53 minute read
Dream Teams
BOB KERNS
Sometimes the Answer Is in the Right Question
Student Engineers Tackle Shoreline Trash
RESPONDING TO THE needs of the world is more than a lofty goal, it’s a core tenet of University of Portland’s mission statement. And this past year, a group of seniors put that mission into practice when they had to completely reimagine their senior capstone project.
The interdisciplinary team of two civil engineers (Olivia Helinski and Nick Kanno), two mechanical engineers (Ben Bishop and Courtney Cadiz), and two computer scientists (Alex Weininger and Samuel Nguyen) was first tasked with building a “marine debris capture device.”
But things got fuzzy when they realized their original idea to create a tool that would skim debris from the shore of the Willamette was both redundant (there are dozens of devices on the market) as well as too ambitious for their timeframe.
“Having something moving in the water with some sort of automation would be a huge undertaking for just us with only a year to work on it, especially with half the team being remote,” says Weininger.
So, they started over completely from scratch. This time, though, they started not with an idea, but with a question: What does the world actually need?
“They did months of research, interviews, and outreach with stakeholders along the Willamette River—industry, nonprofits, riverfront property owners,” says the team’s advisor, Shiley School of Engineering professor Jordy Wolfand.
The goal was to find out what problems, related to debris in the river, needed a solution. “Many people didn’t respond, but the nonprofits were very interested and excited to talk about this stuff,” says Wolfand.
The team learned that volunteers who pick up litter along the shore are integral to a healthy river ecosystem, because collecting the debris before it hits the water is far more effective than trying to remove it once it’s in there. But volunteers say their biggest problem is the physical exhaustion of using typical litter-grabbers, or “stick-pickers,” as they’re usually called. Volunteers wanted something more ergonomic.
“We wrote down problems we were seeing, like wrist pain, and brainstormed what would fix it,” says Helinski, the team leader. “Then we picked the top three features it should have: a forearm rest to take away the strain on the wrist, a bend in the stick for better aim, and an adjustable length for people of different heights.” Their redesigned stick-picker prototype would make it physically easier to pick up trash, but that solves just half of the problem. Turns out, researchers who study pollution need better tools to track where debris is coming from, when, and why, so they can find ways to stop the trash at its source. (If they find patterns— say, more trash on the farmer’s market day, for instance—they could see if the farmer’s market needs more trash cans.)
There are additional challenges to tracking trash along a body of water. “We were doing research over the summer on plastic pollution, and we realized it’s hard to track debris because it moves,” says Helinski. “There’s a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of people looking to develop AI (artificial intelligence) debris tracking.”
To make the tracking process easier, the team decided to outfit the stickpicker with a mount for a smart phone, so users can easily take pictures of the trash they pick up. Weininger and Nguyen then set to work creating software that can use the pictures to automate the process of cataloguing and mapping the trash. The pictures provide information on the type of trash, location, and date it was found, and the software transfers that information to the students’ database and mapping tool.
The team hopes the device and the software technology will get picked up by another capstone team next year and refined, maybe even making it onto the market someday, so environmental stewards will have a better tool in their fight against water pollution. —Danielle Centoni
Father Mark
UP’s President, Professor, and Priest
In late February, University of Portland President Fr. Mark Poorman, CSC, announced that he would be ending his tenure as president at UP in July, with plans for a sabbatical and hopes for a return to teaching, writing, and pastoral ministry. We hopped on two Zoom calls in early April to talk about his cherished years on The Bluff.
BY JESSICA MURPHY MOO
FR. MARK POORMAN, CSC, remembers the moment clearly. He was in eighth grade. His family had recently moved from California to Illinois for his dad’s new job as founding president of Lincoln Land Community College (LLCC). After baseball practice one day, his dad picked him up and drove over to a soybean field outside Springfield. They got out of the car—the great expanse of that midwestern sky above them—and his dad said, “Well, this is where it’s going to be.”
The “it” his father, Robert Poorman, now age 94, was referring to was the site of LLCC’s first and temporary campus, where the school’s first class graduated 149 students and eventually grew to an overall enrollment of 13,000. “He was a great builder,” Fr. Mark says, and he’s quick to say that he means “builder” in more ways than one: a builder of college infrastructure, yes, but also a builder of a college’s vision, and as Fr. Mark says, “a vision of the way things could be.” The moment made a deep impression on that young eighth grader, who would later become University of Portland’s 20th president, in addition to becoming his own version of a builderin-more-ways-than-one.
