The Consecrated Learner
Religious Orders at the University of Dallas
Local Lore
A FEW DOMINICAN SISTERS OF ST. CECILIA WATCH THE ECLIPSE OF APRIL 8 BY BRANIFF MEMORIAL TOWER.
PROFESSOR AND ALUMNUS FR. STEPHEN GREGG , OCIST, PHD ’22, READS A HYMN BY HILDEBERT DE LAVARDIN
PRESIDENT
Jonathan J. Sanford, PhD
VP FOR MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS
Clare Venegas
EDITOR
Isaiah Mitchell
DESIGNERS
Aaron Menchaca
Sarah Oates
CONTRIBUTORS
Steve Bisgrove
Lucía Caranti, BA ’24
Aaron Claycomb
Matthew Cockrell, ME ’25
William Cody, PhD
Michael Gresham
Rebecca Grillot, BA ’10
Nathan Hunsinger
Christopher Jay
Jeff McWhorter
Isaiah Mitchell
Stephanie Moorberg
Sybil Novinski
Andrew Osborn, PhD
Gregory Roper, PhD, BA ’84
Jonathan J. Sanford
Ron St. Angelo
Ken Starzer
Clare Venegas
Friar Mariano Veliz, OP
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If your only experience with a Catholic university is with the University of Dallas, it may be easy to overlook how uniquely blessed we are with such an abundance of religious communities and organizations contributing to our mission.
The majority of Catholic colleges and universities in the United States were founded and are still in some significant manner controlled by a religious community or by a diocese. We, on the other hand, were founded with a lay board, under the direction of Bishop Thomas Gorman of the Diocese of Dallas, in collaboration with a religious community, the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur. We were, to use the term technically, an independent Catholic university from the start, but one that was not merely independent, since we have always been in close collaboration with both the diocese and one or more religious communities. That unique founding remains our legacy.
Though some of our early religious collaborators have moved on, their influence remains. For instance, it was Sr. Clodovia Lockett, a School Sister of Notre Dame, who first established the University of Dallas as one of the best in the nation for placing students in medical schools; and, it was also the School Sisters of Notre Dame who first offered the use of their convent in Rome to President Donald Cowan, which proved essential to launching our celebrated Rome Program.
Most of our first religious collaborators have remained, and new ones have joined. We continue to have the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur with us, represented now by Sr. Yolanda Cruz in the Ann & Joe O. Neuhoff Institute for Ministry and Evangelization. We continue to be graced with Cistercian monks and Dominican friars, and we are delighted to have had the Nashville Dominican sisters join us. And, of course, we have diocesan seminarians,
FIRST
WORD
A Wealth of Spirit
Neocatechumenal Way seminarians, and consecrated members of apostolic bodies and the Ordo Virginum, and we enjoy close collaborations with many priests, deacons and other ministers within the Diocese of Dallas and beyond.
They have all been drawn to the University of Dallas because of the excellence of our undergraduate and graduate academic programs and our unwavering commitment to education that is explicit in providing to our students the best features of the inheritance of Western civilization. They are so drawn, in fact, that they make their homes among us. This has been possible precisely because, in our independence, we are not dominated by any one religious charism while welcoming the contributions of many.
What we find at the University of Dallas is a wealth of distinct Catholic charisms, each different and just as authentic, united under the auspices of an intellectual vision that orchestrates our common effort toward growth in wisdom, truth and virtue. Our students benefit from daily exposure to what a life of radical commitment to religious or consecrated life would be like in multiple varieties. Whether Catholic or not, everyone finds in this joyful witness inspiration and enrichment of our campus culture. The church universal is somehow compressed, in its great variety, into this thriving corner of Dallas/Fort Worth. The unique campus culture of the University of Dallas enables our students, after graduating, to shoulder the noble work of shaping their regional and national cultures through their personal and professional excellence more effectively.
Jonathan J. Sanford President, Professor of Philosophy
Helping Families
UDallas Establishes Family Grant, Homeschool Scholarship
The University of Dallas recently inaugurated two efforts to help incoming students and their families: a scholarship for homeschooled students, and a grant for families who have other children in college.
Similar to the university's scholarships for diocesean schools, a $5,000 Homeschool Scholarship was introduced last fall to one homeschooled student. This year, homeschool students applying to UDallas for the fall of 2025 will have an opportunity to compete for a four-year, full-tuition scholarship.
The Family Grant awards new students a $5,000 grant per year if they have siblings in college at UDallas or elsewhere. The university instituted the Family Grant to address changes in federal
student aid procedures that could have the effect of raising out-of-pocket costs of college.
“With this grant, our hope is to make a UDallas education more affordable for families with multiple children in college so they can benefit from the unique formation of our nationally ranked Core Curriculum, our Rome Program and our strong faith community,” said University President Jonathan J. Sanford
The first Homeschool Scholarship winner, Catherine Bittle ’28 of Tyler, Texas, said the university’s new award gave her the chance “to attend my dream school.”
“I am deeply honored to have received the University of Dallas Homeschool Scholarship. With this award I will be able to attend my dream
“With this award I will be able to attend my dream school fully confident that I am making the right decision both formatively and financially.”
Catherine Bittle ’28
school fully confident that I am making the right decision both formatively and financially,” Bittle said. “Having the kind of financial obligations that large school loans bring would have limited my ability to say ‘yes’ to helping others. With the Homeschool Scholarship, I will be able to attend the University of Dallas with fewer financial burdens while giving my full attention to pursuing truth in faith, service and study.”
Institute for Homiletics
Thanks Supporters for Permanent Endowment
This year, the Institute for Homiletics at the University of Dallas reached its goal of establishing a $7.5 million endowment.
Bishop Edward J. Burns said the early fruits of the Institute are fueling the desire of people to be drawn closer to Jesus Christ through hearing inspiring words of faith, hope and love.
“How blessed we are to hear from people in the pews who say the liturgies they’ve attended that involve clergy who are members of the first cohort are helping them draw nearer to Christ,” said Bishop Burns. “I am ever so grateful to the donors who have enabled the Institute to become a light of hope for our Church.”
University Welcomes New Chaplain
A Message From Friar Mariano Veliz, OP
Greetings to all the University of Dallas family: students, faculty, staff and alumni of UDallas!
As I begin my first year as chaplain of the University of Dallas, I thank God, Blessed Mary, St. Dominic, Bishop Edward Burns, Bishop Gregory Kelly, President Jonathan Sanford, PhD, and my Dominican Provincial Fr. Roberto Merced, OP, for this great assignment. What a blessing! What an honor! I hope, by the grace of God, to build on all the good that my chaplain predecessors have done in Christ through the years for the edification of the UDallas family.
As for myself, I was born in Fresno, California, and raised in a small rural town in Fresno County called Firebaugh. I first heard God calling me to the priesthood at the age of seven and later at 15. After entering the seminary for the Diocese of Fresno in 1989 (right after high school) and remaining there for two years, I eventually discerned that God was calling me to the religious life. In time, this led me to apply for graduate school as a lay student to the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology under the Dominican Friars of the Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in California. I graduated
from there in December of 2002. In 2006, after paying my debts from graduate school, I applied to enter the Dominican Province of St. Martin de Porres, hoping to become an itinerant preacher someday. After being accepted, I moved to St. Albert the Great Priory in Irving, TX, in 2007 for my novitiate year. I later moved to the Dominican House of Studies in St. Louis, MO, for graduate school. I was eventually ordained to the priesthood in 2015. As such, I have been a Dominican for about 17 years and a priest for nine years.
In St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, he says that he planted, and Apollos watered, but God alone was the source or cause of maturation. In this sense, by working together, St. Paul and Apollos put everything in the hands of God for God Himself to provide for the needs of His people. Similarly, as chaplain of UDallas, I will work with Deacon Ryan Sales, Karen Bless, CV, BA ’15, Shelby Ponikiewski, BA ’15, and all the UDallas family, trusting that God, in His providence, will mature or increase many good fruits through our collaboration. As a Dominican friar, as a priest and as the chaplain of the university,
my greatest calling, my greatest ministry, is to help all of you, by the grace of God, to become holy men and women of God in this life as a preparation for sainthood in heaven someday. At the same time, I believe all of you can also help me, by God’s grace, to mature in Christ that I may also become a saint someday. To this end, I pray for your patience as I learn and develop in this assignment. My heart and door are open to all of you. May God bless you.
In Christ with Blessed Mary,
Friar Mariano Veliz Chaplain, University of Dallas Rector, Church of the Incarnation
To continue improving the campus for students, contact Ashton Ellis, JD, PhD, vice president of development and university relations, at adellis@udallas.edu.
University Inaugurates Refurbished Laboratory
Updated lab dedicated in honor of beloved biology professor Frank Doe
BY WILLIAM CODY, PHD
Modern medicine requires hands-on skills in anatomy, knowledge of medical imaging and microscopy, familiarity with molecular techniques, and proficiency with computerassisted procedures. The Frank Doe Anatomy and Physiology Laboratory provides for innovative pedagogy in a high-quality laboratory environment that includes virtual simulation, augmented reality and 3D imaging. These tools provide students the ability to apply academic knowledge to real-world scenarios, better preparing future health care providers for careers in the medical, nursing and allied health professions.
The Frank Doe Anatomy and Physiology Laboratory redesign provides a modular design that allows the single space to serve multiple courses, including Anatomy Laboratory, Physiology
Laboratory and the Core Curriculum life sciences course Human Biology.
In Anatomy Laboratory courses, students work at one of six mobile stations equipped with a computer and monitor at one end for virtual learning, and space for hands-on specimen dissections at the other, creating a modern active learning classroom that merges cutting-edge 3D virtual human anatomy dissections with traditional dissection techniques taught with animal specimens. Interactive laser projectors allow the instructor touchscreen access to rotate, expand and dissect virtual human and animal models in 3D space while teaching.
The mobile workstations allow for a quick and seamless midweek transition to a large open space, providing room for exercise equipment
and telemetry devices in Physiology Laboratory courses. Participants in these courses will use real-time data collection hardware and software to collect physiological data from students for analysis. Non-science majors in the Human Biology Laboratory course utilize the same advanced software and equipment as science majors, gaining a more comprehensive understanding of human health, medicine and contemporary medical concerns.
The Frank Doe Anatomy and Physiology Lab incorporates a large window to the hallway so that current and prospective students can see learning in progress, aiding in career discernment and retention.
Four remaining labs could benefit from renovations to better accommodate science courses required by the Core. These labs teach all students the practices of understanding processes, testing theories and reporting results.
William Cody is associate professor of biology and chair of the Biology Department.
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Intermezzo
Rome in Focus
IN 1994, THE UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS MADE ITS STUDY ABROAD PROGRAM ONE OF THE FINEST IN AMERICA WITH THE ACQUISITION OF A STORIED ITALIAN VILLA. THIS YEAR, THE UNIVERSITY CELEBRATES 30 YEARS OF FAMILY IN DUE SANTI AT THE EUGENE CONSTANTIN CAMPUS.
The Villa Gabriella and the History of Modern Italy
BY GREGORY ROPER, PHD, BA ’84
Originally published in Due Santi and the University of Dallas: Un Piccolo Paradiso, edited by Roper and Andrew Moran, BA ’91 PhD ’04, this article has been abridged for space.
Gustavo Piga parks a modest Fiat under the umbrella pines at Due Santi and climbs out. I’ve been deputized to greet him before his lecture to the students on the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath. What do you say to a professor of economics from the University of Rome? What do you say to a man as he comes back to a place he knew as his grandparents’ home? Honestly, I’m a little intimidated. He was probably a young man, not much older than these Rome students, when the University of Dallas came and swept this place away from his family, away from him, and I hear he hasn’t been back more than once or twice since.
“Hello,” I say. “Welcome — welcome back — to Due Santi.” It’s all I can stumble out.
