its importance. It is in part thanks to Gilkey that OSU offers such a diverse range of degree programs today.

Indeed, Gilkey had never been one to sit still—especially when art was involved. 

After graduating in 1936 from the University of Oregon with a Master of Fine Arts in printmaking, Gilkey was hired as the official artist for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Over a two-year period, Gilkey worked diligently to etch sixty or so plates. Each was unique and  captured some aspect of the fair’s construction, exhibitions, or grand visions for the future. 

Because multiples are made of each original print etching, Gilkey believed that printmaking was a more democratic medium than other fine arts. 

In post-World War II Europe, Gilkey worked alongside the “Monuments Men” as he led efforts to gather and preserve German war art. In his spare time, he taught Holocaust survivors and prisoners of war how to draw.

In 1965, Gilkey organized support for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. Recognizing that the state of Oregon would need its own agency to receive funds from the endowments, Gilkey later helped to establish the Oregon Arts Commission. Today, OSU’s Valley Library features artwork which the commission helped to  select and acquire through its Oregon’s Percent for Art in Public Places program. 

By the time Gilkey left OSU in 1978, he had accumulated an enormous collection of art. An experienced printmaker himself, much of the art was Gilkey’s own work. But most of the pieces had been gathered over years of travel and through exchanges with friends, students, and other artists. 

For years, Gilkey had kept his collection in the basement of his house in Corvallis. He invited students and locals to see it, but otherwise the art remained tucked away in steel cases. Now that he was retired, Gilkey wanted to find a proper home for his art collection, a place where the public could see and enjoy it. 

“(Art) helps enrich people’s lives,” Gilkey said. “It allows for their own personal expression, and then the products of their expression enriches (other) people’s lives.”

So Gilkey wrapped up his last class at OSU and within two weeks had moved to Portland, art collection in tow. He donated most of his art to the Portland Art Museum and took a lifetime appointment there as curator of prints and drawings. In 1993, the museum inaugurated the Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Graphic Arts Collection, named in honor of him and his wife of fifty-seven years. 

Until the mid-1990s, the Portland Art Museum was tied with the Pacific Northwest College of Art (then the Museum Art School) and so Gilkey got involved there too, as part-time professor and resident printmaker. Today, the PNCA offers the Gilkey Center for Printmaking in support of students interested in the medium. 

Asked about his personal philosophy in 1998, Gilkey replied: “Well, I keep learning. I learn more about people, I learn more about art as I travel, as I read. And as I work with my students, work with my colleagues, I learn more about art. And I have developed (a broad) taste in art from all periods, and in all media. 

“So I try to impart that to my students: Keep an open mind, be able to judge your own work, and don’t be too critical of other people’s work. They have a right for their own expression.”

Gilkey continued to make prints, teach art at the PNCA, and work for the Portland Art Museum into his late eighties. He passed away in 2000, but the barriers he broke and paths he paved for the creation and sharing of artwork continue on.

This is the third and last installment in a series which discusses the life of Gordon Gilkey (1912-2000), a well-known printmaker and the first dean of Oregon State University’s College of Liberal Arts. Born and raised in Lane County, Oregon, Gilkey graduated from the University of Oregon in 1936 with a Master of Fine Arts. After his work with the German Wartime Art Project in post-World War II Europe, Gilkey returned to Oregon where his service to the arts continued. He had tremendous impact on OSU, local and national art scenes, and museums across the U.S. In 1998, oral historian James Strassmaier sat down with Gilkey to document his legacy for the Oregon Historical Society. Read part 1 and part 2 of Gilkey's story.

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Gordon Gilkey in 1947 | Credit: OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center (SCARC)

By Jessica Krueger, CLA Student Writer - November 7, 2025

Gordon Gilkey was working on a tall glass of brandy when Oregon State’s Dean of Faculty Edmund Volkart broke the news: ‘’’We want you to be dean.’’’ 

“I said, ‘I’m an artist,’” Gilkey recounted in a 1998 interview with the Oregon Historical Society. But Volkart was undeterred. ‘’’You’ll find time.”’ 

The year was 1964 and, for the past year, Gilkey had served as acting dean for the newly-established School of Humanities and Social Sciences while the administration searched for candidates. “They brought in a political scientist candidate from Chapel Hill. They brought in a philosophy professor from Columbia University,” Gilkey said. None of them, apparently, passed muster. Gilkey got the job.

