Last Word

LONG-LASTING IMPACT

How Our Souls Flow

By Callie Ewing, BA '03 MH '22

etired teacher Estelle (Tovar) Lara, BA ’67 MA ’74, watching the impact in her own children’s lives, feels that the only way to make a lasting difference is through education.

About 10 years ago, she sat down with her financial adviser and wrote UD into her estate plan. As she explained, “I used this planned gift to be the best model I can for my children. I am a hard working mom, and I have raised hard working kids. This planning ensures that everything I worked so hard for will continue to have a long-lasting impact.”

Widowed at age 30, Joy (Davis) Kirsch, BA ’85, didn’t really know how to move forward. After some time and discernment, she founded a nonprofit to help other widows. In deciding to include UD in her estate plan, she was motivated by the idea that she could help someone else live their best life.

She said, “I like to think that the way we spend our money is how our souls flow into the world—this is an expression of gratitude for all the blessings I’ve had but also a way for my money to act in alignment with my values and what’s important to me.”

UPCOMING EVENTS

Events are subject to change. Stay up to date on UD’s alumni social media channels.

UDallasAlumni UDallasAlumni UDAlumniOffice calendar.udallas.edu

ALUMNI & FAMILY WEEKEND

Come home and see us! All classes and families are invited. Class years ending in 2 and 7 will celebrate their reunions.

OCT. 21-23

THE BIG EVENT

Join with students, faculty and others in the UD community to help our neighbors in the City of Irving.

NOV. 12

SATISH & YASMIN GUPTA COLLEGE GRADUATION

Celebrate the most recent graduates of UD’s Gupta College of Business MBA, DBA and M.S. programs.

DEC. 3

Read more about these gifts and others at udallas.edu/how-our-souls-flow. Learn about making your own planned gift at plannedgiving.udallas.edu.

SET IN STONE

PAVING THE PATH FORWARD

Words of gratitude to influential professors, cherished quotes or proverbs, commemorations of legacy families, tributes to family members, and memorials to lost loved ones: You’ll find all of these types of inscriptions in the Pavers Gallery. You, too, can have your name and/or message permanently engraved on a paver to be installed on the Alumni and Friends Walkway, a prominent location on campus leading to J.M. Haggar Sr. University Center and the Mall from Lynch Circle off of Northgate Drive. Pavers come in 12” x 12” and 6” x 12” and are completely tax deductible. The text on the pavers is engraved and painted to ensure that it will endure. Funds from this Paving the Path Forward initiative go toward University of Dallas student scholarships.

Learn more at udallas.edu/pavers.

Aiming High Through Humble Pie

By Father Joseph Paul Albin, O.P.

“I never ask for seconds when they’re serving humble pie.” I heard this phrase from an older woman while I lived in New Orleans, and it has stuck with me. We, as fallen human beings, seem to think that humility is something that we do not want—something that we do not need. And yet, in the two short years I have worked here at the University of Dallas, I have been offered humble pie again and again. If I only had the courage to actually eat that second slice.

Coming to serve at this university, where the students can correct your Latin and Greek, where wizened professors come to Mass, and where graduate students struggle to get through a conversation without a number of philosophical and theological distinctions, is quite intimidating. Working here at the University of Dallas makes you want to stretch yourself intellectually, to learn all that you can. And this is good and holy, and it is something we should want for ourselves and our students. Yet, I think it is the job of those of us who work in ministry, and truly all who form young people, to lead by humbling ourselves.

First, as a good Dominican aiming for a bit of humility, let’s look at the Franciscans. Blessed Giles of Assisi, one of the original companions of St. Francis, wisely stated, “No man can attain to the knowledge of God but by humility. The way to mount high is to descend.” To come to know God must begin with the humility of knowing how much we cannot know. If we can approach our studies, and yes, our Christian lives, with the awareness of our own intellectual shortcomings—instead of the certainty the world would have us believe we need—we can come to know and love God with greater intimacy.

Second, as a good Dominican aiming to share the fruits of the Order, it’s always good to reference Aquinas, who reminds us, “It is contrary to humility to aim at greater things through confiding in one’s own powers: but to aim at greater things through confidence in God’s help, is not contrary to humility.” We are to aim high. We are to be saints, to be virtuous and bright! This only works if we recognize that we are dependent on God. We have to recognize that we are creatures dependent on grace. My prayer is that our students may leave here bright and capable, and always willing to eat that second slice of humble pie. As their chaplain, I should take the first bite.

ILLUMINATING LEADERSHIP

ABOUT THINGS THAT MATTER

Matthias Vorwerk, Ph.D., began serving as UD’s provost on July 1. Previously, Vorwerk most recently served as associate dean of the Catholic University of America’s School of Philosophy and as an associate professor of philosophy. “It is my pleasure to work with UD’s excellent faculty and dedicated staff to strengthen and enhance the university’s mission, and I look forward to meeting the students for many good conversations about the things that matter,” said Vorwerk. A native of Detmold, Germany, Vorwerk’s academic expertise is in ancient philosophy, the works of Plato and Plotinus, and the philosophy of human nature. Read more about Vorwerk at udallas.edu/ about-things-that-matter.

THE GIFT OF SERVICE

Additionally, UD has welcomed four new members of the Board of Trustees in 2022: Bishop of Brownsville Daniel Flores, BA ’83 MDiv ’87 (below), Texas State Representative Tom Craddick, mother of four alumni Mary Rice Hasson, and father of four alumni and one current student Charles (Chuck) LiMandri. Read more about UD’s newest trustees at udallas.edu/the-gift-of-service. Cardinal Kevin Farrell and Mary Manning, meanwhile, finished their terms on the board and are thanked deeply for their service to the university.

Development & University Relations

1845 E. Northgate Drive Irving, TX 75062-4736

NOW&THEN

2022. Since the early ’80s, the Cap Bar, Irving’s little taste of Rome, has been the favored meetup, hangout, crunch-time spot on campus— for students, alumni, faculty and staff alike! Come to Alumni and Family Weekend, Oct. 21-23, and see how your preferred places on campus have gotten even better since your time. 1956. Even John W. Carpenter Hall could sometimes look like a Norman Rockwell painting. There was no Rome Program yet, therefore no Cap Bar, so students had to content themselves with a Coke machine in a corner—but the adventure of being pioneers on an empty Irving hill probably helped make up for it.