He looks up at the umbrella pines, around to the vineyard and up toward the villa. “I am so happy the university took over this place, and kept it so beautiful,” he says. He’s a man about my age, balding like me, with a warm smile. His shoes, his tweed jacket and knit tie, aren’t smashingly stylish in that intimidating Italian way. Suddenly he’s just another academic, and he claps me on the shoulder and shakes my hand. “I’m Gustavo. We have some time before the talk, don’t we? Can we go up to the villa?”
We enter the villa, and I unlock the doors to the salone. It’s been kept as a lovely living room, a place where faculty parties are held, where faculty children celebrate birthdays. Gustavo takes two steps in and stops, taking in everything. He takes a deep breath and grins. “I can hear my grandfather right now. He would sit up here and blast Beethoven on his huge stereo with all the windows open.” He gestures around the room, showing how it filled up with musical Sturm und Drang
We walk to the window and look down at the tennis court. He shows me where the glass broke when the Allied bombers dropped errant ordnance on what is now the field outside the mensa “He never fixed that window. He always showed it to people and proudly said it was American bombers that did that. He was very pro-American, my grandfather.”
This is the story of a family. Frankly, as Gustavo told me, “The story of the villa is the story of Italy in the 20th century.” It’s the story of a family who to this day love that we, the family of the University of Dallas, are now a part of their family’s history.
For their time, they were an unusual couple, an unlikely international pair from opposite sides of the globe. Lorenzo Piga was born 11 days before the beginning of the 20th century in a small Sardinian town, the son of the local lawyer and a daughter of a fine family. Edythe Kollerstrom was the even more adventurous one, the 25-yearold Australian school teacher who came to Italy
to study the Montessori method — and, it seems, to get away from a failed romance with an Indian diplomat. When she left on the trip, she had no idea that she would not return home for many years. But she met Renzo, they fell in love, and in short order they married in 1932.
The villa was completed in 1940, just as Italy was joining the war and Gabriella was joining the family; Edythe was not so excited about having another child, but both she and Renzo were ecstatic to welcome a girl, so they named the house Villa Gabriella in her honor. (Few Romers know the villa has a name.) “We were of course jealous,” said their son Dario, “so our parents named the two umbrella pines at the front gate Guglielmo” — their other son, Gustavo’s zio — “and Dario to placate us.” (Even fewer today know that these two grand trees, at the old gate behind the villa, also have names.)
Seven-year-old Guglielmo was a Balilla (the Fascist Boy Scout-like organization) and remembered the day when Mussolini was arrested. “I started crying and was surprised to see my father deliriously happy. He was the most internationally minded person in the office and was certain we would lose the war; 99% of Italians thought the war was won when France was invaded. Italians loved to divide up the spoils. Mussolini was not stupid, but he had never been outside of Italy; he didn’t know the power of the Americans, of the British.” Then came June 4, 1944, and the liberation of Rome. “The best day of my life,” Guglielmo said; he tasted white bread for the first time, given to him by American soldiers.
After the war and the cleanup, the family grew into prosperity. Every Sunday became a kind of open house at Due Santi, with Renzo loving to grill and carve meats as he hosted cookouts. An international group including a Norwegian consul and his English wife, a lung doctor and his wife Yvonne,
and another couple began to gather regularly; the four couples dubbed themselves the “Otto Santi” and enjoyed playing cards. Soon the pool, and later the tennis courts, were added as a way for the children to have something to do on these long summer afternoons. With ten acres in which to play, there was not always full supervision. The boys loved to find unfired ammunition from the war, empty out the gunpowder and set it alight; one such explosion knocked down a small stone wall.
It’s the story of a family who to this day love that we, the family of the University of Dallas, are now a part of their family’s history.
In the 1970s, Italy descended into the anni di piombo, the “years of lead,” a time of economic shocks — particularly provoked by the oil shocks from Middle East wars and turmoil — and domestic terrorism. It can be strange for Romers, so full of the joy of going to beautiful Italy, to realize that the university started the program in some of the most troubling years in the country’s history. Strikes and threats of violence were frequent; you can hear tales of these from 1970s Romers, who laugh them off, but there was real trouble in the country. But the biggest blow came in May 1976, when Edythe died after a rapid illness. Gabriella had come home to be with her
in February and stayed on to help her father before moving to the house in the Flaminio district, on Piccola Londra, where she lived with her second husband. Renzo slowed down, and the villa was slipping a bit. He considered moving to a nursing home, but Guglielmo talked him out of it. “I told him he’d be bored out of his skull and die in three years. Here he had family that loved him.” So Renzo stayed on for another nine years. His own final illness took him on Nov. 1, 1985, just a little short of his 86th birthday.
All of the family talks about their devastation at the death of the paterfamilias, not because he was loved more than Edythe, said Nicole Dunaway, Gabriella’s daughter, but because he was the center of the life at Due Santi. Immediately the family had to decide what to do with the villa. Would Guglielmo buy out his siblings? Would they cut it into apartments and sell or rent them? Nicole and Gustavo, then 20 and 23, even had the idea of buying it themselves, but none of the family could quite make these plans work, and they reluctantly sought a buyer for the property. Gabriella talked about it in terms of “sorrow” and “desolation” but also said that “it was too hard to keep the lovely, too-big old place with none of us living there.”
And again the history of modern Italy parallels the story of the villa, for who stepped in to purchase their beloved home but an American institution — not a wealthy financier or a Hollywood movie star, but a strange little Catholic university that had recently lost its lease on the home of its superb Rome Program and was looking for a permanent home.
It’s a beautiful, mild summer evening in 2017, and the Piga family have assembled back at Due Santi for the first time in many years. Nicole has asked Dean Peter Hatlie for permission to celebrate her 50th birthday on the campus, and all day long friends and the extended family have arrived.
READ THE FULL STORY in Due Santi and the University of Dallas: Un Piccolo Paradiso (The History Press), available on Amazon at udallas.edu/paradiso.
A chef from a favorite restaurant has been brought in to prepare a meal for dozens. The party moves from the pool to the forno patio and eventually to tents and tables set up on the mensa field. And what is simply wonderful is the gratitude every member of the family offers to me, to Dr. Hatlie and to the university for having preserved their family home so beautifully and kept it a living home. I ask Nicole what struck her most when she returned. She pauses, considers for a moment and says, “The smell. I always remember the smell of Due Santi.” Her mother Gabriella and her cousin Gustavo break into big smiles and agree. When I ask if the day has been bittersweet, Gabriella immediately says no. “You know, it was always a very international place, Due Santi; an Italian and an Australian. I married an American, as did Gustavo; there were the Otto Santi from other countries as well. We are all so, so happy that that the university came here and that it remains such a beautiful, international place.”
I wish Nicole a happy birthday and slip away at a respectable American time so these Italians can continue the party late into the evening. As I say goodnight, she tells me, “When I dream at night of home, I dream of Due Santi.”
Gregory Roper is associate professor of English and dean of students at the University of Dallas.
PLEASE NOTE THE RENDERINGS DEPICTED HERE ARE PRELIMINARY AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE. DESIGN AND RENDERINGS COURTESY OF AMDG STUDIO.
University To Host First Convent for the Nashville Dominicans
Should donors step forward to invest in the project, the University of Dallas will become the first college or university to host a convent for the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, a teaching order of Catholic religious sisters also known as the Nashville Dominicans.
Several Sisters of St. Cecilia have taught at UDallas since 2016 and served the Diocese of Dallas since 2019. The Sisters also teach at Mary Immaculate Catholic Elementary School in Farmers Branch. However, they have relied on temporary residences since their arrival in Texas in 2016.
“For several years now, the University of Dallas has benefited from the excellent teaching and apostolic focus of the Sisters of St. Cecilia,” said University President Jonathan J. Sanford, PhD. “We are proud to become the permanent home of these faithful servants of God.”
The proposed convent will be located east of SB Hall to give the sisters privacy while also allowing ease of access to UDallas’ campus and religious neighbors, Holy Trinity Seminary, St. Albert the Great Priory & Novitiate, and Our Lady of Dallas Cistercian Abbey.
Sr. Catherine Anne Burleigh, BA ’94, vicaress general for the congregation, expressed gratitude for the partnership.
“We are so grateful to the University of Dallas for its desire to provide a convent on campus for our sisters teaching at UDallas and Mary Immaculate,” Sr. Burleigh said. “We know that the presence of religious sisters played an integral part in the founding and early days of the university, and we are humbled to be involved in such a wonderful community that takes seriously the pursuit of truth, wisdom and virtue.”
The University of Dallas already counts several Sisters of St. Cecilia among the faculty, including
Sr. Mary Angelica Neenan, affiliate assistant professor of theology, and Sr. Elinor Gardner, affiliate assistant professor of philosophy.
The first group of Nashville Dominicans was invited by Sanford, at that time dean of the Constantin College of Liberal Arts, to teach at UDallas in 2016. The group included alumnae Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel, BA ’92 MPsy ’21, and Sr. Mary Edith Humphries, BA ’95.
Nine Nashville Dominican sisters in perpetual profession are UDallas alumnae. The UD alumni community includes over 100 men and women in various religious orders, as well as 12 bishops, six permanent deacons and more than 200 priests.
While the convent at UDallas would be the first on a campus of higher education, it is one of many mission convents that the order has established to serve 53 different schools in 31 dioceses both in the U.S. and abroad.
LEARN MORE about the Nashville Dominicans and how to support the project.
The Mall
Connecting With Alumni
Class Agent Vince Terracina on Business and Life
BY REBECCA GRILLOT, BA ’10
Vince Terracina, BA ’91 MBA ’92, and his wife Barbara, BA ’92, met at the University of Dallas just after Vince returned from his Rome semester. He and Barbara went on a double date — but not with each other. By the end of the date, though, Vince and his roommate had switched dates, and the rest is history.
The Terracinas have enjoyed giving back to UDallas through their involvement with the National Alumni Board. Vince also serves as the class agent for the Class of 1991.
When Terracina came to UDallas as a freshman, he began studying economics and also joined the basketball team, inadvertently becoming part of a historic moment in university history. The Crusaders had held the record for longest losing streak of any college basketball team in history: 0-86. When the team finally won a victory over John Brown University on Feb. 6, 1988, it made national news, and Terracina was quoted in The Dallas Morning News
Terracina went on to play rugby and still comes back for the alumni rugby game at Alumni & Family Weekend each year.
Terracina realized his love for history when he took the course History of Economics. He went on to get his degree in history instead and, shortly after graduation, also completed his MBA at UDallas.
Terracina began his career as a phone desk worker and then a bond trader for U.S. Global Investors. However, he soon discovered that he wanted to work with people face to face. He describes his father as a “serial entrepreneur” and says the end goal was always to work for himself.
Terracina was gaining experience and raising capital while working for a real estate company when his boss, who also owned the Koozie brand, asked him to invest in that company and then to come work for him as the director of marketing. A natural salesman, Terracina fell in love with the job.
As he entertained the idea of launching his own business, Terracina’s second child was born — at home, in the kitchen, delivered by none other than Terracina himself. Feeling completely unprepared to deliver his own child, he realized he would just have to work with what he had. He tied off the umbilical cord with his own shoelace, and by the time the ambulance arrived, his wife was nursing their new baby girl.
“After that, I came to realize that a person can do way more than what they think they can under different circumstances,” Terracina remembers. “And for me, that was a real growing-up moment. So that really helped me with the confidence to start my own company, because it seemed like I was going to be biting off more than I could handle. Then I realized that under the
circumstances, you’d be surprised what you can do. So, just put yourself there and let it happen.”
He almost named his company Shoestring Marketing.
Terracina’s company, TAG Marketing Ltd., does plenty of business, but his UDallas claim to fame is that he produces the Groundhog shirts every year.
Terracina says that as a fresh college graduate, he never imagined he would give much back to the University of Dallas. But as he began building his life as an adult in the world, he realized how much UDallas had shaped him and how much he loves to tell people about the university.
