University of Dallas Tower Magazine - Summer 2020

+ Across Disciplines

Faculty Receive Federal Grants

summer 2020

+ new normal

Dr. Cody on COVID

+ a remarkable mind

The Legacy of Dr. Alvis

F I RS T W O R D – F R O M T H E P RES I D E N T

TOWER PRESIDENT Thomas S. Hibbs, Ph.D., BA ’82 MA ’83 VICE PRESIDENT FOR UNIVERSITY ADVANCEMENT Jason Wu Trujillo, J.D. DIRECTOR OF ALUMNI RELATIONS, ANNUAL GIVING & DONOR STEWARDSHIP Julie Abell, MBA ’91 SENIOR EDITOR Callie Ewing, BA ’03 DESIGN Sarah Oates PRODUCTION Roberta Daley, Director of Marketing & Communications Operations

n 1832, St. John Henry Newman took a Mediterranean journey. One of Newman’s goals for the trip was to experience in a more intimate, direct way the settings of the stories that had informed his own education. He read the Odyssey at the age of 10 (!) as well as the Aeneid and the Divine Comedy. Allusions to these and other classical works abound in his reminiscences about this trip. At one point he observes, “I am full of joy to overflowing — for I am in the Greek Sea, the scene of old Homer’s song.”

For Newman, travel and education both offer an opportunity for expansion of mind. The sense of one’s own smallness in relation to vast reaches of space and time is humbling. Travel can also inform and shape one’s imagination. Newman observed that what he saw in his travels would provide a “vision for [his] whole life.” The “sights of celebrated places are like seeds sown in the mind of man.”

Yet Newman saw dangers in mere expansion. It is possible to contain in one’s mind a “vast multitude of ideas,” but with “little sensibility of their real relations toward each other.” In education as in life, we can be mere tourists.

For the University of Dallas, the Rome semester matters as an occasion for students to move out of comfortable, narrow horizons. It provides a perspective on the limits of one’s particular time and place. But Rome also prompts an encounter with great thoughts and great deeds, both of which can inform our lives in the present. The art and architecture that students encounter express and inform a civilization as decisively as words and deeds. In Rome (and Greece) students forage for the roots of things, the foundations of classical and Christian civilization — foundations now often willfully ignored, or taken for granted, or acknowledged but deeply misunderstood.

The Rome curriculum will fail, however, if it turns us into well-fed spectators or tourists.

To avoid this, we need to make our experiences and our knowledge “subjectively our own,” as Newman puts it. This knowledge “is a digestion of what we receive into the substance of our previous state of thought. It is a living organic knowledge. It forms a connected view of old and new, past and present, far and near. And which has an insight into the influence of all these on one another, without which there is no whole and no center.”

Who knows what sense of higher calling, what new and deepened friendships, and what greater appreciation of one’s place in the scheme of things await UD students as they travel to Rome? To fathom the mysteries of one’s life in such a place, with such friends and teachers, remains one of the glories of a UD education.

To update your address or other contact information, email udalum@udallas.edu.

Send comments, letters to the editor or other communication regarding this publication to Jason Wu Trujillo, University of Dallas, Office of University Advancement, 1845 E. Northgate Dr., Irving, TX 75062; jwtrujillo@udallas.edu.

Tower magazine is published twice annually by the Office of University Advancement for the University of Dallas community. Opinions in Tower magazine are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the university. Postmaster: Send address changes to Tower, Office of University Advancement, 1845 E. Northgate Dr., Irving, TX 75062.

The university does not discriminate on the basis of sex in its programs and activities. Any person alleging to have been discriminated against in violation of Title IX may present a complaint to the Title IX coordinator. The coordinator assists in an informal resolution of the complaint or guides the complainant to the appropriate individual or process for resolving the complaint. The university has designated Joshua Skinner, J.D., BA ’00, as director of the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX. He can be reached at 972-721-5056. The Human Resources Office is located on the first floor of Cardinal Farrell Hall, and the phone number is 972-721-5382. © University of Dallas 2020.

All rights reserved.

photos: anthony mazur, jeff mcwhorter.

Why Rome Matters

CONTRIBUTORS Maggie Chavey, BA ’20 Aaron Claycomb Alyssa Coe, BA ’19 Robert Scott Dupree, Ph.D., BA ’62 Shelley Gayler-Smith Jocelyn George, BA ’18 Kim Leeson Anthony Mazur, BA ’21 Jeff McWhorter Carmen Newstreet, Ph.D. Mike Pitstick, BA ’15 Jonathan J. Sanford, Ph.D. Justin Schwartz, BA ’16 Ken Starzer Heather Tutuska, BA ’10 MH ’12

Inside FEATURES

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Federal Grants for Faculty

From developing tiny neutron detectors to exploring food insecurity, faculty are doing meaningful work.

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Quest for a New Normal

UD’s resident infectious disease expert, William Cody, Ph.D., weighs in on the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Fifty Years of Rome

Peter Hatlie, Ph.D., reflects on the half- century of UD’s Rome Program and what it’s meant to the some 10,000 participants; endowed scholarships help students experience this Eternal Threshold.

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A Remarkable Mind

John Alvis, BA ’66 MA ’69 PhD ’73, passed away on Dec. 23. His colleagues and former students remember him, and we share an excerpt from his 1989 King Fellow speech to his fellow faculty.

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Commencing 60 Years of Commencements

Robert Scott Dupree, Ph.D., BA ’62, remembers UD’s first Commencement, held 60 years ago this May on the lawn outside Carpenter Hall.

IN EACH ISSUE 2 UD360° 5 Heard Around Campus 20 Diversions 22 Class Notes 26 Senior Stories 28 In Memoriam, Last Word

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NEWSFEED America’s Best.

As University of Dallas students shine in their academic pursuits, so too does UD’s prestige among the country’s elite institutions. UD earned marks of excellence once again in the 2020 edition of The Princeton Review’s The Best 385 Colleges, the annual listing of “America’s Top Colleges” by Forbes, Kiplinger’s “Best College Values” and more.

“Unlike many schools, even many Catholic schools, UD maintains its rich Core Curriculum, grounded in the beauty and wisdom of the Catholic intellectual tradition, the culmination of which is a semester in Rome on our own campus,” said President Thomas S. Hibbs.

Bishop Reicher

Classical School Community “beautiful one-of-a-kind partnership” is flourishing in the classical education movement as UD builds a traditional Catholic K-12 curriculum supported by the university’s acclaimed classical model.

“This is a time of both great challenge and enormous opportunity for Catholic education at every level,” said President Thomas S. Hibbs, Ph.D., BA ’82 MA ’83, upon the announcement of UD’s new partnership with Bishop Louis Reicher Catholic School in Waco.

“All of our institutions need to work more closely. We need to build institutions that are focused on the formation of young persons in the intellectual and moral virtues, in the understanding and practice of the faith, and in the skills they need to participate fruitfully in the world of work and in the communities of Church and state,” said Hibbs. “It is my hope that this collaboration will be grounded in deep and abiding friendship between our institutions and will become a model for other Catholic schools.”

UD’s K-8 humanities and Latin curricula will pilot this fall at Bishop Reicher and at three charter schools in the dioceses of Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth.

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1 The partnership provides students open access to research tools and resources, such as summer academic, athletic and fine arts camps, and UD’s nationally ranked study abroad programs; students will also receive preferred admission to the university.

2 Read more about this classical school partnership at udallas.edu/bishop-reicher.

“These U.S. News and other noted rankings are a reflection of our long history of online graduate programs with small class sizes taught by our nationally recognized faculty,” said Gupta College of Business Dean Brett J. L. Landry, Ph.D.

photos: bishop louis-reicher catholic school, anthony mazur, justin schwartz, ben gibbs, courtesy of Kateri Remmes.

Business Prestige.

UD’s Gupta College of Business received numerous academic rankings among the country’s elite business programs. Among the listings, U.S. News & World Report recognized UD among the Best Online MBA Programs and Best Online Master’s in Business Programs (excluding MBA), including the country’s No. 1 private Catholic institution with the Best PartTime MBA Programs. Online MBA Report recognized UD among the Top 25 Private Online MBA Programs, including the Top 10 Faith-Based Online MBA Programs. Finally, UD’s Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) was listed among the 2020 Premier Global DBA Programs by CEO Magazine.

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+ Record Breaker The 2020 Cor Challenge bested UD history records as the most successful ever. With 732 donors (a 3.8% increase over 2019), it raised a total of $200,185 (a 7.4% increase).

“I am blown away by the generosity of our alumni and their dedication to our students and faculty,” said Associate Director of Annual Giving Mike Pitstick, BA ’15.

Popular challenges included Spring Romers versus Fall Romers and class versus class.

The "Spromers" reigned triumphant, with 233 donors versus 207, respectively, and the Class of 2019 topped the leaderboard with the highest class participation rate (34%), and 68 individual alumni donors. “The best alumni class gave years of spiritedness to UD,” said Genny Jenkins, BA ’19. “We prolong our presence there through giving, so others may encounter the blessings of this place.”

Trending + Crusaders March for Life

Rallied on the National Mall at 12th Street, the Crusaders for Life officially represented UD for the first time at the annual gathering in Washington, D.C. The trip included 40 students accompanied by Campus Minister Shelby (Flood) Ponikiewski, BA ’15. “In some sense, we’re history makers,” said CFL President Kateri Remmes, BA ’21.

+ First-Gen Initiative Bolstering the university’s initiative to increase minority and low-income enrollment, the Constantin Foundation awarded UD a $750,000 grant for the next three years to support scholarships and programming for first-generation students.

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Sir Thomas More, his father, his household and his descendants, after Hans Holbein the Younger, painted by Rowland Lockey.

A Man for 2020

More’s Humor and Balanced Life a Model for Us Today

New Book and Website Make the Saint’s Complete Works More Widely Accessible 020 saw the publication of a project Gerard Wegemer, Ph.D., professor of English and director of the Center for Thomas More Studies (CTMS), has been working on for 35 years — The Essential Works of Thomas More.