ADAM GUGGENHEIM
Of course young Mark standing on that bean field
didn’t yet know the path his life would take. In the moment, he knew he liked baseball and that, when you land in a new junior high school in the spring, baseball might be a way for a new kid to make fast friends, even if the snow on the ground at the beginning of the season in Illinois was a bit of a shock to the California kid’s system. He knew he loved his tight-knit family. He knew his dad would take him to the hardware store when he wanted to talk about important “life” stuff. His family had modeled that a life of faith was important, but he didn’t necessarily know how these lessons and values would manifest in his own life.
During his college years, he started to see some clues. At University of Illinois, the robust Newman Club campus ministry offerings sparked the light of his faith and his academic interest in Christian ethics. He saw the importance of intentional Catholic groups to the spiritual growth of a young adult, the partnerships of lay people in the work of the faith (which happens to be a strong value of the order of the Congregation of Holy Cross), and the ways in which priest-mentors could walk with young people during their formative college years.
He eventually realized—as his education and vocational formation evolved over many years— that he could be that priest-mentor for others.
Caleb Hilger ’15, who later took Fr. Mark’s Character Project class at University of Portland, knew Fr. Mark first as a co-resident of Schoenfeldt Hall and later through the League of Extraordinary Gentleman, a Campus Ministry group in which young men engage with mentors about what it’s like to be a man of faith in society and “how you can be a servant leader.” Fr. Mark was Caleb’s mentor. When Fr. Mark offered the class at UP, Caleb was quick to sign up.
Before Fr. Mark started to work at University of
Portland, he was a theology professor—his field was applied ethics—and vice president of student affairs at the University of Notre Dame. He was also a member of UP’s Board of Regents. When he was on his way out to The Bluff for a Board meeting, he cooked up an idea with fellow Regent, close friend, and then-Notre Dame business school dean Carolyn Woo.
He wondered: What if we could create an undergraduate class that looked at the ethical decisions of the everyday? Not another class for ethics majors or theology majors. No. Those were already in existence at Notre Dame and had their purpose. He was envisioning something new. What if they offered a class that focused on the development of one’s character, the values and habits that move people toward becoming the person they want to be? And what if they offered
Fr. Mark accompanies Amy Dundon-Berchtold and Jim Berchtold during the dedication of UP’s stunning new academic building— Dundon-Berchtold Hall—in 2019.
the class to students of all disciplines—to engage young people in ethical decision-making that would be with them their whole life long in whatever career or life pursuit they chose? We want theologians to have a grounding in applied ethics, sure, but don’t we also want people in business and medicine and education and child rearing and overall engaged citizenship to have these skills?
Carolyn Woo was sold. They co-taught the class—to great success—at Notre Dame.
Woo holds immense admiration for Fr. Mark as an administrator and as a teacher. “Fr. Mark, as a teacher, is able to hold the attention of students. He engages them. He has an ear for where youth are…. He solicited probing questions and drew people into self-understanding,” she says.
When Fr. Mark came to UP, first as executive vice president, and later as president, he wanted to bring the class here too.
He ended up talking about the class with the late Amy Dundon-Berchtold and alumnus Jim Berchtold ’63. Amy saw the practical, worldly applications of the Character Project. She had encountered ethical and unethical decisionmaking in her real estate investment career; she’d always had to navigate that. Amy and Jim decided to support the class, and they became an important part of the University of Portland story during Fr. Mark’s tenure as president.
Alissa (Strauss) Hilger ’16 took the Character Project class a year after her (now) husband, Caleb. She says she, too, saw practical applications of the Character Project out in the real world. “It challenged me to consider what values I wanted to bring forward in my life,” she says. And the skills she gained in the class that had to do with navigating different values were also practical skills for her job as a nurse on the Seattle Children’s Hospital oncology ward. “In the workforce, there are a lot of opinions in the care of a child. There are parents who have different opinions, doctors who have different opinions, nurses who have different opinions…. I had the ability to acknowledge the other perspective without getting fired up.”
They are now married with three children. Fr. Mark presided over their wedding. He is a part of their story. They admit that every so often when they experience or read about a moral dilemma situation in the newspaper, they say, “This would be a great topic for the Character Project!”