“Really, the University of Dallas helped form the overall person that I am. I gained so much from the University of Dallas,” Terracina says. “My faith life was formed by being there, and not just by the religious, but also by the students. There was almost a peer pressure to get to church on Sunday, almost a peer pressure to do good.”
He adds, “As our culture changes and as higher education changes, I think that the University of Dallas is becoming possibly even more unique than it was before, because of its adherence to what it means to really educate someone and how to be able to think properly.”
Terracina served on the National Alumni Board from its inception, and now, as the class agent for the Class of 1991, he sees his job as giving of his time, talent and treasure to engage his classmates in giving back to the university too. To check out alumni-owned TAG Marketing, visit tagmarketing.net.
Campus
With the support of donors, the University of Dallas has refreshed several spaces of the Irving campus, brightening the university’s mid-century aesthetic.
Centrally located Gorman Lecture Hall (1), with its circular discussion rooms, classic lecture spaces and comfortable faculty lounge, has always been a home for learning and community. Now, faculty and students can enjoy new carpets and chairs in Crusader blue.
In addition, dining space in Haggar University Center (2) will be expanded to accommodate more seating by the beloved Cap Bar. The patio behind the Rathskeller already boasts a newly added forno,* and the tree planters now wear blue tile to match.
To look into becoming a class agent, contact Justin Blan, BA ’14, assistant director of alumni relations and annual giving, at jmblan@udallas.edu.
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IN THE
SR. JOHN THOMAS ARMOUR READS
WILLMOORE KENDALL GRADUATE STUDY ROOM.
The Consecrated Learner: Religious Orders at the University of Dallas
Charisms join to love truth and justice.
BY ISAIAH MITCHELL
To join the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia, Sr. John Thomas Armour, OP, BA ’01, had to first go to Rome.
She was an undergraduate majoring in English and theology, winding through the Rome Program with her cohort. Fundamentally, though, she describes her journey as a search for something more.
“I was with a great community of fellow truth-seekers,” Sr. Armour says, “people falling in love with truth, recognizing that truth is the person of Jesus Christ. All of that was happening for me during my time at the University of Dallas.”
During this search, the course of her life began to clarify at a Due Santi women’s retreat with artist and theologian Sr. Mary Angelica Neenan, OP, STD. Through her witness, Sr. Armour saw a community of women who seek to know God through beauty. She joined the order in 2002, and the order joined the Irving campus in 2016, not long before Sr. Armour would return as a student to seek truth anew, to teach and, with fellow
men and women religious on campus, to inspire the next generation of professants. The Nashville Dominicans are the latest of several religious orders who teach students of all levels at the university, the origin of which — traced back to the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur in 1955 — is commonly known. Less familiar, perhaps, are the consecrated men and women themselves who teach today.
TO KNOW THE LORD
Every religious order in the Catholic Church claims a particular charism, a gift from the Holy Spirit that characterizes the order’s identity. Traced back to Dominic, the patron saint of natural scientists, the Dominican charism is particularly academic.
Br. Benedict Gregory Johnson, OP, BA ’22, is an alumnus, frequent Cap Bar patron and novice of St. Albert the Great Priory, a community of Dominicans near campus. He wears black Clark Kent glasses and, behind them, a sense of
“There is a deep commitment to truth at the University of Dallas.”
smiling assurance that he shares with the other Dominicans; in loose, white sleeves, he handles his speech as he talks, turning it over like a jeweler.
“There is a deep commitment to truth at the University of Dallas,” Br. Johnson tells me by the fountain in the Braniff lobby. “At UDallas, you’re not satisfied with what people say about the great works; you want to delve at the heart of that mystery. And that very much ties into one of the Dominican mottoes, which is Veritas, Truth.”
The seven-volume corpus of Thomas Aquinas in the library testifies to the Dominican effort, not least because each book is the width of a baseball plate. However, a single charism can take different forms. The relentlessly rigorous, almost mathematical efforts of Aquinas are widely known, but Sr. Armour says the Sisters of St. Cecilia follow Dominic’s call to know God by way of artistic beauty.
“I think the gift that we’ve received from St. Cecilia’s patronage is really the role that beauty
plays in helping us make truth known,” Sr. Armour says.
Like Sr. Armour herself, most of the Sisters of St. Cecilia who graduated from UDallas were English majors.
“There’s something about that dynamic of the beauty of art in literature. ... It’s able to manifest those universal truths in a particular way,” Sr. Armour says. “In the way that the English program at UDallas operates, I think it really fosters that encounter with truth.”
SAME SPIRIT, VARIED GIFTS
The Order of Cistercians enjoys perhaps the closest association with the university, having neighbored the campus since its earliest days. Room 318 in the Braniff Graduate Building is home to a tea cart, a shelf sagging under the complete works of William Faulkner, and English professor Fr. Stephen Gregg, OCist, PhD ’22, when he’s not at Our Lady of Dallas
FR. STEPHEN GREGG SITS IN HIS BRANIFF OFFICE.
Cistercian Abbey just across the road. Art prints behind his desk include a Byzantine Madonna and a page from a medieval Gospel: Et ipse Iesus erat incipiens … . His office phone, the missed call button alight, sits meekly on the floor.
A Dallas native, Fr. Gregg grew up “more or less” Episcopalian while attending Cistercian Preparatory School.
“I went to a Catholic school surrounded by these monks, so my approach to becoming Catholic was closely involved with the monastery from the beginning,” Fr. Gregg says. “For me, a lot of why I became Catholic at all, or why I’m a Christian at all, is wrapped up in being a monk.”
Even as an undergraduate at the University of the South, he felt an enduring connection to the monastery and a call to its charism of simple service.
“You have religious orders that are named after people, like the Franciscans and the Dominicans. The Jesuits kind of cheat, because they’re named after Jesus,” Fr. Gregg jokes, “but still, the idea is clear.”
By contrast, the character of the Cistercians is defined by stability. For Fr. Gregg and his brothers, that means stability in Dallas.
“If your order is named after a person, you’re imitating that person. We’re named after a place; ‘Cistercian’ is from our first monastery, Citeaux, in France. So we are living the life of a place,” Fr. Gregg says. “What am I supposed to do? I’m supposed to be in that place and live the life of that place. It’s about stability and staying there, being there, and making my work and my spiritual life mesh with what this place is doing.”
CALLED ON CAMPUS
Unlike the farms and cloisters where many Cistercian communities live out their charism, Our Lady of Dallas is immersed in a community of education. Such a territory — urban, somewhat insular, skewed young — comes with occasions for certain kinds of ministry. At most of these occasions, you’ll find Campus Minister Karen Bless, CV, BA ’15.
Bless joined the Ordo Virginum, the Order of Virgins, this summer with a consecration ceremony at the Church of the Incarnation. Unlike the Cistercians and Dominicans, members of the Ordo Virginum do not live in a distinct commu-
nity; like the Apostle Paul, Bless hopes to live and move in the world, serving as a witness to the university community at large.
“The vocation to consecrated virginity is actually one of the oldest rites of the church,” Bless points out. “If you look back at many of the early virgin martyrs, they were consecrated virgins. They gave their lives to the Lord and wanted to just be people, to dedicate themselves to Him and to the service of the church.”
a strong pull on my own heart to pursue that path,” Bless says. “The thing I’m most grateful for in being on a college campus is my hope that I can be a witness and an example to this generation.”
DILIGENT DISCIPLESHIP
“My approach to becoming Catholic was closely involved with the monastery from the beginning.”
Many UDallas alumni, like Sr. Armour and Br. Johnson, discerned the call to religious life by the example of men and women religious they met here. That’s not quite how Bless’ discernment went, but she hopes that she can be that kind of model for students after her.
“I actually discovered the vocation to consecrated virginity a little bit by accident. I was reading about the gift of celibacy as a way to understand better the vocation of many of my friends who are priests. … Reading some of those books, I felt
Students considering a life of ascetic devotion to God can enjoy conversation with a breadth of witnesses at the University of Dallas. In some measure, all at the university are ecumenically joined in the task, the occasion, the gift of seeking truth; in their continuing efforts as learners, the men and women religious of the university remind us where truth begins and guide our exploration toward it as fellow travelers. Today, Srs. Armour and Neenan are peers at the Irving campus. When she’s not wrangling freshmen in Lit Trad, Sr. Armour is still a student of literature, now in the Braniff Graduate School. I’ve had classes with Sr. Armour; she has a habit of closing her eyes when she asks questions, not bent in concentration but projecting upward, grasping for the answer somewhere else, intangible, invisible, up there; and one wonders whether this posture endured the process by which she shed her worldly identity, whether the undergraduate in Rome also looked beyond sight for the answer. In her dedication to the university as a community of learning, a community in which she and her fellow Sisters of St. Cecilia form one of many joyful parts, her search for truth continues.
KAREN BLESS
KNEELS DURING HER CONSECRATION CEREMONY IN THE CHURCH OF THE INCARNATION.
The Art of Sight
Following four years of theology and philosophy courses, Ron St. Angelo, a non-degree-seeking graduate student, joined the Legacy Society with his wife to help secure the future of the University of Dallas.
The first time he came to campus, though, was to photograph Texas Stadium from the vantage point of Braniff Memorial Tower in 1992. At the time, St. Angelo was the official photographer of the Dallas Cowboys; before that, he had served the U.S. Navy for two tours during the Vietnam War.
Now, after a life of action, St. Angelo has turned to meditation.
“When I shoot now,” he says, “I ask God, ‘Show me what you want me to see.’”
St. Angelo and his wife visited Rome recently, where they hired a tour guide who turned out to be a fellow Crusader, Kiron Rathnam, BA ’88 MA ’03. There, St. Angelo saw this statue of Teresa of Avila in St.
“As an artist, my experience of God, how He revealed Himself, was always through art, beauty, nature.”
Peter’s Basilica.
“God creates; artists recreate.”
This inscriptional frieze in the Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome, muses on observation as art: “Things in this refuge which were once fallen, disorderly and marred are now seen by Pope Paul III to be built, ordered and trimmed for firm strength, suitable use and delicate grace.”
“‘The presence of the divine’ would best describe my experience not just in Europe but also in other places. I went to the Carmelite monastery in Dallas after a snowstorm, and I asked, ‘Can I photograph the gardens?’ It was pristine. It was completely quiet, still, snow gently coming down, and I’m standing in front of the crucifix. I mean, I’m in heaven.”
Professional Patience: Golf Coach Stephanie Moorberg
INTERVIEW BY CHRISTOPHER JAY
Stephanie Moorberg became the University of Dallas men’s and women’s golf head coach this February. She brings a wealth of golfing experience as a former collegiate athlete and assistant golf professional at Hackberry Creek Country Club. She is also an active professional player, has achieved tour status on the Epson Tour, is a member of the Professional Golfers’ Association, plays on the Women’s All-Pro Tour (WAPT), and competes in sectional events in the North Texas PGA.
Can you share some of your experience as both a player and coach?
My dad is a Class A PGA professional golfer, and I credit him with teaching me everything I know about the sport. I grew up with a club in my hand, and he started taking me out when I was little. I fell in love with it and eventually went on to play in college at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. However, during my first year on the team, I was in a serious car accident. I had the same injury that Tiger Woods sustained in his car accident, actually, and I had to be hospitalized and undergo several surgeries. The whole experience was not pleasant by any means, and rehab was awful, but I remember being in the hospital and asking the doctor when I would be ready to play golf that coming spring, and he told me, “Let’s just try to get you to walk again.”
Fortunately, I was able to return to golf. A few years later, once I had my strength back and had finished rehabbing from additional surgeries, I was able to focus on turning pro. I turned pro in 2017 and have been trying to plug away at the pro game since.
What do you love most about being a coach at UDallas and being able to mentor student athletes? What do you hope to instill in them both as golfers and in life?