Wegemer and his co-editor (and co-director of the CTMS) Stephen Smith, PhD ’01, Temple Family Chair in English Literature and dean of the faculty at Hillsdale College, have edited more than 1,500 pages of More’s writings to standardize spelling and punctuation for contemporary readers. They also inserted 19,000 footnotes — mostly identifying words that have fallen out of use since the 1500s.

While Utopia, More’s most widely known work, has been edited for contemporary readers, many of More’s other works had been neglected until quite recently. Wegemer and Smith’s edition contains all 20 of the English saint, lawyer, philosopher and stateman’s books; 106 of his letters; 300 of his poems; a reconstruction of his trial; the prayers and spiritual guidebooks More wrote at various times in his life; and the earliest biographical accounts, including the play Sir Thomas More by five London playwrights.

The supporting website contains study materials and full texts that wouldn’t fit in the book.

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Discover more at essentialmore.org and udallas.edu/ essential-more.

UD360

HEARD around CAMPUS Research Matters.

From studying a multimillion-dollar fuel smuggling market exploited by terrorists to outlining a behavioral oracle/model for blockchain optimization, Gupta professors are advancing industry discovery. Associate Professor of Finance Ali Dadpay, Ph.D., published on the multinational black market in the Journal of Industry Competition and Trade. Associate Professor of Cybersecurity Renita Murimi, Ph.D., has an article on oracles forthcoming in the Journal of Database Management.

Patenting Success.

photos: wikimedia commons, jeff mcwhorter, aaron claycomb, justin schwartz.

Two Gupta instructors received patents for work in information technology and cybersecurity. Adjunct Instructor Branden Williams, DBA, MBA ’04, achieved his life’s ambition in the footsteps of his father (another former UD adjunct with a patent in his field), while Adjunct Instructor Ismail Guneydas became the sole patent owner in a 140-year-old, $50 billion company (Kimberly-Clark).

Embracing our liberal education often means taking on the hard questions and the hard work.

Engaging with various speakers at UD helps students learn how to approach difficult topics and challenging careers with civility, ingenuity and grace.

“We need to stop and reflect on our biases.

Unconsciously, racism holds his or her own race as superior. Seeing people as them/ other, we fail to love; we stop showing compassion for the other.”

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“I want us to look at it as an urge to feel the same distress as those we are showing the compassion for — not just putting ourselves in their shoes, but wanting to feel the distress that they’re left with and then having an uncanny desire to help alleviate it.”

Tasha Coble Ginn, Cristo Rey Fort Worth High School principal, speaking on “The Overdue Compassion That Can’t Wait” during UD’s MLK Symposium.

Michelle Yzquierdo, Ph.D., author of Pathways to Greatness for ELL Newcomers, during the Excellence in Education Conference on March 7.

Jodi Hunt, Ph.D., Neuhoff School of Ministry Affiliate Assistant Professor of Ministry and Practical Theology, during UD’s MLK Symposium.

Mark Villanueva, M.D., BS ’03, clinical assistant professor at Banner University of Arizona and organizer of UD’s Alumni Physician Skype Panel.

“I have always been willing to challenge the status quo. I’ve always been willing to ask that extra question.

And through that develop ultimately something better for us.”

David Woodyard, president and CEO of Catholic Charities Dallas in his discussion of “Humility, Humanity and Servant Leadership” during the Leaders & Legends Speaker Series.

Teaching Exceptionalism.

Known for reinvigorating computer science at UD, “inspiring many students,” Assistant Professor Robert Hocherg, Ph.D., is the 2020 Haggar Fellow. “His joy for learning transcends his area of study. He challenges one’s faith, position and ideas in order to … cultivate better academics,” said Provost Jonathan J. Sanford, Ph.D., at the annual faculty awards ceremony. “Equanimity and gentlemanly flair” are character hallmarks of Associate Professor and Chair of Classics David Sweet, Ph.D. The 2020 King Fellow, Sweet makes students marvel “at his stories of experience abroad … relishing his lively narratives of ancient history.”

2019 Missionary: Sharing the Gospel “We traveled to Uganda for 10 days with the goal of ministering to all the women we came in contact with,” said Associate Professor of Accounting Susan Rhame, Ph.D. Attending to the basic needs of women and children, Rhame found beauty in “being able to help others even in small ways.” Read more at udallas.edu/missionary.

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The World’s Smallest Neutron Detector Could Fit Inside Your Phone

Discover more at udallas.edu/ neutrons.

This event shows the real tracks produced in the Gargamelle bubble chamber that provided the first confirmation of a neutral current interaction.

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ssistant Professor of Physics Will Flanagan, Ph.D., and several of his students are collaborating with Cerium Labs in Austin to build the world’s smallest neutron detector, and the U.S. Air Force recently awarded a $450,000 contract for their work. $135,000 will go to support Flanagan’s work with undergraduate physics students in the Physics Department at UD; the remainder will go to Cerium Labs.

“Neutrons are the quintessential UD particle, i.e., very elusive. It is almost a matter of faith to know that you have detected one,” said Professor of Physics and Interim Dean of Constantin College Sally Hicks, Ph.D. “They are, however, very important for our basic understanding of physics and for national security and energy concerns.”

One of the most important uses of a neutron detector is detecting radioactive material — i.e., the plutonium or uranium core of a nuclear weapon as it sneaks across the border; the device would be used at ports of entry such as seaports and airports. Flanagan, a second lieutenant in the Texas Army National Guard, belongs to the unit that would respond to a nuclear disaster.

In November, Flanagan took four students to the nuclear reactor in Austin to conduct some testing on the prototype, which was developed by Cerium Labs. One of these students was Peter Niles, BS ’21, who will use the detector for both his summer research project and his senior thesis next year.

Niles is helping create the physical detector and analyze the data. He is also working on an app to allow the detector’s results to be read in real time. “It’s been a lot of fun; I’ve really enjoyed it,” he said.

Niles’ interests extend to other disciplines and he appreciates that he has been able to explore philosophy and history through the Core Curriculum without sacrificing his ability to conduct novel STEM research.

“What really matters is that we are providing career- advancing opportunities to our students while simultaneously paying them a decent salary,” said Flanagan. “I’ve had summer research students at Fermi National Accelerator Lab near Chicago and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland. It is also nice to have a project within our suite of research that is close to home.”

photos: cern photo archive, will flanagan kim leeson, cade martin.

(And UD faculty and students are helping develop it)

Learn more at udallas.edu/ breakingboundaries.

Breaking Disciplinary Boundaries

Two Faculty Receive Federal Grant for Interdisciplinary Project ssistant Professor of Human and Social Sciences Carla Pezzia, Ph.D., and Associate Professor and Chair of Economics Tammy Leonard, Ph.D., have received a federal grant for $250,000 to support their research on food insecurity among the senior citizens in our community and what can be done to help. Their work will be supported with a research contract from the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research through funding by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service.

The grant builds upon Leonard’s preexisting academic community partnership with Crossroads Community Services and Catholic Charities’ senior services program in Dallas County.

“With this research, we are hoping to shine a light on issues related to food, health and economic insecurity among older adults — a demographic that experiences unique challenges that often get overlooked in the literature,” said Pezzia. “By focusing on the life course of older adults, we also hope to note patterns during childhood and early adulthood that may help inform prevention measures. We are honored to be able to assist our partner organizations in their efforts to alleviate the suffering of some of the most vulnerable in our community.”

Pezzia and Leonard will spearhead different elements of the research plan based on their individual expertise.

Pezzia will first interview all participants to collect their life histories. These interviews will include questions about how often they’ve had to go hungry and whether they feel safe in their neighborhoods, among others. After transcribing the interviews, she will analyze them to provide in-depth descriptions of household characteristics.

Next, Pezzia will follow up with content analysis of the interviews to determine what combination of individual/household characteristics ameliorate or exacerbate the likelihood of food insecurity. Leonard will analyze the data from an economic standpoint to examine the monthly impact of food insecurity and quality of life among seniors.

“The beauty of a mixed methods project like ours is that it gives us the opportunity to speak to multiple audiences, from those who want to see the ‘big picture’ through our quantitative analyses to those who want to understand individual experience from the qualitative data,” said Pezzia. “The life history approach we are using also gives participants an opportunity to tell their life story as they want to tell it, helping to give voice to groups of people who are often systemically silenced or ignored.”

The project will last two years and includes funding for a postdoctoral fellow to help analyze the research data and develop reports and publications, hopefully during the second year. The professors also hope to involve their students during later phases of the project.

The grants awarded to Flanagan (bottom left), Leonard (top right) and Pezzia (top left) are the second and third federal grants received

by UD and its faculty during the 2019-20 year. In October, the U.S. Department of Education awarded UD a $250,405 grant for stipend support for politics doctoral students through its Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need program (GAANN).

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Quest THE

New N

FOR A

RMAL

Reflections on the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020 Tower Magazine interviewed Associate Professor William Cody on April 22, 2020.

“As a microbiologist, I’m always interested in emerging diseases, and unfortunately there have been a significant number of outbreaks in recent years,” he said. “There is always a chance of an epidemic becoming a pandemic, but it’s not a typical occurrence.

In late January or early February, I realized I needed to start taking more notice. The reports from Italy were when I first started getting worried.”

When students in his Disease and Society class asked him about the coronavirus, he explained that annually about 1.5 million children die of vaccine-preventable diseases worldwide, but due to the success of our vaccination program, Americans see relatively few deaths and have stopped believing in the dangers of infectious diseases.

“I told them that yes, this is going to get serious, but no one will care because we don’t pay attention; we see infectious disease as something that happens in other countries or to the poor,” he said. “I did not think we’d see shelter-in-place orders. I’m not shocked at the number of deaths, but I am shocked at the extent of the response, because the U.S. does not typically coordinate large-scale efforts to mitigate threats from infectious disease.”

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As far as how long we should keep up some degree of sheltering and distancing, Cody says we just don’t have the data to know.

We haven’t been doing enough testing. The tests haven’t been available enough; first, we weren’t able to get the tests, and even now, people are being told they don’t qualify to get one because they are not in a highrisk category.