Co-instructors value the class content as well. After all, developing one’s character is a lifelong challenge. “It has informed my parenting in meaningful ways,” says Dan McGinty, who is director of the Dundon-Berchtold Institute for Moral Formation and Applied Ethics. The institute and its robust programming, such as Ethics Week and annual student research fellows, grew out of the class and support from Amy and Jim.
Brenda Greiner, director of the Shepard Academic Resource Center, who last year was recognized by the Congregation of Holy Cross with a Holy Cross Spirit Award for her collaboration with CSCs, has loved being a part of the class both because of the students—“It was rewarding to see them having an experience they’re going to remember”—and because she got to see a new side to Fr. Mark. She knew him as an administrator. In the class, she says, “I really got to see him in his vocation as a priest and educator.”
It is remarkable that Fr. Mark continued to teach during the span of his presidency. Most presidents don’t. Being a university president is obviously a big job with all kinds of pressures and demands. But by making the time to teach he sent a message about what he valued.
Being a president of a university is a great topic for a character project too, is it not? Think of all the thorny questions and competing demands. How do you honor and lead the many different individuals coming from different places and different life experiences so that they learn and grow and contribute in positive ways to the world? How do you affirm a university’s Catholic mission while also valuing the contributions of other perspectives? How do you lead a university community through a global pandemic? How do you handle the responsibility of leading a community through a campus tragedy or controversial event?
Sometimes campus controversies became part of the discussion in class, because in that classroom Fr. Mark was a president and priest, but he was also an individual wrestling with the stuff of life right along with the students.
When Fr. Mark gave his inaugural address in 2014, he was clear on the value of the Holy Cross education and Catholic social teaching. He acknowledged the elements of UP’s vibrant, multi-faceted community, from its focus on the students to its brilliant and devoted faculty and
staff and the community of alumni doing good work out in the world. He then noted an evident need—for more academic and residential space— and set a clear goal: “As we grow, the structural needs of the University are also growing…. We face the need for additional academic and residential space worthy of the importance we place on the pursuits of our students.”
He made good on that day-one promise.
During his tenure the following building projects were completed: the Pilot House renovation, Lund Family Hall, Dundon-Berchtold Hall, the School of Nursing’s Simulated Health Center and Ambulatory Care Unit, the renovation of the Joe Etzel Baseball Stadium, and Chiles Plaza. He continued the long-term forward-press on the new Franz River Campus development and helped to secure support to build the Nelson Physical Plant Building and the Shiley-Marcos Center for Design and Innovation. He also helped to conceive and raise funds for the Marian Grotto situated just next to the Chapel of Christ the Teacher. All of these commitments and partnerships—with supporters who are devoted to the vision of what a University of Portland education can offer the world—have indeed improved the academic, residential, and spiritual student experience. Though he is quick to say these achievements are “collective achievements” and that a president can never claim individual credit, these buildings are a part of Fr. Mark’s legacy.
The University will also build on the strategic work of his tenure—the goals and tenets of “Vision 2020” (UP’s most recent strategic plan) and the continued focus on the University’s robust liberal arts core curriculum. Just as he wanted his Character Project class to be open to students in every discipline, he believes that a well-rounded liberal arts education helps students in every field and graduates in every career to solve problems in the real world. He also recently established a committee of campus leaders charged with finding new ways for UP to embody and enhance the Catholic vision of educating the whole person.
He says that, with each new project or moment
of strategic decision-making, two questions kept him grounded and focused: “What is good for the students? How does it impact the experience of the student?”
During a pandemic, the answers to these questions took on new shapes. This year, Fr. Mark and the University leadership have had to make some hard choices to keep students safe and keep the University moving forward.
Fr. Mark notes the “army of people” who made everything work this year, from the President’s Leadership Cabinet to staff’s adaptability to the faculty’s unimaginably quick shift to online learning. With the development team, he set up the Presidential Hope Fund to help students with unexpected needs during the pandemic—an allhands-on-deck effort to make sure deserving students could complete their education.
In March, I spoke with Jean Paul Mugisha ’18. He was an engineering major, and he, too, took the Character Project class and loved it. He is now an electrical engineer working at Intel. Originally from the Congo, Jean Paul lived with his family in a Rwandan refugee camp for 17 years. In 2014 his family was relocated to Portland. Jean Paul started college courses at Portland Community College and ended up meeting Fr. Mark, who saw Jean Paul’s potential. Fr. Mark was right. He found a supporting scholarship, and Jean Paul thrived at UP.