It wasn’t that long ago that I was in my student athletes’ shoes, and so I think that helps me relate to them on a personal level. I know what it’s like trying to make it to an early morning class after getting back late the night before from a golf tournament. It’s not always easy,
but that’s what we have to do as student athletes. One thing my car accident taught me is that life is short, and we don’t know how long we’ll be here. I hope to help my student athletes see they are getting a great education at UDallas. Many of them have wonderful plans to be doctors, lawyers and business leaders in the community of Dallas or beyond Texas. While that’s great, I want them to understand that their self-worth is not dependent on how they do on the golf course or even in the classroom. What’s most important is how they treat each other and serve their communities. I hope that my own experiences can serve as a positive light for them and encourage them to be a positive light wherever they go in life.
How has being a coach changed your understanding of golf? Has it affected your own game as a professional?
I see myself a lot in some of my student athletes. My dad and I often play together, and there have been times when he told me things that didn’t sink in. Now that I’m a coach, I’ll see student athletes doing the same things I do and realize my dad had been right!
Coaching has also helped with the mental aspect of the game. You can practice and hone your skill, which is what we do during the season to get our muscle memory down so that playing feels like second nature, but when things don’t work out as planned on the golf course, the only way to recover is to be mentally strong. I personally struggle with that, and trying to help my student athletes develop that as a coach has led to a bit of improvement in my own game.
Ministry Alumnus Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers on His Faith Journey
The novitiate-turned-cop talks about what led him to UDallas and the diaconate.
BY REBECCA GRILLOT, BA ’10
Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, MTS ’00, is an internationally renowned Catholic speaker and the author of six books. He credits the University of Dallas with laying the foundation for his passion in ministry.
As the first baptized Catholic in his family and the first to attend college, Burke-Sivers completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame on an academic scholarship. A year after graduation, he joined a monastery. But soon after, his mother fell ill, and he took a temporary leave to care for her. During that time, he met his future wife and left the monastery permanently for a career in law enforcement. Still feeling a call to serve God in the church, he studied to become a permanent deacon for the Archdiocese of Portland, which led him to the University of Dallas. Burke-Sivers speaks highly of the “rock star professors” he studied under from 1997 to 2000
as he earned his Master of Theological Studies from UDallas. The faculty and classmates he met during that time helped him realize his gift for speaking and propelled him into ministry.
“My love and my passion were without a doubt fueled by my experience at the University of Dallas,” he says. “It was more than just academic formation. … It was a holistic approach to the Catholic faith.”
The spiritual formation he received at UDallas “changed everything.”
“It changed the way I thought about my faith, the Mass; it changed the way I thought about my diaconal ministry; it really laid a very strong foundation in my life for everything that I’m doing today,” Burke-Sivers said.
On a practical level, it also connected him to the people who saw his potential as a speaker
and had the connections to launch him into that career. Burke-Sivers worked as a research assistant to Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ, who then went on to host a show on the Catholic television network
EWTN and invited Burke-Sivers to speak on one of his programs. One of Harold’s classmates, Carl Olson, MTS ’00, who later became the editor of The Catholic World Report and a prolific author, was the first to ask him to give a talk at a parish.
Burke-Sivers was ordained a deacon in 2002. He continued speaking and giving retreats part-time, but he never intended to leave his career to speak full-time. In 2001, he was named police chief for the University of Portland police force and enjoyed a successful career teaching contemporary threat assessment.
But in 2011, that all began to change. One day during adoration, Burke-Sivers had an experience where he says the Lord gave him “a very
strong interior feeling that He needed me to do a different type of threat assessment — for souls.” Burke-Sivers felt directed to take a leap of faith into full-time ministry. As he tells it, he resisted, saying, “‘Uh … no! I’m very comfortable where I am in my life right now.’ … [But] the Lord directed my gaze to a crucifix and said, ‘If you want to take your relationship with me to the next level, you gotta get uncomfortable.’”
Over the next year, he and his wife discerned his career change, and in 2012 he resigned from law enforcement and began his full-time speaking career.
Burke-Sivers has a passion for ministering to families. He often speaks to young people and addresses parents about raising children to love Jesus. As a father of four himself, Burke-Sivers says that everywhere he speaks — covering seven different countries this past year — the
number one problem parents identify is that their children have left the faith. Young people say they want to hear the truth and that they aren’t hearing it.
“Jesus says, ‘You will know the truth and the truth will set you free’ — but set you free to do what?” Burke-Sivers asks. “To become the person who God created you to be. And I think that’s what the University of Dallas does extremely well. The kind of formation the University of Dallas is offering is extremely important, especially for our culture today.”
LEARN MORE about our master's degrees in ministry: udallas.edu/graduate-ministry
TO RIGHT: NICO WALZ, BA ’24, FORMER CHAPLAIN FR. JAMES MARTIN
EUCHARISTIC PROCESSION
SIENNA ABBOTT ’25 PLAYS THE ROLE OF THE STAGE MANAGER IN THORNTON WILDER’S METATHEATRICAL CLASSIC OUR TOWN, UD DRAMA’S SPRING 2024 MAINSTAGE PRODUCTION.
AND
WALTER SKINNER, SON OF ROME RESIDENCE COORDINATORS HAILEY, BA ’22, AND SAM SKINNER, BA ’21, DEMONSTRATES CHIAROSCURO DURING A DUE SANTI WINE TASTING.
LEFT
NOBLES, OP, THURIFER BR. CASSIAN MARY AQUILA, OP,
OWEN EMBREE ’25 LEAD A
ON THE FEAST OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
THE NEW FORNO, BOUGHT WITH FUNDS RAISED THROUGH THE 2024 COR CHALLENGE, IS LIFTED BY CRANE ONTO THE RATHSKELLER PATIO.
BRANIFF FELLOW KEVIN MARSHALL, MA ’25, LEADS A WORKSHOP ON THE TRIVIUM AT THE AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM IN DALLAS.
LEFT TO RIGHT: JOE RODDA ’26, PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS RICHARD OLENICK, PHD, AND MAX BEATTY ’26 CELEBRATE THE ECLIPSE OF APRIL 8 DURING THE UNIVERSITY’S VIEWING CELEBRATION.
SATISH & YASMIN GUPTA COLLEGE OF BUSINESS DEAN J. LEE WHITTINGTON, PHD, ADDRESSES A GROUP OF PRIESTS AND DIOCESAN OFFICIALS AT A LEADERSHIP WORKSHOP FOR THE DIOCESE OF DALLAS.
THE FORNO, FRESHLY TILED, AWAITS ITS FIRST PIZZA BEFORE THE FALL 2024 SEMESTER BEGINS.
MARIA GUADALUPE MARQUEZ, WHO EARNED A CERTIFICATE IN BIBLICAL STUDIES FROM THE ANN & JOE O. NEUHOFF INSTITUTE FOR MINISTRY AND EVANGELIZATION THIS YEAR, POSES FOR A PICTURE BEFORE THE COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY IN THE CHURCH OF THE INCARNATION.
The Salon
Faculty and Alumni Art, Projects and Publications
Two psychology professors and alumni, Brittany Landrum, PhD, BA ’08, and Gilbert Garza, PhD, BA ’88, collaborated this year on a study, “Until the Shaken Snowglobe Settles: A Phenomenological Analysis of Feeling Unsettled during COVID,” published in Cyberpsychology
The H. Paxton Moore Fine Art Gallery in Dallas exhibited the work of sculptor Victoria Morales Walters, MFA ’24, this fall.
Nicolas McAfee, PhD ’22, published his first book in June. Political Wisdom in Late Shakespeare: A Way Out of the Wreck examines the ruling communities in Cymbeline, The Tempest, Henry VIII and The Winter’s Tale
Robert Hochberg, PhD, associate professor of mathematics and computer science, published an article this summer in the journal Discrete Mathematics on a geometrical problem of tetrominoes — a shape composed of four linked squares, perhaps best known from the game Tetris.
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychology Scott Churchill, PhD, recently published the book Essentials of Existential Phenomenological Research, which one reviewer in the Journal of Phenomenological Psychology called skilful, original and “refreshingly free from an overly technical terminology.”
Mary Elizabeth Cuff, PhD, BA ’10, published a meditation this summer on the vocation of motherhood titled Mother to Mother: Spiritual and Practical Wisdom from the Cloister to the Home.
This year, Routledge published Jane Austen and the Ethics of Description by Brett Bourbon, PhD, professor of English. Called “original and excellent,” the book identifies and examines the act of reasoning by description in the work of Jane Austen, specifically Pride and Prejudice.
A Little Good
Dear Alumni,
The university community is excited about the plans to build a convent on campus for the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. They embody the UDallas spirit characteristic of the order that provided the impetus — “the spark,” as Bishop Thomas K. Gorman described it — which started the university: the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur.
The Dominican project continues the tradition of inviting religious groups to establish houses on the campus perimeter. It began with the Namur House of Studies, completed in 1958. A few months later, the Cistercians finished their first building.
Did you know that this is the 151st anniversary of the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur in North Texas? They came to the area in 1873 and started establishing schools: at the primary and secondary levels, at the junior college level, and finally the University of Dallas with the Diocese of Dallas and its new bishop, Thomas Gorman.
I was thinking the other day about how fortunate the university was to have experienced educators involved in the founding. The Namurs knew about academic calendars, record keeping, required rituals and housing requirements. And how fortunate that this group of women was blessed with that practical and loving sense of humor that is central to the spirit of UDallas.
I remember in the early days, probably the late 1960s, watching Sr. Mary Margaret O’Connell,
SSMN, founding registrar, resist the Charity Week “officers” who were arresting her for the jail. She hollered and made a ruckus in the middle of the Carpenter Hall administration area while giving us instructions on running the office. We paid the fine and secured her release very promptly!
That humanness, that willingness to welcome new people and ideas, to join in good fun, permeated the character of the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur.
Sr. Cecile Faget, SSMN, was one of the professors who met with the august Louise Cowan, PhD, to re-think the English requirements. When Louise suggested that the students read fewer but entire works, which meant the university must return the books which had just arrived, Sr. Cecile was enthusiastic — even though she had to make peace with the bookstore manager, who was not too happy.
That clarity and hopefulness also seemed natural to the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who established their Southern Province on university land in 1961 (now The Highlands School). Sr. Georgianne Segner was made head of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. After chairing the Generalate meeting in Rome, Mother Georgianne realized their Rome facility was virtually empty between the gatherings every four years. In her matterof-fact way, she called President Donald Cowan, PhD, and asked if there was a way the university could use it. He and assistant Jim Fougerousse, PhD, BA ’67, had just been talking about the
need for a study abroad semester — the Rome Program was born the following fall!
But no less influential was the spirit of another School Sister of Notre Dame, Sr. Clodovia Lockett, longtime chair of the Biology Department and pre-med adviser. Her confidence in students’ ability to accomplish great things and lighthearted way of encouraging them helped achieve our high medical school placement rate, an achievement that the university still enjoys consistently today. About five feet tall, “Sister Clo” came in second to Ginger Rogers in a Dallas Charleston dance contest before she entered the order.
For many years, boys were housed on the west quad and girls on the east. Sr. Mary Ellen Williams, SSMN, the first dean of women, helped develop the rules and activities for the lively young people of the 1960s. The young
men were generously ordered by the kindly first dean of men, philosopher and artist Fr. Damian Szodenyi, OCist, one of the first Cistercians.
The west quad was greatly influenced by Fr. Damian Fandal, OP, the first Dominican to join the university. Alumnus, former trustee and lifelong friend Dan Cruse, BA ’61, described the leadership and friendship of this young priest who served as professor, chaplain, dean and acting president: “A movie buff, he would take a bunch of us along, buy dinner and talk about theology and poker.”
As UDallas grew, it continued to depend upon Sisters of St. Mary of Namur like English professor Sr. Frances Marie Manning. Her literature classes were sought after, and President Cowan turned to her to be sure UDallas history was being saved. Certainly, I depended upon the records and writings she had collected for
the 50th anniversary history volume Vision and Courage.