Cody believes that the atypical response was due to the danger to the health care system and the fear that the COVID-19 pandemic could actually collapse it. People who normally do not have to worry about access to health care suddenly felt threatened. In reality, Cody emphasized, millions of Americans have always been without access to health care, but these are the people on the margins, not usually the middle and upper classes.

“And we’re still not taking the deaths seriously,” he said. “It’s still an abstract concept to many. You don’t know someone personally who’s died, so you don’t realize the severity of the threat.”

What does Cody think about reopening?

“I don’t know that Americans have the taste for what we’ve been doing,” he said. “Sheltering, social distancing and in general being told what to do. There is also the very real economic problem. In some cases, too, not only are people out of work, but their insurance was tied to work, so their access to health care has also been compromised.”

“We won’t have the data until we can test those who are asymptomatic,” he explained.

“I’d be shocked if we made it through the summer still sheltering and distancing, though, whether because of the social isolation, the economy or not wanting to be told what to do. Still, we don’t have the data to support businesses reopening right now.”

At the same time, politicizing everything is not productive, Cody feels. “Most of us are just trying to figure out how to get our families safely through this,” he said.

Cody admits that he has been disappointed in our public health agencies, namely the CDC: “We have not seen much leadership from them during this pandemic.” Due to the belated governmental response to COVID-19, all of us, regardless of political affiliation, have somewhat lost confidence in the institutions we should be trusting to protect us. Further, Cody feels that it’s truly scary when politics becomes involved with infectious disease.

“We have these daily press conferences, but reporters who cover politics are asking political questions,” he said. “We need live coverage of press conferences at the CDC.

photos: norbert kundrak, jeff mcwhorter.

t was late November or early December when Associate Professor and Chair of Biology William Cody, Ph.D., UD’s resident infectious disease expert, first heard about the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, but he admits that at the time, he wasn’t paying any particular attention to it.

We need more interviews with science and health reporters asking scientific questions. Take the confusion over whether we were supposed to wear masks or not. We need scientists to address these questions directly, to explain how we are supposed to be applying information and behaving in our daily lives, such as how small is our social circle supposed to be? How concerned do we need to be about workers coming into our homes? Do we need to wash our groceries? More of that type of question and answer would remove some of the fear.”

“The first reading assignment in my Disease and Society course is an article by Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was completely unknown to students at the time,” he added.

“In it Fauci reflects on his infectious disease residency and the number of people who told him he was wasting his time because all infectious disease would be eradicated.

Post-smallpox eradication, and pre-HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis, this was a popular sentiment.”

Clearly, this is not the case. In 2009, there was the H1N1, or swine flu, pandemic; the difference there was that this strain of influenza wasn’t entirely new. It was referred to as “swine flu” because humans gave it to pigs in the 1970s. All pandemic strains of flu since 1918 have been directly related to the strain that caused the Spanish flu, including H1N1 in 2009. In 2009, scientists were able to develop a vaccine fairly quickly because,

test when you don’t know if having had the disease provides immunity.”

Of course, Cody acknowledges that the infectious disease aspects of the pandemic are not the only ones to consider. Economic impact as well as the population of any particular area and where that population stands on returning to business as usual are also key factors.

Indeed, the economic impact of the pandemic has been tremendous and devastating.

Families and businesses small and large are in grave peril; this includes, of course, universities. In this sense, it might actually work in UD’s favor, Cody speculates, that we are not a sports school; while it would always be good for UD to have more donors, it may be that other schools depend on income streams that UD already did not have. Truthfully, we cannot yet know what the fall will look like. UD, like most other schools, is considering a variety of options for how classes might proceed as we face a combination flu/coronavirus season.

As a microbiologist, I’m always interested in emerging diseases, and unfortunately there have been a significant number of outbreaks in recent years. unlike the virus that causes COVID-19, this strain was not brand new, and there had been a previous vaccine for it; they were not starting from scratch. Now, the H1N1 vaccine is part of the annual flu shot.

“Flu is a vaccine-preventable disease,” said Cody. “And the flu is horrifying, so any comparison of the flu to COVID-19 is not comforting. One potential good outcome is that people start taking the flu more seriously and getting vaccinated against it, or that those who weren’t vaccinating in general might start doing so.”

A vaccine for COVID-19, however, won’t be ready anytime soon — not if it undergoes all the proper testing. It would be very difficult to develop one in less than 18 months.

“Any sooner would be cutting corners we don’t want to cut,” he said. “And it’s hard to

“Scientists and physicians are just now identifying risk factors and atypical signs and symptoms of COVID-19,” explained Cody.

“The initial reports of long-term complication and sequelae, including lung scarring, heart damage and neurological symptoms, are just starting to come in.”

Indeed, this virus has repeatedly proven itself perplexing in its behavior and manifestations, making us all long for a normal that is probably already lost; our lives have already changed in likely irrevocable ways.

“Everyone wants to get back to normal as soon as feels possible,” said Cody, and truly, we do — but what will the new normal look like?

Trustee and National Alumni Board President Andrew Farley, BA ’98, and Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees Laura Felis Quinn, BS ’86 MBA ’18, join President Hibbs on the stage during the inauguration dinner.

Rome After 50 Years: The Eternal Threshold

By Peter Hatlie, Ph.D.

50 YEARS

Rome of

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he UD Rome Program turns 50 years old this year, an anniversary that invites us to join together in proud celebration, to indulge in cherished memories and to make a reckoning of sorts. As many as 10,000 UD students, professors, staff members and friends have lived the Rome experience over the past 50 years.

As we reflect upon the impressive number of successful semesters completed and people hosted and held dear, we may dare to ask ourselves what the Rome experience meant and means to us, then and now, in both the millimeter and the mile. Looking back in time for answers, we encounter our photos of the Rome experience — photos, old and new, depicting young, smiling, and often playful and provocative faces, almost always set against some dramatic or curious background.

Thinking back, we also encounter our peers and role models in memory and reflection, sometimes vividly and sometimes in elusive shadow, leaving us with a wave of feelings ranging from admiration, affection and gratitude to nostalgia, regret and perhaps loss.

If there is one narrative that can possibly encompass this vast spectrum of experience, it may be this: Rome is not only the Eternal City, but also the Eternal Threshold. As Wallace Stevens so wonderfully puts it, “On the threshold of heaven, the figures in the street / Become the figures of heaven … The threshold [is] Rome, and that more merciful Rome [is] / Beyond.”

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photos: anthony mazur, stephen henderson, steve bisgrove, ud archives.

Stevens goes on to observe that Rome incorporates the extreme of the known in the presence of the extreme of the unknown and that “The life of the city never lets go, nor do you / Ever want it to.” In all of its complexity, Stevens’ “To an Old Philosopher in Rome” gives us a framework in which we can begin to pay due homage to UD Rome, too. Stevens goes on to locate “The sources of happiness in the shape of Rome, / A shape within the ancient circle of shapes.” We would do well, albeit with restraint and humility, to follow him in doing the same with UD’s Rome Program.

The first threshold of the UD Rome experience leads from the love and attachments of one’s family home into the warm embrace of UD Rome. The character of the house itself matters here to a degree, as we see in the photo of founding director James Fougerousse proudly putting up the very first plaque on the very first campus in fall 1970.

Different campus locations have come and gone in the decades since, with one common human element belonging to them all: People make their friends for life in Rome. Whatever form they may take, friendships are essential to a functional adult life, and UD Rome plays a decisive role in helping us understand how adult relationships work, what counts and what doesn’t, and what a true (or at least decent) friendship consists of. Rome’s carousel of eating, drinking, studying, praying, playing and traveling together — practically nonstop — is part of that critical process of sorting out and discernment. Sharing the challenges, burdens and joy unique to being far away from home and on your own is another.

A second threshold corresponds to Stevens’ shape within the ancient circle of shapes,

conversation. How many arresting pictures have been taken and cherished? How many skipped heartbeats and tingles-up-the-spine have accompanied these virtual epiphanies?

Such threshold moments in the physical sphere have left thousands of students better disposed to cross thresholds of another kind, notably in spiritual and intellectual terms.

One way to put it is that the Church and the Core come alive in Rome; another is that students finally — and maybe for once in a lifetime — have the right occasion, incentives and guidance at hand for a return to their beginnings and an opportunity to bear witness to the astonishing breadth, depth and living colors of the Western tradition. To go there — to cross this threshold in earnest — means confronting yourself with archetypal shapes of virtue, justice, truth, beauty, the good life and much more in regard to what it means to be fully human. Nor is the darker side of humanity, from evil and horror to delusion and dystopia, glossed over. I doubt that I’m mistaken in believing that one of Rome’s unique gifts and greatest areas of impact is its focus on fundamental, unvarnished and often intimate truths about the human person, truths that students may harbor within themselves for decades and ever after. Such truths are as much in play in a Michelangelo statue as they are in the hearts of the Athenians at Marathon and St. Francis’ “Canticle of the Creatures,” all subjects of the Rome experience.

The last threshold of the UD Rome experience consists of finding the gateway you entered from on your road to Rome and then passing back through it — as a new person — to the other side. What in the world do you do with Rome after Rome? In recent times we have grown accustomed to calling this thresh-

explanation anyway. At its best, UD Rome is a near complete universe of learning and personal growth, unifying and enriching in a way that is hard to find practically anywhere today. Furthermore, the fact that we are in constant dialogue with Rome, where we encounter the extreme of the known in the presence of the extreme of the Unknown, both focuses and elevates our learning and personal goals. So, yes, passing through this last threshold can be heart-wrenching in the short term, as anyone who has attended the riotous farewell ceremonies of any semester certainly knows. In the long term, however, students cross that final threshold of their Rome experience not only with a better sense of purpose, but also bringing with them a model, or even icon, of learning and growth that, indwelling, will shape them and those around them for decades to come.