In 1947, Oregon State College (renamed Oregon State University in 1961) had hired Gilkey sight unseen as a full professor and chairman of the art department. A long-time resident of Oregon, Gilkey had just returned from post-World War II Europe where he headed the German Wartime Art Project and served as a liaison for the “Monuments Men.” 

The art department was in its infancy when Gilkey joined the ranks of Oregon State. There were four other faculty members at the time and an equally limited number of art courses available to students. Operating out of a remodeled dormitory (now Fairbanks Hall), Gilkey sometimes taught lessons in an old laundry room. 

Gilkey knew things needed to change, so he got to work. 

“By the time I went into the dean’s office,” Gilkey said, “I had a faculty of (20 to) 25 teachers, full time teachers, teaching painting, drawing, industrial design, printmaking, sculpture, the art crafts, art education, and art history.”

A strong advocate of interdisciplinary education, Gilkey designed art courses for engineers and scientists to improve their manual dexterity. More than this, he understood that art could enrich their lives in a way that technical courses might not. Gilkey believed that art was for everyone.

Gilkey’s greatest contribution to Oregon State, arguably, was his campaign to establish departmental majors in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. When Gilkey was first hired, students had to attend the University of Oregon if they wished to major in the liberal arts. In such fields as English or music, Oregon State offered only classes. Throughout the 1960s, one by one, Gilkey facilitated the creation of 15 liberal arts majors.

This was no easy feat. “I was quizzed by the State Board’s members and put on a hot seat,’’ Gilkey recounted. “They said, ‘We teach these majors down at the University of Oregon. They can get their Ph.D. down there in art and music, art history, music history.’’’

But Gilkey wouldn’t have it. “I said, ‘That has nothing to do with the education of students at Oregon State. Absolutely nothing.’’’ So Gilkey got his way. 

And he did, again, in 1973 when he convinced Robert MacVicar, then-president of OSU, to recognize the School of Humanities and Social Sciences as its own college under a new name: the College of Liberal Arts. 

Outside of his efforts to establish the College of Liberal Arts, Gilkey worked overtime to create opportunities for international engagement at Oregon State. 

In 1956, Gilkey developed an international print exhibit exchange. He collected prints from artists in Europe and Asia and worked with museums and university galleries across the United States, including Oregon State’s own Memorial Union, to display the art in a series of rotating exhibits. Likewise, museums and university galleries overseas exhibited American-made prints that Gilkey sent in exchange. 

“I started (the program),” Gilkey said, “during a period when the (United States Information Agency) couldn’t bring in foreign exhibits. It was during the McCarthy era, and the U.S.I.A. (could not know whether or not any foreign artist was) a communist. I was interested in art. I didn’t ask their political affiliations. … So quietly, the State Department approved what I was doing.”

As dean, Gilkey organized student exchange programs with universities in Germany, Japan, France, and Mexico. The exchange programs worked in both directions: students from OSU (as well as from other participating universities in Oregon) studied overseas as Oregon universities welcomed foreign students in exchange. 

“We led the pack in this country,” Gilkey said, referencing the introduction of cohorts studying abroad. “We established the pattern, model for international education whereby it was a real change, not living in an isolated, sheltered community over there.”

After thirty years at Oregon State, Gilkey finally retired in 1977. Even when he was promoted to  dean, Gilkey never stopped teaching. In fact, he continued to teach classes in the art department for a short time after his retirement. Such was his commitment to the College of Liberal Arts and to the students of OSU. In 2001, Oregon State celebrated Gilkey’s legacy by renaming Social Science Hall to Gilkey Hall in his honor.

This is the second installment in a series which discusses the life of Gordon Gilkey (1912-2000), a well-known printmaker and the first dean of Oregon State University’s College of Liberal Arts. Born and raised in Lane County, Oregon, Gilkey graduated from the University of Oregon in 1936 with a Master of Fine Arts. After his work with the German Wartime Art Project in post-World War II Europe, Gilkey returned to Oregon where his service to the arts continued. He had tremendous impact on OSU, local and national art scenes, and museums across the U.S. In 1998, oral historian James Strassmaier sat down with Gilkey to document his legacy for the Oregon Historical Society. Read part 1 and part 3 of Gilkey's story.

