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Commencement 2021

The 2020-21 school year was different from any other in the history of Saint John’s University, so it was fitting that it concluded with commencement ceremonies as unique as the times in which they were held. Saint John’s graduation ceremony took place May 16 under sunny skies at Clemens Stadium, marking the first time graduation ceremonies had been held on SJU’s football field since 1961. The Abbey Church was consecrated later that year, and SJU graduation ceremonies have been there ever since.

Graduates wore their traditional caps and gowns, and – in keeping with safety measures that have been in place since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic – masks as well. No in-person ceremony was held in 2020 due to the pandemic. Graduates were allowed two guests, and proper social distancing requirements remained in effect. Hundreds more had the opportunity to view the proceedings via livestreaming. The president’s greeting was provided by interim president Dr. Eugene McAllister. The senior speaker was Simeon Farquharson, an accounting and finance major from Nassau, Bahamas.

Saint John’s commencement speaker was Gen. Paul Nakasone ’86, who also was presented an honorary degree. The four-star general and White Bear Lake (Minnesota) native is currently serving as Commander, U.S. Cyber Command and Director, National Security Agency/Chief, Central Security Service. Nakasone, who was scheduled to be SJU’s 2020 commencement speaker before the ceremony was canceled, told graduates it was good to finally be with them in person. “It took an extra year, a year that has tested most of us in ways we never anticipated,” he said before going on to praise the resilience the 2021 graduating class and the rest of the SJU/ CSB community showed in the face of pandemic challenges. “We’re all more deeply aware of how special it truly is to gather together in celebration to share this moment with others.”

Nakasone told graduates not to be deterred by the tumult and uncertainty of the past 14 months. “Be brave enough to build something,” he said. “It may seem like you’re heading out into a stormy world. Start anyway. Build something that takes more than a day or a year or even 10 years. “Most of the things that are truly worth something in this world – strong relationships, a rewarding career, even meaningful hobbies – take time and effort.”

Here is a bit more on this year’s graduating class at SJU/CSB: • A total of 374 students were eligible for graduation at SJU, 447 students at CSB and 29 from the Saint John’s

School of Theology. • The top five majors in this year’s senior class at SJU were (in order): global business leadership, accounting and finance, computer science, communication and economics.

The top five majors in this year’s senior class at CSB were (in order): psychology, nursing, biology, elementary education and accounting.

Logelin’s Poignant Story Hits Netflix In ‘Fatherhood’

Ever since Matt Logelin wrote Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss and Love, the 2000 Saint John’s University graduate has had discussions about turning his book into a movie. The powerful 2011 work grew out of Logelin’s well-read blog, which recounted his day-to-day experiences as a single father following the tragic death of his wife Liz. She died after suffering a pulmonary embolism the day after giving birth to the couple’s first child, Maddy, in March 2008. Even before it was published, there was interest in bringing his story to the screen. But Logelin wasn’t entirely convinced that interest would translate into reality. “It’s always been something off in the distance,” he said, “so I haven’t given it a lot of day-to-day thought over the years. In the back of my mind, there was part of me that thought it would never actually happen.” But it finally has. The film – Fatherhood with comedic actor Kevin Hart portraying Logelin – was a smash when it debuted on Netflix in June, becoming the most popular title on the streaming service the week of its premiere. Interest was so great, according to Variety, that Netflix estimated around 61 million households would see the movie in its first four weeks of release.

“I’m really honored by what they’ve done with my story,” Logelin said of the film. It was directed by Paul Weitz, who with his brother Chris directed such movies as American Pie and About a Boy. Weitz wrote the screenplay with Dana Stevens. Former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, whose Higher Ground Productions company has a deal with Netflix, presented the film. “They made some changes, but they were all done in the service of the story,” Logelin said. “Books are read one way and movies are watched in another. If they had done the movie in exactly the same way it was written in the book, it would have been hard to watch.”

Logelin was especially pleased by the involvement of Hart, who stars in the film and was one of its producers. “It’s taken my story, which is kind of universal – love, loss, birth – and allowed it to be told from a different perspective,” said Logelin, who is white, of Hart, who is Black. Logelin has since remarried. He and his wife Lizzie Molyneux, a writer for such TV programs as Bob’s Burgers, live in Los Angeles. In addition to Maddy, they now have a 2-year-old girl and a new baby on the way in October. Last year, his 2000 SJU classmates and the SJU Alumni Association selected him as one of the recipients of the 2020 Alumni Achievement Awards.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the class reunion for those who graduated in years ending with 0s and 5s had to be put off until this fall. It is now scheduled for Oct. 2.

