November 15, 2017 The Skanner Page 3
News
communication at Mult-
nomah County Library,
told The Skanner. “We
have staff that can help
with taxes, financial lit-
eracy, or getting people
on a path to citizenship.
We provide all kinds
of resources across the
spectrum of our work,
so connecting them to
healthcare is very much
in line with that.”
“
uninsured.
This year, experts are
encouraging people to
enroll in due time, as the
Trump administration
has shortened the en-
rollment period and will
shut down the health-
care.gov website near-
ly every Sunday for 12
hours at a time.
“It’s disappointing that
people out there are sow-
With the financial assis-
tance available through the
exchange, many Americans
will be able to find afford-
able, quality coverage
The library’s enroll-
ment information is also
available in Spanish,
Russian, Chinese and
Vietnamese. Interpret-
ers are available upon
request.
During this open en-
rollment period, Ore-
gonians – along with
Americans across the
nation – can sign up for
health coverage through
the Affordable Care Act
marketplace by visiting
healthcare.gov or local-
help.healthcare.gov for
assistance.
“It’s critical that ev-
eryone in our commu-
nities know that this is
the window to sign up
through the ACA mar-
ketplace,” said Oregon’s
U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley
in a press release. “With
the financial assistance
available through the
exchange, many Ameri-
cans will be able to find
affordable, quality cover-
age.”
Millions of Americans
qualify for tax credits
that make health plans
affordable, ranging from
$50 to 100 per month.
Already, roughly 10
million Americans have
coverage through the
ACA marketplace, but
millions more remain
Alexander
ing confusion and trying
to dissuade fellow Amer-
icans from getting health
coverage,” Merkley con-
tinued. “It’s incumbent
on all of us to make sure
that Oregonians and all
Americans know they
have the opportunity to
sign up for life-saving
health coverage.”
The Oregon Depart-
ment of Consumer &
Business Services has
shared several tips to get-
ting covered:
1. Get free, local help en-
rolling. You can sign
up for health insur-
ance on your own at
healthcare.gov, but if
you face any difficul-
ties, have questions,
or need advice to
choose a plan, trained
experts are available.
Certified community
groups (community
partners) and licensed
insurance
agents
will help you free of
charge. They are listed
at OregonHealthCare.
gov/gethelp.
2. If you already have
coverage, log in to
Healthcare.gov to up-
date the application.
Read more at
TheSkanner.com
At the start of the month, Maxine Fitzpatrick, executive director
of Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives (PCRI), presented
the Pathway 1000 Implementation Plan before Mayor Ted Wheeler,
Commissioners Amanda Fritz and Chloe Eudaly, community
members, and a host of PCRI staff and board members.
Fitzpatrick’s purpose of implementing the Pathway 1000 initiative
is to restore involuntary displacement by building 80 homes per
year over the next ten years, totaling 800 homes for purchase
and 200 rentals in North and Northeast Portland.
During the presentation, Fitzpatrick proposed that the city adopt
the plan as a model replicable for future projects around Portland
to “mitigate and rectify the damage done to our most vulnerable
community members, elderly African Americans, and African
Americans displaced from their homes due to Portland’s ongoing
gentrification crisis.”
Nan Stark, Northeast district liaison of the Bureau of Planning
and Sustainability explains, “The Pathway 1000’s holistic
approach to individual and community wealth building includes
the development of affordable housing for home ownership.
The community benefits from the creation of long-term jobs,
affordable commercial spaces, and related positive economic
impacts.”
Coates
cont’d from pg 1
famous for.
As fans began queuing early in
the morning for the highly an-
ticipated discussion between the
National Book Award-winner
and New York Times Magazine
writer Jenna Wortham, the line
outside the 2,700-plus capacity
venue snaked around city blocks
in Southwest Portland.
Entering the stage in jeans and
a hoodie, Coates maintained his
casual and approachable persona
while joking that he was tired of
donning a suit for public appear-
ances.
“I think about not embarrassing
Black people a lot -- maybe more
than is healthy,” Coates joked
within minutes of taking a seat.
After his second book, “Be-
tween the World and Me,” was
published in 2015 — written as a
letter to his son that mixes per-
sonal experiences alongside the
symbolism and often bleak real-
ities of being Black in the United
States — Coates became the quint-
essential voice on race relations
and what some have called the
“totality of Blackness” in America
today.
Through her endorsement of
his work, prolific novelist Toni
Morrison tasked Coates with
filling “the intellectual void” of
James Baldwin since his death in
1987.