In honor of the celebration of the anniversary of the Namurs, Sr. St. John Begnaud, SSMN, wrote a history of the order’s work in Texas. Called A Little Good, it is a charming and important recounting. Thank you, dear Lord, for the great good the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur and others accomplished in founding the University of Dallas.
Sybil Novinski
Former Registrar, Director of Admissions, Associate Provost, University Historian Emerita
SISTERS OF ST. MARY OF NAMUR PICTURED WITH UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT F. KENNETH BRASTED IN 1955.
Senior Story: One To Remember
Commencement 2024 marked four years since the first Constantin Scholars cohort.
BY REBECCA GRILLOT, BA ’10
Four summers ago, the University of Dallas welcomed a small band of pioneers: the first cohort of incoming freshmen of the Constantin Scholars Program, a university scholarship and bridge program for Texas students who would be the first in their families to attend college. Some students had come from private Catholic schools with a good chance of seeing classmates again at UDallas; others came from public schools as populous as Coppell or as remote as Maypearl. They came to UDallas to prepare themselves variously for careers in medicine, education, business or other fields, but they all came to pursue a common dream.
Having overcome the academic and social challenges of UDallas’ college experience at their own pace, the first regular cohort of the Constantin Scholars program accomplished a major milestone in May with Commencement 2024.
Funded by the Constantin Foundation and overseen by Director of Academic Success Matthew Spring, PhD ’15, the Constantin Scholars Program began in 2020. Along with scholarship support, the program includes a 5-week summer bridge period that doubles as an introduction to the academic rigor of UDallas and an extended orientation.
Ana Babb-Henriquez, MS, BS ’20, assistant director of the Constantin Scholars Program, says the benefits of the summer bridge program are more than academic.
“When students attend the program, they learn the skill of asking for help and resources,” Babb-Henriquez says. “They also learn skills to achieve and surpass the high bars we set for all students at UDallas. Additionally, they make connections with future employers and mentors,
and they interact with students who come to UDallas with similar assets and challenges as first-generation college attendees.”
Students say that the program not only put them on level ground with their peers academically but also gave them a sense of community and belonging when they began their first semester.
Blessing Okereke, BS ’24, a biology major from Plano who plans to enter the medical field, is one of the Constantin Scholars who graduated this year. Okereke jumped into the UDallas community with both feet, eventually serving the Asian Student Association as treasurer, participating in the Dallas Refugee Project and tutoring younger Constantin Scholars. It all started with an early chance to make friends in her first year.
“For me, the Constantin Scholars program meant being able to have a social group and have people I could relate to,” Okereke said. “I didn’t feel isolated or embarrassed if I had any questions or didn’t understand what was going on in class. I had people to lean back on.”
As this first cohort of Constantin Scholars graduates, they are taking that sense of belonging and achievement from UDallas into their families, communities and workplaces.
The Constantin Scholars of the 2020 cohort are:
▪ Juanita Acosta, BA ’24
▪ Christian de Leon, BA ’24
▪ Blessing Okereke, BS ’24
▪ Bryan Velazquez, BA ’23 MAT ’24
▪ Martha Raborg, BA ’24
▪ Elias Cervera, BA ’23 MS ’24
▪ Annette Herrera ’25
Lifelong Learning in the Eternal City
ROME FIXTURE PETER HATLIE , PHD, HAS WORKED IN A LEADERSHIP ROLE IN DUE SANTI FOR ALMOST 20 YEARS. HE RETIRED AS DEAN AND DIRECTOR OF THE ROME PROGRAM LAST YEAR.
THIS YEAR, FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2005, HATLIE WORKS FULL TIME IN THE CLASSROOM — IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING.
HERE’S TO MANY MORE YEARS OF TEACHING.
Laurels
Awards and Achievements
Golfer Kimberly Burch ’25 won the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Elite 19 Award this year, becoming the first UDallas student to win the award.
Gayle Randall, DBA ’22, assistant professor of management and marketing at Angelo State University, was recently presented with the Texas Tech University System’s 2024 Chancellor’s Council Distinguished Teaching Award. Recognizing academic excellence, the honor is the most prestigious award for teaching granted to faculty throughout the Texas Tech University System.
Ondrea Amandhi Matthews, BS ’21, a doctoral candidate of the University of Notre Dame, was named a 2024-25 Graduate Justice Fellow at ND for her work on the “neuronal GPS,” a guidance system that lays the blueprint of how the early embryonic nervous system is built.
Undergraduate Saraih Mendoza ’25 won a Hispanic Scholarship Fund award, a competitive national scholarship program.
Professor and alumna Kathryn Davis, PhD ’13, was granted the Roubos Sabbatical Fellowship at the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado-Boulder to study the work of Jane Austen.
Music Department Chair Kristin van Cleve, MM, performed with the Queen’s Baroque Ensemble in Paris, France, as part of the Festival Musique at Saint-Louis-en-l’île.
Associate Professor of Cybersecurity Sandra Blanke, PhD, CISSP, received the Dallas Business Journal’s Women in Technology Award this year.
Heath Dowers, PhD (cand.), MA ’21, was recently awarded a Boren Fellowship to study Arabic in Oman and work on his dissertation, a study of the medieval philosopher al-Farabi
Ceramics professor Kelly O’Briant, MFA, gave a lecture, “Still Lifes and the Expanded Field of Ceramics,” at Hemslojdsgarden Center for Handwork, Kristlinankaupunki, Finland.
Our Sunday Visitor named counselor and evangelist Sr. Josephine Garrett, CSFN, BA ’03, a Catholic of the Year. A formerly Baptist convert, Sr. Garrett entered the Catholic Church in 2005. After working in the banking industry for several years, she began formation with the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth in 2011 and professed her final vows in 2020.
Graduate accounting student Thomas Allen, MS ’25, was recently awarded the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) scholarship for $15,000 for the 2024-25 academic year.
Accounting major Luis Esparza ’25 received a scholarship from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Legacy Scholars program, dedicated to providing tuition support to outstanding accounting students.
Ministry alumna Marylynn Wesson, DMin, MTS ’00, recently published a catechetical resource titled Building a Firm Foundation: An Invitation to Parents of Children Preparing for Sacraments. Among other resources for ministry, her work received first place in the Association for Catholic Publishers’ 2024 Excellence in Publishing Awards, and the Catholic Media Association awarded it third place in the Pastoral Ministry Catechetical category of the 2024 Book Awards.
A Venerable Complication English Professor Takes Helm of The Wallace Stevens Journal
Longtime English professor Andrew Osborn, PhD, discusses the “careerdefining honor” of his appointment as editor of The Wallace Stevens Journal. This interview has been edited for length and style.
BY ISAIAH MITCHELL
What’s it like being on the editor’s side of the desk?
I enjoy having the opportunity to improve already excellent scholarship. Sometimes what an editor does is offer a second set of eyes. The first issue for which I had primary editorial responsibility was the spring 2024 issue on Wallace Stevens and Germany. One young scholar was reading a Stevens poem from the WWII era in relation to contemporaneous statements made by Theodor W. Adorno. Toward the end of the long poem, Stevens uses the word “stanzas,” and this scholar had written that the term referred to what Stevens was composing as he wrote the poem.
But what he was generating in the poem were what I call verse paragraphs. When I teach the English Department’s Junior Poet course (“JPo”), I point out that stanza is the Italian word for room. Stanzas are formal, regular, roughly rectilinear, roughly the same size. Poets usually either write in stanzas or they write stichic verse, where they’re just piling lines into paragraph-like groupings, breaking every now and then, irregularly. But those breaks are really like a paragraph break, as opposed to quatrain, quatrain, quatrain, or tercet, tercet, tercet.
I asked myself: What does Stevens mean when he writes “stanzas”? Is he consistent? And sure enough, I was able to determine that in his prose,
in his poetry, whenever Stevens uses the term stanza, he’s talking about something like a tercet or a quatrain or a sestet. He doesn’t use that term for what I’m calling a verse paragraph. So it seemed to me unlikely that Stevens meant to be self-referential when he wrote of “stanzas” in the poem under analysis.
This scholar was making an argument about concentration camps and lockstep fascist organizations, and my distinction between free-verse paragraphs and minted-on-a-die stanzas worked to secure it. He came up with a way of incorporating the information I had shared, and I felt that this is exactly what an editor should be doing: adding value to an already really strong argument.
How would you situate Stevens in the Core Curriculum?
Every undergraduate here reads two poems from Stevens’ first book, Harmonium. “The Snow Man” absolutely belongs in the Core; it’s a poem about what becomes apparent when you have a predisposition not to be imaginative because you have “a mind of winter” and then you further hibernate the imagination. He implies that it’s very human to hear misery in what is not human, nature. The Romantics do this all the time. They treat nature as if has a capacity for expressions
like pity and misery. Stevens thinks: Well, that’s just part of what’s absolutely lovely about humankind, that it’s empathic in that way, that it wants to feather its nest and make the hostile world more comfortable by imputing to nature some of our own sensibilities. Who wouldn’t want that?
But he’s interested also in what you discover when you probe beyond such comforting fiction: to “Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”
I wish that, in lieu of “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” we assigned “Sunday Morning” or “The Emperor of Ice-Cream.” Among AngloAmerican modernists of the late 1910s and early ’20s, Stevens distinguishes himself not only by innovating prosodically but also by exploring lyric poetry as a substitute for religion. In “Sunday Morning,” you find a woman who is not at church on Sunday morning; instead, she enjoys her coffee and her oranges on her carpet with the cockatoo embroidered into it. She’s living a sensuous, not to say hedonistic, life of contemplative leisure. She wonders how guilty she should feel for not participating in the “holy hush” of ritual, for not “giv[ing] her bounty to the dead.”
“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” is a shorter poem, the two stanzas of which correspond to two rooms in a house. In the kitchen, a wake is being celebrated. A muscular guy is urged to “whip … concupiscent curds” — ice cream — as “wenches
dawdle” and “boys / Bring flowers.” The kitchen is a place of gusto, vitality. That’s where you want to be. But who’s the wake for? In the bedroom we find the corpse of a poor woman. Her dresser is made of plywood and lacks a few knobs; because the sheet is too short, the horny toenails of her feet show. The point of the poem, as I read it, is: Hey, Platonists, hey, Christians, you’re putting all of your eggs in the basket of the afterlife. You’re calling the place of which you have no physical experience “the real,” and you’re saying that what we encounter here on Earth are mere simulacra, copies of copies, of the real elsewhere. Isn’t that obviously an inversion? Life is life — in the kitchen; death is death — in the bedroom. You can treat the empty tomb from which Christ appears to have risen as evidence of His eternal omnipresence if you wish, but a hollowed rock is
more obviously symbolic of emptiness. Why isn’t vitality the best metaphor or image of vitality?
Why aren’t fatty sweets, ice cream, a better symbol of the good life?
Students at UDallas are liable to offer counterarguments as they do when they read James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It’s no doubt true that eternal paradise, if available, would beat out a dish of rocky road. But I like for my serious students to contemplate seriously how they may secure their hopes. They should push for themselves past skepticism, to earn the safe space of their doctrines. Discernment is not for the blinkered.
Is there a way in which your work as a professor is helping your work as an editor?
My job is not only to edit what comes in but also, almost more importantly, to get top-notch submissions to come in. I’m beating the bushes. For example, I’m chairing a panel on Stevens and Classicism at the 2025 Modern Language Association conference in New Orleans. That topic arose from UDallas doctoral student Peter Tardiff’s interest in Ovid and Stevens. He took Scott Dupree’s course on Ovid, and in talking to him I realized that that was an interesting subject area, so I sent out a call for papers. We received many, many responses, and Peter’s proposal was among those I selected. From the participants’ presented papers, and perhaps from several proposals that did not make the cut, I’ll try to cultivate larger academic articles that may be peer-reviewed for publication in the journal.
The Boardroom
DISPATCHES FROM THE COLLEGE OF BUSINESS.