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Undated photograph of Gordon Gilkey | Credit: OHS Research Library, Gordon Gilkey Collection, Acc. 26690.

By Jessica Krueger, CLA Student Writer - October 31, 2025

“Everything was leveled,” Gordon Gilkey said in a 1998 interview with the Oregon Historical Society. “Everything … was bare. It just wiped everything out.”

Before Gilkey gathered German war art in the aftermath of World War II, he served as a captain in the United States Air Force. Tasked with assessing the effectiveness of the U.S.’s atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in early Aug. 1945, Gilkey examined photographs of the damage incurred by the nuclear attacks.

“I thought (they) worked too well,” Gilkey said of the atomic bombs, a brief but poignant statement which no-doubt fails to capture his mourning for the lives destroyed. Confronted with the horrors of the Atomic Age and ever-worsening accounts of Nazi atrocities, Gilkey was forced, like others of his generation, to reckon with extreme and often terrible manifestations of human nature.

In art, Gilkey found solace — and he wanted to save it, resurrect it, even.

After the war’s end, Gilkey headed the German Wartime Art Project of the U.S. Army’s Historical Division. Gilkey and his troops tracked down and gathered over eight thousand pieces of German art produced under Adolf Hitler’s rule, some of which perpetuated violent militarism and Nazi ideology. 

The purpose of this effort was two-fold: first, U.S. occupation authorities wanted to prevent German people from reverting to Nazism after Hitler’s defeat; second, specialists such as Gilkey recognized that art produced under the Third Reich, not all of which was problematic, documented monumental shifts in German politics, military history, and weltanschauung or world view. It was crucial, Gilkey believed, that such art be preserved. 

Gilkey’s official position within the U.S. military was different from members of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, better known as “Monuments Men.” While Gilkey gathered and preserved art produced under the Nazi regime, the Monuments Men were tasked with saving masterpieces that the Nazis had looted. More similar than different, Gilkey and the Monuments Men often worked side by side. 

Before the war, Gilkey had worked as a printmaker and art instructor. In 1939, he and other Americans concerned about the safety of European art sent preemptive letters to President Franklin D. Roosevelt requesting, should the U.S. ever declare war, that efforts be made to preserve the cultural relics threatened by Nazi takeover.

Gilkey and the Monuments Men recognized what many others did not. They understood the great power and influence of the arts in society and, furthermore, they understood the oft-overlooked capacity of military forces to protect important artifacts and nurture human culture.

“There was a … community of surviving Jews west of Frankfurt,” Gilkey recounted, “and the elders learned that I was involved in art.” With anti-Jewish sentiments still running high, they wanted to keep their youth safe and off the streets. “Would you come over and get them started making drawings and paintings?” they asked. 

So Gilkey taught them art. 

He had seen first-hand the terrible conditions Holocaust survivors endured under the Nazi regime when he walked through the Dachau concentration camp after its liberation. “I was so mad and sad, but I couldn’t cry then. I cried that night when I got back to my quarters. (It was) horrible,” Gilkey said. 

Gilkey recognized the capacity of art to glorify Hitler’s terrible plans. But he also recognized the dual capacity of art to, in fact, rid the world of people like Hitler, to democratize societies in the creation of a better world. 

“A group of (German generals) wanted to learn art. So (my) colonel volunteered me,” Gilkey said. “I went up and took them these art supplies: ink, brushes, pencils. I said, ‘I want you to make drawings of your memories of the fortifications and so on (where) you fought and some of the places that you were in, and that will become part of the history of the war.’

“I could look at their drawings and tell them to put a little shadow here to emphasize that, and just draw lines around things and then shade it, and they did it. Some of them were very detailed and meticulous. Some of them were quite free,” Gilkey said.

After the war, Gilkey was honored for his service: both for his official duties with the U.S. Air Force and for his efforts to build connections with those he met abroad. He received the U.S.’s Meritorious Service Medal and was knighted by France. He received honors from several other European countries as well. 

In 2014, the Obama administration celebrated Gilkey and the Monuments Men with a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award possible. It is given to people or groups who have made a significant impact in American history or culture, often for acts of extreme dedication and enduring heroism. 