Yet while Coates, now 42,
doesn’t reject the praise, he does
“
the guest chairs of prestigious
speaking engagements, “it be-
came like you have to have an an-
swer on everything.”
But fans of Coates — who is a
national correspondent for The
Atlantic — want to hear those an-
Toni Morrison tasked Coates with
filling “the intellectual void” of James
Baldwin since his death in 1987
make a point to tread carefully
around it.
Coates said he’s always been a
writer, and the act of writing it-
self is what he calls his best form
of “self care.”
Given that, picking up where
Baldwin left off means carrying
an image he’s not necessarily pre-
pared to take on.
In conversation with Wortham,
Coates was forthright about be-
ing roped into what he called “the
cult of smart.”
“Before ‘Between the World
and Me,’ I felt like a writer,” said
Coates, who Wortham also re-
ferred to as a “custodian of his-
tory.” Yet after its widely positive
reception which flung him into
swers, in whatever form or opin-
ion they may come.
As Coates said, “I think a lot
of writers feel their credibility
is seeded in being right. I don’t
think that’s what people expect
of me. I think they except me to be
honest... When you’re pursuing
your curiosity, you’re going to be
wrong sometimes.”
Over the course of an hour at
the Arlene Schnitzer, Wortham
and Coates discussed topics of so-
cial media (“You can’t be in a con-
stant conversation on Twitter”),
fame (“I have a stable life with a
wife and a kid and I almost went
crazy”), and public adulation.
Read more at TheSkanner.com
cont’d from pg 1
standing fac-
ulty member
whose exper-
tise was often
used
when
difficult situ-
ations arose
at the univer-
sity,”
wrote
Marilyn M.
Buck,
Ball
State’s inter-
im
provost
and interim
Charlene Alexander
executive
vice president for academic affairs, in
a statement emailed to The Skanner.
“She was always an advocate for under-
served populations and was highly re-
spected across the campus. She worked
with departments to increase the diver-
sity of applicant pools and our contin-
ued rise in employee diversity levels
is due to some of her work. We believe
that we are a more sensitive campus to
PHOTO BY
Fitzpatrick Presents
on Pathway 1000
cont’d from pg 1
PHOTO BY SOMMER MARTIN COURTESY OF PCRI
Insurance
the needs of all faculty, staff, and stu-
dents because of Charlene’s work on
our campus.”
Alexander holds an undergraduate
degree in psychology and a master’s in
counseling and guidance from Iowa’s
Creighton University; she holds a PhD
in counseling psychology from the Uni-
versity of Nebraska-Lincoln.
In addition to meeting with stakehold-
ers, Alexander said she’s reconfigured
a couple of leadership committees and
created training opportunities for fac-
ulty and staff. Faculty are also engaging
in a “crosswalk of the curriculum,” re-
viewing gaps in the school’s diversity
curricula. The president’s task force on
diversity is also reviewing recruitment
and retention practices and how the
school reports bias incidents.
Alexander said she was contacted
by a consulting firm last December
on OSU’s behalf, and spent significant
time researching the position before
deciding to make the leap. One of the
clinchers, she said, was her conver-
sation with OSU President Ed Ray, to
whom she reports directly.
“I have never met someone who
was so passionate about these issues.
Someone who understands that he is a
White male and what that means here,
and what it also means that he doesn’t
“
We believe that we
are a more sensi-
tive campus to the
needs of all faculty,
staff, and students
because of Char-
lene’s work
know — that he knows what he doesn’t
know. With that level of awareness and
passion, at the end of that meeting, I
thought this is absolutely somebody I
want to work for,” Alexander said.
The Skanner was not able to reach
Ray, nor representatives from OSU’s
Black Student Union or the Lonnie B.
Harris Black Cultural Center, for com-
ment. Ray created the vice president
and chief of diversity role in 2016; Al-
exander succeeds Angela Batista, who
was appointed as the university’s in-
terim chief diversity officer and vice
president in February 2016.
Alexander started her academic ca-
reer wanting to be a dentist. The com-
bination of a particularly bad physics
class and a particularly good psycholo-
gy class – which she took the same aca-
demic term – changed her mind.
“The fact that you could study and
predict human behavior just seemed to
be this amazing thing to me as a disci-
pline,” Alexander said.
Before shifting to administrative
work, she worked as a counselor and as
a professor of psychology. She wants to
help students understand the “power
and worth” of who they are.