The Effective Leader
Diocese Partners With Business Faculty for Leadership Training
J. Lee Whittington, PhD, dean of the Satish and Yasmin Gupta College of Business, led a two-day workshop in July for priests and laypeople leading ministries in the Diocese of Dallas.
“One of the core competencies we have at the University of Dallas is leadership,” Whittington said. “I’ve been teaching leadership for decades, and I realized we could develop something practical and beneficial for the Catholic community.”
PHOTO BY MICHAEL GRESHAM
Q&A: Luis Gonzalez, CEO of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of North Texas
INTERVIEW BY REBECCA GRILLOT, BA ’10
The Boardroom
Luis Gonzalez, MBA ’95, worked in finance for years before he felt called to support the Catholic Church more directly in his work. Today, Gonzalez leads the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of North Texas, a Catholic charitable organization, as CEO.
Can you start by telling me a little bit about your background before UDallas?
Before coming to the Society, I was working at a private equity firm here in Dallas in their global IT space, helping to manage their help desks. Prior to that, I had been at a small niche insurance company, and then prior to that, I had been with Allstate for 24 years or so.
I really felt very compelled, like the Lord was inviting me to consider doing something different, and I ended up discerning the opportunity to leave that private equity firm job. I felt like the Lord was calling me to do something specifically for the church in some form or fashion.
Can you describe how your faith has developed over time?
My wife and I got married and, you know, we were nominal Catholics. We would go for Easter and for Christmas. I would go on occasion on my own. She did not really grow up with a lot of involvement in the church. I was an altar boy
and everything, so I kind of felt like I needed to go more regularly. But then, we ended up going through CRHP, Christ Renews His Parish. The retreat, which is given by parishioners for parishioners, was just a complete unveiling of the way we should be living our life, and it radically changed our lives. After that, we became very open to life, and we ended up having four kids. Before that point, I was insistent that we were only going to have two kids. It’s been just an amazing transformation ever since.
Wow! That’s wonderful. And then how did you find St. Vincent de Paul?
So, I was discerning, and I saw very clearly, “Follow Me.” And then, Becca, it was like a week after I had an experience in the Adoration chapel there at St. Ann Catholic Parish that I got a cold call from an executive recruiter in the nonprofit space. I remember looking up, thinking, “That was fast.” He was recruiting for a position with another Catholic organization. The interview process opened my eyes to opportunities, but it
didn’t feel like it was a good fit. But the recruiter got a chance to know me a little bit more, so when we ended up getting the decision back from that organization that they weren’t interested any longer, he told me, “I’ve got something else that’s come across my desk that I think you might be interested in.” Once he shared with me this role, and I learned about the society, I just fell in love with everything that we’re doing. And then when I looked at the primary mission of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which is to grow the holiness of its members, that to me was everything I’ve dreamed of being able to do, everything the Lord has prepared me for in the corporate space for the past 30 years. And I just knew that this is where I needed to go.
Do you see ways in which your UDallas education from your MBA program is impacting your work today with St. Vincent de Paul?
Yes, I do, in a couple of different ways. First and foremost — and I think this even applies to the for-profit space — I saw it help me start to think more broadly and more holistically about decisions that were being made, whether it was financial or operational. And when I think about my MBA now from UDallas, and the role that I’m in, I can see where that experience and learning how to think more broadly have now equipped me for this role, because I have to be thinking about the 800 Vincentians that we have throughout all of North Texas. I have to be thinking about the 85,000 Vincentians we have nationwide, and how we potentially can be working with and impacting one another. I have to think about the relationships with all the other nonprofits in the Dallas area, about relationships with the Church, and having a vested interest in working so closely with our bishop and the pastoral center and our diocesan leaders. You know, those are all the things that just get you thinking more globally.
This interview has been edited for length and style.
Pitch Competition Turns Four
BY MATTHEW COCKRELL, ME ’25
In April, the Satish and Yasmin Gupta College of Business hosted the fourth annual Gupta College of Business Pitch Competition, designed to exhibit and reward exceptional entrepreneurial skills among the UDallas student community. Similar to the hit series Shark Tank, students and faculty compete in delivering compelling business opportunities to a panel of accomplished entrepreneurs. Although there are no financial investments or deals being made, participants were handsomely incentivized. This year’s competition sponsors were alumni-owned FB Society — the company behind Whiskey Cake, Mexican Sugar and other iconic Texas restaurants — and Gemmy Industries, which jointly contributed $6,000 in prize money for the top three contestants.
The first prize of $3,000 was rewarded to Integra, a customizable brassiere company led by Christina Peña ’24 and Devinne Green ’24. Shield Straw, a company selling an invention to detect drink tampering, led by undergraduates Brandon Caro ’25, Jaid Lehew ’25, Adolfo Rojas Zamora ’25, Janicia Gonzalez ’25, Patrick Mulvaney ’25 and Patrick Johnson ’25, won second place with a $2,000 prize. Third place and $1,000 were rewarded to Bizzi Hibbi, a healthy energy drink, led by undergraduates Peter Key ’25 and Antoine Frank ’25.
Participating in this competition is a daunting task. However, the process is an undoubtedly fruitful experience. “I am so proud to win the 2024 Gupta Business Pitch Competition,” Peña said. “Devinne and I thoughtfully considered sustainability, the needs of the community and the benefits for women in our business idea. It was hard work, but we learned a lot and had fun along the journey.”
Rojas Zamora said the project of creating a theoretical business teaches teamwork well.
“It was neat to compete while participating in a group setting,” he explained, “because each person on my team brought different talents, along with different strengths and weaknesses. We learned these things about each other and used them to our advantage.” Rojas Zamora’s team comprised several disciplines in addition to business, including biology, economics and psychology.
“The judges had a really hard job. Each of the finalist teams had a good business idea, and they presented with excitement and conviction,” said Associate Professor Scott Wysong, PhD. Such a reaction from this year’s judges is impressive, considering their success in the industry. Chili’s founder Larry Lavine, Akili CEO Shiek Shah, FB Society founder Jack Gibbons, MBA ’05, and Stephanie Hamilton, BA ’06, director of business operations and customer experience at Revinate, all recognized the efforts put into each project’s research and presentation.
“I was honored to be invited to judge the 2024 Gupta Business Pitch Competition,” said Gibbons, “and I felt excited and nostalgic at the same time, as UDallas is where my restaurant entrepreneurship journey began 21 years ago. Overall, I was impressed with the enthusiasm and ingenuity of the students and left excited for the future of the entrepreneurial programs at University of Dallas.”
Next year, the 2025 Gupta Business Pitch Competition Finals will be held on April 23 in the Constantin Boardroom in SB Hall, showcasing the university’s best entrepreneurs.
Class Notes
Got news? Tell us about it at tower.udallas.edu for inclusion in Class Notes.
1960s
Al Adams, BA ’69, met up with a group of Arkansas graduates on Groundhog Day this year to attend Mass and then have breakfast together in Little Rock. Patrice Wolfe, BA ’78, Sharon Robinette, BA ’67, John Robinette, BA ’68, Angela Nutt Nguyen, BA & BS ’89, and Linda McFall, BA ’69, joined him. Adams hopes to make a tradition of Mass and breakfast on Groundhog Day for Little Rock alumni.
1970s
Edizioni Damocle recently published a translation of Cesare Pavese’s Poems of Disenchantment and other works by Scott Davison, BA ’73. The book is now in its third printing.
Donald Carlson, BA ’78 MA ’86 PhD ’91, began his 32nd year of teaching English at Trinity Valley School in Fort Worth this year. A published poet, Carlson also launched a Substack this summer called Declined at donaldcarlson.substack.com, a place for “past or future candidates for ‘Declined’ status.”
1980s
The youngest of Yunyong (Kim’s), BA ’82, and Patrick McLain’s, BA ’80, ten children celebrated her 21st birthday this year, making the McLains empty nesters — sort of — for the first time in over 40 years. Patrick still runs an active law office in Dallas, and he and Yunyong welcome classmates who might visit UDallas to their big house in the little woods in Cedar Hill, TX.
1990s
Charlie Starr, MA ’90, hailed as a leading expert on C.S. Lewis, recently accepted a position at Northwind Seminary, where he teaches in a doctoral program covering the works of the Inklings.
Mike White, MBA ’91, walked almost 180 miles during the Camino de Santiago, a historic pilgrimage, which he completed on July 20 this year, marking the one-year anniversary of his father James’ passing.
Kathleen Miller-Lafleur, BA ’93, accepted a position at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency after over 12 years as a contractor.
2000s
Brigit (Smith) Peterson, BA ’00, and Kristi (Knuth) Quinlan, BA ’02, met for the first time at a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd formation weekend in Iowa. They were excited to find out that they were not only both UDallas graduates but also on campus at the same time.
John Wheadon, BA ’02, and William Frank, BA ’06, founded design company Studio Totus last year. Specializing in art and design for mission-driven institutions, Studio Totus has already renovated or begun construction on chapels and churches across the country.
Tyson Marx, BA ’03 ME ’06, recently returned home from a nine-month deployment in Guantanamo Bay, where he served as a Judge Advocate General (JAG) of the U.S. Navy. He is now back in Virginia, working as a partner at the law firm Ward and Berry.
Christian McGuigan, BA ’05, and Timothy Reckart, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, recently launched Sycamore Studios, a kids and family animation studio with hubs in Austin and Los Angeles. The studio will focus on creating stories rooted in “beauty, truth and goodness that elevate the vision of their audience.” McGuigan will serve as CEO, and Reckart will serve as chief creative officer.
Emily Austin, BA ’06, was granted tenure at the University of Chicago in the Classics Department.
2010s
Sean, BA ’13, and Natalie (Martinez) Mooney, BA ’18 MS ’19, welcomed their first child, Irene Catherine, in April.
Clare Slattery, BA ’19, was promoted to communications director for U.S.
Senator Chuck Grassley
Melissa Dow, MA ’18 PhD ’24, began teaching as a visiting assistant instructor in the Government Department of the University of West Florida.
Donor Honor Roll
JUNE 1, 2023 - MAY 31, 2024
The President’s Society
Members of the President’s Society are committed supporters of the University of Dallas. According to their level of annual support, members may join the Bronze, Silver and Gold Circles; with lifetime gifts of $250,000 or more, members join the Founders Circle.
The University of Dallas thanks all who join the community in the love of truth and justice. To inquire about membership in the President’s Society, contact Director of Stewardship Kevin Grillot via email at kgrillot@udallas.edu or by phone at 972-265-5851.
FOUNDERS CIRCLE
Anonymous
Walter Adams
Louis Beecherl †
Lynn and Win Bell
Randall Bono
Christopher Bright †
Jennifer Byrne
Kathy and J. Barry Clark
Suzanne and J.J. † Collmer
Lou Ann and Michael Corboy
Chris and Bainard Cowan
Louise and Donald Cowan †
Margaret † and Dan Cruse
Gayle and Daniel D’Aniello
Robert Decherd
Robert Dedman †
Joy and Ralph Ellis
William P. Esslinger †
Elvira and Tim Fitzgibbons
Danielle and Dan Flaherty
Carol and Joseph Gigler
Rev. John Gulczynski †
Yasmin and Satish Gupta
Edmond Haggar †
Beatrice Haggerty †
Mary and Patrick Haggerty
Elizabeth and Richard Husseini
Annmarie and Robert Kelly
Richard Kelly
Carlos J. Kruegel †
Terrence Larsen
Norma and Harry Longwell
Kathleen and Daniel Milligan
James Moroney †
Stacy and Frank Muller
Joe Oscar Neuhoff, Jr. †
Pat and Neil O’Brien
Vincent Pawlowski
Nancy and Sanford † Robertson
Catherine and Charles P. Schulze †
Viveca and Nicholas T. Serafy
Fanny and Philip Sheumaker
Patricia † and Rick Stark
Bonnie and John Strauss
Mary and Richard Templeton
Mary and Michael Terry
Bredow and Robert Thompson
Margaret D. and Jere W.