Approximately 450 pieces of the art that Gilkey collected with the German Wartime Art Project remain in Washington, D.C., under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government. Not all of the pieces produced under the Third Reich exhibited Nazi iconography or propaganda. Some say that Gilkey went too far in collecting German war art. Thankfully, efforts to repatriate the art have been ongoing since 1951. Today, most pieces have been returned to their original artists, rightful owners, or the German government.

This is the first installment in a series which discusses the life of Gordon Gilkey (1912-2000), a well-known printmaker and the first dean of Oregon State University’s College of Liberal Arts. Born and raised in Lane County, Oregon, Gilkey graduated from the University of Oregon in 1936 with a Master of Fine Arts. After his work with the German Wartime Art Project in post-World War II Europe, Gilkey returned to Oregon where his service to the arts continued. He had tremendous impact on OSU, local and national art scenes, and museums across the U.S. In 1998, oral historian James Strassmaier sat down with Gilkey to document his legacy for the Oregon Historical Society. Read part 2 and part 3 of Gilkey's story.

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Keenyn Irene Kehaulani Santiago

By Hoku Tiwanak, CLA Student Writer - October 28, 2025

Growing up in the small rural town of Kahuku, located on the north shore of Oahu, Keenyn Irene Kehaulani Santiago learned community, determination, and the value of service. Kahuku is a tight knit community where neighbors look out for one another and culture is passed down through daily life. 

Sports have always been a big part of her community. Growing up playing basketball, Santiago began to notice gaps around her. “There was a need for health and wellness that wasn’t really emphasized, especially for Native people,” she explained. Later as a student at Kamehameha Schools (a private school exclusive to Native Hawaiians), education gave her a broader perspective on what opportunities could look like beyond Kahuku. 

Those lessons from her early years on Oahu continue to shape her journey as she finishes her master’s at the School of Language, Culture, and Society’s College Student Services Administration (CSSA) program. As the current Business Operations and Membership Coordinator for OSU’s Recreational Sports, Santiago is weaving together Native Hawaiian values, recreation, and student development into a vision for healthier, more connected communities.

Santiago had always imagined basketball would carry her into college. But during her senior year of high school, tearing her ACL changed everything. “I was devastated,” Santiago said. “But that injury opened up a new path for me.” Her months of rehabilitation sparked an interest in physical therapy, which motivated her to  enroll at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa to study exercise science. 

What started as a student job at the Warrior Recreation Center turned into a passion. “Working there, I found myself loving the leadership side of it,” she said. “Supervising students, building programs, and seeing people grow became more exciting to me than the thought of working in kinesiology."

Encouraged by her mentor, BonnyJean Manini, faculty director of the Office of Student Life & Development, she pursued more opportunities within the rec center, eventually becoming a manager as an undergraduate. “My mentor really pushed me. She saw something in me I didn’t fully see in myself yet.” That mentorship ultimately led Santiago toward graduate school and a new career in student services.

Now in her second year at OSU, Santiago is using her academic work and her role in recreational sports to create environments that support the whole student. Her master’s portfolio  blends Native Hawaiian health, recreation, and student affairs. She’s researching culturally sound approaches to wellness in higher education, focusing on ways to support Native and Indigenous students by revitalizing traditions and preserving cultural practices through their educational experience. “It’s about creating balance,” Santiago said. “Helping students not just survive in college, but thrive. Building community, promoting wellness, and supporting them as whole people.”

At OSU, approximately 100 students identify as Native Hawaiian. For many of those students, finding cultural connections and relevant programming can be difficult. Santiago sees that gap as both a challenge and an opportunity. “The first step is letting students know higher education is possible,” she said. “The second, which is just as important as the first, is giving them the tools to survive and succeed once they’re here.” 

For Native and Indigenous students navigating higher education, her advice comes straight from her own experience: “Take any opportunities wherever they come. Don’t be afraid to apply for jobs, internships, clubs, scholarships, etc. even if you don’t think you’re ready. Bring purpose into what you do, and let go of the limiting stereotypes.”

After she graduates next spring, her long-term vision is clear: to invest in the longevity of her people by blending health, culture, and education. “I want to bring back what I’ve learned and use it to create opportunities that didn’t always exist when I was growing up,” she said.

Santiago’s journey has been defined by resilience, mentorship, and a strong passion for her culture. By bringing Native Hawaiian values into student services and recreation, she not only supports students at OSU today, but also lays the foundation for healthier, stronger communities back home in Hawai‘i.