Tower Magazine, Fall 2023

UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS

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C AT H O L I C L E A R N I N G E D U C AT I N G THE WHOLE PERSON THE DOCTOR MACHINE O’HARA PROGRAM TURNS 50 BREAK A LEG DRAMA AND MUSIC, PA S T A N D P R E S E N T

A Student’s Guide to a Life Well-Lived

Local Lore

Features

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S O M E T H I N G O L D, SOMETHING NEW

LIBERTY VS. LICENSE

B O OT C A M P FOR CHEMISTS

UD’s performing artists keep the classics alive.

What Greg Roper learned from bacon.

The O’Hara Chemical Sciences Institute turns 50 this year.

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O P T I M A LW O R K I N F O C U S

SENIOR STORIES

FINDING RESILIENCE

A lifelong Thomist and alumnus puts psychology to work.

See where a few of the latest UD grads are headed.

Counselors at one of the nation’s happiest campuses are rebels.

O N T H E C O V E R : D E A N O F S T U D E N T S G R E G R O P E R , P H D, B A ’ 8 4 , K I C K S O F F D I S O R I E N TAT I O N 2 0 2 3 .

C H A R L I E S P U R G I N , B A ’ 2 3 , A N D LO R E T TA BOND, BA ’23, CO-STARRED AS THE CLEVER FIGARO AND HIS ARCH FIANCÉE SUZANNE I N T H E M A R R I A G E O F F I G A R O , U D D R A M A’ S SPRING 2023 M AINSTAGE. THEY’RE NOW E N G A G E D.

Recurring 03 The Grapevine

22 The Salon

07 Intermezzo

28 Laurels

08 Magnanimous

33 The Boardroom

10 The Mall

36 Class Notes

The latest in UD news.

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Your feedback is welcome. Letters to the editor can be sent to: University of Dallas Office of Marketing and Communications, 1845 E. Northgate Dr., Irving, TX 75062; towermagazine@udallas.edu.

TOWER IS PUBLISHED TWICE ANNUALLY BY THE OFFICE OF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS COMMUNITY. THE UNIVERSITY DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE ON THE BASIS OF SEX IN ITS PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES. ANY PERSON ALLEGING DISCRIMINATION IN VIOLATION OF TITLE IX MAY PRESENT A COMPLAINT TO THE TITLE IX COORDINATOR. THE COORDINATOR ASSISTS IN AN INFORMAL RESOLUTION OF THE COMPLAINT OR GUIDES THE COMPLAINANT TO THE APPROPRIATE INDIVIDUAL OR PROCESS FOR RESOLVING THE COMPLAINT. THE UNIVERSITY HAS DESIGNATED INELDA ACOSTA, EDD, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF CIVIL RIGHTS AND TITLE IX. SHE CAN BE REACHED AT 972-721-5056. THE HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICE IS LOCATED ON THE FIRST FLOOR OF CARDINAL FARRELL HALL, AND THE PHONE NUMBER IS 972-721-5382.

Rome in focus.

Philanthropic spotlight.

Connect with alumni.

Art, projects and publications.

Awards and achievements.

Dispatches from Gupta.

©UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS 2023. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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The Grapevine The latest in UD news.

FROM THE PRESIDENT

PRESIDENT

Jonathan J. Sanford, PhD VP FOR MARKETING & C O M M U N I C AT I O N S

Clare Venegas SENIOR EDITOR

Isaiah Mitchell DESIGNER

Daniela Madriz CONTRIBUTORS

Bonnie Baldwin, BA ’23 Ollie Bockwinkel, BA ’15 Aaron Claycomb Matthew Cockrell, ME ’25 Sheri Collier, MBA ’19 Gema Guevara, MA ’25 Chris Hazell Nathan Hunsinger Rich Kelly, MTS ’00 Bradley Newton Sybil Novinski Greg Roper, PhD, BA ’84 Jonathan J. Sanford, PhD Amy Fisher Smith, PhD Deanna Soper, PhD Ken Starzer Clare Venegas Matthias Vorwerk, PhD J. Lee Whittington, PhD Megan Wagner, MH ’16 Scott Wysong, PhD

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A Unified Life

hen I interviewed for the position of dean of Constantin College more than eight years ago, I called my wife Rebecca at the end of the day and told her that, despite the distance between Irving and our hometown, I felt like I had at last come home. I was bowled over by the intellectual vitality and collegiality of our faculty and students and the manner in which an earnest desire for the truth and a thirst for wisdom were manifest. I knew at once that these were my people.

There is no question that the life of the mind and the intellectual virtues that nourish it are alive and well at the University of Dallas. But the life of the mind is not something set apart from the rest of the lives of our students, faculty and staff. Our university is not just marked by intellectual vivacity; it is marked by vivacity per se. Just as each of us is not a soul that inhabits a body, but rather a fully integrated embodied being, so too the intellectual virtues cannot be fully exercised without the complementarity of the moral virtues. This is why our mission orients us not just to truth and wisdom, but to virtue as well.

At the same time, an excellent intellectual formation does not guarantee moral goodness.

This is a point that St. Cardinal John Henry Newman makes with great care in The Idea of a University. We can learn to be attentive to things themselves, to appreciate the manner in which the various disciplines make unique contributions to knowledge and complement each other to cultivate a unity of knowledge, even while failing to cultivate those virtues that make us both good and holy persons. This is why Newman also wrote on and implemented a rich approach to the residential and other cultural features of the university. You can have approximations toward and intimations of the intellectual virtues without having them fully. You can have a certain sort of wisdom without being truly wise in the sense of a unified cerebral and moral wisdom. The quality of those many features of campus culture that we organize under the title of Student Life matters tremendously if one has the goal, as we do, of educating the whole person.

I am so grateful to the remarkable ways in which our Student Affairs Office staff, under the inspired leadership of our longtime English professor and Dean of Students Gregory Roper are endeavoring to realize fully Newman’s vision for the university by ensuring the intellectual virtues are integrated with the moral and theological in the lives of our students. Enjoy the glimpse this issue provides into facets of University of Dallas culture that too often escape notice.

Jonathan J. Sanford President, Professor of Philosophy

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From the Field

BY ISAIAH E. MITCHELL

‘Magical’: Students Study Biology, Phenomenology in Costa Rica

After a week of class in Costa Rica, politics major Patricio Rodriguez ’25 remembers watching a school of fish swell and shrink with the waves in a manner that reminded him of respiration, the pulse of the great lungs of the sea. He remembers the flowers that hang heavy in the cloud forest of Monteverde. But he especially cherishes a sight that cannot be photographed: the afterimage of a crater pool, lingering blue and spectral in his eye over the peak of the Volcán Poás.

Along with the tropical jungle, Soper’s research trips have taken students to national laboratories, sea turtle hospitals and the ocean floor.

“I was talking with Dr. Scott Churchill. We were looking into the crater lake, and as we were walking back from it, he said, ‘Do you see an afterimage?’ And I asked him, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘You were staring at the pond for so long. Do you see this little blue thing in your vision?’ And I close my eyes,” Rodriguez recalls.

“I never thought that I’d be that affected by being in nature. I just don’t know how to describe it. It was just so magical,” Bedolla said. “I’ve been talking to my fellow students that went on the trip, and they also feel so affected by it. It makes us think about nature in a completely different way.”

“I remember seeing the blue pond oval.

And I look up. … I remember seeing the clouds come in; you could see the mist move, and everyone was taking photos of that. And I thought, no, that’s not something you can capture with a camera. That’s the afterimage. You look at the clouds, and you can still see that little blue pool.”

Rodriguez was one of seven students who accompanied biology professor Deanna Soper and newly retired psychology professor Scott Churchill, PhD, on a trip to study ecology and ecopsychology in Costa Rica.

While in the country, students visited multiple ecosystems, including the cloud forest in Monteverde, the seaside near Quepos, the Arenal volcano and the Poas Volcano, home to the world’s second-largest crater. Students observed diverse plants and animals, attended lectures in the field and participated in class discussions to reflect on their experiences.

Soper and Churchill frequently take the class out of the classroom. Churchill regularly visits the zoo with psychology students to see apes’ ability to communicate, and Soper takes students to Florida every other year to study corals and retrieve samples.

As Soper says of her adventures, “Obviously my first home has to be walking around in the terrestrial environment. My second home is the ocean, and my third home is on the back of a horse.”

Biology major Monique Bedolla ’24, one of the students who went on the Costa Rica trip, has worked as a research assistant in Soper’s lab since her freshman year. She called the excursion “magical.”

Rodriguez and Bedolla both say the experience changed the way they see the world.

Most of the students and both professors have returned to microscopes and papers; even so, the trip leaves a faint but irreproducible image lingering in their eyes.

“It’s a very important class to take because it makes you think about the way we live,” Rodriguez said.

“It helps reshape your view of the earth as a human, your connection to other humans, animals and the earth.”

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2023 Undergraduate Research Day Demonstrates Beauty of Liberal Arts Education

BY MEGAN WAGNER, MH ’16

The University of Dallas held its third annual Undergraduate Research Symposium last spring with projects from a variety of disciplines.

Topics included the medieval art and architecture of Gotland, the psychology of birth control, aircraft materials, fatal pathogens, coral reefs and more. Several students had already shown their work at national conferences or successfully submitted their research for publication.

Ellen Steinmiller, PhD, chair of the Department of Chemistry, helped establish the symposium with Assistant Professor of Biology Drew Stenesen, PhD. “I think the symposium is one of the most important events that we have on campus because it is a celebration of our students and the work they have generated as a result of their UD education,” Steinmiller said.

“UD has a rich history of students being selected to conduct research at other universities in the summer through programs such as the highly competitive National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates.

Other students are presenting work that they conducted in UD faculty research labs.”

The poster symposium began in 2018 with 30 students presenting research in math and the sciences. Steinmiller says the idea first took shape on a road trip.

“The poster session originated from a conversation I had with a group of chemistry students as we were driving back from a conference,” she said.

“We were brainstorming ideas on how we could promote the research of our students, so we decided to organize a poster session in conjunction with National Undergraduate Research Week.”

After the success of the first symposium, and with the support of physics professor Sally Hicks, PhD, former interim dean of Constantin College, the symposium returned in 2019 and grew to include other disciplines. The second annual Research Day included projects from 13 departments, including an art exhibition.

UD’s symposium wasn’t the first stop for every project, Steinmiller pointed out.

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“Many of the posters and presentations have already been presented at regional and national conferences. For example, most of the chemistry posters this year had already been presented at the National American Chemical Society meeting in Indianapolis in March, and Joseph Beam’s physics presentation featured work that was just accepted for publication,” Steinmiller said.

Beam, BS ’23, a physics major, conducted research from 2020 to 2022 on a material commonly used to coat the blades of jet turbines. The conclusions he reached with physics professor Said Bakkar, PhD, and Cerium Labs were recently published in the Journal of the American Ceramics Society.

The Department of Biology was well-represented at the symposium as well. Several biology and biochemistry majors presented posters, including Caleb Biney ’24, whose research focused on host-pathogen interactions over multiple generations.

Another student, art history major Virginia Kendall, BA ’23, followed her research in a different direction. Kendall traveled to Gotland to study the art and architecture of medieval churches.

Because of this dearth of scholarship on her topic, Kendall had to rely on her own translation skills as well as her notes. She hopes to publish a book on the subject someday, and she has already presented at the Medievalists and Early Modernists of North Texas and Oklahoma (MEMNTO) conference.

“I look forward to this event each year,” Steinmiller said. “It is a great opportunity to recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of UD’s students.”

UD Faculty, Students Shine at Science Conference What makes science programs different at the University of Dallas?

UD students, whom Toby called “just phenomenal,” presented research alongside them.

For one UD biology professor, it’s the work ethic of the students and the faith of the institution.

“Our UD research students have gone literally toe to toe with students at other institutions — Baylor, UTSW — and they’ve fared very well,” Toby said.

Scientists from around the country gathered on campus in March for the MidSouth Computational Biology and Bioinformatics Society (MCBIOS), a conference led by UD’s own Inimary Toby, PhD, assistant professor of biology.

MCBIOS is devoted to the development of bioinformatics and computational biology.

Unlike some other academic conferences, the organization has a practical bent. This year’s conference presentations generally aimed at answering a question that aligns with UD’s own goal of meaningful, virtuous education: How can bioinformatics help people?

Presenters shared a variety of answers. The various research tools that were discussed, some created by the presenters themselves, offer “new ways of assessing data points,” in Toby’s words — nimbler, faster and smarter ways to treat breast cancer, catch criminals or grow more crops, to name a few.

Contributors included both academic and professional scientists. Some speakers boasted positions or experience in leading companies such as McKesson, AstraZeneca or Amazon Web Services. Researchers came from the University of Birmingham, the University of Texas Southwestern (UTSW), the University of Pennsylvania, Emory University and the National Center for Toxicological Research, among other institutions.

UD sent a strong contingent of our own. Along with Toby, presenters included professors Saadia Bihmidine, PhD, Erick Chastain, PhD, Renita Murimi, PhD, and Prajay Patel, PhD.

For Toby, it makes a difference that UD students do their own research for the projects they present, unlike other institutions that delegate the task of articulating the work to students who might not be familiar with the whole project.

“I think what makes our students unique is that they are actually the ones doing the project. So, in other words, it’s not like they’re working with a grad student and the professional scientist or the professor is nowhere to be seen,” Toby said.

