Participants in one of the following retention programs must enroll in a Portland Scholars First Year Inquiry cohort, but are not required to complete either UNST 194 or the Portland Summer Scholars program: ACCESS, EMPOWER, GANAS, INSPIRE, NATIONS, or TRIO SSS (students must apply and be admitted to these programs to participate).
Notifications
If you are required to participate in the Portland Scholars program, you will be notified via email.
If you are required to participate in the program, the Portland Scholars event will be included on your Admitted Student Checklist on your Admitted Student Portal. Log in to view your portal and next steps for enrollment. Detailed information for participants will be shared via email leading up to the program.
Portland Summer Scholars
September 9-19, 2025
The Portland Summer Scholars program is a free two-course program September 9-19, 2025. Students earn four free credits upon completion of the program. Students who are admitted to PSU for fall term on or before June 15, 2025 will have the option to complete the free summer program to meet the condition of their admission to PSU. Students can participate in the two-week summer course on a first come, first serve basis until all spots are filled. On-campus housing will also be available on a limited basis.
- Portland Summer Scholars is a positive and engaging learning environment. Learning occurs in a learner-centered classroom, meaning YOU are the center of what we do.
- Students who successfully complete the summer earn four free credits. Working with an advisor, you’ll enroll in courses designed to ensure a solid foundation for future studies.
- Each day will bring new and exciting activities, guest speakers, panels, projects, and ways to connect with the PSU campus. Students should be prepared to spend approximately 14-20 hours per week outside of class doing assignments.
- Classes will take place Monday-Friday, 9:30 am-3:30 pm. Lunch will be provided. We offer optional evening and weekend activities during Portland Scholars such as cosmic bowling and movie & game nights.
Summer Coursework
You will be taking two college-level courses designed to introduce you to PSU, the resources that we offer, and begin exploring your major pathway. The first course that all Portland Scholars will take is an Academic Skills course, designed to ease the transition from high school to college. Your second course is intended to introduce you to what it means to be a scholar in your chosen field of study.
- UNST 199: Academic Success (2 credits) 9:30 AM-12:30 PM
- UNST 199: Exploring Pathways at PSU (2 credits) 1:30-3:30 PM
Portland Scholars First Year Inquiry Cohorts
Creativity In Action
Designed for creative fields like art practices, graphic design, music, architecture, and theater. Students will explore creativity through project-based learning, research, and community partnerships. They will learn how to practice creativity in a variety of interdisciplinary contexts. This Creativity in Action FRINQ is aligned with PSU’s Design, Creativity and Performance pathway, and will cultivate community for students across creative disciplines at PSU.
Health, Happiness, & Human Rights
Examine the nature and state of healthy individuals and populations in their various environments. A dynamic approach is used to study the places where people live and interact, such as the community, the workplace, and the natural environment. Specific emphasis will be given to the intersections between health, communities (both local and global), and human rights and the impact on happiness.
Immigration, Migration & Belonging
The movement of people across borders is a central political and cultural issue throughout the world. Although many are aware of the mobility of goods and capital in a global economy, we tend to be less aware of the movement of people in the global economic system and we also tend to forget that the movement of people, both as workers and as refugees, is not a new phenomenon.
Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis is the ancient Greek name for “shape-changing”. This course investigates the process of change in human culture: how do we envision and experience transformation in ourselves, our communities, and our world? How do we shape and interact with each other and with our environments? Through an interdisciplinary perspective, examining stories and narratives, history, art, poetry, popular culture and science, we will approach a better understanding of how the process of change is fundamental to our life experience and to our sense of being.
On Democracy
Explore how democracy functions, and evaluates its relevance in our time of political, economic and environmental crisis. We will examine how the rise of digital media, polarization and extremism, and political paralysis in response to existential issues like climate change, pose critical challenges to democratic norms and ideals. We will consider how individual and societal interventions such as media literacy, community building, and community engagement and advocacy can address these fundamental challenges to democracy. Students will design and participate in community-based learning activities that increase civic engagement and address large-scale social and ecological issues.
Portland
How do our surroundings shape our lives? How do we shape our surroundings? In this course, the complex relationship between people and the places in which we live, recreate, and work is explored. We specifically focus on Portland: its place as a context for human development and cultural expression; its place as an urban area of diverse communities; and its place within the natural, material, and social environment of the Pacific Northwest.
Race & Social Justice
This course will study biology that undermines the concept of race itself; sociology that defines the concept as socially constructed; a history that is not acknowledged in standard K-12 texts; and literature that opens a diversity of windows onto the experience of race. Through both increased knowledge and personal reflection, students can develop capabilities useful to the work of moving U.S. society past its racial dilemma.
Sustainability
Although we often think of the natural world as separate from our largely urban lives, our most basic needs such as nutritious food to eat, clean air to breathe, and clean water to drink depend on the health of the natural systems of which we are a part. This course explores the interconnectedness of global systems (including physical, ecological, cultural, social, and economic) and their impact on the world.
The Work of Art
Approaching art from a variety of disciplines, this course examines how the work of art shapes, reflects, disguises, and complicates our personal and cultural identities. We explore the various roles that art plays in our imaginary, political, and social lives.
What are Great Books?
Focus on some of the great literary works, watershed scientific discoveries, and seminal insights and creative acts that characterized the last two millennia of human thought and culture. To do so we will cross disciplines at every stage, working to understand how history, literature, art, philosophy, math, and science are not discrete disciplines but have always influenced and contributed profoundly to one another.