Jean Paul’s well-wishes for Fr. Mark offer a perfect parting blessing: “It is bittersweet to see him go. My community is going to miss him. He is a super kind person…. I’m praying for him. I pray the community will welcome him, that he goes where he feels loved. He’s a really good person. I hope he keeps in touch with the UP community.”
Thank you, Fr. Mark. We wish you well in this exciting new phase of your career.
JESSICA MURPHY MOO is the editor of this magazine.
My Joy
EVEN THIS YEAR, IT HAS SUSTAINED HER. BY VALERIE LEWIS-MOSLEY COLLAGE BY HEATHER POLK
My life is a paradox. And so is my joy.
My ability as a healer—a critical-care obstetrics nurse gifted with bringing new life into the world and nurturing the mind, body, and spirit of women—has not shielded me from my own health issues or life-threatening experiences or losses.
My immune system, which is supposed to support and promote wellness, actually attacks and plays havoc with my body.
My existence as a Black woman living in a world structured against me is also the existence of one who knows transcendent joy.
Joy, so central to my life, a gift of the Holy Spirit, is with me even now, when COVID-19 has immersed me in pastoral work to assist others in their struggle to survive and sustain their spiritual and mental health. Even this year, in the presence of so much death, I have not lost my joy.
How?
You would not be the first to ask.
For many years, my clinical area of
specialty was in women’s and children’s health—birthing babies and caring for mothers. I loved my work.
My day began at 7:30 a.m. Across the street from this New York City-Upper Eastside medical center was a Catholic church. I would enter the church daily, either for morning Mass if I had time, or for a short prayer at the altar of the Blessed Sacrament. My prayer was always one of thanksgiving and a request to bless and protect my day—and that of my staff and patients. I began my day on the unit with a smile and good morning to the staff.
One day one of my colleagues asked me, “How can you be so bubbly so early in the morning? Don’t you ever get up on the wrong side of the bed?”
This colleague was disgruntled with life and wanted me to know that not everything was so peaches and cream.
But I already knew that.
The lessons of joy that transcends suffering are rooted in my ancestors, in my development as a descendant of enslaved African and African American Freedwomen. For my ancestors and elders, the whole of their survival was rooted in the awareness of the Immanent, a power outside of themselves, permanently pervading and sustaining the universe. Theirs was an ability to know the Creator God in every aspect of their being. This awareness of God with them is how my family has defined the experience of joy. No matter what hardship they faced—the indignity of racism and Jim Crow laws in the deep south as well as the de facto segregation up north—they found joy in knowing that Immanuel was with them and for them. Even in their suffering, they experienced the joy of God—for the Son of God, Jesus, had also endured suffering. Their Good Friday sufferings were never felt in isolation. The promise and hope of Jesus always accompanied them in the grandeur and misery of life. It is this centeredness in the presence of God that sustains the ever-flowing fount of joy in me.
The Scripture tells us in Psalm 30 that
weeping and pain may occur for a while but that joy comes in the morning. I often look at this Scripture as twofold: that joy will be present at the end of a time of grieving and that JOY, what my cousin Sr. Lynn Marie Ralph, SBS, called Jesus Our Yes, is present even in the midst of mourning and suffering.
There was irony in being skilled and credentialed as a high-risk senior clinical nurse in an obstetrical critical care unit, while also being susceptible to pregnancy complications. My expertise could not protect me from the experiences and the statistics of disproportionate life-threatening risks faced by far too many pregnant Black women. But even when I had experienced three tragic premature losses of my own—my joy never wavered. Although one will experience sadness and grief, JOY—Jesus Our Yes—is ever present if we but allow ourselves to be receptive.
Remember that colleague who could
not understand my daily expressions of joy? Well, after a lengthy hospital admission to sustain a complicated pregnancy, this colleague came to visit me. He still could not understand how I had managed for many years to sustain such a spirit of joy in the presence of my complicated medical history and numerous pregnancy losses. He could not understand how I continued to stay in a clinical area of practice—day in and day out providing care to new mothers. My response to him then and to others now all of these many years later: God’s joy is sufficient. It is the long-lived lessons gifted to me from a long line of women who have endured suffering without becoming joyless. It is because the joy was not of their own circumstance but infused into them to sustain them through the troubles and hardship. The joy of the Lord is my strength.
VALERIE D. LEWIS-MOSLEY is an adjunct professor of theology at Caldwell University and Xavier University of Louisiana—Institute for Black Catholic Studies. She is a Lay Associate Order of Preachers—Caldwell Dominicans.