“For some of the larger institutions, where they may not be the ones doing the work, the students are usually told, ‘Well, you do this piece and just tell us what you get.’ But for projects like what they’re doing in my lab, they own the project. So it’s really, really cool to see when they come up with the results because they’ve done all the work, stayed in the lab, maybe come in during the night to check on some instruments that are running.”

Along with students’ command of the material, Toby noticed something else special about UD at the conference: faith. A faculty member that visited the conference sent Toby a note of appreciation for the hospitality and Christlikeness she saw.

“She says, ‘It is uplifting to see you and your students shining bright for God’s kingdom in this secular world,’” Toby relayed. “‘I’m so delighted to learn about the University of Dallas through this meeting. There are very few schools like this left in the world.’ … That was touching to me.”

UD Attains Top Tier in National Ranking for Well-Rounded Core Curriculum According to a third-party study, the University of Dallas is one of just seven schools in America that challenge students to explore the full variety of the liberal arts. UD is also the only member of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities to earn this distinction.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) publishes a yearly report card that grades universities on their basic class requirements. The ranking considers seven subjects: composition, literature, foreign languages, government or history, economics, mathematics and science.

Only 22 schools nationwide earned the “A” grade, requiring students to engage with at least six of these subjects. Out of these schools, just seven — including UD — require coursework in all seven subjects.

Thanks to the formative Core Curriculum, UD is the only university in Texas where undergraduates gain an understanding of all these subjects. In addition, the Core also includes requirements in theology and fine arts, which ACTA commended.

“Location, social climate and other aspects of campus life all have their place in the college hunt. But with its annual report card, ACTA is answering the most fundamental question about a university’s purpose: What will students actually learn?” said UD President Jonathan Sanford, PhD. “In our Core Curriculum, students are immersed in the great works of Western civilization, discuss life’s most fundamental questions and gain an understanding of the natural sciences through real experimentation,” said Philip Harold, PhD, dean of Constantin College.

“Our students graduate with a full, rich engagement with the world and an awareness of their place in it, well-prepared for their journey of lifelong learning.”

UD has earned an “A” on ACTA’s report card since its initial publication in 2009.

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Intermezzo Rome in focus.

From Italy to Irving: A Collection of Love Letters

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rom Bonnie Baldwin, newly 18 and newly planted at Due Santi.

To burnt, sultry orange walls: Rough to the touch and home to hundreds before me, I lean against you so often. So often you stand beside me as I watch sunset after inimitable sunset.

To powerful, sedentary domes: You reach to the heavens while sloping down to me on earth — my tiny soul reflecting the glory of thousands of years of history as best it can, which isn’t very well, but all it can do is try.

BY BONNIE BALDWIN, BA ’23

To miles and miles of seashore: Your laughter softly echoes from the waves at my feet; your breeze gently leads me on some mysterious path; your sunshine bends down to grant me a kiss. You bring me excellent friends to smile with and share awareness of the overwhelming joy that makes its way to each of us like a bubbling stream.

To a grove of olive trees: I feel the air heavy with fruit. You sing me farewell, you nymphs, as though you know that I cannot keep you company much longer. My heart swells so much that I must run and tire it out, lest it jump out of my chest altogether, which would not be a very convenient thing in the afternoon before my final philosophy exam.

This essay originally appeared in the student newspaper The Cor Chronicle in April.

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somehow, even though we have never met and do not even speak the same language.

You are someone’s son, someone’s brother; another human being who understands wonder and pain and joy and wretchedness and glory; you are my friend — which you prove by patiently teaching me how to roast small bits of meat over an open, handmade forno that probably has been in your family for generations.

To the ice-cold water of some obscure inlet: Flinging myself into you, feeling your water bite at me and bring the blood to my cheeks, I turn my face upward and stare awe-stricken as the unhindered stars speak in tongues unknown to me. Zeus — showing his apparent disapproval — sends lightning into your more distant waters.

Running with fear and then shaking with laughter, falling into the still-slightly-warm sand that is clinging to the remnants of the summer sun, I realize suddenly that I’d better run and clean myself up if I don’t want to be late for dinner.

From Bonnie Baldwin, not yet 22 and not yet bidding the past four years goodbye.

To a small garden: As we watch an old Mountain bid goodnight to a young Ocean — the innumerable tiny lights of the mountainside town harmonizing sweetly with their own reflections in the water — you bring someone to sit silently beside me, jointly appreciating the symphony. You whisper of unknown things to be discovered about the distant view, as well as the not-so-distant person sitting next to me.

To ribbons of memory: You bind all these love letters together into a dusty pile beneath the past two years. You try to capture an Experience of Life, like many have tried before you and many will after. You don’t yet know that an Experience of Life is a power who will not be held down by any musicians, authors or geniuses — evidently, not even by girls who are newly 18. You don’t yet know that Experience speaks to all — that all have their own love letters to her, all are little giants fighting to win her affection — and she tosses her curls at all of us as she turns away too soon.

To an old man in the midst of his culinary art: Your weathered hands and weathered face reveal to me that we know each other

So, ribbons of memory, untie yourselves, but leave room for the ribbons of today. You’ll find that today is worthy of love letters, too.

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LOOKING BACK AT YOUR UD EXPERIENCE, WERE THERE ANY COURSES OR FACULTY MEMBERS THAT WERE PARTICULARLY MEMORABLE?

Q & A : R I C H K E L LY, M T S ’ 0 0

Local Alumnus Endows Two Permanent Faculty Chairs Magnanimous Philanthropic spotlight.

Since earning a graduate degree from the University of Dallas in 2000, Rich Kelly has shared the fruits of his UD education in humble and faithful service to the church. In addition to being an active member of the Knights of Malta and serving as a sacristan for daily Mass at Christ the King, the successful Dallas businessman and recommitted Catholic chose UD to help others discover the beauty of Scripture and the richness of the church’s tradition.

Kelly recently made a $3 million commitment to support two permanently endowed faculty chair positions in art and theology. Kelly sat down with Tower to discuss his love for learning and teaching, his UD experience and his advice to others on their own faith journeys.

YOU’RE A GRADUATE OF THE MTS PROGRAM. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS?

I graduated in 2000, and at the time it was part of the Institute for Religious and Pastoral Studies. I had been living in Dallas for a while, so I had heard of the university. But I’m also a revert. I grew up in a Catholic family and went to Catholic grade school, high school and Georgetown University, but I was away from the church between the ages of about 25 to 35.

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My office was in the area of Christ the King parish, so I started going to daily Mass.

I made a good confession and started getting involved in Bible studies. Some of the things I had learned in Catholic school stuck with me, so I could actually talk more than most people about the church and theology. The leadership at the parish asked me to lead a Bible study, but I didn’t feel competent. So I met with the pastor, Monsignor Don Zimmerman, [BA ’69 MA ’73], who had been a UD trustee, and he encouraged me to study at UD.

I really enjoyed Fathers of the Church and History of the Church with Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Scripture with Fr. Mitch Pacwa, and Dr. Mark Lowery [professor emeritus and chair of theology who passed away in 2021]. I am really passionate about patristics, and I also very much enjoy St. John Henry Newman and the thinkers of the Ressourcement movement of the early 20th century, which reintroduced the Fathers into our consciousness.

HOW HAS YOUR LIFE CHANGED AS A RESULT OF YOUR EXPERIENCE AT UD?

I came here to UD to learn for myself, but the Holy Spirit has a funny way of saying, “You have a great gift here in what you’ve learned, and you need to share it.” So I have been very involved in my parish, leading Bible studies for 20 years. I’m also a lector, a Eucharistic minister, training altar servers, and I’ve given a lot of talks at the parish, to the Knights of Malta, to Legatus — I love to talk — so I do a lot of teaching.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU HAVE FOR PEOPLE IN THE PEWS WHO COULD BENEFIT FROM A UD EDUCATION?

I encourage everyone to continue their education in the faith, in theology and in the history of the church — all of it. It doesn’t have to be a formal program, but do something.

UD is an excellent resource.

New Undergraduate Scholarship Honors Late Trustee Gene Vilfordi University of Dallas community members and friends of the Vilfordi family gathered on March 30 to celebrate the Gene and Shirley Vilfordi Scholarship Endowment. The gift will provide scholarships to one student from each undergraduate class every year on the basis of merit, need and leadership.

“He had utmost respect for the faculty and enjoyed meeting and visiting with the students when he was on campus. Most of all, he treasured the goals and ideals set forth by this institution. I can’t help but think how pleased he would be if he could be here to present this scholarship endowment himself.”

UD President Jonathan J. Sanford, PhD, highlighted two qualities he found essential to both Eugene, known affectionately in life as “Gene,” and the university: excellence and friendship. Drawing from C.S. Lewis’s understanding of friendship as an act of shared admiration, Sanford said the beautiful works in UD’s Core Curriculum serve that same central role in the university community.

Gene passed in 2016. He met Shirley at the early morning Mass at St. Rita Catholic Church in Dallas when she turned in the pew to give the sign of peace. They married in 1984.

“Our professors just extend themselves into the lives of their students,” Sanford said. That friendship, the act of bonding over the greats, “is just essential.”

Attendees shared memories of Gene, who served UD as a trustee and philanthropist. His generosity left a mark on the campus: The main gates, as well as the plaza that connects UD to the DART system, bear the Vilfordi name.

“Eugene embodied the virtues of the very fabric of the University of Dallas,” said Monsignor Milam Joseph, former UD president.

Shirley said she wanted to keep up the generosity that defined Gene in life.

“God puts us on this earth, at least in part, to prepare for those that come behind us,” Shirley said.

She shared a quote from Eugene as well from a speech he wrote to commemorate the 50th year of the Catholic Foundation: “We can hope that our gifts, well-placed, and the searching eye of grace, will make an indescribable difference in the community, the nation and the world.”

Shirley also said she felt inspired by Jeremiah 29:11: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

“Thank you so much for the opportunity to continue Gene’s legacy through this scholarship endowment,” Shirley said. “May God bless all those who receive it.”

“My husband Gene had a big heart, and a large part of that heart belonged to the University of Dallas,” Shirley said.

If I were speaking to a group of college students, I would say: Take time out of your life and work on your vocation. For people in the pews, whether they’re volunteering or working in ministry or just want to grow in their faith, I’d encourage them to sign up for a course, or audit a course. UD is in many ways a hidden gem, especially for the growing number of Catholics right here in the Dallas/Fort Worth community.

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UD Alumni Break Participation Record, Unlocking $300,000 Challenge Gift

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Q&A: Ollie Bockwinkel, KC Regional Rep Ollie Bockwinkel, BA ’15, is a Renaissance man — an accountant and cantor who reads ancient Greek. He took the name of his accounting firm Custos CPA, which serves faith-based nonprofits, from the musical term custos, a written symbol in Gregorian chant that cues the first pitch on the next line of music. He and Lindsay (McIntyre) Bockwinkel, BA ’15, were voted “Most Likely to Have Twenty Kids” in the 2015 yearbook. They are now married with four children and live in Kansas City, MO, where Bockwinkel serves the UD alumni community as a regional representative.

The Mall Connecting with alumni.

HOW DID YOU GET TO BE A REGIONAL

HOW DID YOU PLAN THE KANSAS

REPRESENTATIVE?

CITY EVENT?

I had just joined the board of the Chesterton Academy of St. Philip Neri here in Kansas City, and we were still in the setting-up phase of the high school. One of the things that we were looking to do was have a sort of lecture series open to the public, to pull speakers from the broader scholarly community to present interesting talks at the intersection of Catholicism and the intellectual life. President Jonathan Sanford’s letter about the lecture series he was going to give in his inaugural year showed up in my mailbox, and I read that he was not just going to be in Texas but he also might be willing to go outside the state.

I basically used becoming a regional rep as my excuse to contact everyone and say, “Hey, let’s get President Sanford here to give a lecture.” So we got a poll going.

I got a couple dozen names and drafted up a letter and sent it to the president.

He responded pretty promptly and said it would be interesting and that he would try to make it work.

So I reached out to my friend and classmate Sarah Sokora, [BA ’15 MS ’22, director of advancement services at UD,] and said we wanted to see if this is a possibility. And she fired back, “Well, it sounds like you want to be a regional rep.” I said, “What does that mean?” She laid out the ropes and explained that it’s an alum in a given metropolitan area who keeps UD connections alive.

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In February of this year, he traveled to Kansas City and held a meet-and-greet with alumni.

We had a ton of people show up from all different decades; I think we had every decade represented back to the 1960s. It was just a really broad range of alumni, and apparently more alumni attended here in Kansas City than at events in Houston or Chicago.

HOW DID YOU GET INTRODUCED TO SINGING AT UD? HAVE YOU CONTINUED IT?

When I came to UD, I saw that we had Collegium Cantorum, but I really didn’t know what I was getting into as far as sacred polyphony and Gregorian chant and all this

rich history of church music. It was a pretty neat experience singing at the Cistercian abbey during Holy Week, just hearing this music that spans centuries that the church has sung, that’s unique to her history.

So I went to Ohio State, and we sang a lot of similar pieces at St. Patrick’s. I was just a member of the choir. Then we moved back to Kansas City. In 2019, we bought a house within walking distance of our parish church, and we had our pastor over for dinner. It came up that I sing, and he said, “Oh, well, then you should be a cantor.”