After more than 20 years on the job here at UD Rome, let me confess that I am blessed

“Different campus locations have come and gone in the decades since, with one common human element belonging to them all: People make their friends for life in Rome.""” brings us to the impact of UD Rome’s academic and religious life programs. As any Rome alumnus will tell you, it’s a very big deal that students have the chance to cross that physical threshold from the familiar associations of their formative experience to the distant and rarefied realm of the ancients, be it near the tombs of Sts. Peter and Paul, on the heights of Mount Parnassus, or on the very Athenian street where Socrates lay in wait for his next

old “Romesickness,” defined as the heart’s inability to detach and fully forget. But, apart from sounding negative, this term treats only the fever and not the cause of how Rome first wounds and then heals us, so to speak, how the city never lets go, nor do you ever want it to. Your guess is as good as mine as to why Rome gains such a profound and lasting grip on its visitors’ affections, and why UD Rome does the very same. But let me attempt an

to have lived in Rome the Eternal Threshold, and I have never once tired of the UD Rome thresholds I mention above. My personal congratulations, therefore, go out to both our far-seeing founders and our many and dear colleagues, alumni and friends, without whom there would sadly be fewer figures in the street becoming the figures of heaven. Are we taking ourselves too seriously after this half-century? Yes, of course we are.

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hen considering the Rome Program, President Thomas S. Hibbs, Ph.D., BA ’82 MA ’83, has reflected on St. John Henry Newman’s trip to the Mediterranean, which was an occasion for Newman to think about the ways in which travel can provide an education that complements the reading of books.

“For Newman, the most important thing was that we not become mere tourists in our travels, that we not just fill our minds and imaginations with ideas and images without taking our bearings in relation to our own learning and in relation to the places we visit,” said Hibbs.

At UD, we similarly use travel to complement books. Our students, like Newman, are not simply tourists; travel is a part of their curriculum and their education. Moreover, along with the formal education students receive while in Rome, they contemplate their futures and the ways in which this education can shape these futures.

“Our vision for the Rome campus is certainly that students should fill their minds with texts and with ideas and images, but also that they should have occasion to think about and ponder their own callings, the way in which their education can form them as professionals, as citizens, as members of families and churches,” said Hibbs.

However, Hibbs acknowledged, there is a gap between what we want students to do and what they and their families are able to afford. This gap is growing. This is why scholarships that enable students to participate in the Rome Program are so important.

Currently, the University of Dallas has several endowed Rome scholarships, to which anyone may contribute; here are five of them.

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First Rome class boarding their plane, August 1970.

Making “My semester in Rome was one of the most incredible experiences of my life; I will forever love my group of Fall Romers.""”

Jake Scott Addison Memorial Scholarship

Sheumaker Rome Scholarship

This scholarship was established by Student Foundation, UD’s oldest student-run organization. It is also the only organization run and supported exclusively by students.

Student Foundation was formed to promote the unique character of the student body and to carry out volunteer services among the student body, the local community and university alumni. Following the tragic death of Jake Addison, a member of the Class of 2000, in Rome in the fall of 1997, Student Foundation created this scholarship in his memory.

Addison’s family has also made substantial contributions to the scholarship fund.

The Sheumaker Rome Scholarship Endowment was created by Fanny (Baltazar) Sheumaker, BA ’88 MBA ’91, and Phil Sheumaker, BA ’90 MBA ’93. Their gift came in January 2020, just in time for the 50th anniversary of the Rome Program. The Sheumakers both went to Rome as UD undergraduates and were shaped by their experiences there. When the Sheumakers recently reviewed their charitable giving and sought to concentrate their efforts on specific organizations and causes, choosing UD as one focus was an easy decision; they each have two degrees from UD and got married in the Church of the Incarnation on the Irving campus.

The first Rome Program campus was the School Sisters of Notre Dame Generalate House.

g Rome Attainable

GENEROUS ROME SCHOLARSHIPS

Dan and Margie Cruse Rome Scholarship Former Trustee Dan Cruse, BA ’61, and his wife, Margie, BA ’62, established this scholarship to provide financial assistance to students attending their Rome semester. The Cruses were some of UD’s first students. Over the years, Dan Cruse has served in multiple capacities; he became chair of the UD Board of Trustees in 2007 after first joining the board, which he had a strong influence in shaping, in 1982 — the first alumnus invited to the board, in fact. After graduating, Cruse joined GE and later served as an officer of two New York Stock Exchange companies before returning to Dallas to join Spencer Stuart Inc., an international executive placement firm, where he rose to the position of vice chair. In 1996, he was named a Distinguished Alumnus of UD and was inducted into UD’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2001 for golf.

Fanny Sheumaker is a 2018 Satish and Yasmin Gupta College of Business Hall of Fame inductee as well as a member of both the National Alumni Board and the Gupta College’s Women in Business Advisory Council.

The focus on Rome specifically was Fanny Sheumaker’s idea because of the deep impact her Rome semester had on the course of her life. She had planned to transfer from UD after Rome, but as it turned out, her experiences that semester made her want to stay at UD, which she did not only for the completion of her bachelor’s degree but also for an MBA. “My semester in Rome was one of the most incredible experiences of my life; I will forever love my group of Fall Romers,” said Fanny Sheumaker.

The Sheumakers went to Rome at different times but both had transformative experiences. Their daughters, who both attend other universities, have also had or will have study abroad experiences, but as Phil Sheumaker explained, UD’s Rome Program is unique.

“It’s different where they're going to school than here at the University of Dallas,” he said.

“At UD, you go to your campus with your friends, your classmates, your teachers. And it is your curriculum that is integrated into the experience; it is a continuation of your experience here in Irving. And that integration is very different from other places.”

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Left: Professor of English Scott Crider, Ph.D., with students in Greece, spring 2019. Right: Longtime administrator Sybil Novinski promoting the early Rome Program.

“For Newman, the most important thing was that we not become mere tourists in our travels, that we not just fill our minds and imaginations with ideas and images without taking our bearings in relation to our own learning and in relation to the places we visit.""”

The Stoppini Family Rome Scholarship Mary Ann, Francesca and Gabriele Stoppini established this scholarship in memory of Francesco Stoppini for sophomores in need of financial assistance in support of their semester on the university’s Rome campus. Mary Ann Stoppini has been a longtime supporter of UD, particularly the Rome Program. She and her husband, Francesco, used their travel agency and hotel, American Travel Group Inc. and Hotel LaVilla, respectively, to give many people, including UD students, an experience of Italy and Europe that they may not otherwise have been able to have.

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Francesco Stoppini was born in Rome, Italy, and graduated from the University of Rome. Having been brought up in the travel and hotel industries, he entered into fields of work that allowed him to devote his time and energy to serving others. Before his association with UD, he was an interpreter for the mayor of Assisi, worked for the Allied Screening Commission, played a vital role in the establishment of a replica of the Porziuncola in New York, and served in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict in top-secret and linguistics services. He was one of only two people to receive honorary U.S. citizenship for his devoted service in the Army. He returned to Italy after his honorable discharge, continuing to work in the travel industry and eventually earning himself the title “The Father of Student Travel” throughout Italy. His Hotel LaVilla housed many UD students from the inception of the Rome Program. He and his family eventually moved to Pennsylvania, where he was appointed Northeastern Pennsylvania’s Italian Consular Correspondent.

Francesco Stoppini passed away on April 19, 2018.

Charles T. Uhl Memorial Rome Scholarship After retiring from his career as a computer programmer with IBM, Charles Uhl came to work in UD’s IT Department. He was a lifelong student who audited several classes while working at the university, as well as an avid armchair National Geographic traveler who sent four of his five children to UD and to Rome. All of his children had inherited his love of travel, manifested during their childhoods through road trips since the size of their family precluded journeys to farther places. For the alumni children — Kathy (Milligan), BA ’91, Gary, BA ’96, Regina, BA ’00, and Christine, BA ’02 — this love was deepened and enriched by their Rome semesters, as it is for all UD undergraduates who go to Rome.

Rome is not, however, always attainable for all students. When their father passed away, the Uhl children (including Thomas, who did not attend UD), along with their mother, Nancy, set up a scholarship fund in his name to enable more students to participate in the Rome Program each semester. This scholarship was endowed to help ensure that all students who want to go to Rome are financially able to do so.

Left: Rome in 2013. Right: Students gather outside St. Peter’s on Easter 1971.

Giving TO ROME

In addition to giving to these named endowed Rome Scholarships, anyone may also contribute to UD’s Rome Experience Scholarship — a general fund that provides scholarship support to UD students who, without financial assistance, would not be able to experience a Rome semester. An envelope is provided in this magazine for this purpose. You can also create your own named endowed Rome scholarship with a gift of $50,000 or your own named nonendowed Rome scholarship for $20,000. To learn more or create your own Rome scholarship, contact Assistant Vice President for Development Kris Muñoz Vetter at 214-621-3449 or kmunozvetter@udallas.edu.

Left: Picking grapes, 1993.

Right: Rome in the 1980s.

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“When I first came to UD as dean of Constantin College, I was amazed at the way in which the Rome Program is the core of the Core.""”

A Little More

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ABOUT ROME

hen I first came to UD as dean of Constantin College, I was amazed at the way in which the Rome Program is the core of the Core,” said Provost Jonathan J. Sanford, Ph.D. — referring to how the university’s Core Curriculum culminates, for most undergraduates, in the Rome semester.

1 Former President Bob Sasseen and others finalizing plans for the Eugene Constantin Campus.

eco-friendly, porous AstroTurf, completed on the Eugene Constantin Campus in spring 2020.

2 Peter Hatlie

4 Professor of Art

at the campus expansion ribboncutting ceremony in September 2018.

3 Combination

tennis, basketball, volleyball and six-man soccer court made of

Lyle Novinski guiding students through Hosios Loukas in Boeotia, Greece.

5 Sybil Novinski and then-Provost Glen Thurow enjoy- ing gelato.

6 Students exploring Via Appia Antica in spring 2018.

10 Fall '00 Romers participating in the Greek Olympics.

7 Fall ’84 Romers at a

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special audience with Pope John Paul II.

8 Students in St. Peter's Square in January 2018.

9 Molly Weglarz,

BA '20, performing on the Eugene Constan- tin Campus.

Cowan, Ph.D., promoting the Rome Program.