FOLLOW YOUR
BY KAREN BRIDGES PHOTOS BY ADAM GUGGENHEIM
DRAGON
Recent graduate and set designer Kat Yo ’21 brings her passion for sustainability and Korean folklore— and her dazzling imagination— to UP’s stage.
FOR MONTHS, KAT YO ’21 gathered trash underneath her bed. Empty soda water cans, CVS receipts, an old phone cord, cardboard, the list goes on. You wouldn’t have expected it— when I interviewed Yo over Zoom, her dorm room was tidy and organized; a guitar and a few selected photos and artwork adorned the walls. The trash was lovingly curated for a higher purpose. With an artist’s eye and an environmentalist’s passion, Yo gave these discarded materials a new life as a refrigerator-sized dragon puppet for The Imugi Myth, a retelling of a Korean story for her final production on the University of Portland stage.
You’d never know the imugi was made of recycled materials. The “skeleton” of the dragon is the cardboard from care packages her family sent her, some of them going back to her first year of college. Hundreds of individual scales, circles of vibrant blue, red, purple, and silver fabric are cut from scraps of fabric from UP’s costume shop, meticulously layered from the snout to the horns, and cascading down into a flowing train. Inside the dragon’s head is a sturdy, dense cardboard handle, the center tube of a fabric bolt, which the dancer uses to hold and manipulate the puppet. Insulation made from sponges provides another point of contact and padding for the dancer’s head. The only non-recycled material are the imugi’s LED eyes that light up and change with the emotion of the scene.
A set designer, costume designer, and a storyteller, Yo has a vision for the world she wants to see—both on the stage and off. And that vision involves sustainable use of our world’s environmental resources and stories that connect us, even when—due to COVID—most stages have gone dark.
Yo’s passion for sustainability sparked with her theater work during Spring Break 2020, when she participated in the Moreau Center’s first-ever Environmental Justice Immersion. The week culminated in the Columbia River Gorge with a visit to the Celilo Village. Bobby Begay, a beloved Yakima tribal leader and lead fishing technician for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC), hosted the students and spoke of his community’s presence and work in the region to advocate for access to fish and clean water. Begay—renowned in the Gorge community and throughout Oregon as an activist, teacher, and gifted storyteller—advocated for the environment as a deeply enriching component of all human life. “Bobby talked about himself as a voice for the rivers, the fish, the things that can’t speak and need our help,” says Yo.
This was early March 2020, right when the news of COVID-19 was beginning to get real. No one was certain yet how much everything was about to change. Yo recalls tribal members bumping elbows with students instead of shaking hands and expressing great concern for the virus. It was a moment of reckoning with her privilege of health and access to care.
Yo’s revelation and concern for Indigenous American communities were not misplaced. The CDC estimates that the mortality rate for Indigenous Americans is nearly twice that of white populations. Tragically, Bobby Begay died of COVID-19 complications in April 2020. “It hit hard,” says Yo. Begay’s stories, and his loss, raised complicated questions for Yo when she considered her own storytelling on stage— who gets a voice? Whose stories are told? Whose stories and voices are silenced?
The Environmental Justice Immersion was a pivotal experience for Yo, and she returned to her studies inspired. “That immersion allowed me to understand why I’m committing,” she says. “Everyone knows environmental justice matters on a vague timeline, but seeing who it affects and how it affects them—it put a sense of urgency on the topic.” She wanted her work to honor Bobby’s memory.
Yo looked for ways to express the connection between storytelling and the environment, to find a way to inspire others, even as COVID was forcing people into isolation. “Can I show you something?” Yo asked me during our Zoom call. She went to her neatly organized closet and pulled out an oversized, soft, plaid jacket, reminiscent of cozy days at a cabin on a lake in the woods, and also of early ’90s grunge. She wrapped the jacket around her and seemed to melt into it. “I love this because it was my dad’s.”
When fellow student and friend DJ Biersack ’20 showed her that he also had his father’s jacket from the ’90s, they had a revelation that materials held meaning. “There were stories within the clothes,” says Yo. “We wanted to look at how clothes can tell stories of the people who came before us. You can pass on stories that are woven into the cloth. You get to be a part of this legacy of clothing.” And by encouraging people to reuse and extend the life of clothing, they’d be giving the materials a longer story and working to combat environmental concerns in the creation and disposal of clothing.