I did that for a few months. Then, a few folks from the congregation that had been singing in a polyphonic choir in the metro before COVID approached the pastor, and he put them in touch with me. We just needed a choir director. We knew a few pieces in common, so I coordinated a few Masses with this group of eight while we searched. It was about Christmas time of 2020 when our pastor took me aside; he said, “I don’t think we need to look for a choir director. I think we’ve got him.” It was sort of a frog-in-boiling-water moment — step by step. I’ve been leading our Sunday choir ever since! That grounding started at UD with Mrs. Marilyn Walker and Fr. Ralph [March, OCist,] and Collegium Cantorum.

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO SOMEBODY INTERESTED IN BECOMING A REGIONAL REP?

I’d say it’s a really low-cost opportunity.

There’s very little obligation, and it gives you the opportunity to create or build up the culture of UD in your own backyard.

By the end of spring, over 1,900 University of Dallas alumni banded together in the Forging Our Future challenge, unlocking a $300,000 gift from an anonymous alumni couple.

The goal of UD’s Forging Our Future initiative is to gain the support of at least 25% of Constantin College alumni by 2025. An anonymous alumni couple pledged a gift of $200,000 if at least 1,900 alumni, amounting to an 18% alumni participation rate, gave to UD by the end of May.

“Growing UD’s alumni participation rate opens new possibilities for scholarships, helping us to attract excellent students and to provide needed support to existing students,” said President Jonathan J. Sanford. “Each alum’s philanthropic gift manifests a love for what was received from UD and a desire to see others share in those same fruits.”

JOIN US! Class agents and regional reps wanted!

Email udalum@udallas.edu to get involved.

CLASS AGENTS 1973 1975 1976 1980 1983 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1995 1996 1997 1998 2000

Margie Mosack Stan Muckenthaler Bob Loftus Mary Therese (Ahne) Breger Chris Puccio Linda (Derdeyn) Jackson & Gina (Bonanno) Morrison Taito Nakagawa Angela Brodrick-Donohue Anne (Barry) Hoelscher Donna Sue Dolle & Yvonne (Matuszewski) Freeman Lisa (Fougerousse) Mobus Vince Terracina Jessica (O’Brien) Thornton Charlotte (Cox) Williams Teresa (Corrada) Kuehler & Patricia Alley Amanda (Andree) Halisky Brigit (Smith) Peterson

2001 2002 2003 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Colleen (Reynolds) Phelan Bryan Phelan Nubia Torres Chelsea (Davis) Gibson Matthew Hull Rebecca Simmons Ashley Streett Alexandra Pimentel Charmi (Vince) Blan Gregory Pimentel Ali (Sentmanat) Cyr Derek Kulda & Martin Sentmanat Michael Fazi Amena Jamali, Maria Labus & Kaity (Chaikowsky) Kulda Jillian (Jassek) Kubik Claire (Archer) Andrews & Maggie Fazio Ben Simansky & Sophia Carrasco

R E G I O N A L R E P R E S E N TAT I V E S Austin, TX Chicago, IL Corpus Christi, TX Dallas, TX Houston, TX Kansas City, MO Laredo, TX New Orleans, LA New York, NY San Diego, CA San Francisco, CA Seattle, WA Washington, D.C. Wisconsin Wyoming United Kingdom

Michael Barba, BA ’10 MA ’19 Michael Dixon, BA ’85 MBA ’87 Sarah (Jacobi) Tindall, BA ’99 Donna (Sherritt) Farrell, BA ’91 Adam Swonke, BA ’00 MS ’01 Ollie Bockwinkel, BA ’14 Monica Molano, BA ’07 Karen Jakuback, BA ’86 Teresa Klaum, BA ’82 Cherie Peacock, BA ’97 Mary Powers, BA ’09 Sashana Decker, BA ’06 / Brigid McMahan, BA ’14 Joseph Kelly, BA ’17 Alexander Lemke, BS ’14 Lucas Preble, EdD, BA ’13 MS ’17 Jennifer (Coyle) Byrne, PhD, BS & BA ’85 FA LL 2023

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before an audience. This is where the art is.”

Like Novinski, Kristin Van Cleve, MM, chair of the Department of Music, sees her field as a crucial part of UD’s educational mission.

Something Old, Something New

BY M AT T H E W C O C K R E L L , M E ’ 1 5 , AND ISAIAH MITCHELL

UD’s scrappy performing arts programs find an appetite for the classics in audiences and performers.

“Music fits perfectly into a liberal arts education because it is one of the original subjects of the quadrivium,” Van Cleve points out. “Music is intensely logical and has much in common with mathematics. … Music also contains elements that are harder to quantify. The effect it can have on our emotions and the intensity of feeling that can be engendered by music are not always easy to describe.”

The Core Curriculum’s focus on the great books — on truly exploring and understanding the greatest authors and works of Western civilization — has provided drama faculty with casts ready to breathe life into classic plays. Some of these students continued in stage careers, including the late Silicon Valley star Christopher Evan Welch, BA ’88, Emmy winner Peter MacNicol, BA ’76, and horror mainstay Lara Grice, BA ’93.

Meanwhile, as professional degrees like

“The costumes were fabulous,” Professor Emerita of Drama Judy Kelly, BA ’63, remembers about UD’s 1979 mainstage production, Oedipus the King.

“The students used these wooden shoes and masks that completely enhanced the experience of the performance.”

At the time, UD’s choice to produce Oedipus cut against the grain in mainstream theater. More contemporary tastes prevailed; among critics, dust seemed to have settled on Sophocles, Shakespeare and other classics.

Audiences weren’t opposed, though. In fact, both the Department of Drama and the Department of Music have a history of finding an appetite among performers and audiences for something different, a history of bringing the classics to life and new masterpieces to the world.

Underlying both departments are convictions that set them apart from the programs of other universities: that creation can be a spiritual endeavor; that beauty is

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transcendent and real; that good art requires skill, and that it lasts for a reason.

UD Drama has delivered captivating plays and produced respected theater artists since its inception. Many are to thank for the department’s success, including longtime leaders Patrick Kelly, MFA, a critically acclaimed stage director, and his wife Judy, a theater critic and former television producer.

Their vision drew an influx of participation from the community and shaped what would become the university’s drama program. UD’s production of Oedipus is just one play of many that secured a lasting place in the memory of the university and North Texas dramatists. After the Kellys’ retirement in 2009, KERA called the Margaret Jonsson Theater “a tiny space that has produced some memorable results” and named Pat “among the finest directors of classic theater in North Texas … and a remarkable director of contemporary plays as well.”

Pat and Judy arrived at UD just as the

music production and vogueish experiments with electronic music gain popularity in university departments around the country, UD continues to emphasize instrumental skill. The university’s small size and classical perspective make it perfect for chamber music, an expressive, personal form preferred by faculty for students’ and their own performances.

Chamber Trio avoid household names.

Alongside works by masters as recent as Ernest Bloch, lesser-known pieces that have been heard only sparsely since the Baroque era come to life in their performances.

A baroque violinist as well as a professor, Van Cleve says historical music informs UD’s music program.

Improvements are on the horizon. Preliminary plans are underway to raise funds for the construction of a new performing arts center, a key project of a long-term master campus plan that is also in the works.

“I want to make students aware of what historical performance is: looking at music, approaching music, from the standpoint of how it was approached during the time period in which it was written,” Van Cleve says.

Neither department has limited itself to the classics, though. Welch himself acted in a production of David Mamet’s The Water Engine in 1987, and just last spring, the students decked Beaumarchais’ The Marriage of Figaro in flashy, Tim Burtonesque gaud.

Likewise, Van Cleve and the other faculty members who make up the Crowley

school was finalizing its “star team” in 1966.

“It was an extraordinary time,” Judy remarked. The school had serendipitously acquired a faculty of gifted scholars that shared a vision for UD, and the Kellys were the missing piece of the puzzle for the robust liberal arts university.

One of their most lasting contributions was modeling UD Drama around great literature, complementing the university’s undergraduate curriculum.

Drama Alumnus Bryan Wofford on ‘Building’ and Enjoying a Hollywood Career

BY CHRIS HAZELL

“The unspoken truth,” as Pat put it, “was to make theater that paralleled the students’ study.”

“Sometimes it can be hell collaborating with others on the set, and other times it’s just fun. It can be a lot of work, but I enjoy it. I’ve always loved being part of the creative process,” Wofford shared.

Wofford’s journey to working with Waititi in Oklahoma began when he came to the University of Dallas in 1986 as a drama major interested in acting. One day, while waiting for rehearsal to begin, he was asked to help paint a set.

Stefan Novinski, MFA, BA ’92, current department chair, said this guiding principle remains today.

“What makes our Drama Department unique is the way we endeavor to investigate dramatic literature through performance,” Novinski said. “We are not a theater or dance department; our interest is in studying the human person in space

In addition to Reservation Dogs, Wofford has worked on Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon, Richard Linklater’s Merrily We Roll Along and many other films, television shows and theatrical productions. In other words, he keeps very busy.

In the middle of Oklahoma, Bryan Wofford, BA ’04, is turning a nondescript drive-in burger joint into a 1960s Sonic in preparation for a scene in Taika Waititi’s FX television series Reservation Dogs.

“I tell everyone I’m a scenic designer or scenographer, but I’m just a scenic painter,” Wofford said. “My job is to prep a set or location for a theatrical production, TV show or film.

“I knew how to paint and always had an artistic side, so I just went for it. I liked it, and I remember thinking, ‘This is a lot better than memorizing lines,’” Wofford said.

After a couple of years, he dropped out of UD and began working as assistant technical director of the Dallas Theater Center. Smaller theaters all over the city asked him to help design, paint and build sets. While he enjoyed the work itself, it came at a heavy cost.

Both departments are facing the same obstacle. The University of Dallas lacks a music performance center, and as it stands, the Margaret Jonsson Theater is unfit for use today.

In the meantime, UD’s artists have adapted. Choral concerts have made chapels out of common spaces; actors animated the long-dormant outdoor amphitheater during COVID-19. Music students recently performed the opera Dido and Aeneas in Cardinal Farrell Hall, and The Marriage of Figaro filled every seat night after night in the Drama Building performance space. Until new spaces go up, the classics will continue to live on in new generations of performers and the audiences who remember them.

“It was bloody awful. I was making $200 a week working 14- or 16-hour days, six days a week.

My wife would drop me off on Monday morning and pick me up on Wednesday night since I worked so much that I slept there. I kept doing it because I liked being a part of the work and, quite frankly, I wasn’t sure I could do anything else,” Wofford said.

Eventually, Wofford’s wife Kelly (Donovan), BA ’90, suggested he return to UD to finish his degree. He earned his bachelor’s degree in drama in 2004 and then began a three-year master’s program at Southern Methodist University.

“After earning my degrees, the doors blew right open for my career. I started doing more work in film and television, where I could make more in a day than I could in a whole week working for a theater,” Wofford said.

When asked for his advice for those interested in a similar career path, he stressed the importance of being a continual learner.

“Keep practicing whatever it is that you’re doing and keep learning. You may be a great painter, but don’t stop there. Learn metalwork or carpentry. Don’t pigeon-hole yourself, ever,” Wofford said.

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“The only true freedom, the only freedom that can truly satisfy, is the freedom to do what we ought as human beings created by God according to His plan. It is the freedom to live the truth of what we are and who we are before God, the truth of our identity as children of God, as brothers and sisters in common humanity.” ­­­ — P O P E S T. J O H N P A U L I I

Liberty vs. License B Y G R E G O R Y R O P E R , P H D, B A ’ 8 4

I

love bacon. Mmmmmmm … crispy or chewy, delicious to smell and crunch and savor. Baaay-connn. But when I was a kid, my family didn’t have a lot of money, so to save, my mom would take a knife and cut the bacon in half. We’d get two half-strips of bacon on our plate. But my mom was a genius: She just called them “two pieces of bacon.” We got two pieces and were happy with them. I never knew the difference.

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Flash forward to age 22, and I’m living in my first apartment, alone. I go to the store, buy a pound of bacon and, without thinking, cut it in half and serve myself two half-strips of bacon. Suddenly a thought hits me: I don’t have to cut the bacon! I’m an adult living on my own. I can do whatever I want to do! I can eat two whole strips of bacon! But wait: Why stop at two? I cook four strips of bacon and chow down. But then a new thought hits me: Why stop at four? I cook an entire pound of bacon and sit there, on a Saturday morning, stuffing my face. Because I can.

Because I am an adult, and I am free to do Whatever. I. Want. To Do.

that means “free of all restraints,” freedom as in “doing whatever you want to do.”

Freedom from limitation is just about all that most people think of when they hear the word “freedom.” And in some ways, that was true. I was 22 years old: I had my own apartment, a new situation in grad school, a small income from a side job. If I wanted to eat a pound of bacon in one sitting, there was no one to stop me. But in other important ways, it was — and is — one of the biggest lies of all. Sure, I was free to eat as much bacon as I liked. I was free to do that every day if I wanted. I was also free, therefore, to get fat and clog my arteries.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what the philosophers call license: an idea of freedom

You see, choices have consequences. Nature is like that. The natural consequences of

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your actions always end up playing out, whether you want them to or not. Drink too much? The natural consequence is to have a crashing headache the next day.

Have sex with someone? You’re likely to experience the consequences there, too: emotional entanglements (for good or bad), pregnancy, babies, 2 a.m. feedings and a whole host of parental responsibilities. A friend of mine who is a baseball fan puts it this way: “Nature always bats last.”

Just as in a baseball game the home team always has the last at-bat, in reality, nature always gets the last laugh. There’s no such thing as choices without consequences.

You see, choices have consequences. Nature is like that. The natural consequences of your actions always end up playing out, whether you want them to or not.

