June 10, 1998 Contact Gaye Vandermyn (541) 346-3133 Enriching Oregon and the World EUGENE--The University of Oregon faculty will honor an influential expert of Native American treaty rights, an effective advocate for Oregon's arts community and a well-known champion of Portland's inner city residents with Distinguished Service Awards at the 1998 commencement ceremony on Saturday, June 13. This year's honorees are Lawrence J. Dark, president and chief executive officer of the Urban League of Portland; University of Washington law professor Ralph Johnson; and Hope Hughes Pressman of Eugene, influential advocate for higher education and the arts. The Distinguished Service Award, one of the highest honors the University of Oregon faculty conveys, will be presented at the university's spring commencement ceremonies at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Hayward Field, 1580 E. 15th Ave., on the UO campus. The UO faculty annually select honorees for this award "who by their knowledge and skills have made a significant contribution to the cultural development of Oregon or society as a whole." "The three individuals, in their passionate and successful pursuit of causes to benefit ultimately all Oregonians, lead lives that should serve as a model for all of us," UO President Dave Frohnmayer said of the 1998 honorees. Johnson graduated from the UO with a B.S. in 1947 and the UO School of Law awarded him a law degree in 1949. He is now semi-retired from the UW law school. "We are very pleased to be able to honor Johnson, a two-time UO graduate who in his professional and volunteer work is widely credited with changing the face of Native American law and history, environmental history, and ocean and coastal regulations," said Frohnmayer. "Those who nominated him for this award testify that he is a man who takes unpopular but principled moral and political stands without creating lasting enmity among those whose minds he seeks to change. He is a man who is a symbol of the Oregon ideal and the contribution that state-supported higher education can make to the betterment of all society." "As a Native American, I have no question that Ralph Johnson quite literally changed the opportunities and lives of significant numbers of Indian people," agreed Rennard Strickland, UO law dean. "His work also brought cooperation and understanding between Indian and non-Indian people. Johnson's influential legal work and op-ed articles laid the foundation in the courts and in public opinion for the historic Bolt decision in the 1970s that validated tribal fishing rights established in 19th-century treaties. -more- Johnson also taught the very first U.S. course in Native American law, has voluntarily helped train tribal court justices and has written or co-written the major textbooks used in each of his major academic fields. UO law professor Richard Hildreth collaborated with Johnson to write the legal text, "Ocean and Coast Law," published by Prentice-Hall in 1983, that has become a work of lasting significance not only in the law school teaching world but also in graduate school marine policy programs in the U.S. and overseas. Johnson's 1980 University of California at Davis Law Review article integrated public trust doctrine principles into western water allocation law, and experts agree that it is probably the single most influential article in the water law field. The California Supreme Court relied upon it in its famous Mono Lake decision that changed the evolution of water law in all western states. "Lawrence Dark brought with him to this state an impressive record of professional and community work in economic and social justice, education, health and equity issues and has applied that experience to implementing solid programs that address issues faced by our urban citizens and to inspiring new levels of cooperation and involvement that are enriching the lives and opportunities for all Oregonians," said Frohnmayer Dark, who arrived in Oregon in 1994, was executive assistant to the president for equal opportunity programs and a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs at the University of South Carolina before he accepted the leadership post of the Urban League of Portland. Before that he served as the first director of the Virginia Council on Human Rights and among other positions, had served as associate director of the Council on Legal Education Opportunity in Washington, D.C. Dark's work has frequently been recognized and won support from a variety of prestigious foundations including a three-year Kellogg National Fellowship and a three-year national project with the Charles F. Kettering Foundation called Community Leadership: Community Change through Public Action. During his four years in Portland, Dark has reorganized and refocused the Urban League of Portland around advocacy, research and service, and then he oversaw a campaign that increased the league's annual budget from $1.6 million to more than $3 million. Under his direction, the league developed a new program to address environmental problems that disproportionately affect inner city residents and launched a campaign to spotlight African-American achievement and challenge media stereotypes of African-Americans as delinquents and low-achievers. Dark helped make Portland one of eight cities nationally sponsored by the Matel Foundation to increase and enhance parental and community involvement in local schools. In response to passage of Measure 11 establishing mandatory minimum juvenile sentences, he developed the Legal Education and Empowerment Project to work with youth of color and their families. -more- He served on the American Psychological Association (APA) Commission on Youth and Violence, and he co-authored a chapter in the book, "Reasons to Hope, a Psychological Perspective on Violence and Youth." "Overall Mr. Dark has brought to the Urban League and the City of Portland a fresh leadership style that challenges a diversity of organizations and individuals to find common ground and work together for the greater good and health of the Portland community," says attorney Duane Bosworth, 1997 chair of the Portland Urban League. Dark received his Juris Doctorate from Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago in 1980 and completed his undergraduate studies in political science and English at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, in 1976. "Hope Hughes Pressman, also twice graduated from the University of Oregon, has had through nearly 50 years of professional and volunteer life a profound influence on the development of the arts in Oregon," said Frohnmayer. "Her community and university leadership has enriched the lives of all Oregonians not only through the flowering of the arts but also through improving Oregonians' access to higher education and the quality and range of programs available to our students." David Robertson, director of the UO Museum of Art, confessed at the museum's 65th anniversary celebration last year that when he first arrived in Oregon, he had difficulty separating Hope Pressman from the UO's Pioneer Mother. "It was clear that she has been a primary nurturing force for the arts and artists in the state and the university," Robertson explained. Pressman graduated cum laude with a bachelor of science degree in history in 1942 and during World War II, worked for the U.S. Army Air Transport Command, then married and raised three children. Shortly after receiving a master of science degree in public affairs in 1973, also cum laude, she began her professional career at the UO in the Office of the President where she coordinated the celebration of the university's first 100 years. To mark the distinction of her service upon her retirement in 1990, she was named associate director of development emerita. As a development officer for the President's Associates and the UO Museum of Art, she was able to combine her love of art and the UO. In 1977, she was appointed director of special programs in the UO Foundation and, in 1989, she became the foundation's associate director. One highlight of her university career was to work with UO alumnus and retired State Department official Carlton Savage, who ultimately handed Pressman a personal check for $500,000 to establish the Carlton and Wilberta Savage Chair in Peace and International Relations. Since her retirement, she has served as chair of the board of the UO Museum of Art, an advisory and fund-raising arm of the museum. She has participated in leadership roles in such groups as the Oregon Arts Commission, the Portland Art Museum, the Eugene Arts Foundation and the advisory board for the UO Museum of Art. -more- Pressman has received numerous honors for her work in organizing and championing the state's artistic and cultural community. After being named Eugene's First Citizen in 1987, she received the Governor's Award for the Arts in 1988. She received the White Rose Award as one of 10 outstanding Oregon women honored by the Oregon March of Dimes in 1983. The UO honored her with its Pioneer Award in 1990. -30- #G-1305/Local, PDX/Spcl, OMA, special