Thompson Sr. †
Regina Uhl
Shirley and Eugene † Vilfordi
Marjorie and Robert † Wood
Ann and Raymond Wooldridge
Jane and Manuel Zuniga
Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas
The Catholic Foundation
Constantin Foundation
David M. Crowley Foundation
David M. and Mary C. Crowley Trust
ExxonMobil Foundation
Fox Management Trusts
J.M. Haggar Jr. Family Foundation
William R. Hearst Foundation
Hillcrest Foundation
Hoblitzelle Foundation
W.M. Keck Foundation
The John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy
Memorial Foundation Inc.
Carl B. and Florence E. King Foundation
Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation
Kresge Foundation
Lilly Endowment Inc.
The J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation
David Mitchell Marcus Foundation
Eugene McDermott Foundation
The Center for Thomas More Studies
John M. Olin Foundation
Minnie K. Patton Scholarship Foundation Trust
Powers Foundation Inc.
The Rea Charitable Trust
Cordelia G. Sansone Trust
S.B. International, Inc.
Scanlan Foundation
The Sumners Foundation
Teagle Foundation
Templeton Foundation
The Robert A. Welch Foundation
YAS International, LLC
GOLD CIRCLE
Anonymous
Walter Adams
Kelly and Joe Armes
Lynn and Win Bell
Lucy and Henry Billingsley
Most Rev. Edward Burns
Mary Devlin Capizzi and Joseph Capizzi
Kathy and J. Barry Clark
Chris and Bainard Cowan
Elizabeth Dalla-Valle
Debra and Kurt Daniel
Gayle and Daniel D’Aniello
Anne Davidson
Maria and Brian Dean
Robert Dedman †
Barbara and Robert Dodson
Richard Endres
Elvira and Tim Fitzgibbons
Danielle and Dan Flaherty
Ariel and Emmet Flood
Susan and Robert Gasser
Carol and Joseph Gigler
Elizabeth and Richard Husseini
Adelaida and Allan Kagan
Annmarie and Robert Kelly
Richard Kelly
Terrence Larsen
Norma and Harry Longwell
Philip Lundman
Michael Lyons
Kathleen and Daniel Milligan
Monica and Carlo Molano
Stacy and Frank Muller
Joe Oscar Neuhoff, Jr. †
Susan and Michael Pompeo
Judith and Elray Prejean
Nancy and Sanford † Robertson
Viveca and Nicholas T. Serafy
Martha Sheridan
Fanny and Philip Sheumaker
Patricia and Paul Verderese
Shirley Vilfordi
Bridgett and Steven Wagner
Marilyn Walker
Kathleen Irvin and Dennis Walo
Teresa and Leo Wegemer
Jean and Martin White
Lely White
Marjorie and Robert † Wood
SILVER CIRCLE
Anonymous
Donna Sue Dolle and Charlie Baumann
Sarah Baker and Jack Baumann
Norma and L. Brent Bozell
Jennifer Byrne
Phyllis Carr
George Creel
Susan and Michael Cuda
Mary and Patrick Haggerty
Stacey and Thomas Hibbs
Judith and Patrick Kelly
Carin-Isabel Knoop
David LeMire
Barbara and Charles LiMandri
Mary and Richard Long
James Lyons †
Eileen and David Meinert
Delores and Charles Mihaliak
Lisa and Jeff Mobus
Lisa and Randall Muck
Kathy and Joe Murphy
Tamara and Steven Nicksic
Linda and George Pedlow
Cristin and Frank Peterson
Rachel and Graeham Rieman
Mary and Timothy Ritter
Neal Robinson
Olivia and Mark Seitz
Susan and Thomas Stanzel
Rick Stark
Kelly and Edgar Tavares
Cindy Marshall and Duc Tran
Tammy and Michael Wehrle
Jayne Williams
Michelle and Thomas Williamson
† Members who have passed
Denise and Stephen Zabilski
Enrica and Aldo Zocchi
BRONZE CIRCLE
Anonymous
Megan and Alan Anz
Theresa and Christopher Archer
Leslie Harris-Baptista and Edward Baptista
Linda and Donald Bendure
Monique Bimler
Catherine Bellan Bitterman and James Bitterman
Margaret and David Brecount
Anne and Andrew Carriker
Nadine and Thomas Craddick
Kathy and Harlan Crow
Kristina and Joseph Cyr
Catherine and Henry Daboub
Kelli and John DeGeeter
Catherine Devlin
Kimberly and John Donnelly
Patricia and John Dyer
Elizabeth and John Eastman
Jay Flaherty
Donna and Louis Grabowsky
Thomas Harrover
Katie and Phil Holthouse
Julie and Francis Hubach
Tara and Joseph Judge
Phyliss and Tony Lauinger
Lucy and Shane Macaulay
Wendy and Michael Magusiak
Mikail McIntosh-Doty
Danielle and Madison Milliken
William Mumma
Elise and Burk Murchison
Shannon and Thomas Nealon
Dana and Mark Peterman
Richard Pierucci
Jo Ann Yanagimoto-Pinedo and Adrian Pinedo
Karen and Ken Richelsen
Robert Rooney
Rebecca and Jonathan Sanford
Valerie and Michael Schierl
Megan Smith
Kathryn and William Stigall
Dorothy and William Tennant
Regina Uhl
Anne-Marie and Bernard Vogel
Marion and Roy Wadsworth
Julie and John Weber
Joanna and Steven Abbott
Julie and David Abell
Corlin and Wayne Ambler
Carol Anderson
Joan and Paul Arnold
Ann and Cyrus Artz
David Atkinson
Tina Azamar
Stephanie and Fabius Bascon
Michael Beauchamp
Eric Beeby
Gordon Bennett
Terry and William Biggins
Cynthia and Jeffrey Bishop
Mary Ann Bitter
Elizabeth and John Bloch
Linda and Thomas Boedecker
Eileen and Stephen Boffa
Virginia and Thomas Bonifield
Pamela and Curtis Bounds
Abby Bova
Mary Therese and Robert Breger
Katherine and David Bridges
Angela Brodrick-Donohue and Tom Donohue
Nathaniel Brown
Michelle and Patrick Butler
Linda and William Butterfield
Kimberely and Timothy Byrne
Janis and Joel Carpenter
Joseph Carson
Dian and Richard Carville
Roberta and Richard Case
Joseph Castorino
Richard Cavell
Jody and Curtis Chang
Paula Ciprich and Gregory Migdal
Susan and Daniel Clifford
Katherine Coerver
Maryann and Samuel Coleridge
Constance Connelly
Bonnie and Brian Cox
Rebecca and Dean Crawford
Trang and Scott Crider
Sr. Yolanda Cruz
Jonathan Cunningham
Anne and Timothy Daly
Debra and Paul Danaher
Eileen and James D'Avignon
Daniel Davis
Cheryl and Ricky Dean
Jane Delahanty
James Denison
Bonnie and Timothy DeWitt
Julie and Sean Doherty
Kinga and Peter Doris
Laura and Dominic Dougherty
Jennifer and Jacob Dreisbach
Ann Ellis
Emily and John Ellison
Nancy and Jonathan Erickson
Donna and Allen Ernster
Bernadette and Paul Esposito
Patricia and David Estes
Victoria Farrington
Donovan Farrow
Suzanne and Mark Faulkner
Bernard Felefli
Roger Finke
Saundra and Ralph Fitzgerald
Barbara and John Flatley
Gale and Mike Florence
Most Rev. Daniel Flores
The President’s Society (continued)
Joan French
Jackie and Roy Fuentes
Patricia and Michael Gaffney
Martha and Alex Galbraith
Robert Galecke
Teresa Gallagher
Brandie and Timothy Gehan
John Gibbons
Josephine and Harry Gieske
Jon Gonzalez
Joseph Graham
Bridget and Edward Gramling
Sheila and Christopher Gramling
Rebecca and David Gregory
Isabel and Thomas Greuling
Barbara Gruner
Catherine and Robert Haaser
Nancy and Michael Hall
Rev. Emmett Hall
Robert Hansell
Patricia and William Hanson
Jacob Harbour
Frederick Hawryliw
Emily Hebert
R. David Heekin
Elizabeth and Roy Heyne
Jon Paul Heyne
Rita and Joseph Hogan
Cherie and Jason Hohertz
Marion and Donald Holec
Janet and Charles Hon
Natalie and Michael Horak
Vallery and Joseph Hrbacek
Barbara and Gordon Hutchins
Kathleen and Randy Irlbeck
Yolanda and Edwin Jacobs
Karen and John Jakuback
Barbara and Thomas Janas
Joanne and Gary Johnson
Matthew Johnson
Stephen Joyce
Anne and Michael Judge
Chrissie and William Keffler
Dolores and Mark Kelly
Most Rev. Greg Kelly
Richard Kelly
Theresa Kelly
Marguerite and Mike † Kiegerl
Holly and Scott Kim
Andrew Kovoor
Mary and Gregory Kresyman
Peter Krewet
Ruth Krusen
Erin and George Kuhn
Karen and Christopher Kuplack
Michelle and David La Rosa
Elizabeth LaFrance
Ralph Lamberti
Kendra Lamboy and Kevin Young
Estelle and James Lara
Kathleen and Michael LaValle
Linda and Michael Lee
Teresa Danze and Kyle Lemieux
Susan and John Lenczowski
Irene and Steven Leonard
Ann and Jerome Lerner
Aaron Linderman
Nancy and William Littell
Ann Marie and Andrew Love
Mary Mackenzie
Thomas Magnor
Catharine and Patrick Maher
Mary and David Manuszak
Jennifer and Michael Marcella
James Martin
Donald McAllister
Thomas McBride
Mary and Barry McCain
Dorothy and Mike McCaughey
Germana and Gerard Mitchell
Andrew Moran
Marguerite Mosack
Betsy and William Moss
Claire and Mark Mrozek
Susan and Stan Muckenthaler
Josephine and Michael Murray
Erlinda and Charles Neubecker
Elisabeth and Stephen Nichols
Emilie and James Niedermeyer
John Norris
Angela Nutt Nguyen and Duong Nguyen
Demetria and Timothy O'Conner
Antoinette and Michael Offenheiser
Monica and Daniel Oldenburg
Mary and Edward Oleksiak
Nicholas Olson
Veronica O'Neil
Diane and Jesse Orsini
Sheila and Gabriel Paris
Elizabeth and Nathaniel Parker
Jeanne and John Parker
Marnie and Carl Parmenter
Julie and Robert Pecha
Mary and John Peisen
James Petzel
Joseph Phelan
Kathryn and Jeffery Phillips
Sarah and Michael Phillips
Patricia Gilmore Pierret and Steven Pierret
Scott Pirnie
Barbara and James Pitstick
Catherine and Gregory Pivarunas
Laura and Peter Quinn
Jo Anna and Andrew Rawicki
Patricia and Bennett Rawicki
Robert Reinke
John Rhodes
Libby and Don Richardson
Ann Rindone
Carol Ritter
Bobbi and James Roberts
Veronica and William Rodda
Paula and Ian Rutherford
Carley and Paul Rydberg
Mary and Stephen Safranek
Carol and Richard Schenk
Cheryl and Stephen Schmidt
Christine and William Sei
Anne and Jack Sellers
Erika and Neil Shah
Nancy Shelton
Anita Shorosky
Jennifer and Ronald Spielman
Kathleen Spivey
Alice Starr
Harriet and Larry Stewart
Alice and John Stirton
Eleanor and Alfred Stoebner
Ashley and Daniel Streett
Rhonda and David Stryk
Ann Stuart
Karen and David Sweet
Rebecca and Dennis Teti
Sara and Ronald Thomas
Nancy Uhl
Patty and Alex Valadka
Marina and Tomy Vengalil
Matthias Vorwerk
Caryn Vukelich
Lisa and Peter Wade
Rodney Walter
Karla and Martin Warborg
Bernadette Waterman Ward and Alan Waterman
Katherine and David Weisbruch
Janet and Martin Weisse
Carole and Douglas Brent Wells
Sara Werth
Mary and Michael West
Margaret White
Cathy and Gary Wilkinson
Jeanne and James Williams
Robert Williams
Marsha Martinez-Wylie and Kevin Wylie
Catherine and Clark Zentner
Deborah and Gary Zimmerman
COMPANIES AND FOUNDATIONS
Albertsons Companies
Aramark Corporation
Ben G. Barnett Foundation
The Theodore and Beulah Beasley Foundation Inc.