But I’d have you consider another conception of freedom: what the philosophers call liberty (or “ordered liberty”). If “license” means “doing whatever you want, damn the consequences,” liberty means freely choosing to pursue the good.

Huh? The good? Yeah, the good.

I don’t mean anything sophisticated or fancy. I just mean the good of having healthy arteries, of being a healthy weight, and so on. When we freely choose to pursue these longer-term goods, we are exercising our liberty. We are ordering our freedom toward our ultimate good. Genuine liberty is not just freedom from restraint, but freedom to choose what is, in the long run, best for us,

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even if in the short term we have to choose to restrain the desires of the moment.

thought, and did, in my free time. It was about how I treated other people.

When we order our liberty toward the good — the good of health, say — we do things to achieve that good: We exercise, we eat right, we avoid foods that will make us fat and unhealthy. Some of that’s not fun in the moment. But the person who has a healthy weight, who can lift heavy things and move quickly without getting winded, who isn’t always worn down, is freer than the person who does not — the healthy, fit person is free to do more with her body than someone who is unhealthy and unfit: She is free to go on a hike, climb a cliff face, help herself in a dangerous situation.

Ordered liberty leads to greater freedom. So we freely choose to do things like exercise regularly, not because someone made us do it, but because, in desiring a goal, we desire also the things that will lead us to that goal.

One of the great lessons of the UD Core concerns the difference between liberty and license. You can find it in Lit Trad I; you can find it in your politics classes; you will explore it in Philosophy and the Ethical Life; you find it especially in Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost and Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Melville’s Moby-Dick and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Now here’s the thing: While liberty leads to greater freedom, license always leads to slavery. You think at first that it’s cool to do something a little license-y, but the more you choose things that aren’t leading to your good, the more they lead you to the bad, and the more you get hooked on them.

Someone who exercises license over and over again with alcohol? We call him an alcoholic. Someone who habitually exercises the license of looking at pornography?

An addict. Someone who eats ice cream to excess, night after night? Overweight to the point that he can’t use his body with any exertion. That’s not freedom; it is limitation. It is slavery.

The question is, how long will it take you to learn this lesson, to start applying it to your life? I had thought I was pretty good about all this until I sat there, bacon bits clinging to my lips, a pound of fatty pig inside me, starting to make my stomach churn.

That day, many days ago — my day with bacon — I learned something about myself: I wasn’t very thoughtful about how I was using my newfound freedom, a freedom that happened upon me suddenly at age 22, in my own apartment. Of course it wasn’t just about bacon. It was about beer. It was about young women. It was about what I

Now here’s the thing: While liberty leads to greater freedom, license always leads to slavery.

Genuine liberty is not just freedom from restraint, but freedom to choose what is, in the long run, best for us, even if in the short term we have to choose to restrain the desires of the moment.

When you get to college, you are likely freer than you’ve ever been before in your life.

Are you going to think of it as freedom from all restraint and go wild? Or are you going to start thinking in terms of freedom to, and choose freely what will lead to the best you?

It’s your free choice.

Gregory Roper is associate professor of English and dean of students at the University of Dallas. This article was first published in his book A Life Well-Lived: A Student Guide to the Education of the Whole Person, which incoming freshmen in the Class of 2027 received over the summer.

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Boot Camp for Budding Doctors Turns 50

Since 1973, the O’Hara Chemical Sciences Institute has trained young scientists with ambition and heart.

BY ISAIAH MITCHELL

O

ver the summer, Cody Clark ’26 enjoyed ample parking, short Cap Bar lines and a few hours every day in a laboratory in the Haggerty Science Center.

Not long after waving many of his classmates goodbye after finals, Clark began shepherding incoming freshmen through the summer program of the O’Hara Chemical Sciences Institute, one of the longest-running projects of the University of Dallas. Along with an easy, courteous confidence — as he rinses beakers and makes notes, one or two students call him “boss” — Clark has a personal reason for studying biochemistry.

“I’m a type one diabetic, and I had a really bad endocrinologist,” Clark laughed.

“So I thought, ‘I’ll be better.’ But also, I really enjoy it. And I want to give back.”

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Those motives — ambition, joy and charity — inspire many in the University of Dallas community. As a teaching assistant, Clark welcomed a new generation of thinkers into this community over the summer through the O’Hara summer program, which turns 50 this year. Since 1973, the institute has been blitzing incoming freshmen through a year of general chemistry in eight weeks. Participants live on campus, attending lectures in the morning and labs in the afternoon.

The O’Hara Chemical Sciences Institute began with a gift of $50,000 from Virginia O’Hara, née Virginia Lazenby, daughter

of the Waco scientist who invented the Dr Pepper formula and husband of the Dr Pepper Company’s chairman. Reserved for UD’s science programs, the donation continues to support faculty salaries, equipment upkeep and the flagship summer program that gives aspiring scientists a leg up on UD’s demanding four-year schedule.

FA S T F R I E N D S

Alongside honing their chemistry skills, O’Hara students learn the lay of the campus, knock out a Core Curriculum requirement and free up a semester for Rome.

What’s more, like the walk from Catherine to Braniff, finals library sessions that begin in the morning and end at night, or the Core Curriculum itself, the shared effort of the O’Hara summer program has a way of bringing students together.

“It’s a good deal for them,” said Assistant Professor of Chemistry Scott Boegeman, PhD, who directs the institute. “There are a lot of benefits beyond the academic. It gives them a head start on their career. It makes it easier for them to adjust to the faster pace of college life. And, usually, the O’Hara students become fast friends.”

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All the participants and teaching assistants lodge in the Madonna dormitory, sharing a small kitchen, a gym, a study room and a pool table. Clark, who participated in O’Hara last year, said the experience of “getting thrown into the deep end” has a way of fostering friendship.

after their lab. O’Hara students, on the other hand, have to turn in their notes by 8 a.m. the next morning.

“It’s fun being in that kind of community,” Clark said. “It builds character because you have to work hard.”

“They’re also just more socially aware, you could say. They’re much more respectful.”

“They’re really kind people. I think because of the community at UD, that kindness just spreads.”

TO MED SCHOOL AND BEYOND

The O’Hara students do have a good time.

Boegeman organizes activities for each cohort, including trips to the Perot Museum and baseball games.

But Clark and the others find fun in the work itself. Personalities differ, says lab director Megan Beshirs, MS, but the students tend to share certain traits, including an appetite for challenge.

“It’s kind of crazy when you stop and think how fast we’re zooming through,” Beshirs told me during a laboratory exercise simulating a chemical spill. During typical fall and spring semesters, students have 48 hours to complete a notebook assignment

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“I’ve taught at another university, and the students here are much more academically prepared in general than other students,” Beshirs said.

The atmosphere in the lab is focused and jovial. Beshirs allows resourceful students to set up “beaker speakers” — makeshift phone amplifiers, perfect for playing music to titrate by.

Like Beshirs, Chemistry Department Chair Ellen Steinmiller, PhD, notices a certain friendliness unique to UD students.

“They’re really kind people,” Steinmiller said. “I think because of the community at UD, that kindness just spreads. It’s so fun getting to know the students. I have former advisees and research students who call me out of the blue and let me know where they are, what they’re doing now, and it’s really nice to have those kinds of relationships.”

On a corkboard above her desk, Steinmiller points to photos of the past several O’Hara cohorts and tells me where UD launched them after graduation. Jisoo Hwang, BS ’23, is beginning a biomedical studies program at Johns Hopkins this fall; Brena (Rossi) Yorimoto, BA ’17, just defended her PhD dissertation at the University of Akron; Mary Hochberg, BA and BS ’23, went to an internship at Micron after graduating this year; Catherine Hand, BS ’21, Gabe Vasquez, BS ’21, Luke Farson,

BS ’21, and many, many others are working their way through medical school.

Today, the O’Hara Chemical Sciences Institute serves as proof of what can grow from the initial seed of a gift.

“This is why I’m at UD. I want to get to know my students,” Steinmiller said.

“I don’t want to get to know them in a 10-minute conversation every semester during advising; I want to know who they are as people.”

Today, the O’Hara Chemical Sciences Institute serves as proof of what can grow from the initial seed of a gift. The fund has allowed the Chemistry Department to maintain its own equipment and make UD a home for research. It helps attract sharp applicants and accelerates their progress through UD’s demanding, rewarding undergraduate experience. Most of all, the summer program has enriched countless hospitals, laboratories and institutions with generations of bright young minds prepared by a liberal education to understand as well as treat the human person.

Most of all, the summer program has enriched countless hospitals, laboratories and institutions with generations of bright young minds prepared by a liberal education to understand as well as treat the human person.

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UD Alumnus Helps Others Thrive in the Workplace With OptimalWork

BY MEGAN WAGNER, MH ’16

Kevin Majeres, BA ’97, MD, has long been interested in the study of human nature. He began reading Aquinas daily as a sophomore in high school and entered UD as a philosophy major. Later, he switched to politics; as former politics professor John Paynter, PhD, pointed out to Majeres, the politics major at UD “really is the philosophy of human nature.” While at UD, Majeres read psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, and he began to see his deepest interests in the study of the mind.

“Psychology has an openness to meaning and beauty,” Majeres said.

Majeres had wanted to be a doctor since he was very young, and psychology became a natural fit.

Today, Majeres serves on the faculty at Harvard Medical School and maintains his own private practice. He’s done much of his work in cognitive behavioral therapy — which he says appealed to him because of its Thomistic and Aristotelian elements — and he completed a fellowship at the Beck Institute in Philadelphia. Majeres has focused on anxiety disorders and explored the use of exposure therapy to treat them with rapid progress.

While at Harvard in 2010, Majeres took a workshop on the psychology of “peak performance.” He realized that if one applies three basic steps of successful exposure therapy to a setting of work, one can go into “flow” at will: reframing, mindfulness and “leaning into the challenge.” It was this insight that led to the founding of OptimalWork.

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“Flow” is a psychological term Majeres uses to describe — well, optimally working. More specifically, it’s an optimal state of thinking.

“OptimalWork is a way of training people in the skills of self-mastery,” explains Majeres.

“Flow is the state where you are performing at your best. It is a state of optimal experience and is the result of self-mastery.”

Through OptimalWork, Majeres has shifted his focus from disorders to thriving. OptimalWork offers an inventory of structured learning content, along with tools and exercises, informed by cognitive behavioral therapy. It includes a masterclass that was originally a four-week training program. The program begins with a 24-item questionnaire about attitude, attention and actions, and it can analyze inventory data to tell participants what effective changes they might make.

Majeres’ work has helped many flourish, including members of the UD community.

UD offered its first OptimalWork workshop on May 25 to 75 students, faculty members and staff.

Matthew Spring, PhD ’15, director of Academic Success and Seven Arts of Language, said the program has been helpful for students and professors.

“We have incorporated the program on an individual basis over the course of the year through weekly coaching meetings with students who are using the program. A few professors have expressed an interest in incorporating the program into their classes,” Spring said.

Spring expressed his gratitude to the faculty and staff who have participated in and supported the program.

“I’ve been encouraged and grateful to all the colleagues who have taken the time over the past year and this summer to work through the program for themselves, with staff incorporating it into their day-to-day responsibilities in their offices and faculty benefiting from the program in the research they are doing this summer,” Spring said.

“I’m also grateful to Johnathan Sumpter, director of the Counseling Center, who envisions this program as a piece of the wider work he is doing to support the mental health of our students, especially in areas ranging from motivation to procrastination and anxiety to depression.”

For Majeres, the only path to these results leads from an understanding of the human person.

“The goal is that OptimalWork will continue advancing and giving people personalized recommendations to tell them exactly the things they most need to make the fastest progress,” Majeres said.

C R U S A D E R AT H L E T I C S

Freshman Track Runner Racks Up Records The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) named University of Dallas track runner Johny Olmsted ’26 Newcomer of the Year.

The freshman earned several honors during the 2022-23 season. In his first meet, Olmsted became the first Crusader to break the 50-second mark in the 400-meter dash. Throughout the season, Olmsted ran the dash under 50 seconds in five of the six meets, setting a new program record of 48.39 seconds at one tournament.

Olmsted is the second SCAC Newcomer of the Year in program history. Prince Giadolor, BA ’18, won the first Newcomer of the Year Award in 2016.

Olmsted was also named Division III All-Region in the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

“Johny’s 2023 campaign will be remembered for quite some time, and it’s made all the more impressive by the fact that he is a freshman — not to mention he is a dual-sport athlete, having dedicated the entire fall and winter to the men’s basketball team,” said Sports Information Director Pauly Ulrich, MS. “The sky seems to be the limit for this young man, and I can’t wait to see what else is in store for him.”

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Senior Stories

BY GEM A GUEVARA, M A ’25, A A R O N C L AY C O M B AND ISAIAH MITCHELL

In May, over 250 students were honored at the university’s 64th annual Commencement. Here we highlight a sample of those graduates and their future plans.

Mary Hochberg Greenville, NC Major: Chemistry and philosophy with a concentration in applied mathematics Notable UD Memory: Getting to know the chemistry faculty on a first-name basis Achievements: 2022 American Chemical Society Dallas/Fort Worth Section Student Scholarship Award; 2022 American Chemical Society Organic Division Undergraduate Award; National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) certification in health care ethics; NCBC Publications Fellowship.

Future Plans: Interning at Micron Technology in Boise, Idaho.