“In the world of Italian study abroad, some of the earliest and still best programs were Harvard and Syracuse in Florence, Johns Hopkins in Bologna, and Cornell, Temple and Loyola Chicago in Rome,” said Vice President, Dean and Director of the Rome Campus Peter Hatlie, Ph.D. “Running shoulder to shoulder with these pioneers was a young and ambitious university called the University of Dallas, which sent its first group of students to Rome in the fall of 1970 and remains one of the oldest, largest and most prominent study abroad programs anywhere.

“For a vast majority of [the approximately 10,000 Rome Program students, faculty and staff], the Rome experience was eye-opening and transformative in personal, spiritual and career terms,” added Hatlie. “In addition, as hundreds of alumni have reported to me personally over the years, UD Rome was one of the most important events of their lives, shaping their very identity and outlook on the world.”

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MAKING MIND THE

OF A

REMARKABLE

In Memoriam: John Edward Alvis

n Dec. 23, 2019, the university bid farewell to a beloved faculty member and alumnus. Professor of English John Alvis, BA ’66 MA ’69 PhD ’73, passed away at age 75, less than two weeks after the passing of his wife, Sara Kathleen, MA ’71, to whom he was married for more than 50 years.

John Alvis arrived at UD as a freshman in 1962 in the time of UD legends, studying under Professor of English Louise Cowan during the tenure of President Donald Cowan (1962-77). He then did his master’s and doctoral work under Professor of Politics Willmore Kendall and began teaching at UD in 1968. Though he taught English literature, he had an equal command of politics, philosophy, theology and classical languages, guiding and inspiring five decades’ worth of students and colleagues, some of whom, such as Associate Professor of English Greg Roper, Ph.D., BA ’84, became both.

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In his own English prose, Alvis published seven books on authors ranging from Homer and Vergil to Melville and Hawthorne. He additionally published articles on American political institutions, Christian theology, the films of John Ford and Lorenzo Ghiberti’s “Gates of Paradise” (the doors of the Baptistry of San Giovanni in Florence). A published poet, he also wrote more than 15 plays. A nationally renowned scholar of the works of William Shakespeare, his writings reawakened the study of Shakespeare’s political thought.

Alvis’ approach to great literature was to examine how authors use fiction and poetry to explore the eternal questions in regard to the best way of life and the best order of society.

He believed that those who seriously study these monumental works witness the aspect of all times, thereby learning to imitate what is good while avoiding that which is otherwise.

To Alvis, a liberal education was more than a four-year experience; it was the beginning of a lifelong journey.

“John Alvis spent over 50 years at UD making a remarkable mind,” said Professor of English Scott Crider, Ph.D. “He read and thought about the entirety of the Western tradition and trained — first under his teachers, then under his own tutelage and in dialogue with students and colleagues — to dedicate himself to the wisdom of that tradition of texts. He had the most comprehensive, detailed and intelligent grasp of that tradition of any of us, a grasp always alive and fresh with new insight during discussion and writing.”

Alvis devoted his career, and largely his life, to his vocation of teaching at the University of Dallas and to promoting the pursuit of truth and virtue.

“We have lost the treasure of John’s mind,” said Crider. “Our disorientation at the loss is matched only by our gratitude at the gift of the mind he made, then gave us. If we now live in a less heroic age at UD than before, his example indicates that we will be responsible for that, for he showed us how to be intellectually courageous while morally upright.”

photos: ud archives.

Read more at udallas.edu/ remarkable-mind.

“By the end of my freshman year, on my Lit Trad II research paper, he wrote one sentence: ‘You are ready to begin writing English prose,’” recalled Roper. “That response — encouraging but not flattering, acknowledging accomplishment while hinting strongly at how far I still had to go — probably was the single most influential sentence of my intellectual career.

Someday I hope to write the English prose that John held out for me as a goal that day in April 1981.”

These are excerpts from the speech Alvis delivered at the King/Haggar Awards ceremony on Feb. 17, 1989, the year after he received the King Award, as was and remains the custom.

By John Alvis, Ph.D. Edited by Thomas S. Hibbs, Ph.D. On the most essential issues, those of human and divine character and of human destiny, surely a Catholic school must hold that somehow one begins and ends with the authorized Catholic teaching. One begins with Catholicism and ends with Catholicism whatever the gradualism fairness requires during the interval between beginning and end. To speak practically, a Catholic profession decided in advance of the argument means that first, one does not take up Aristotle’s Ethics with the thought that he may speak the last, nor even the decisive, word on the subject, and that, second, one expects in due course, sooner or later, to adjust Aristotle’s teaching in the light of a fuller truth apprehended through Catholic doctrine. You may well ask, “Why then study Aristotle at all?” A good question that deserves honest confrontation, especially since the general form of the question might be to state thus: Isn’t a properly Catholic curriculum one in which non-Catholic pronouncements, if read at all, are ranged under the sole authoritative statement, which must

be the Catholic statement? Perhaps you share my understanding that the Catholic intellectual tradition distinguishes itself from the thinking of most other Christian churches by its emphasis upon the continuity of the order of nature with the order of grace. Catholicism insists that grace perfects nature in accord with principles consistent with nature, in accord, that is, with principles that nature itself, if fully instructed, could herself well understand — as though nature could discern its incompleteness and the general direction in which completeness might be sought but not the plan nor the means which would bring that completion actually to be. Both the plan and the means are known as God’s grace and by God’s grace. But to grasp the extent of that graciousness, it may be one must come to understand what grace operates upon and what rudimentary goodness it brings to full fruition. So, in brief, one must thoroughly understand the natural to arrive at an understanding of the supernatural as distinct from merely faith in the supernatural. It may be that some thinkers whose horizons are wholly confined to the natural understanding of that realm are better than their Catholic counter-

parts, who know more in terms of ultimate finality but know less well what lies this side of the ultimate disposition. If that is so, then non-Catholics may have something important to teach Catholics. And we may even say they can teach Catholics something important about Catholicism. For if one seeks to understand what it means to say that grace perfects nature, one improves one’s understanding in the degree that one better understands nature, just as certainly as one improves one’s understanding in the degree that one better understands the agency of grace. For that reason, then, precisely as Catholics we may do better to maintain a faculty and a curriculum somewhat keyed to great authors pagan and secular, as well as to authors Catholic, than to prefer teachers and authors less than the best just because they are Catholic, or worse, pretend teachers of books of a second order are great when in fact they are only Catholic. For similar reasons we should not suppose that our teachers though they profess Catholicism are as custodians of Great Books wiser than the books in their custody. True, they know something beyond the non-Catholic, but they may also have forgotten or never have known what can be seen by nature’s light and in that degree of ignorance will fail to grasp truth essential to the faith.

Counterclockwise from top left: Alvis in 1978; Alvis and David Sweet, Ph.D.; Alvis and President Robert F. Sasseen, Ph.D.; Alexander R. Landi, PhD '73, William V. Myres, PhD '73, and Alvis after receiving their doctorates.

Read more at udallas.edu/ essential-truth.

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D I V ERS I O N S

Will Murchison Artwork The Artist: Dallas native Will Murchison, J.D., BA ’10, lives in the city with his wife and children. As a senior art history major, he completed an independent study with Professor of Painting Kim Owens; Assistant Professor of Art History Cathy Caesar led his thesis presentation. The thesis represented the culmination of his intellectual preparation, and painting suggested the path he is now following.

Start Looking/Buying: Visit willmurchison.com, follow Murchison at instagram.com/willmurch1, and visit (by appointment) the Erin Cluley Gallery in Dallas, where Murchison’s work is currently part of a group exhibition. Artwork can be purchased at erincluley.com.

Four Otters Toboggan: An Animal Counting Book The Illustrator: Mirka Hokkanen, MFA ’06, self-published a few titles before publishing this one in the traditional manner last year. In fall 2019, she won the SCBWI Narrative Art Award for her illustrations.

In a Nutshell: “Filled with modern wood engravings, Four Otters Toboggan celebrates wild beauty, encouraging readers of all ages to preserve and cherish our planet. After the story is finished, children can read more about each species in the back of the book — conservation efforts, what causes animals to become endangered, and what people can do to protect wild habitats.”

Start Reading: Available in hardcover through pomegranate.com.

Learn more about Hokkanen’s work at mirkah.com.

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Above: “It Must All Be Becoming,” 2020, 54 x 44 inches, graphite, acrylic paint and paper collage on found paper.

Jubilate Designs The Artist: In her search for a creative outlet/ artistic medium that was easy and safe to use while wrangling her six kids, UD English major Jamaica (McGahey) DeLisle, BA ’03, developed a passion for watercolor.

In a Nutshell: DeLisle creates hand-painted watercolor jewelry and prints of her original saint paintings for her Etsy shop, Jubilate Designs. “I hope to spread joy through beautiful things,” she said.

Start Shopping: Visit etsy.com/shop/JubilateDesigns. Also follow DeLisle at instagram. com/jubilatedesigns.

photos: courtesy of will murchinson, courtesy of jamaica delisle, courtesy of Millie Lozano, wikimedia commons/korea.net, chris montgomery, jeff mcwhorter.

In a Nutshell: “Optimistic depictions of American progress and consumerism become absurd and sinister when placed within the abstract scaffolding. The resulting vibration between narrative imagery and pure abstraction allows each artwork to continuously shift, like a fading memory, between a cohesive whole and a tattered collection of shapes and images.”

crisis mode

Transitioning Online for COVID-19

By Carmen Newstreet, Ph.D. Leaving an e-learning support session, I observed many of our most senior, revered full professors making their way to the next one. Faced with a task they surely never considered probable, they willingly did what they had to do to ensure that our students received the best education we could give them. Professionally, it occurred to me that in the face of great challenges, regardless of adversity, teachers report each day to teach our children. We are all blessed to work at UD with such wonderful role models, who keep adapting to meet our students’ needs.

romesick

Romers Reunite After 30 Years, Blessed by Pope ast year, three decades after their 1989 Rome semester, Milagros “Millie” Lozano, Ph.D., BA ’91, and many of her best Rome girlfriends got together for a “Rome reunion.” Now a psychologist in Irving, Lozano organized this trip to the Texas Hill Country along with her onetime Rome roommates and “sisters” Anna (Gordon) Torres, BA ’91, and Cathleen (Gilmore) Guinn, BA ’91. They rented a house between Dallas and San Antonio, and fellow alumnae flew in from all over the U.S. Touring vineyards in “girls’ weekend” T-shirts, they picked up right where they’d left off. “It’s a story of love for what brought us together,” said Lozano.