The impending birth of his child will prevent Logelin from attending in person, but he said he will be there in spirit. “So many of my friends to this day are Johnnies,” Logelin said. “That’s one of the greatest things about Saint John’s – the connections you form.”

Mark Vande Hei is Out of This World … Again

The 1989 Saint John’s University graduate and NASA astronaut blasted off last April to begin his second stint aboard the International Space Station. The retired U.S. Army colonel, who was one of nine candidates selected from a pool of 3,500 applicants in NASA’s 2009 astronaut class, is serving as a flight engineer and member of the Expedition 64/65 crew. “I’m really excited,” Vande Hei said prior to embarking on his current mission. “I had been training as a backup for a launch last October, and as a contingency, I was training for this mission just in case it was finalized. I’m super happy that it was and I’m ready to get going.” A NASA release stated he will “work on hundreds of experiments during his mission to benefit life on Earth and learn more about living in space.” Among the areas of research will be studies on cotton root systems and Alzheimer’s disease and a technology demonstration of a portable ultrasound device.

The mission could stretch as long as a year, though that depends on other arrivals to the International Space Station and when modes of returning to Earth become available.

It follows up his previous mission aboard the space station that stretched 168 days from Sept. 13, 2017 to Feb. 28, 2018. On that mission he conducted four spacewalks while he and the crew investigated manufacturing of fiber optic filaments in microgravity, improving the accuracy of implantable glucose biosensors and measuring the Sun’s energy input to Earth. His ties to SJU have remained strong over the years. In May of 2019, he was back on campus to deliver the school’s Commencement address and receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree.

Mark Vande Hei is serving as a flight engineer (and occasional pirate) as a member of the International Space Station’s Expedition 64/65 crew.

Healy’s Leadership, Football Contributions Honored With Basten Award

Tim Healy ’87 has been around football his entire life, including four years at Saint John’s University where the offensive tackle from Edina earned AllMIAC first-team honors as a senior in 1986.

These days, his focus is on finding ways to make the sport he loves safer, especially for players at the youth level. For those efforts, he has been named this year’s winner of the Bob Basten Award, which will be presented to him at halftime of the Johnnies’ game against Martin Luther Sept. 18 at Clemens Stadium. The award is bestowed annually upon a former Johnnie football player who has exhibited outstanding leadership traits, has been involved in his community and with his alma mater, has carried a sense of fair play beyond the football field and has demonstrated an overall commitment to excellence.

“To be recognized by the Saint John’s football community like this is a huge honor for me,” said Healy, who signed a free agent contract with the New Orleans Saints at the conclusion of his collegiate career. “It really means a lot.” Healy serves as president and CEO of TackleBar Football, a St. Paul-based company that has developed a new limited contact version of the game which serves as a bridge between flag and tackle.

2021 Extraordinary Service Award

Embracing community, serving others and pursuing justice are among the values that serve as bedrocks of the education and experience students receive at Saint John’s University. The three Johnnies selected as this year’s Extraordinary Service Award winners – Kriston Clarke ’21, Tyler Koll ’22 and Logan Edwards ’23 – exemplify those traits.

Clarke has volunteered for numerous groups during his time at SJU, including campus ministry, SJU/CSB Health and Counseling Services and the Saint John’s Abbey Retirement Center. He’s also served as a Residential Assistant with Saint John’s Residential Life and Housing, and he’s been a member of the SJU Student Senate. “I was overwhelmed with gratitude when I heard I had won this award,” said Clarke, a pre-med major with an emphasis on biology from Nassau, Bahamas. He plans on working for a year as an operating room runner at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, then going on to pursue a master’s degree in public health and attending medical school. “Not once did I ever take on a servicerelated activity in the hopes of receiving this kind of recognition. Service has always just been something I’ve tried to involve myself with over the years. There’s a quote from Mahatma Gandhi I really like. He said, ‘The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.’ ” Koll is involved in numerous clubs and activities, including serving as a fire captain with the Saint John’s Fire Department and playing a key role in Consent-Equality-Respect-TakingSafety – an SJU/CSB student/staff partnership designed to facilitate honest and open conversation regarding sexual health issues to better foster healthy, safe decisions around sex, as well as to create an environment where sexual activity without consent is not tolerated, accepted or condoned. “Winning the award came as a surprise to me,” said Koll, a Rocori High School (Cold Spring, Minnesota) graduate who hopes to pursue a career in the criminal justice system, perhaps as a police investigator or criminal psychologist. “It’s nice that the school recognizes how important service is and the impact it can have on so many people. It’s something I know I get a lot out of and it’s a big part of everything we all do here at Saint John’s.” Edwards serves on the SJU faith prison ministry team and participates in the CSB Campus Ministry J-Walking group that speaks with men reentering society after incarceration at the Overcomers International Fellowship Dream Center in St. Cloud.