Magda Rogg Lindenhurst, IL Mary Hochberg, BA and BS ’23, had never intended to double major in chemistry and philosophy. In fact, she had never taken a philosophy class before coming to UD. This changed during freshman year when she registered for Philosophy and the Ethical Life with adjunct instructor Mario Delucchi, PhD candidate, and Philosophy of Being with professor Chad Engelland, PhD. She fell in love with the subject unexpectedly and decided to pursue it as a major. “I realized that if I wanted a career in science, I wouldn’t be able to devote as much time and energy into the great ideas,” she said. “I wanted to take as much as I could out of UD’s philosophy classes.”

Hochberg credits the complementarity of both majors for making her a better scientist. “Scientists like to proclaim all this great objectivity, but what does that really mean? What is the knowledge that we’re gaining in the scientific setting valuable for?” Hochberg said. “Philosophy has helped me to better approach those questions and apply them to my understanding of chemistry.”

Wyatt Parlow College Station, TX Major: Philosophy and letters Notable UD Memory: When Fr. Robert Maguire, OCist, called Trinity Seminary to tell the seminarians in his class that he had lost most of their essays.

Luckily, Fr. Maguire located them in the end, but not without producing much good-hearted laughter.

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Notable UD Memory: Conducting research with professor Carla Pezzia, PhD. Achievements: Peer-reviewed article published in Journal of Family Violence; presentation at the Southwestern Social Science Association Annual Conference in San Antonio; Phi Beta Kappa membership.

Future Plans: Taking prerequisite classes for medical school and working in a clinical setting.

Magda Rogg, BS ’23, may be going to medical school, but she threw herself into her degree in human and social sciences. After earning a coauthor byline on two of Pezzia’s articles, Rogg published an article on gender-based violence in Guatemala as the primary author.

“I learned so much from this project, from research methods to the publishing process to collaborating among disciplines to bring in different perspectives to an issue,” Rogg said.

This will be especially useful as she prepares for her medical degree. “Magda’s senior thesis, which also draws upon data from my older adult study, examines issues of discrimination in healthcare experiences,” Pezzia stated. “She is a phenomenal student.”

Rogg said her aspirations were nurtured by the support UD provides to women in STEM. “Many professors are focused on making everyone feel included and like they can contribute to the field,” Rogg said.

Bridgette Claire Alpar Peyton, CO Wyatt Parlow, BA ’23, started college on a pre-med track at Texas A&M University. The day before his first semester began, though, Parlow knew something wasn’t right. However, this uneasiness was replaced by a sense of peace and love; his heart, now at rest, beat out the word priest, priest, priest. “The Lord called me out of my desire to be a bodily physician and ordered me through grace toward the supernatural end of being a physician of souls,” he said.

Achievements: Very Reverend Thomas M. Cumiskey, OP, Memorial Award for Excellence in Philosophy & Letters.

After he discerned his vocation, the Diocese of Austin sent Parlow to Trinity Seminary. Amid discernment and academic obligations, Parlow still devoted time to fostering a spirit of brotherhood between the seminary and the UD community. “This is something that’s made me grow in my time here,” he said.

Future Plans: Graduate studies in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome

“I’m amazed by our professors’ availability to both instruct in education and their own personal wisdom as well,” he added. “I think it’s a beautiful thing.”

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Major: Human and social sciences and math

Major: Business with a minor in ethics Notable UD Memory: Groundhog 2023 Hometown: As a military kid, I have multiple hometowns. I was born in Dallas, but my family is currently living in Peyton, Colorado. I’ve also lived in Ohio, Massachusetts, Virginia and San Antonio.

Achievements: Beta Gamma Sigma; Goldman Sachs internship; SCAC Academic Honor Roll; member of 2021 conference finalist soccer team; overcoming severe injury to play senior year; graduating magna cum laude; strengthening relationship with Christ.

Future Plans: Working at Goldman Sachs in Dallas after a week of orientation in New York

Like many students, Bridgette Claire Alpar, BA ’23, came to the University of Dallas for variety. Alpar was drawn to the soccer team, the business program and UD’s Catholic identity. Before long, she found a new reason to stay: community.

“After my first semester, the sense of home and the community stood out to me,” Alpar said. “I have met so many incredible people who I know I will keep in touch with for the rest of my life.”

As a business major, Alpar appreciates UD’s moral grounding. She said one of her favorite courses was Business Ethics with philosophy professor Lance Simmons, PhD. “Business Ethics helped prepare me for being in the workforce outside of the UD bubble and taught me how to incorporate my beliefs and morals into my work,” Alpar said.

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Megan Scott Hudson, MA

Elise Williams North Richland Hills, TX Major: English with a concentration in classics Notable UD Memory: Reading original poetry at the Catholic Imagination Conference Achievements: Membership in three honors societies: Eta Sigma Phi, Sigma Tau Delta and Phi Beta Kappa; 2023 Sister Frances Marie Manning, SSMN, Award for Excellence in Literary Study; Clodecott Award.

Future Plans: Completing the 4+1 program in English at UD.

Attendees at the Catholic Imagination Conference (CIC) last year, hosted at UD, heard from writers as prominent as Dana Gioia and Christopher Beha. They shared the mic with literature devotee Elise Williams, BA ’23, a budding wordsmith who recognized UD as the perfect training ground for a young Catholic writer. Williams’ parents both graduated from UD in 1996 and her siblings in 2020 and 2022.

In May, she became the fifth Williams to hold a UD diploma but the first to have her name engraved on a plaque, along with other Manning Award honorees, in the English Department office.

Getting to recite original poetry at CIC was just one milestone of many in Williams’ journey into the discipline of letters. She enters the graduate year of her 4+1 program with a string of awards under her belt and an unflagging enthusiasm for the written word.

Alexa Hassell North Richland Hills, TX Major: Politics and Italian with concentrations in art history and ethics Notable UD Memory: Taking Political Philosophy and the Middle Ages with Associate Professor of Politics Gladden Pappin, PhD. Achievements: Hatton W. Sumners Scholarship; Intercollegiate Studies Institute Honors Fellowship; internship at the Dallas Chapter of Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums and at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; president of the Art Village Association, of the St. Thomas More Pre-Law Society and of the Alexander Hamilton Society; Dallas Forum undergraduate fellowship; Phi Beta Kappa; Hephaistos Society founder.

Future Plans: Pursuing a law degree at the University of Notre Dame

Notable UD Memory: Informally directing liturgical music with other student musicians at Rome campus during COVID-19 shutdown.

Achievements: Putnam Math Competition prizewinner; summa cum laude.

Future Plans: PhD program at the University of Texas

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Notable UD Memory: Gathering in the park with her classmates during COVID-19 to listen to lectures by politics professor Tiffany Miller, PhD, on Solzhenitsyn Achievements: Gilman International Scholarship; Sumners Scholarship; Dr. Dona S. Gower Memorial Endowed Scholarshi; 2023 Ella Caruthers Porter Prize of the Lakeside Browning Club.

Future Plans: Attending the Catholic Studies graduate program at the University of St. Thomas and joining the editorial team of the journal Logos.

After being medically discharged from the United States Coast Guard Academy, Megan Scott, BA ’23, set about the looming task of transferring to a new university. Providentially, she recalled a conversation she had with a friend’s friend about UD, her only connection to the university at the time.

“He was speaking about Plato’s Republic with so much joy and genuine desire for the truth that I was inspired by the way he was doing his education,” Scott remarked. “I realized that I really wanted that.”

Her pursuit of wisdom galvanized her into moving halfway across the country to Texas. Once at UD, she encountered a community strengthened by a mutual commitment to education and truth.

“I think this is a beautiful thing that’s cultivated by the professors, who go out of their way to support students in their relationship to learning,” Scott said.

Harrison Vetter Maple Grove, MN “I ended up at UD entirely by Divine Providence,” said Alexa Hassell, BA ’23.

In 2018, Hassell enrolled in the intensive summer program Arete: An Introduction to the Classics, where, as she puts it, she “fell in love with the notion of the Core Curriculum.”

Hassell, who graduated from a public high school, had never been introduced to this kind of classical education. UD made it so compelling that she reconsidered her original plan of heading northeast and instead set her sights close to home.

Major: History with concentrations in American politics and political philosophy

Harrison Vetter, BA ’23, initially wanted to attend Notre Dame, his father’s and grandfather’s alma mater. His school counselor, a UD alumna, encouraged him to look into UD.

Notable UD Memory: Riding a motorcycle into Haggar Café during Tower Film Fest

“The more I learned about the university, the more I fell in love with the rigor of the Core Curriculum and its strong Catholic identity,” he said.

Hassell said she has felt fulfilled daily by the education she receives on campus.

Achievements: 2023 Lekai Award Award; 2023 Helen L. Corbitt Award; 2021 Rome Program Academic Excellence Award; founder and editor-in-chief of Crusader Standard; chair of the Crusader Outreach Committee; vice president of the Alexander Hamilton and Pre-Law Societies; Dallas Forum undergraduate fellowship; former intern for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz.

“I got to explore so many different fields and ask interdisciplinary questions, which is essential to a good education,” Hassell said.

Future Plans: Working as a paralegal and business operation manager for Larkin Law, a firm in Washington, D.C.

“The Catholic identity of the school and the Core Curriculum were big parts of my decision,” she remarked.

“In no way has UD disappointed me.”

Isaac Hellerman Silver Spring, MD Major: Math with a concentration in music

Major: English and politics

After his first campus visit, it didn’t take long for Vetter to change his academic trajectory and choose UD. Vetter is thankful to have been a part of a lively and passionate student body where opportunities for intellectual and social formation continuously abound, be it by spending an hour in the Charity Week jail, discussing Pope Benedict XVI’s legacy or judging the artistic merit of student-directed films.

“My experience here has been a true blessing and one of transformative growth — intellectually, spiritually and socially,” he said.

Larissa Elena Ramirez San Antonio, TX The Putnam Math Competition, a six-hour test widely recognized as the most challenging undergraduate math competition in North America, had a bit of an upset this year. All of the top 25 competitors were from MIT, Harvard, Stanford or Yale except for one: Isaac Hellerman, BS ’23, a musician from UD. Hellerman said the Mathematics Department’s approach to the discipline drew him to UD in the first place.“I was impressed by the math program and by the Core,” Hellerman said. “That was just a good combination.”

Hellerman’s own interests reflect a similarly catholic spirit. Hellerman came to UD with a background in piano and singing and an interest in liturgical song.

“It’s a nice experience just because it’s a smaller group of people,” Hellerman said of UD’s music program.“For an ensemble, it feels like actors stepping into this intricate thing that is happening.”

Major: Interdisciplinary studies Notable UD Memory: Celebrating Groundhog 2022 Achievements: President of UD’s chapter of the Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education; captain and 2023 MVP of UD volleyball team; Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Honor Roll; United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) All-American; USCAA Setter of the Week four separate times; SCAC Sportsmanship and Dick Strockbine Student-Athlete Leadership Awards.

Coming out of high school, Larissa Elena Ramirez, BA ’23, wanted to find a university that valued both the body and the mind. She looked into the University of Dallas and knew she’d found a home.

“UD’s stellar academic reputation intrigued me right away, and after touring the campus, learning about the Rome Program and meeting with the Athletics Department, I knew it would be the best place for me to excel academically, athletically, spiritually and socially in the friendships I would make,” Ramirez said.

Since she made that realization four years ago, Ramirez has pursued education and athletics with dedication. An awarded volleyball player, extracurricular leader and scholar, Ramirez cherishes her time on the court and in the classroom.

Future Plans: Attending Texas State University to earn an MS in speech-language pathology.

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“Events in the stories happen three or seven times, which is a deeply religious and significant element. There’s, of course, the Trinity, the reflection of the Trinity, and then also the seven vices and virtues. I’ve tried to retain those elements, and I’ve simplified the language but not the structure of the fairy tale.”

Learning Language Through Folklore and Fairy Tales

The published book evolved from Eidt’s class lesson plan, a meticulously developed collection of text and grammar aimed at training students to read German literature.

BY ISAIAH MITCHELL

UD modern languages professor Laura Eidt, PhD, describes her teaching style simply: “We’re not doing German for tourism.”

Although Eidt means that she guides her students toward literacy as well as fluency, her statement also feels a bit like a warning.

Her latest publication, a book for beginning learners, doesn’t walk readers through a trip to the grocery store. Märchen und Legenden retells fairy tales in their original form — Cinderella’s stepsisters get their eyes pecked out by birds, for example — with authentic but simple speech meant to help students acquire the language naturally.

“So introducing students to those aspects of German culture is a great way to bring in high culture even in the early levels of language classes.”

Eidt said she saw a need for materials that can ease students into grammar without compromising culture.

“What’s great about fairy tales is that there’s so much repetition in there. Rewritten American versions tend to leave out all of these repetitions, but they’re really good for language learning,” Eidt said, adding that repetition is important to the structure of the story as well.

“There really isn’t anything out there. A lot of the easy reader books are really just silly.

They are about people’s everyday lives, and not really very significant topics,” Eidt said.

Remembering Roch

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Folklore readers may already have English versions with all the old dismemberment, witchcraft and other unsettling elements that couldn’t get a PG rating. However, Eidt said even uncensored versions often ignore subtle but crucial elements of the original German stories.

Published in April just months after his death, Theology in Practice: A Beginner’s Guide to the Spiritual Life marks one of the final achievements of longtime professor Fr. Roch Kereszty, OCist.

Fr. Roch developed the book with fellow monk Fr. Denis Farkasfalvy, OCist, who died two years prior in 2020.

