Undergraduate News

Cara Tomlinson’s Art and Ecology class uses waste materials from around Portland to create beautiful and meaningful works of art. This course offers a fresh approach to creative practice, merging art and ecology to help students respond to the climate crisis, explore the agency of materials, and build connections to place.

Transitioning into college can be an emotional, busy time for students and their families. Lewis & Clark’s First-Year Experience team aims to create a smooth transition by laying the groundwork for a successful first semester.

The Center for Community and Global Health offers funding for health and humanities internships with Portland-area partners. Whether over the summer or during the school year, L&C students benefit from paid internships that turn career exploration into action.

The Middle East and North African Studies program offered a new course this fall to facilitate discussion and collective learning around the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Rachel Young BA ’11 recently published groundbreaking research in the journal Nature on the long-term health impact of tropical cyclones. The article is part of her growing scholarship on the quantifiable social effects of climate change and natural hazards.

L&C environmental studies students gained some real-world experience last month when they visited Tillamook Forest Center to attend the center’s annual Rain Festival, a celebration of the Tillamook Forest and its waterways. They spent the afternoon gathering input from rural community members on what they value most about Oregon’s forests.

Two semesters in the making, Dance X runs from December 5 to 7. The performances offer students the opportunity to have their original choreography fully staged for large audiences.

Lewis & Clark’s Entrepreneur in Residence Mitch Daugherty has been tapped to lead Portland’s newly created Office of Small Business, helping to connect small business owners with the resources they need to thrive.

This year’s Ray Warren Symposium on Race and Ethnic Studies, held November 13-15, is titled On the Border. It will examine the different borders we experience, the role of borders in our lives, and the relationship between borders and ideas of race and ethnicity.

Students in the Portland Music Scenes course connect directly with the city’s varied music communities—from country to jazz, punk to R&B, taiko to Irish trad—while learning to use the tools of ethnomusicology.

Lewis & Clark has climbed into the top 15 percent of the 2025 World University Rankings for International Students, according to Study Abroad Aide. The ranking highlights L&C’s appeal to international students and its strong academic reputation.

Portland Music Scenes, a course taught by Associate Professor of Music Kaley Mason, allows our students to engage with the city and its residents while learning the tools of ethnomusicology. Students recently took a field trip to the Portland Japanese Garden, where students watched Yumi Torimaru, instructor in shamisen, perform as part of the duo Takohachi X.

Greg Hermann, professor of biology, has secured a $414,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to unravel how the size of organelles impacts overall cell function in a worm model. This deep dive into the basic workings of cells may lead to future applications in medicine.

As the 2024 election cycles nears the finish line, L&C students pack into courses on campaign strategy and presidential politics, ready to explore what’s beyond the media narratives.

Lewis & Clark enters the second year of its engagement with the Portland Art Museum’s paid college internship program, an opportunity for students to facilitate interactive K-12 group visits in the galleries.