Two days later, Lozano left with her mother for a pilgrimage to Rome with their diocese, where they met Pope Francis. Lozano had taken her “girls’ weekend” shirt with her to the Vatican; she told the pope about UD’s Rome Program and asked him to bless the shirt, which of course he did.

“UD made me,” said Lozano, who hopes that last year’s Rome reunion was the first of many and that they might inspire other Rome classes to reunite as well.

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Additionally, to hear our students speak warmly about their professors’ accommodations is a credit to the independent thinkers of UD. Students are committed to the pursuit of wisdom, truth and virtue and recognize the same light in their professors.

Finally, we may begin to recognize that technology is not a bad thing – rather, it may be utilized as an educational tool, much like a book, which may be carefully implemented to further our education and that of our students.

1 The shirt contained the initials of all the onetime Rome classmates who had reunited that weekend in Texas. Many of these women have been through cancer and other hardships, making the pope’s blessing of the shirt even more significant to them.

2 Read more about this special Rome reunion at udallas.edu/romesick.

Newstreet is an assistant professor of education at UD and helps coordinate the university’s Center for Teaching and Learning. Read more about her observations during the pandemic at udallas.edu/crisis-mode.

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Velasco did summer research at Jefferson Labs, a national laboratory in Virginia, and presented her work at the American Physical Society.

Class Notes 1970s

Reverend Monsignor Francis Malone, BA ’74 MA ’77 MDiv ’77, began his duties as the third bishop of the Diocese of Shreveport, Louisiana, on Jan. 28. He is UD’s 12th alumnus bishop.

James Harold, Ph.D., MA ’79, retired as professor of philosophy from Franciscan University of Steubenville after 34 years.

1980s Beverly (Williamson) Jennings, MBA ’85, joined the board of directors of the independent electrical and industrial distributor Turtle & Hughes.

1990s

A New Legacy

his spring, Luisa Velasco, BS ’22, joined a prestigious group of young scientists who have received a Barry Goldwater Scholarship. As the third recipient at UD in two years and the ninth recipient since 1991, she joins an emerging legacy of excellent students in science to have received the competitive national scholarship. Three UD students have also received Goldwater Honorable Mentions. One of last year’s awardees, Ana Henriquez, BA ’20, is the Class of 2020’s valedictorian.

UD’s Goldwater awardees have gone on to attain excellence in math and science. Elizabeth (Reisinger) Sprague, BS ’93, was the first UD student to receive a Goldwater in 1991. A 1998 recipient, Carol (Gwosdz) Gee, Ph.D., BS ’99, is chair of the mathematics department at St. Edward’s University.

Jefferson Labs Summer Research Team

The Goldwater Foundation awards the Goldwater Scholarship to college sophomores and juniors pursuing research careers in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering, with the goal of increasing the number of highly qualified professionals in these important fields within the U.S. Velasco, who has been interested in science for as long as she can remember, enjoys the problem-solving aspects of research.

“In my current research, an R & D project, this kind of problem-solving is central to achieving your goal,” said Velasco. “It requires you to be creative in a way I hadn’t considered before.” Velasco plans to earn a Ph.D. in nuclear or particle physics and conduct research.

“Nuclear research is particularly fascinating since it examines the fundamental components of the universe,” said Velasco. “It’s very exciting to uncover a new way to look at the world; I don’t think it’ll ever get old.” Discover more at udallas.edu/a-new-legacy.

Alexia Nalewaik, Ph.D., BA ’90, published her second book, Project Cost Recording and Reporting, available on Amazon. She lectures at American University and is selfemployed as an auditor.

Charlie Starr, Ph.D., MA ’90, associate professor of English at Alderson Broaddus University, discovered — and co-authored an essay about — the lost sequel to the C.S. Lewis novel The Screwtape Letters. Having already published three never-before-seen Lewis manuscripts, Charlie is not only a C.S. Lewis scholar but the world’s leading expert on Lewis’ handwriting. Charlie also participated in a podcast, which aired April 11, on the 70th anniversary of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Glenn Vestrat, CVA, MBA ’92, is senior manager of business advisory for HoganTaylor in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Jody Hatcher, MBA ’93, joined the board of directors for the technology and services company PartsSource.

Jason Henderson, BA ’93, is the author of the Young Captain Nemo (Macmillan Children’s) and Alex Van Helsing (HarperTeen) series. His podcasts “Castle Talk” and “Castle of Horror” feature interviews and discussion panels consisting of bestselling writers and artists from all genres. Jason lives in Colorado with his wife and two daughters.

University Trustee Tan Parker, BA ’93, is running for an eighth term

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photos courtesy of: Luisa Velasco, jonathan cunningham.

More UD Students Earn Prestigious Science Scholarship

Kathryn (Sciorrotta) Collins, MBA ’90, is senior vice president and chief human resources officer for Entergy Corp.

as Texas State Representative for House District 63.

Paul Schemel, BA ’94 MBA ’96, is running unopposed for reelection as Pennsylvania State Representative for House District 90.

Bobby Jivnani, D.D.S., BA ’96 ’99, launched a challenge last fall to earn his city of Richardson, Texas, the title of “Town With the Whit- est Teeth.”

Lara (Simpson) Neri, BA ’96 MA ’01, and Marc Neri, MH ’08, started St. Anthonys Academy in Irving, Texas: “a school for 12- to 15-yearolds, uniting classical studies with experiential learning in the Byzantine Monastic Tradition.”

Keith Glasch, MBA ’98, is the principal and president of ACI Mechanical and HVAC Sales.

2000s Regina Uhl, BA ’00, joined Sandler Law Group as a partner.

Will Richey, BA ’01, celebrated the 15th year of DaVerse Lounge, a spoken-word initiative to elevate young people’s voices.

Core Discipline

You Can Do WHAT With a Degree? hortly after arriving at UD, Jonathan Cunningham, BA ’17, mapped out his plans for after graduation. His first step was to enroll in physician’s assistant school at Baylor College of Medicine, a career trajectory to which he had aspired since his early childhood as a brain cancer survivor. Nowadays, Cunningham is dedicated to the same vocational pursuit of comfort and healing at MD Anderson in Houston, among the largest cancer treatment centers in the U.S., where he was once a chemotherapy patient himself.

“I have seen time and time again the benefits of studying the core liberal arts curriculum and having the opportunity to study in Rome,” explains Cunningham. “The depth and richness of the UD education is like no other.”

Practicing in one of our country’s largest cities presents a range of Spanish-speaking patients with whom Cunningham can utilize his dual-language skill on a daily basis.

“Having pursued a degree in Spanish at UD has allowed me to connect with more patients by not having to worry about a language barrier,” he continues. “Patients can feel more comfortable expressing themselves, can explain their health situations more accurately and are able to understand their health in a deeper way.”

At UD, Cunningham adds, “I was given the unique opportunity to learn the riches of the sciences, the humanities and the continuous pursuit of truth, all of which come together in the field of medicine.”

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Meroudjie Denis, BA ’03, recorded a podcast on special education law and advocacy in December. “I was so honored to have the opportunity to speak about a topic so near and dear to my heart,” she said.

“Specifically, to help parents know their rights and how to advocate for their precious children.”

Chrissy (Joseph) McGaha, BA ’03, is the staff trainer at Lone Star Credit Union.

Marcel Antonio Brown, Ph.D., BA ’04, is the headmaster of Holy Family Cathedral School in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

Duyet Tran, M.D., BS ’05, is the first full-time pediatrician at Community Health Center in Middletown, Connecticut.

1 After completing his M.S.

at Baylor at the end of 2019, Cunningham began his career at MD Anderson. “At times, I questioned whether I would struggle having to confront my own medical history throughout my career,” he says, “or if I was pursuing the medical profession to selfishly prove that I had finally defeated cancer.”

2 Read more about Cunningham’s journey at udallas.edu/YCDW-spanish.

David Azerrad, MA ’07 PhD ’15, is an assistant professor of government and a research fellow at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D.C., campus.

Carrie (Scott) Van Nest, MBA ’08, is an associate project manager with Pinta in Cork, Ireland.

Johanna Weston, BS ’08, discovered Eurythenes plasticus, which lives at 6,010 to 6,946 meters in the Mariana Trench. She wrote, “In this food-limited environment, they eat everything … even plastic microfibers. While discovering this species is a win in the biodiversity column, it does represent the ubiquity of plastic pollution. I hope that this species helps people connect their actions on land to impacts in the ocean.”

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Commencing

60 Years of Commencements

By Robert Scott Dupree, Ph.D., BA ’62

Donald Cowan was the university’s third president, serving 1962-77.

The honorary degree was bestowed on General Douglas MacArthur, who was not able to attend for reasons of health. The invited speaker was the well-known Cardinal Spellman of New York. It is interesting to reflect on the prestige of these two men and their willingness to be honored in this fashion by an obscure college just getting started on the outskirts of the city whose name it bore.

I should add that the founding president, Dr. Kenneth Brasted, was not part of the ceremony; he had been succeeded by his vice president, Dr. Michael Duzy, who served as interim president that year. Duzy’s successor, Robert Morris, the university’s third administrative head, also attended the inaugural event. He, in turn, was to be replaced the day after my graduation in 1962 by Dr. Donald Cowan. Despite this seeming instability of leadership during its first six years, UD had already seen the birth of many of its traditions. Although some graduations have been held indoors (such as mine two years later at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium downtown), the majority of commencements have been staged outside, particularly after the installation of the Braniff Mall in the later 1960s.

Editor’s Note: This year marks the 60th anniversary of this first Commencement ceremony as well as the first year since then that UD has not held a Commencement ceremony in May — due, of course, to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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photos: kim leeson, ud archives, Courtesy of Joseph meaney, courtesy of Kateri Remmes.