“All who pray are, in a sense, theologians,” the authors write. “Never before has the church believed as strongly as she does today that spirituality must, like leaven, penetrate and transform the ordinary, ‘average’ walks of life. It ought not be limited to those who withdraw from the world.”

Kereszty always maintained his concern for the basic task of Christian life. After a career of academic scholarship in the dense, macaronic journals of the church’s intellectual elite, Kereszty turned his attention to the church at large, urging readers in Theology in Practice to understand the centrality of the study of God in the Christian life.

From the secret classes in the Hungarian mountains that he attended under Communist rule to the courses he led for decades at the University of Dallas, Kereszty devoted his life to learning about the faith. Theology in Practice offers the guidance he developed over this lifetime just before stepping into the joy of the Lord.

As much a teacher as a scholar, Eidt doesn’t just pore over Goethe with upperclassmen. In addition to her academic writing, Eidt invest time and research into finding the best teaching methods for language learners of all ages. She has mentored at a bilingual school in Dallas and serves as a director of the K-5 “Latin Through Stories” curriculum of the St. Ambrose Center for Catholic Liberal Education and Culture.

For Eidt, stories are the heart of language pedagogy. “The classical reason for learning a language is to be able to participate in the ongoing great conversation in that language,” Eidt said.

“My advanced language students participate in that great conversation by reading Faust and having Socratic seminars about Kafka. At the beginning language level, that looks a little bit different, but that is still part of the goal: that they become initiated into elements of German culture that they can interact with at their level. And first you need a good basis, a good grounding, and reading gives you a lot of that.”

The Salon Faculty and alumni art, projects and publications.

Psychology professor Brittany Landrum, PhD, and her former student Michella Davis, MPsy ’21, a coach at Shawnee State University and former athlete, published “Experiencing Oneself in the Other’s Eyes: A Phenomenologically-Inspired Reflexive Thematic Analysis of Embodiment for Female Athletes” in Qualitative Psychology in June. Conducted through interviews with six athletes, their study explores how female athletes understand their bodies according to ideals of what it means to be an athlete and a woman.

Sculpting major Bethany Lee, BA ’03, works as a professional artist in Maryland, primarily in stone carving.

Life-size sculptures, delicately shadowed charcoal drawings and limestone reliefs are among the most impressive pieces in her portfolio at belfineart.com.

While Lee recently established a studio in Maryland and has worked in Washington, D.C., for the past several years, she’s currently carving a statue of Mary that will stand in the garden of St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Grand Prairie, TX.

“Cryosphere,” a poem by English professor Bernadette Waterman Ward, PhD, was published in local literary journal Grub Street Grackle.

Inimary Toby, PhD, assistant professor of biology, worked with Sara Hey, BS ’23, Dayjah White, BS ’21, Minh-Chau Hoang ’24, Nick Le, BS ’22, and Joseph Natvig, BS ’22, to publish research on acute respiratory distress syndrome in Biomolecules in May. The Pennsylvania State University and Texas Children’s Pediatrics collaborated with UD, but Toby and the UD students were the lead team. The article was published the day before Hey graduated.

Assistant Professor of Biology Deanna Soper, PhD, recruited a group of UD students to research a parasite in Michigan inland lakes for an article published in The Biological Bulletin last year. Pictured is alumna Devon Romano, BS ’20, collecting data from one of the lakes.

Produced by University of Dallas Productions and directed by UD professor and award-winning screenwriter Shannon Valenzuela, PhD, BA ’00, The Quest: The Way of Beauty is a collaborative effort of UD faculty in several disciplines, including art, theology, modern languages and literature.

The documentary-style EWTN miniseries draws on stories from Scripture, history and literature to explore the Christian life as a narrative of joyful courage.

“It’s my hope that The Quest offers encouragement for the pilgrimage journey of the

Christian life, and that it helps us to see that the end of all wisdom is a deeper encounter with God,” Valenzuela said.

This second season of The Quest was filmed at UD’s Eugene Constantin campus just outside of Rome and at landmarks and churches around the Eternal City. It will premiere on Oct. 12 and run weekly on Thursdays at 5 p.m.

Sign up on quest.udallas.edu for instant access to season one and premiere access to season two.

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New Chaplain and Rector Appointed To Serve Church of the Incarnation LETTERS FROM SYBIL

Hospitality is Integral to the UD Spirit

Dear alumni, Did you know that the Sisters of Saint Mary of Namur, who provided the spark that established the University of Dallas, integrated their schools long before desegregation?

As founding Bishop Thomas K. Gorman announced, “The University of Dallas will be a Catholic coeducational college, welcoming students of all faiths and races and offering work on the undergraduate level with graduate school to be added as soon as possible.” When it opened in 1956, UD was the only private college in Texas to be integrated and the only Catholic coeducational college.

Part of the naturalness of welcoming all to UD came from the international character of the faculty and staff. The Cistercians spoke several languages and shared varied experiences. The Sisters of Saint Mary of Namur were founded in Belgium. There were fascinating stories every day, cultures to understand and a curriculum that sought the meaning of being human.

The students came from all over as well. Everyone pitched in to help with recruitment, including Bishop Gorman, who sent a letter to the bishops of Central and South America inviting their parishioners to apply. Through the National Competitive Examination, the university recruited from across the country.

UD has often had the largest out-of-state percentage of students of any college in Texas. Variety enriched the experience while encouraging careful listening and understanding, even in matters as simple as food preferences. Before the tragedy of 9/11, the percentage of international students, especially those studying graduate business, was huge. The campus and the city were fascinated by the annual International Days, which featured incredible food, performances and artifacts from around the world.

The university worked hard to welcome everyone to the hilltop overlooking Dallas — not just because it was a new institution and needed to make folks aware of its existence, but because sharing hospitality is integral to the generous pursuit of truth

and virtue. Virtually every event was followed by a reception, a time for greeting and conversation. However, in the first decades, there was no food service after 6 p.m. and very little staff. When a department scheduled a reception, it provided it. My favorite memories include helping the illustrious Louise Cowan, PhD, prepare fruit trays for an event in Gorman Faculty Lounge at which she was to be one of the speakers! The little kitchen attached to the lounge was widely used.

We depended on student volunteers for ushering, guiding, pouring punch and preparing the spaces. Organizations such as the Student Foundation came into being in the early 1980s. My daughter Sybil (Novinski) Sutton, BA ’90, has fond memories of delivering care packages sent by parents. One semester, the toy included was a hula hoop. That added delight to the campus and raised funds for the Meg Davis Rome Scholarship. Projects reflected the aims of Charity Week, originally a weekend, another tradition of generosity, creativity and fun!

In 1974, UD welcomed Jacques Barzun, the first of the renowned McDermott Lecturers. Students helped make these large gatherings possible and discovered opportunities for contact and conversation with the scholars. Steve Carney, BA ’77, gathered his friends to park cars for such events, providing an important impromptu valet service — with some tips!

Parties at faculty homes were a staple of Orientation when freshmen classes were a bit smaller. Faculty still enlist students to help with home projects and babysitting, and many entertain them at holidays, creating lasting friendships. As Joe Hogan, BA ’74, wrote, remembering a favorite hymn: “We are companions on a journey who share and learn from each other. Little things strike chords of memory, like Robert Sardello’s habit of taking words apart, which helped us ‘under-stand,’ helped us break down the complex, and welcome both the question and the questioner.”

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Fr. Joseph Paul Albin, OP, current rector of the Church of the Incarnation and chaplain of the University of Dallas, left UD at the end of June. Father Albin was reassigned by the provincial of the Province of St. Martin de Porres and began a new assignment as pastor of Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Houston, TX. Continuing the practice of combining the two roles in one priest, the Most Reverend Edward Burns, Bishop of Dallas, and University of Dallas President Jonathan J. Sanford, PhD, appointed Fr. James Martin Nobles, OP, to the positions of rector of the church and university chaplain.

President Sanford expressed appreciation for Father Albin’s service.

“Father Albin has been a tremendous blessing to our students and our entire university community,” Sanford said. “We are extremely grateful for his outstanding leadership of our Campus Ministry team and for his stewardship of the Church of the Incarnation. We wish the best for him in his next assignment, and we look forward to warmly welcoming Father Nobles to our campus community,” Sanford said in June.

Ordained two years ago, Father Nobles comes to UD from Memphis, Tennessee, where he served in both ecclesial and educational settings at St. Peter Catholic Church, St. Agnes Academy and the St. Martin de Porres National Shrine and Institute.

Father Nobles earned his BA in philosophy and theological studies at St. Joseph Seminary College. Before discerning his calling to the Dominicans, Father Nobles studied at Notre Dame Seminary for a year. He completed his Master of Divinity at Aquinas Institute of Theology.

Father Nobles thanked Bishop Burns and President Sanford for the appointment.

“I want to express my gratitude to Bishop Burns and President Sanford for trusting me with this amazing opportunity to be the next rector of the Church of the Incarnation and chaplain of the University of Dallas,” he stated.

“I am especially humbled to walk with our students who seek to grow in their love for truth.

May our students, faculty and staff be assured of my prayers and excitement as we begin this new academic year.”

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“We have a Christian anthropological understanding of the human person, which, in our world, is about the respect and dignity of the human person.”

One Body, One Spirit

“The national average, depending on the size of the school and other factors, is around 88% to 92% at best,” he said. “We have really good clinicians who serve a large percentage of the student population, and people show up to their appointments.”

BY GEM A GUEVARA, M A ’25, AND ISAIAH MITCHELL

But what makes counseling at UD stand out from other universities most is its clinical approach. Compared to other campuses, UD counselors are more equipped to address mental illnesses.

Counseling at one of the nation’s happiest campuses begins with Christian ethics.

“A lot of universities will Counseling at UD do more school counselsees human identity as ing — which is more about immutable, inextricably basic problem-solving skills, crisis intervention — and physical and carefully then more triage to outside crafted by a loving creator. resources,” Sumpter said.

A self-professed nerd, University of Dallas Counseling Center Director Johnathan Sumpter, MBA ’14, likes statistics. If you were to ask him for one, Sumpter would likely start with a particularly important number: the share of students at UD who seek counseling.

“In 2021-2022, we saw a third of the population. This past year, we saw about 31%,” Sumpter said.

“This average is a little higher than some other similarly sized universities. … In other words, compared to similarly sized universities, we are seeing more people — but we have lower amounts of crises per semester.”

Sumpter sees this as an inspiring fact.

Students who seek counseling generally don’t drop out of UD; a significant share of the students who walked the stage in May struggled with emotional issues inhibiting their education and won.

“The stats can sound very scary, but I like to think of it as a signal for the ability of

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“If you have depression, it might be hard to be seen by the counseling center at another school because they may refer you out, depending on the level of severity. …

If somebody is struggling beyond what is normally seen in an outpatient center, then we would refer out. But we go up a lot higher than some universities in the level of clinical care.”

humans to be champions through resiliency,” Sumpter said.

“The Princeton Review says we have the number six university in the nation for happiest students, and we have higher mental health utilization than similar campuses.

So how do those two things match? I think it’s because sometimes life is hard, and you need a supportive community around you.

We have a community that is better poised to be able to respond.”

Students at UD keep their appointments more consistently than students from other schools, indicating a sense of trust between them and the counselors. According to Sumpter, the Counseling Center at UD has a 97% show rate.

HOW TO HELP

To learn more about contributing to the One Body, One Spirit Endowment, contact Assistant Director of Development Koji de Ramos at dderamos@udallas.edu or visit udallas.edu/give.

This more focused approach begins with UD’s Catholic understanding of the human person, which doesn’t hold certain assumptions of the American Psychological Association and other authorities in the field. Counseling at UD sees human identity as immutable, inextricably physical and carefully crafted by a loving creator.

“We have a Christian anthropological understanding of the human person, which, in our world, is about the respect and dig-

nity of the human person. We also need to be very accepting of different walks of life and be able to provide everyone with good, quality care,” Sumpter says.

By looking at the full spectrum and guiding students to the various support networks on campus, Sumpter hopes to cultivate a community supportive of itself.

“Rather than sending somebody who has some distress to the Counseling Center and hoping that it works out, let us as a community rally around and support each other,” he said.

The Counseling Center is moving toward a stepped plan for mental health services to achieve this practically. To conserve and properly direct resources to students that need them most, UD counselors will recommend that students experiencing nonurgent problems take personal steps toward mental health, such as getting sunlight and better sleep, before moving to therapy and eventually medical treatment if needed.

Along with this plan, UD is exploring the use of self-monitoring tools such as the University of Texas Southwestern’s Evexia program. UD also benefits from the efforts of Trustee Jean White, BA ’86, and her husband Marty, BA ’86, who collaborated with UD President Jonathan J. Sanford, PhD, to establish the One Body, One Spirit Endowment last year.

“What’s important for us, similar to the Good Samaritan, is meeting people, recognizing the struggle, moving through the confusion and finding things that are stable, that are true,” Sumpter said.

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Gallery

PROSPECTIVE STUDENT JOJO CUSTER MINGLES AT A CAMPUS OPEN HOUSE EVENT IN APRIL.

NEW STUDENT JOJO CUSTER ’27 MOVES IN.

CHEMISTRY PROFESSOR SCOTT BOEGEMAN, PHD, INTRODUCES HIS COLLEAGUE DR. MOLARIUM TO A PROSPECTIVE FRESHMAN.

CALEB BINEY ’24 DELIVERS A PRESENTATION AT UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH DAY. READ MORE ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM AND BINEY’S PROJECT ON PAGE 4.