“Service is part of the Saint John’s community,” said Edwards, a Prior Lake (Minnesota) High School graduate with a double major in theology and psychology. He’s a captain on the Johnnie wrestling team who leads a Bible study group with his teammates and has worked to increase interreligious dialogue on campus. “It’s what I signed up for when I decided to come to Saint John’s. There are so many opportunities offered to students to get involved here. When opportunities are presented to me, I’m going to take them.” The Extraordinary Service Award annually recognizes the work of SJU students who are characterized by their personal commitment to service.

New Doors Swing Open For Kura, Saint John’s Pottery

COVID-19 temporarily closed a door for The Saint John’s Pottery and director Richard Bresnahan. For safety reasons, he had to postpone the dedication of the Kura: Prophetic Messenger sculpture, which was installed in 2020 in the Jon Hassler Sculpture Garden located between Saint John’s University’s Alcuin Library and the Dietrich Reinhart Learning Commons. “It was finished last September, but no way we could do any kind of gathering because of the COVID pandemic,” said Bresnahan ’76, SJU’s artist-in-residence and founder of The Saint John’s Pottery. But that postponement in turn provided an opportunity – the time to produce an accompanying publication that promises to make the Kura project even more artistically vibrant and encyclopedic. “The book’s foundation is to be the companion piece to this piece of sculpture. It’s the history of the evolution of how the design and ideas came together, how the pieces of the sculpture came together,” said Bresnahan, whose book Kura: Prophetic Messenger is scheduled for delivery between Oct. 6-12 – shortly before the Kura’s Oct. 22 dedication.

“Richard’s Kura sculpture is just an expression of something The Saint John’s Pottery has been doing since 1979 – creating, sponsoring, supporting artworks by artists that embody the values of this community,” said Steven Lemke ’08, who on June 1 began his appointment as associate director of The Saint John’s Pottery and environmental artistin-residence at SJU. “This sculpture and the book represent that next step.” The book, the dedication and Lemke’s return to Saint John’s are highlights of a momentous year for The Saint John’s Pottery, which has added clarity and direction for its future. “It’s comforting to the community that there’s now a functional plan of transition. That’s an extreme relief for me,” Bresnahan said.

“Returning to the studio and returning to Saint John’s and having the opportunity to take on these new roles – it really is coming home,” said Lemke, a Central Minnesota native who received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame in 2019. He was awarded a 2019-20 U.S. Fulbright Research Fellowship to do research in Slovakia, then served as an assistant professor of sculpture at Auburn University in 2020-21.

Lemke also contributed to Kura: Prophetic Messenger, the concept of which – “Seeds as artists, artists as seeds,” Bresnahan said – is to enrich the Kura experience. “It explains in really comprehensive detail what’s inside the Kura,” said Bresnahan, whose sculpture houses 178 small pots containing species of rare heirloom seeds and painstakingly researched descriptors of the seeds and the artists to whom each is dedicated.

Bresnahan’s daughter Margaret Bresnahan worked for more than a year to research and write the artist biographies, and his wife Colette Bresnahan spent more than five months researching the seeds.

“The research involved to do the biographies is over the top,” he said. “That comprehensive set of biographies is encyclopedic in the sense of what’s inside the Kura.” None of that was available a year ago. But now, The Saint John’s Pottery is moving forward with new assets and new energy. “The book has that responsibility to be a companion piece to the sculpture,” Bresnahan said. “It was fortuitous to have the extra year.”