James Brian Beauchamp Charitable Trust
Bradley Impact Fund
The National Catholic Bioethics Center
Roman Catholic Diocese of Brownsville
Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas
The Catholic Foundation
Constantin Foundation
The Sursum Corda Foundation
Council of Independent Colleges
Enterprise Holdings
The Craig and Kathryn Hall Foundation
HES Facilities Management
Hoblitzelle Foundation
Italian Club of Dallas
The John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy
Memorial Foundation Inc.
Larsen Foundation
First Liberty Institute
Lilly Endowment Inc.
The Jack Miller Center
The Center for Thomas More Studies
O.L.D. Land Development
Otten Foundation
Community Foundation Of The Ozarks
The Legacy Society
The Legacy Society recognizes the generosity and foresight of those who secure the future of the University of Dallas through planned giving. Legacy Society members are committed to ensuring the university remains academically strong and financially sound, now and into the future.
To inquire about bequests to the University of Dallas, contact Vice President for Development and University Relations Ashton Ellis, JD, PhD, via email at adellis@udallas.edu or by phone at 972-721-4025.
Anonymous
The Honorable Stephanie, BA ’88, and Fabius Bascon, BA ’88 MBA ’89
David Michael and Barbara Bauer, BS ’66
Michael “Misha” E. Belcher, BA ’72
Win S. Bell Jr. and Lynn Bell
Robert G. † and Anne Butler Britton, BA ’65
O.D., BA ’61, and Margie † Cruse
Dominic Del Curto, BA ’18
Michael J. Dixon, BA ’85 MBA ’87
Michael and Mary Jo McGehee † Dorn, MA ’10
John, BA ’82, and Elizabeth Eastman
Billie Ellis † and Ann C. Lang-Ellis, BA ’70
Kelly Frances Fanning, BA ’92
Lisa M. Gabriel, BA ’90 MBA ’12
Joseph Gavigan, MBA ’00
Shahul and Philomena Hameed
Cristen Hamilton, MA ’05
David K. and Tricia A. Hoffmann
John W. Ingram, BA ’90
Todd, BA ’12, and Mary Jacobson
Edward B. Jr. and Linda E. Janeczko
Michael and Anne Judge, BA ’02
Robert, MA ’92 PhD ’95, and Annmarie
Flynn Kelly, BA ’91
The Most Reverend Greg Kelly, BA ’78 MDiv ’82
S.M. † and Marguerite Kiegerl
Joy Davis Kirsch, BA ’85
Carl Kogut, BA ’80
Estelle Tovar Lara, BA ’67 MA ’74
Jerome J., BA ’60, and Ann R. Lerner
Janet Hui MacDonald, MS ’07
J. William McFarland Jr.
Mikail M. McIntosh-Doty, BA ’81
Daniel, BA ’91, and Kathleen Uhl
Milligan, BA ’91 MBA ’95
Madison, BA ’11 MBA ’15, and Danielle Schumer Milliken, BA ’10
Andrew Damian Moran, BA ’91 PhD ’03
Charles B. and Erlinda Neubecker
Thomas J. Norman Jr. and Bertha B. † Norman
Lyle † and Sybil Novinski
Vincent R. Pawlowski, BA ’85
Mike Perkins, BA ’78, and Sharon Kapavik Perkins, BA ’79 MA ’89
James C. Petzel, BA ’75
Michael Pitstick, BA ’15 MBA ’20
John M. Posey, BA ’87 MA ’89
Mr. and Mrs. Elray D. Prejean
Laura Felis Quinn, BS ’86 MBA ’18
Charles “Ted” and Carolyn Rekerdres, BA ’73
Leonard C. † and Peggy Ruby
Denis, BA ’91, and Chrisy Ryan
Elia Abigail Santos, MS ’19
Philip Sheumaker, BA ’90 MBA ’93, and Fanny Baltazar Sheumaker, BA ’88 MBA ’91
Denis and Denise Simon
Megan Anne Smith, BA ’02 MBA ’19
Sarah D. Sokora, BA ’15 MS ’22
Ron St. Angelo
Jason Wu Trujillo
Matt and Clare Venegas
Minnie K. Patton Scholarship Foundation Trust
PJ Quinn Inc.
Scanlan Foundation
Schneider Properties of Lake Norman
William A. Solemene Charitable Foundation
The Sumners Foundation
Teagle Foundation
The Robert A. Welch Foundation
Bridgett G., BA ’81, and J. Steven Wagner
Lely K. White
Francis “Fran,” BS ’86, and Nancy Williams
Robert E. † and Marjorie Wood
Donald L. Yandell, BA ’62
Chafic Abiraad †
Bernard J., BA ’72, and Diana P. Bennett †
Dorothy Evelyn Beyer †
Neil and Jo Anne Campbell †
Cherie Clodfelter †
Donald and Louise Cowan †
Wayne LeMay Crawford, BA ’65 †
Robert H. Dedman †
William P. and Marie Esslinger †
Lorand Fekete and Edith Rossi Fekete †
Walter “Lee” Fleming III †
Bernard Kim Foreman, MA ’92 †
Patrick Haggerty †
James Michael Lyons †
James M. Lotochinski, BA ’83 †
James “Jim” W. Maney, III ’65 †
Frank K. Ribelin †
Archy M. Roper †
Charles P. and Catherine Schulze †
The Reverend John Ladislaus Vincius †
Msgr. Thomas W. Weinzapfel †
In Memoriam
Undergraduate student Vinh Nguyen ’25 passed away on June 30 due to complications from leukemia. Vinh was surrounded by his family, and the university chaplain had celebrated Mass with them earlier that day. The university invites all members of the community to pray for Vinh’s soul and for the consolation of those who loved him.
Life Trustee Joe Oscar Neuhoff passed away in the spring of this year. Following his father’s retirement from the Board of Trustees in 1971, Joe Oscar Neuhoff joined the board and served the university for over 50 years. A steadfast supporter of science and ministry, Joe Oscar’s parents are the namesake of the Ann and Joe O. Neuhoff Institute for Ministry and Evangelization.
Former President John Sommerfeldt, PhD, professor emeritus of history, passed away in December. An accomplished medievalist, he was the principal organizer of the International Congress of Medieval Studies, which led the field in welcoming young scholars and remains the largest annual conference of medieval studies.
In April, the university lost Professor Emeritus of Management Bruce Davish Evans, MBA, who taught at UDallas for more than 50 years. A pioneer in business education, Professor Bruce, as he was affectionately known to his students, established the Capstone Experience of the MBA program.
Michael Boeding, who came to Constantin College in 1960, died peacefully with his family by his side in March. A natural athlete, Michael played baseball and basketball at the university, where he met his wife Kathleen (Grothaus), BA ’64. Michael volunteered in the Stephen Ministry and RCIA program at St. Rita Catholic Community.
Awarded economist Samuel Bostaph, PhD, who served as a member of the faculty for 30 years, passed away last fall. Of the Austrian school of economics, Dr. Bostaph contributed often to the Mises Institute and authored a book, Andrew Carnegie: An Economic Biography
Marlene Cabatu Hammerle, BA ’69, who devoted her career to education, passed away quietly in July.
Anne Christine Morris Christensen, BA ’82, beloved wife, mother, grandmother, sister, scholar and advocate, passed away in January. A faithful Catholic who deeply revered the liturgy, Anne earned her BA in English from the University of Dallas and inspired several of her brothers and children to also attend. She is survived by her husband of 36 years, Mark J. Christensen; her children John, Christina, BS ’13, Elisabeth, BA ’20, Katrine, BA ’20 MBA ’23; and grandsons Damien and Felix
Devoted husband and career leader Thomas J. Davis, MBA, who received his master’s degree in management from the university in 1994, passed away in his Nebraska home on July 4.
Alumna Carol (Ostermann) Dougherty, BA ’83, husband of Tim Dougherty, BA ’83, and sister of several alumni, died in April of this year. A beloved teacher, Carol served as a catechist with Tim at Mary Immaculate Church in Farmers Branch, TX, for several years.
In the company of her loved ones, Cathleen Lawrence Philips, BA ’67, passed away in April. One of the university’s early Fulbright
Grant awardees, Cathleen studied abroad in France at the University of Rennes and Sorbonne University.
Art alumna Sr. Maria Liebeck, DC, MA ’68, passed away in July. Sr. Liebeck served as a teacher for decades and worked in pastels and watercolors, often painting American landscapes and Christian scenes.
Don Nelson, BA ’66, a lasting member of the university community who treasured his UDallas friends, passed away in July.
Dedicated teacher and loving mother Sharon Louise O’Neill Miller, BA ’63, passed away in June. At the University of Dallas, Sharon studied English, speech and drama, which she taught for 45 years.
Philanthropist and civic activist Joy Schectman Mankoff, MA ’80, died at her home in Dallas in June. Joy served on the boards of many civic organizations, including Temple Emanu-El; Literacy Instruction for Texans; the Dallas Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies; the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dallas; the Dallas Symphony; and the Dallas Opera, which she served as vice chair.
Julie (Smith) Shockley, BA ’65, passed away in February at her home. She is survived by her husband of 59 years, Hepler Shockley, BA ’61, as well as five children, 11 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Dallas real estate agent and philanthropist Michael Wyatt, MBA ’91, passed away last year. Michael patronized and led several local causes, serving in board and participatory roles with the Texas State Fair Livestock Auction and Scholarship Committee, S.M. Wright Christmas in the Park, and Preservation Dallas. Michael received the university’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2007, and he was inducted into the Gupta College of Business Hall of Fame in 2020.
Confidently Independent
“What's in a name?” Juliet asks Romeo, promptly to deliver the answer herself: “That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet. / So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, / Retain that dear perfection which he owes / Without that title.”
In short, nothing is in a name, Juliet proposes; any name may serve as well as any other. A marketing professional might want to differ. A brand name must be distinctive and resonate with the target audience. Even universities, who are competing for recognition and for students, deploy significant efforts to find the right tagline to set them apart from their competitors, often resulting in the formulation of a contrived participial tricolon such as “The University of Dallas: Cultivating Wisdom, Discerning Truth, Forming Virtue.” I made this up, of course, but such could have been a new tagline for our university, barely distinguishable from similar taglines of peer institutions.
Fortunately, a market study revealed that we already have a tagline that, in fact, resonates well with many audiences: “The University of Dallas: The Catholic University for Independent Thinkers.”
Not everyone likes it, but I am confident it describes succinctly who we are as a Catholic liberal arts university. Those who disagree will argue that “Catholic” and “independent thinker” are not complementary terms. Either one is a Catholic and, therefore, not an independent thinker, or one is an independent thinker and, therefore, must not be a Catholic.
This dichotomy, however, seems to be a fallacy of false alternatives.
To be an independent thinker requires a grasp of first principles, experience with sound reasoning, and familiarity with a variety of subject matters that inform one’s reasoning. Students learn all of this, but, at some point, they cease to be learners and become knowers and practitioners. In fact, that is the goal of their education. It is not an absolute independence they achieve, but a relative independence, grounded in reality, the order of reason and, ultimately, God, the source of all things.
Catholic liberal arts education is confident, then, that there exists a complementarity between the use of natural reason and the acceptance of revealed truth, such that neither one destroys but rather grows and nourishes the other. This is what the University of Dallas’ name signifies, and what a sweet smell it is that it carries with it into the world.
Matthias Vorwerk, PhD Provost