UD HOSTED THE TEXAS PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION’S FIFTH ANNUAL SUMMER CIVICS INSTITUTE, A TEA-APPROVED TRAINING PROGRAM FOR TEACHERS ON THE MORAL PRINCIPLES UNDERGIRDING AMERICA’S FOUNDING.

ANDREA COPPI ’24 WINDS UP FOR A KICK DURING A SOCCER GAME AGAINST CENTENARY COLLEGE.

UD CHORALE PERFORMS AT THIS YEAR’S BACCALAUREATE MASS.

SENIORS GATHER IN BRANIFF AFTER CONVOCATION.

NEW ROOMMATES DECK THE DORM.

VOLUNTEERS SHARE A LAUGH DURING MOVE-IN DAY.

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Laurels

Awards and achievements.

Board of Trustees Chairman Randy Muck earned a Bishop’s Award for Service to the Church from Bishop Edward J. Burns.

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The Hatton Sumners Foundation recognized graduating politics students Megan Scott, BA ’23, Gabriella Capizzi, BA ’23, and Patrick Hasson, BA ’23, for exceptional civic concern and promise.

Aubrey Wieberg ’24 is UD’s first Truman Scholar. The highly competitive award, recognized as the country’s foremost graduate scholarship for aspiring public servants, supports continuing education for students who show exemplary leadership and dedication to public service.

Mary Freund, BA ’23, won an international award for poetry analysis with a paper that began as a Junior Poet essay. The international honor society Sigma Tau Delta awarded Freund first place in the Beth DeMeo Poetry Awards for an essay on George Herbert that she developed independently after JPo.

Knox Community Hospital CEO Bruce D. White, MBA ’01, received the Ohio Hospital Association’s Donald R. Newkirk Award, which recognizes an individual who has made a significant lifetime contribution to the health care field in Ohio.

Entrepreneur Moe Haidar, MS ’12, CFO of Dialexa, won D Magazine’s Outstanding CFO Award for midsize companies in the May edition of D CEO. The magazine also recognized Haidar and Interim Dean of the Gupta College of Business Susan Rhame, PhD, as two of the 500 most powerful business leaders in the metroplex.

Longtime rugby coach and Macnab Rugby Pitch namesake Bob Macnab received the Texas Rugby Hall of Fame’s Distinguished Service Award.

The Tepeyac Leadership Institute awarded CatholicVote President Brian Burch, BA ’97, the St. Juan Diego Leadership for the World Award.

Professor and poet Robert W. Haynes, PhD, MA ’77, was given the Texas A&M University System Regents Professor Award this year.

Drew Wooten, MBA ’23, received a Future Texas Business Legend Award of the Texas Business Hall of Fame this year.

Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams earned NCAA All-Academic Honors.

The men’s team was recognized for attaining the highest GPA out of any program in Texas.

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The Many Metamorphoses of Robert Dupree

BY M AT T H E W C O C K R E L L , M E ’ 2 5

The UD stalwart is finishing a 57-year career of not standing still.

It was the eve of finals week, and students were unusually rowdy. As Robert Dupree, PhD, BA ’62, made his way to his chair, students continued their conversations. Here, Dupree took a moment to gaze around at each student.

The class went on to review the influence of Ovid in Western literature. As class came to an end, the professor made his farewells.

“I look forward to reading your papers,” he said. “I hope to learn from them.”

Dupree has been an English professor at the University of Dallas for nearly 60 years.

During this time, he has undergone constant transformation in true Ovidian style, flying easily between disciplines, gathering skills and languages and establishing an esteemed reputation among students and colleagues for his invaluable contributions to the university and the academic world.

Dupree’s career at UD began just two years after the university was established in 1956. He attended UD on a full scholarship for academic merit. In his first semester,

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Dupree was quickly recognized as a promising scholar for exceeding the expectations of undergraduate standards and succeeding in advanced courses in French and philosophy.

One professor in particular, the late literature scholar Louise Cowan, PhD, was especially drawn to the young scholar and was convinced he belonged at UD as an instructor. Dupree never wanted to be a teacher, though, much less an English professor. His original plan was to study physics. But after taking a course under the brilliant Cowan, he was enraptured.

Dupree graduated as class valedictorian in the spring of 1962. Afterward, he received

the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship, a prestigious award that gives the recipient a full scholarship to the graduate school of his choosing. Dupree chose Yale. As fast as he was recognized for his scholarly abilities at UD, it wasn’t long before his Yale professors also started eyeballing him. One particularly eager professor urged him to begin his dissertation before the end of his first semester.

“Dr. Dupree would likely be a nightingale because it sings so beautifully and flies on the wings of poesy, to quote Keats,” she said.

Even though Yale adopted Dupree quickly, it wasn’t UD. He belonged in Texas. Before he had even finished his dissertation at Yale, Dupree was teaching at UD from a distance on a schedule of grueling commutes and sleepless nights. The courses he taught, Menippean Satire and Survey of British Literature, During this time, he has undergone have since become constant transformation in true favorites among Ovidian style, flying easily between students.

“You see, one of the reasons I stayed here was that I had the opportunity to teach almost anything that interested me,” Dupree said.

After graduating disciplines, gathering skills and from Yale in 1966, languages and establishing an Dupree returned esteemed reputation among students as a full-time faculty member and colleagues. to the Universi-

ty of Dallas, where he has spent decades teaching approximately 30 different courses and 6,000 students, including those from his time in France, Rome, Singapore and Liechtenstein. His courses have covered music history, French, drama and literature, including one of his last courses on Ovid and the influence of Metamorphoses.

In a way, Dupree has enjoyed transformations of his own, becoming a jack-of-alltrades professor of manifold skills. One of Dupree’s former students called him “a true renaissance man.” Attempting to interpret Dupree’s metamorphoses from an Ovidian perspective, she settled on an image of flight.

She’s right. Dupree’s constant search for knowledge can be compared to a bird’s airy ascendance, soaring beyond view, leaving superficial scholarship with the earthbound trees and rocks. Although it’s taken him time, he has persisted in an attitude of constant learning.

“Whatever they need, I’m willing to take on because it interests me and I consider myself as much a student as I am a professor.”

This is the legacy Dupree will be leaving UD: a professor with the heart of a student.

We’re lucky for the course he took with Cowan — without her influence, where would he be? (Perhaps France? He seems to like it there.) As fellow student Peter Tardiff recognizes, it’s hard to see him go, and it will be even harder to find another professor to fill his shoes.

“UD will be losing something that it will never get back,” Tardiff said.

Indeed, the university won’t be the same with Dupree in retirement. What will he do in his time off, you may ask? For now, he plans to study Chinese literature; he’s excited to brush up on his classical Mandarin.

Dupree has been one of the best professors to grace the hills of UD. Speaking on behalf of all his students, it was a privilege to be in his class. We pray in thanksgiving for Dupree’s life and for his many contributions to the University of Dallas, without which the university would not be what it is today, a place where professors are scholars and students.

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The Boardroom

D I S PATC H E S F R O M T H E C O L L E G E O F B U S I N E S S.

Theology Professor Jodi Hunt Assumes Leadership of Neuhoff Institute Affiliate Assistant Professor of Theology Jodi Hunt, PhD, has been appointed executive director of the Ann & Joe O. Neuhoff Institute for Ministry & Evangelization.

Hunt holds a PhD in religious education from Fordham University and has taught in UD’s Department of Theology since 2018.

Hunt’s primary research interests include practical theology and youth ministry with a special focus on American Catholicism.

She has also directed both undergraduate and graduate programs in ministry.

“I am excited and honored to lead the Neuhoff Institute of Ministry and Evangelization as it turns the page on its next chapter. Standing on the foundation of the great ministerial work of the faithful faculty and staff of the former Neuhoff School of Ministry, the institute has a bright future ahead as it seeks new opportunities in the ever-changing landscape of evangelization among the ever-growing challenges of our culture,” Hunt said.

“I hold a joyful hope for the future of this ministerial work and am looking forward to engaging friends and colleagues at UD in responding to God’s vocational call to serve His church and people,” she added.

The Neuhoff Institute offers certificate and continuing education programs to prepare

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laity, both in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and nationally, for ministry and service to the church. The institute also provides deacon formation in partnership with some dioceses.

“Dr. Hunt’s practical focus, inspirational and dedicated leadership style, entrepreneurial spirit, and teaching experience make her the right choice to lead the Ann & Joe O. Neuhoff Institute,” said University President Jonathan J. Sanford, PhD. “I look forward to the new ways in which she will work with our talented Neuhoff faculty to expand successful programs such as our Catholic Biblical School and diaconate formation programs to serve more of the church’s faithful.”

Hunt brings experience in the classroom and the church to her new role. Hunt previously taught theology and religious studies at Antonian College Preparatory in San Antonio, TX, and Fordham Preparatory in The Bronx, NY. Hunt has also worked with various dioceses and parishes to train lay ecclesial ministers.

R E A D Y, S E T, P I T C H !

BUSINESS STUDENTS TEST THEIR IDEAS IN U D’S S H A R K TA N K-S T Y L E C O M P E T I T I O N . ( P. 4 2 ) HEEDING THE CALL Q&A: DEAN J. LEE W H I T T I N G T O N ( P. 4 3 )

The Boardroom HEEDING THE CALL

Q&A: Gupta Dean J. Lee Whittington

Ready, Set, Pitch!

Longtime business professor J. Lee Whittington, PhD, recently assumed the role of dean of the Satish and Yasmin Gupta College of Business.

Whittington sat down with Tower to discuss how he got hooked on the University of Dallas and what makes UD’s business education different.

BY SCOT T WYSONG, PHD

Business students test their ideas in UD’s Shark Tank-style competition.

After a long semester of prepping, University of Dallas students had a chance to compete in the 2023 Gupta College of Business Pitch Competition on April 26.

The college’s student business competition, reminiscent of the ABC entrepreneurial reality series Shark Tank, came down to 11 undergraduate and three graduate finalist businesses.

While each student or team submitted an initial pitch video for entry, only these 14 finalists received feedback from a member of the Gupta College of Business MBA Advisory Board to improve their business ideas further. The advisory board is made up of industry experts who routinely serve as mentors for final projects. In the first round of pitches, each team was responsible for explaining their business plan via a three-minute video before moving into the semifinals, at which point they were assigned a team mentor.

Finally, all finalists made their pitch in person to the three-person panel of judges, made up of Front Burner Society CEO Jack Gibbons, MBA ’05, International Association of Venue Managers Vice President Rodney Williams, PhD, MBA ’05, and UD Professor of Management Brian Murray, PhD. Surviving the judging panel was no cakewalk.

Once each seven-minute pitch was made, the top four teams were invited back into the Constantin Boardroom in SB Hall to answer additional questions. After much debate, first place went to Elizabeth Kirby, BA ’23,

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for Goldberry at Home, an antique and rare book seller. Gabriel Ross, BA ’25, won second place for his social app, Sort. Third place went to Dr. Pupil, a student-to-student tutoring service created by Jack Boulet, BA ’23, and the late Grace Lively, BA ’23.

See In Memoriam, page 45.

UD’s second annual Gupta College of Business Pitch Competition was sponsored

by Gemmy Industries founder and 2022 Gupta College of Business commencement speaker Dan Flaherty, BA ’83 MBA ’84, Akili CEO Shiek Shah and Front Burner Society CEO Jack Gibbons, MBA ’05.

The competition saw undergraduates and master’s students all vying for the cash prizes: $3,000 for the winning team, $2,000 for second place and $1,000 for third place.

“I appreciate all of the work that professors Jim Hamilton and Scott Wysong did to make this year’s Business Pitch Competition such a success, and we look forward to making this event even better next year,” said Susan Rhame, PhD, former interim dean of the Gupta College of Business.

YOU’VE BEEN WITH THE UNIVERSITY

WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT A BUSI-

OF DALLAS FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS.

NESS EDUCATION AT UD?

WHAT’S MADE YOU STICK AROUND?

I’m really proud to say that undergraduate business students take the entire Core, but they actually take more theology, because they have to take Social Justice, and they take more philosophy, because they take Business Ethics.

I remember when I came over from Texas Wesleyan University. I loved it at Texas Wesleyan, and I almost didn’t come for the interview here because I liked it over there. … But when I came, [Paula] Ann Hughes was the dean at the time, and she was very innovative.

Very entrepreneurial. You know, very much a “the answer’s yes — what’s the question?” kind of person. After that interview, I left thinking, “If I don’t get a chance to go to UD, I’m going to be really disappointed.”

You know, I’m not one of those people who wants to teach three sections of the same class every semester. I want to teach a variety of things, and I want to change it up. So, that entrepreneurial spirit was really good.

The other thing was the collegiality of the faculty. At other schools, it can be pretty vicious. Having taught at other places, I realize this is different. So I think it was the freedom to create new things, and then the collegiality and the support.

I always wanted to teach and do consulting.

It’s a wonderful life. I love what I do and feel like I’m using the gifts that God gave me and I can make a difference. And I get the impression that a lot of professors here have a similar attitude; I think we feel called.

We’re really proud of that. Brian Murray really championed that. Then we got the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation, and we’d said all along that once we got AACSB, we would start a doctorate of business administration (DBA) program. We were the first AACSB-accredited DBA program in Texas.

Of course, now we get a lot of imitators. We have a history of being the first mover. You know, when Bob Lynch created the Graduate School of Management in 1966, we were the first one of the early schools that created what we now call a professional MBA, where people work full-time and go to school part-time. That wasn’t the model back then. We have a long history of being rule breakers.