The 1960 yearbook was dedicated to “The Pioneers,” the members of the first graduating class who entered as freshmen in 1956.

n May 29, 1960, commencement exercises were held for the first graduating class of the University of Dallas. As a member of the third entering class, I had the good fortune of being in courses with some of that pioneering group. By mid-1960, I had encountered not only the founding president, but all three of his successors-to-come as well. At the end of my sophomore year, I had witnessed many key elements of our institution’s future.

Although it boasted a 1,000-acre campus, the university was quite compact. Apart from the Lynch Auditorium (then called the “lecture hall”), most activities were in the “main building” (that is, Carpenter Hall): administrative matters, science labs, academic departments, library research, student gatherings, courses — all had to fit somewhere within its two stories and corridors or, if not the lecture hall, outdoors. At first, there were a men’s and a women’s dormitory, a chapel, and a cafeteria, the last two with identical, compact floor plans. It was an intimate experience in a vast, empty space, where students sometimes partied in the woods.

Because there was not enough room in the lecture hall, the front of the “main building” was the background for the ceremony; a platform was erected outside, past which faculty and 31 graduates processed to their assigned places after administrative officers and guests of honor were seated on it. An outdoor sound system assured audibility as speakers faced south, looking over the empty landscape beyond stretching to Highway 183. Folding chairs were arranged on the lawn before the platform for the audience. I should add that none of the present-day parking lots were to be seen at that time. The campus was truly an island in an otherwise empty region just beyond the Elm fork of the Trinity River. Access to parts of the campus still involved driving over some unpaved paths.

Fight for Life

Leading the ProLife Movement History Alumnus Heads National Catholic Bioethics Center

uring his Rome semester in 1991, Joseph Meaney, Ph.D., BA ’93, along with his friends (now Father) Kevin Cook, BA ’94, and (now Texas State Representative and UD Trustee) Tan Parker, BA ’93, attended a private Mass with Pope St. John Paul II. “UD gave me some extraordinary experiences,” said Meaney. “For most people, that’s their one chance to actually live in Rome.”

As it turned out, it was not Meaney’s one chance to live in Rome: In 1998, he founded the Rome office of Human Life International (HLI) and lived in the city for the next four years, running the office for a total of nine.

In 2010, after some time in the U.S., HLI sent Meaney back to Rome to earn his doctorate in bioethics at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.

In 2019, Meaney was appointed president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) after 23 years of work in the international pro-life movement, primarily with HLI. A onetime UD history major with leanings toward archaeology, this was not the career path he had originally envisioned, but at the same time it made perfect sense for the dual U.S./French citizen whose mother had been a leader of the pro-life movement in his native Corpus Christi, Texas. After pursuing a master’s degree and some

missionary work and determining that the international pro-life movement may be where his career path lay, Meaney met his wife, Marie, at a fateful conference in Istanbul in 1996 and first learned about HLI. Then, in January 1998, HLI was looking for someone who spoke Italian to open their Rome office.

“I thought hey, I spent a semester in Rome, took elementary Italian,” said Meaney. “My Italian was horrible at first, but it improved quickly when I had to live and work with Italians.”

During his time with HLI, he frequently served as a translator for French, Spanish, Italian and English. He translated for World Youth Days and international youth forums. Once, he wore a cowboy hat to a meeting with the pope because everyone was meant to sport their national costume.

“It was such an extraordinary thing to have these opportunities starting with UD,” he said.

He and Marie were married in 2000, but due to fertility issues, their daughter, Thérèse, was not born until almost a decade later.

The experience of infertility alongside Meaney’s work with HLI helped prepare him for his current role as president of the NCBC. In vitro fertilization, which is one of many topics the NCBC addresses, was encouraged by the Meaneys’ doctors; IVF, however, goes against Catholic doctrine.

“Also assisted suicide, unethical scientific research, gender reassignment, etc.: These go against doctrine but are areas we explore,” said Meaney. “Vitalism is not a Catholic philosophy; we do not believe in prolonging life at any cost. Extraordinary means in health care are optional; the Church is all about freedom and only requires that ordinary means of caring for patients not be refused or denied.”

On a sometimes daily basis, these types of questions and problems are part of Meaney’s life and work now.

“Being president of a center is like being a jack-of-all-trades — I’m called in for some ethical consultations; I speak across the country; I grade papers by students in our online certification program in Catholic health care ethics,” he said.

Meaney’s first bioethics class was at UD, with Professor Janet Smith. “UD gave me a taste for it,” he said.

“I was born into the pro-life movement,” said Meaney. “I grew up in a wonderful prolife community.” Read more at udallas.edu/ fight-for-life.

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SENIOR STORIES Soaring Toward Aerospace

Breaking Into Journalism

Name: Bill Bennett

Name: Mary Rose Corkery

Hometown: Athens, PA

Hometown: Mansfield, MA

Notable UD Memories/Achievements: rugby; liberal arts classes, including Early Modern Lit with Dr. Wegemer; junior and senior classes coming together in support of a grieving classmate Future Plans: pursuing doctorate in aerospace engineering at the University of Notre Dame

In all his time spent on physics, Bill Bennett, BS ’20, found himself missing the liberal arts he had grown to love in the Core Curriculum, so he made sure to keep taking some humanities classes as well. • “Bill’s love for the whole range of the arts and sciences was evident from his freshman year, and he always structured his studies in physics to include ‘fun’ electives such as Early Modern Literature — a course for English majors — or the Thomas More course that required reading 10 books,” said Professor of English Gerard Wegemer, Ph.D. • “Dr. Wegemer taught us about the intellectual battle between the Western tradition and modern ideas,” said Bennett. “That class really broadened my ability to think critically about texts and showed me that the liberal arts have high stakes.”

Delving Into Investment Banking

Future Plans: beginning a fellowship as a Daily Caller reporter

Mary Rose Corkery, BA ’20, especially loves UD’s approach to politics — the way the politics classes taught her a philosophy of being human, then gave her a practical application of this knowledge. • “Mary Rose was a delight to have in class,” said Associate Professor of Politics Richard Dougherty, Ph.D. “Her vital interest in the political, social and religious issues of the day sparked a genuine desire to understand the roots of the Western and American political tradition. Her familiarity with that broader tradition will undoubtedly, in turn, serve her well in her postgraduate years.” • “The reason I chose politics is because it well manifests the philosophy of man into a practical art and purpose,” said Corkery.

Name: Andrew Butler Hometown: Irving, TX

Name: Ana Henriquez

Notable UD Memories/Achievements: studying in Rome; friendships formed; education received; successful internships Future Plans: working as a Goldman Sachs analyst

Andrew Butler, BA ’20, is not only grateful for the community he found, but also very thankful for the unique education he received.

UD’s business program is unusual in that it mandates that each business major take a class in a variety of different fields (e.g., accounting, marketing, ethics). • “I think this curriculum leaves its students well equipped to become versatile managers who have a critical understanding of their organization’s different parts as well as a broad outlook on it as a whole,” he said. • “Andrew is an exceptional student — a rare example of someone who can hear something in a lecture or read it in a textbook and immediately understand how to apply it in a real professional setting. His skill set is very diverse; his work ethic and overall demeanor set benchmarks that his peers can aspire to,” said Associate Professor of Business Michael Stodnick, Ph.D. TOWER MAGAZINE

Notable UD Memories/Achievements: friendships formed; complementary classes and liberal arts education; running cross country; early mornings at the Cap Bar; participating in the Alexander Hamilton Society; being a fellow of the American Public Philosophy Institute

Transcending Science

Major: Business

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Major: Politics

Hometown: San Antonio, TX

Major: Biology/Latin concentration

Notable UD Memories/Achievements: snow in Rome; realizing the value of UD’s curriculum; researching with professors; receiving the Goldwater Scholarship; representing her class as valedictorian

Future Plans: pursuing doctorate in cell and molecular biology at the University of Texas Southwestern When Ana Henriquez, BA ’20, started at UD, she embraced the opportunity to research with professors, beginning with Associate Professor and Chair of Biology William Cody, Ph.D., and his Molecular Microbiology Lab. • “Ana had already learned what was written on the page, so she always came to my class eager to discuss what was written between the lines,” said Cody. “While others were looking to consume knowledge, she was looking to produce it.” • “UD has taught me how to defend the pursuit of knowledge as a good end in and of itself,” said Henriquez. “This provides meaning to my work and fortifies my love of scientific research and education.”

photos: jeff mcwhorter, justin schwartz.

Major: Physics

C L A SS O F 2 0 2 0

Pursuing Cybersecurity

Loving Literature

Name: Adella Klinte

Hometown: Richardson, TX

Hometown: Austin, TX Major: Business

Notable UD Memories/Achievements: friendships formed; good relationships developed with professors; planning open-mic night for Charity Week; TGITs Future Plans: pursuing Master of Science in cybersecurity through UD’s 4+1 Program

Adella Klinte, BA ’20, loves everything about UD’s business program, but what she finds most incredible are the professors. As Klinte maneuvered her way from the world of science to business, she took advantage of the small student-to-faculty ratio, seeking help from her professors, and they never failed her. • “Dr. Stodnick gave me a passion for business and effort, J. Lee gave me a passion to be a better person, and Dr. Jacocks raised my voice,” she said. “They make all their students feel heard.” • “Adella was always a high-energy student, and her positivity was infectious,” said Professor of Management J. Lee Whittington, Ph.D. “She has a strong work ethic. She was able to maintain her commitment to the courses while working multiple part-time jobs, along with significant internships.”

Mentoring Middle School Name: Marge Novacek Hometown: Menomonee Falls, WI Major: Interdisciplinary Studies

Notable UD Memories/Achievements: studying in Rome; successful student-teaching semester Future Plans: teaching middle school in Irving ISD

Marge Novacek, BA ’20, knows that her career will be much more than simply passing along knowledge. She is excited to start her job in Irving ISD, teaching and mentoring. • “Kids in middle school are entering a more independent stage of life, which means they need good role models,” she said. • “When I first heard the name ‘Margaret Novacek,’ I thought of a kindly older woman,” said Assistant Professor of Education Carmen Newstreet, Ph.D. “When I met Marge, I realized that the ‘old soul’ was indeed part of the beautiful young UD student. Marge worked hard to master her education and math courses. That pedagogic content knowledge combined with her humble, quiet warmth will make her a wonderful middle school teacher who will be appreciated by both students and administrators as an exceptional servant leader.”