We just had our reaccreditation review last fall. The deans from other schools come and review us. In their final report, one of the things they lifted up was our commitment to ethics. We don’t just have an ethics

course at every degree; if you’re studying operations or supply chains, or taking a leadership course, or taking a marketing course, we’re going to talk about the ethical dimensions of that topic in that class. It’s not just one course that’s tacked on at the end.

IN YOUR OWN WORDS, WHY SHOULD FAITH AND ETHICS MATTER TO THE BUSINESS WORLD?

Our character is what makes us worth following as a leader. And cultivating character, cultivating virtuous leadership — to me, as a Christ follower, I think that my work matters to God as an act of worship. Well, golly, if I’m doing it for God, I better do it with integrity.

I better do it with character.

I use the world “cultivate” intentionally as an agricultural metaphor. You think about whether you’re planting flowers in your backyard or growing cotton in West Texas, you prepare the soil, you plant the seeds, you water and fertilize and nurture, and there’s growth going on before you can ever see it.

Sometimes, as a teacher, you don’t ever see the end result. But you still do it because it’s the right thing to do.

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1980s

Class Notes Got news? Tell us about it at tower.udallas.edu for inclusion in Class Notes.

Jack Zanini, BA ’86, currently serves as the first assistant district attorney of Plymouth County, MA. If you are arrested and charged in Plymouth County, Zanini requests that you not reach out. Otherwise, he says it would be great to hear from nearby alumni.

1990s Douglas Easterly, BA ’93, was named chair of the Department of Digital Arts at Pratt Institute.

Easterly assumed the role in July, but the announcement came in May, 30 years after the art major exhibited his senior painting project in Gorman Foyer.

Laura Jennings, MBA ’93, received Coppell ISD’s Elementary District Teacher of the Year Award.

Jim Gebhart, MBA ’94, was named president of operations for Mercy Oklahoma, a network of hospitals in the Sooner state.

1960s Michael Culling, BA ’64, has retired after 55 years of practicing law and assumed the role of judge emeritus of the municipal court of Manvel, TX.

1970s

2000s

After 31 years of service as a Texas A&M International University faculty member, Robert W. Haynes, PhD, MA ’77, received the university system’s Regents Professor Award.

Bethany Lee, BA ’03, recently opened a stone carving studio in Brentwood, MD. Email her at bethany@belfineart.com to sign up for classes or commission pieces.

Tom Tenner, PhD, BS ’71, has retired after 45 years at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. Tom thanks UD, Sr. Clodovia Lockett, Dr. Frank Doe, Warren Pulich and Dr. Jack Towne for providing the skills necessary to navigate a 50-year career in science.

Nancy Wallace, MBA ’04, was elected president of the Dallas chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, a nonprofit with a mission to advocate on behalf of black women and girls and in favor of gender equity in health, education and economic empowerment.

Kenneth Polito, BA ’75, is enjoying retirement now after teaching English and French for 33 years.

After earning her PhD last year, Jessica Schnepp, BA ’06, began teaching literature at Ave Maria University this fall.

Fr. Gregory Schweers, BA ’77 MA ’81, is now serving as a member of Irving Arts Board and oversees various artistic, musical and historical projects of the city. His recent travels have taken him to Italy’s Veneto region to investigate the architecture of Andrea Palladio in Vicenza and elsewhere.

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Rahul Kumar, MFA ’09, exhibited a solo show, “The Untold Resides Somewhere: Assembling Fragments,” at Exhibit 320 in Delhi.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appointed Aaron Miri, MBA ’09, to the Florida Cybersecurity Advisory Council.

2010s Stephanie Stoeckl, BA ’11, concentrated in German for her degree in modern languages and participated in the Eichstatt program. She recently completed her PhD and accepted a position as an instructor of German at Franciscan University Steubenville.

Mohammed Jaber, MBA ’11, was Inwood National Bank’s featured real estate agent in May. The story of his path to the American dream, starting in Amman, Jordan, and ending in Oak Cliff, TX, was the subject of a local profile.

Steve Aday, MCSL ’11, was promoted to dean of students at Catholic High School in Little Rock, AR. D Magazine awarded Mohamed Haidar, MS ’12, the Outstanding CFO Award for midsize companies in the May 2023 edition of D CEO. Haidar led Dialexa, a leading digital product engineering service firm, through periods of rapid growth without external capital and through an IBM acquisition.

Michael Limongello, BA ’12, was appointed senior policy advisor for the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations.

Matt Wise, DO, BS ’15, and Amanda (Nguyen) Wise, DO, BS ’13, will join UT Southwestern Medical Center as faculty members this fall.

CityPeople recognized Oyin Onarinde, MBA ’16, for her success as CEO of the beauty company EWA. Doctoral student Alex Taylor, BA ’15 MA ’19, received the prestigious Weaver Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), which also named Taylor one of ISI’s “Top 20 Alumni to Know Under 30.”

Joshua Mayo, PhD ’17, associate professor of English at Grove City College, received the 2023 Professor of the Year Award from the college’s Omicron Delta Kappa chapter.

2020s Giada Mirelli, BA ’20, secured a position as assistant instructor at Indiana University’s Spanish and Portuguese Department while she completes a PhD in Hispanic literatures and cultures with a minor in Renaissance studies at the university. Mirelli graduated from Constantin College with concentrations in French, Italian and Spanish.

Fr. Kevin Key, BA, ’17 was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Harrisburg, PA, on June 3, 2023. In attendance were many UD alumni and current students, including his siblings Dylan Key, BA ’11, Sr. Lily Marie, OCSO, BA ’14, John Key, BS ’22, and Peter Key ’25.

Jessica Behrens, BA ’20, completed a clinical mental health counseling graduate program at Franciscan University of Steubenville and will work in Ohio as a Catholic therapist.

As a forward on the UD women’s basketball team, Michelle DeCoud, BA ’18, received the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Newcomer of the Year Award and set an all-time program record for most blocked shots. The three-time U.S. Collegiate Athletic Association All-American was hired this year to lead the women’s basketball program at Monmouth College.

Libby Regenerus, BA ’22, was admitted to the 2023 Paul Ramsey Institute Fellows cohort. At the Ramsey Institute, a two-year program of the Center for Bioethics and Culture, participants learn and engage with leading scholars in bioethics in preparation for academic careers in the field.

Regenerus is currently investigating questions of bioethics, particularly virtue theory, as a doctoral student of philosophy at Baylor University.

In Memoriam Former professor, designer and artist Lyle Novinski, MFA, a University of Dallas fixture, passed away peacefully on April 28.

Novinski left an indelible signature on the campus and curriculum of the University of Dallas. He founded the university’s art program, designed the interior of the Church of the Incarnation and created the mosaic of Christ’s transfiguration at the Rome campus. Novinski helped build the Irving campus, even planting the oak trees around the property with his wife Sybil in the 1960s. During his tenure as an art and art history professor, Novinski watched them grow with the university he helped establish.

He and his wife Sybil have five children, four of whom graduated from UD, and 18 grandchildren, including two UD sophomores.

Please join the university community in praying for Novinski’s soul and the consolation of his family.

Elizabeth Grace Lively, BA ’23, succumbed to injuries from a car accident on July 12 at age 20. The daughter of alumna Aubrey Lively, BA ’01 MA ’21, Grace was engaged to be married to classmate Jack Boulet, BA ’23. An awarded student and beloved member of the UD community, Grace’s friends remember her for her devout faith and care for others. A funeral Mass was held for Grace at the Chapel of the Incarnation in May.

James Maney III, BA ’65, passed away on Good Friday, April 7 at age 77. A lifelong University of Dallas community member, Jim was unanimously elected to the National Alumni Board (NAB) in February 2019. He was the only NAB member to have met every UD president after F. Kenneth Brasted.

A rumor — undocumented, but wellattested — holds that Jim was the first Groundhog.

Mary Jo Dorn, MTS ’10, a longtime member of the National Alumni Board and active leader of the Neuhoff Alumni Committee, passed away in August at age 72. The daughter of a member of UD’s first graduating class, Mary Jo first joined the UD community as an undergraduate and later completed her master’s degree at the Neuhoff School of Ministry. She will be remembered as one of the university’s most passionate advocates.

Longtime benefactor Rosemary Haggar Vaughan passed peacefully on May 10 surrounded by her children. Under her leadership, The Haggar Foundation helped build UD’s Irving campus and established funds that continue to support faculty development today.

Following a battle with cancer, Wayne Thomas Arceneaux, BA ’76, died on June 28. A dedicated lawyer, Wayne served his clients for over 40 years. He never missed an opportunity to spend time with his family, especially his children and grandchildren.

Patty Stark, MA ’10, wife of trustee Richard Stark, passed away on April 17. Her master’s program was the beginning of the Starks’ deep attachment to the University of Dallas and ultimately led to Richard’s service on the Board of Trustees.

Patty and Rick are the parents of two UD alumni.

Athlete and coach Ashley Smith Casias, BS ’97, passed away on May 28 at age 48. Ashley followed a career in coaching after establishing an exemplary athletic reputation at the University of Dallas in several sports, earning a spot in the UD Hall of Fame and setting several records in basketball. She passed with her family by her side.

Former faculty member John Watters, MS, died on January 25.

Watters enriched the study of business at the University of Dallas with his management experience as founder and CEO of multiple companies, including an INC 500 company, Arbor Systems Inc. Watters created the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Dallas to help prepare graduate students for business, many of whom he continued to mentor long after he left the university.

Missionary Milton Ray Turner, MS ’77, died on April 11 at age 94. A successful businessman in the oil industry, Ray is better known as missionary emeritus of the International Mission Board. Ray and his wife Betty served as missionaries to Ecuador in the early 1970s and later from 1985 to 1994, planting a church in the town of Nanegal.

James Richard “JR” Compton, BA ’66, passed away peacefully on October 8, 2021, in San Antonio, TX. JR found a passion for photography at the University of Dallas that would become a career. He went on to work as a staff photographer for the Dallas Times Herald and publisher of the alternative newspaper Dallas Notes, later H.O.O.K.A. He received recognition as late as 2018 for his independent journalism and photography, being named “Best Bird Nerd” by Dallas Observer with a mention of his publication, Dallas Arts Revue.

Musician and philosophy alumnus Robert W. “Bob” Clayton Jr., BA ’82, passed away on July 23 at age 63.

Parishioners of St. Luke’s Catholic Church in Irving may remember Bob playing organ there after his years at UD.

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Last Word

Good Mornings at UD

New Visual Identity Unveiled

W

hen I was a student at university back in Germany, a popular radio host used to open his midday show with the words, “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen; good morning, students!” A humorous line that capitalized on the common conception that college students are those members of society who get up at noon, discuss some hot-button social issues in the afternoon over jasmine tea and then party through the night until a time at which others rise actually to go to work. A caricature, of course, of European students in the 1980s, but one that is still popular.

The University of Dallas is the nation’s premier Catholic liberal arts university.

However, our visual brand has not always accurately captured our identity. Previous logos have appeared in a variety of formats, creating a disparate visual brand.

For the past year, I lived on the UD campus. At 6:30 a.m., I could see the first students go out on a run, in the summer and in the winter, often in groups. By 8 a.m., campus comes to life with students stopping by the chapel, picking up breakfast in the cafeteria and prepping for their classes.

At 9 a.m., classrooms are filled, as are libraries and labs, and after that there is an ebb and flow of students on the Mall all day long. Sitting areas outside and inside are never void of students reading, conversing and laughing. In the evenings, lights are on in meeting areas for student life and student club events, the chapel is never without its visitors, and students play or exercise or simply hang out. At night, I was asleep. I assume so were most students, but rumor has it that that was not universally the case.

The triquetra, a traditional symbol of the Holy Trinity, anchors the new logo. An updated seal maintains the rich symbolism of the original seal, which will continue to be used in materials for commencement and the Office of the President.

In any event, student life on campus seems healthy. Students cultivate their intellects, yet not at the expense of their bodies or spirits. They form friendships and seek relationships with their professors. When I greet people on campus, I am able to say “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen; good morning, students!”

With the start of the new academic year, the university unveiled an updated set of brand marks that preserves the symbolism of the seal while foregrounding the tagline, “The Catholic University for Independent Thinkers,” with a more classic, timeless aesthetic.

A new set of brand marks for UD Athletics also features a new monogram, wordmark and Crusader icon.

Upcoming Events Vatican Observatory Lecturer

Big Bike Build

Adoro Te Lecture Series

Br. Guy Consolmagno, president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, will deliver a live video lecture titled “Discarded Worlds: Astronomical Ideas That Were Almost Correct.”

Join faculty, staff and students at the tower to assemble bicycles for local underserved preschoolers.

In this monthly series, UD professors will offer reflections and conversations to seed the National Eucharistic Revival.

O C T. 1 3 , 1 2 P. M .

Matthias Vorwerk University Provost 46

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More at calendar.udallas.edu.

O C T. 1 8 , 4 : 3 0 - 7 P. M .

APRIL 2024

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Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Dallas, TX Permit No. 3634

1845 E. Northgate Drive • Irving, Texas 75062-4736

Thank you for making a lasting difference.

The Legacy Society recognizes those who are securing the university’s future through planned gifts. Their support helps ensure that the University of Dallas community will continue to thrive for generations to come.

If you would like to consider including the University of Dallas in your estate plan, please contact Assistant Vice President for Development Austin Westervelt-Lutz.

Phone:

972-721-5148

Email:

awesterveltlutz@udallas.edu

Mail:

1845 East Northgate Drive Irving, Texas 75062-4736