Name: Maria Rossini Major: English

Notable UD Memories/ Achievements: Junior Poet; writing for OnStage; editing for the University Scholar; participating in Sigma Tau Delta; Cap Bar conversations

Future Plans: continuing on to graduate school at the University of Virginia for a master’s in English Maria Rossini, BA ’20, believes that the pursuit of a further degree in English will give her greater knowledge not only of English, but also of life. • “Maria was a wonderful student in my classes, with exceptionally clear, precise writing; her analytical and interpretive skills are first rate,” said Associate Professor of English Greg Roper, Ph.D., BA ’84 (and a UVA alumnus himself). • “The study of English feels like learning how to love — it’s difficult, it’s ambiguous, it’s challenging, but the time and the effort you take to understand a book trains you to put time and effort into life, too,” explained Rossini. “A book is in some ways like a friend that you learn to love, and it can teach you how to live and love life.”

Googling Success Name: Yeabkal Wubshit Hometown: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Major: Computer Science

Notable UD Memories/ Achievements: playing soccer for UD; being on the Computer Programming Team; serving as secretary and vice president of the Student Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) chapter at UD; summer 2018 internship at Google Future Plans: working as a Google software engineer

Although Yeabkal Wubshit, BS ’20, had previously planned on becoming an architect, he chose to take a few classes in computer science at UD and soon became fascinated by the different and efficient ways in which computer programming allowed him to solve problems. • “For hard work, tenacity, talent and a desire to learn, you cannot find a better student of computer science than Yeabkal Wubshit,” said Associate Professor of Computer Science Robert Hochberg, Ph.D., with whom Wubshit had 10 classes. • Wubshit sees that not only did UD help him build a strong foundation in computer science, but it allowed students to “freely explore their personal, academic and career interests through computing.”

Read more at udallas.edu/seniorstories-2020.

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Class Notes (cont. from p. 23) She described the species in partnership with the World Wildlife Federation and will have the holotype stored at the Smithsonian Institution.

Bryan Barrera, BA ’09, runs the business D.C. Dog Runner in (you guessed it) D.C. Check them out at dcdogrunner.com, and get Bryan’s book, The Ultimate Guide to Running With Your Dog, on Amazon.

Jessica (McLeod) Hornsby, BA ’09 MBA ’17, is the program manager of data management and integrity at CHRISTUS Health.

A Tradition of Growing Grapes

Justin Barnhart, MBA ’15, developed a “one-of-a-kind multifunctional tool designed for avid golfers, outdoorsmen and everyday folks alike.”

Justin is part of the management team at PACCAR, a Fortune 500 worldwide producer of mediumand heavy-duty trucks.

Fall Romers participate in the annual vendemmia, or the grape harvest.

Carolyn Mackenzie, BA ’18, is a senior account manager at Stripes Agency.

Gabriella Montes, BA ’18, is a registered client service associate at UBS. Sophia Andaloro, BS ’19, one of last year’s Cardinal Spellman recipients, is a 2020 NSF Graduate Fellowship recipient. She applied for the award in October of her first year in graduate school at Rice University. She also received the NNSA Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship.

Clare Basil, BA ’19, was awarded a Publius Fellowship by the Claremont Institute.

Clare Slattery, BA ’19, is a press assistant at the office of U.S. Senator Marco Rubio.

In Memoriam Professor of English John Alvis, BA ’66 MA ’69 PhD ’73, died at age 75 on Dec. 23, 2019, less than two weeks after the passing of his wife, Sara Kathleen, MA ’71, on Dec. 14.

See pp. 18-19, as well as udallas. edu/remarkable-mind.

Father Denis Farkasfalvy died at age 83 on May 20 in a nursing home in Dallas, after testing positive for COVID-19. Father Denis was born in Hungary on June 23, 1936, and entered the novitiate of the Cistercian Order in Zirc, Hungary, on March 19, 1955, persevering in monastic life for 65 years. He taught theology at Cistercian Preparatory School and

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photos: Vasile Chiriac, anthony mazur, justin schwartz, kim leeson.

or millennia, beginning with the ancient city Bovillae, viticulture has been part of life on the Eugene Constantin Campus (affectionately known as Due Santi), where most University of Dallas undergraduates study for a semester with UD’s legendary Rome Program.

The soil on campus is largely petrified volcanic ash, infusing the fruit with a high acid structure and the soil with minerals — perfect for growing the grapes for Due Santi Rosso and Rosato. This past year, Due Santi planted two additional acres of vines, so annual production will go from 8,000 to more than 12,000 bottles over the next four years.

Because of Due Santi’s deep-rooted connection to the University of Dallas, Due Santi Wines returns a portion of the proceeds from every bottle sold to UD and, of course, the Rome Program.

Purchase your Due Santi wine (or find out where to buy it locally) at duesantiwines.com.

2010s

LAST WORD – FROM THE PROVOST UD, considering it an important task to help UD enter into the great renewal of Catholic theology that came with the Second Vatican Council. “He eagerly embraced every opportunity to teach, and was deeply devoted to his students,” said Assistant Professor of Theology Father Thomas Esposito, O. Cist., BA ’05.

An Education That Endures hat a joy it is to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our Rome Program. Whether you spent a semester in Rome or not, the Rome Program is a fundamental part of the ethos of our university, and one cannot help but be affected by it. Though our Rome Program leaves an indelible mark on the character of our culture, Rome means more to us than just that program. The city of Rome itself and all that it represents are interwoven into every element of our education — undergraduate and graduate, and whether one is majoring in the sciences, humanities, business or cybersecurity. Each particular discipline has critical parts of its history and development that run through Rome, and every discipline at once invites the ongoing dialogue between faith and reason that is at the center of a University of Dallas education.

Just as Rome is the source of so much of what we are about at UD, our Rome Program led the way in signaling what was to come in this last, strangest of spring semesters. The COVID-19 pandemic affected Italy before Texas. When we made the difficult choice to bring our “Spromers” home in the midst of their study abroad experience, we got a taste of what would be coming to our Irving campus. The move to remote learning and teaching was a challenging one for many of our students and faculty, even though we were better prepared for that move than many of our peer institutions because of the long history and good example of our graduate programs’ work in an online environment, especially in the Gupta College of Business. We already had an ELearning Office with talented staff, and a lot of technical support in place. Those faculty unfamiliar with online learning threw themselves into training during our extended spring break and provided the high quality of instruction that you expect from the University of Dallas throughout the rest of the semester.

I cannot be prouder of my faculty colleagues, who juggled the difficulties of their own quarantined lives with the time-intensive approach to online teaching that was required of them. I cannot be prouder of our students, who overcame great obstacles in their living arrangements, financial stresses brought on by COVID-19 and the locked-down response to contain it, illnesses and deaths in their own families and circle of family friends, and so many other things to persevere in their pursuit of wisdom, truth and virtue.

The response of our faculty, staff and students to the unprecedented circumstances of this past semester is a testament to the value of the education we provide. We provide an education dedicated to a lifetime of learning and living well, one that withstands the test of time and the vagaries affecting our common life — one that, like Rome, will endure.

Antoinette “Toni” (Interrante) Horak, BA ’60, valedictorian of UD’s first graduating class, died at age 80 on Oct. 14, 2019. She was predeceased by her husband, Joseph Horak, BA ’60, and is survived by her two sisters, Rosalie Theriot, BA ’62, and Minnie Shelby; son, Michael Horak, MBA ’93, and his wife, Natalie; daughter Judy Benavides, BA ’83 MBA ’92, and her husband, David, BA ’81 MBA ’85; daughter Suzanne Bacile and her husband, Mike; and six grandchildren, Anton and Christina Horak, Angela and Benton Bacile, Katie Carrillo and Molly Benavides. “Toni was a math teacher, family counselor, community volunteer and devoted mother. Always passionate about helping others, she … gave her time, energy and endless creativity … in the pursuit of keeping families safe, healed and whole.”

Michael Kiss, MTS ’01, was the middle of five children, born to Louis Andrew and Mary Kiss on Jan. 18, 1955, in western Pennsylvania. He died on May 19, 2020, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at age 65. Michael is survived by his wife, Kimberly; son, Andrew; daughter, Gloria Henderson, and her husband, Brian; grandchildren, Christopher and Victoria Henderson; sister and three brothers; and numerous nieces, nephews and cousins.

After earning his master’s degree from UD, Michael taught the New Testament as an adjunct instructor and was pleased that several of his students became permanent deacons in the Diocese of Tulsa.

Nalin Ranasinghe, MA ’86, passed away at age 59 on March 13. He had taught at Assumption College since 2001. According to Assumption College President Francesco Cesareo, Nalin had immersed himself in the classics, seeking “to integrate politics, philosophy and literature. Nalin emphasized crucial affinities between classical and Christian thought, Socrates and Jesus. He was presently completing books on Homer and on Shakespeare, who, along with Plato, were his great sources of inspiration. … Nalin urged students, with unsurpassed intensity, to live up to their humanity. As a result, he connected with many students at a deeply personal level and forever changed their lives.”

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University Advancement 1845 E Northgate Drive Irving, TX 75062-4736

NOW&THEN

2020. Today, they are the mothers of six sons collectively, as well as senior administrators at UD: Julia is the dean of students, Taryn the director of financial aid, and Lizzie the assistant vice president for enrollment.

Together, they provide untold support to prospective and current students, strengthening the bonds of our UD family.

Early 2000s. Julia Carrano, BA ’02, Taryn (Hames) Anderson, BA ’07, and Lizzie Griffin Smith, BA ’09 MBA ’13, were undergraduates at UD: having adventures during their Rome semesters, participating in various sports back in Irving, doing all the things UD undergrads do.