Their shared passion led to Dyadic Studios, which aims to promote sustainable fashion. “Starting Dyadic Studios was a way of taking control back and saying, ‘this is who I am and what I want to do—environmental work.’”
Yo’s environmental work with Dyadic Studios is still evolving, but at its core, the mission translates readily to her work in the theater. “As a set designer, I try to seek out materials that already exist, and I want to do something different with them. There are so many possibilities.” She found inspiration in the Green New Theatre Movement, particularly Donyale Werle’s work as set designer on Peter and the Starcatcher on Broadway. Werle built the set, which resembles an enormous, elaborate toybox, entirely out of found materials. In this way, the set and the materials tell a story, adding layers to the narrative.
In addition to the materials, Kat has a personal connection to The Imugi Myth story. “Because I’m Korean American, I get to experience through research some things I missed out on in my childhood, the imugi story being one of those things,” she says. It also reframed the way she thought about her father and family interactions. “My mother is very vocally expressive,” she explains, “but my father acknowledges me in nonverbal ways.” A quiet nod, a gleam of pride in his eyes, these powerful but subtle gestures illuminated more complex elements and possibilities for storytelling.
As she worked on this project, she reflected on her own family, revisiting memories. They are a close family; she last saw them over winter break, and whenever she’s home in Sacramento, she goes to see her Korean grandparents once a week. “When I’m away from them, I miss the sounds, the smells, the food,” she says. That longing for the sensory aspects of family and home was woven into her production through lighting, music, and dance.
Yo took this inspiration to The Imugi Myth. “I’d like to bring a different perspective of what theater can be, both through materials, and introducing Korean culture to the University of Portland stage,” she says. Beyond the materials, the story is told entirely through lighting, rhythm, and movement, with no dialogue—a convention of certain types of traditional Korean performances. The “voice” of the dragon comes from the haunting, eerie music of the saenghwang, a traditional Korean flute made of 17 bamboo pipes. With no dialogue to rely on, the production challenges the viewer to pay attention to more nuanced elements. Every detail is rich with meaning.
The Imugi Myth is a modern take on Korean folklore and theater. In the Korean myth, imugi (sometimes spelled “imoogi”) dragons are benevolent beings, bringers of rain, associated with water and agriculture. Yo’s production centers on a girl whose village is suffering from an endless drought. When she encounters an imugi, she helps the dragon gain its power, and in return the dragon brings the rain and the harvest. Yo’s concept won The Regional Award in Allied Arts for an unrealized show at the 2021 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Design Technology and Management Exposition.
The realities of the pandemic have challenged Yo and her production team. Instead of being performed in front of a live audience, The Imugi Myth is filmed. “Having an audience would have been an ideal situation,” she says. “People don’t always realize what an energy the audience is for the actors; there’s a connection you don’t get in film.” But she is leaning into film and editing, learning new skills, making herself more competitive for the job market, and embracing the cinematic aspects.
Sebastian Adams ’21 is the choreographer on Yo’s production team. Like Yo, he has a range of creative skills and offered his own unique perspective to The Imugi Myth. Classically trained in dance at the Conservatory of Luxembourg, Adams brought a modern twist to the traditional mythology. “We did a lot of cultural research,” says Adams. “I felt very motivated to do this piece justice as a Korean cultural heritage play.” Adams immersed himself in the foundational movements of Korean folk dance. “I wanted to know why the people were dancing,” he says. “I need that connection to the humanistic trait in us all.”
Korean farmers in rural villages historically danced in reverence to the dragon as a symbol of harvest, growth, and rejuvenation. Adams choreographed the dance to begin with these traditional horizontal, earthbound movements, reflecting hardship and connection to the earth. But as the play progresses, and the girl and the dragon work to save the village from drought, the gestures become vertical and reaching. “I played with movements and my background of jazz and ballet, and infused my own style to make a hybrid dance form specifically for The Imugi Myth.”
Indeed, the production is something entirely new. A hybrid of theater, animation, and cinema, of traditional and modern, Yo and her team explore the uncertainty and power of being in between. Stage director Amanda DeRego ’21, who took on the challenge of bringing all of these elements into a cohesive story, says, “I think too often the world wants us to choose just one thing, or be one thing. But for much of my life, I’ve asked ‘why?’”
Yo, too, feels an affinity for working in this new and liminal space. “It mirrors the biracial aspect of my identity, the way I exist as a person,” she says.
Some of her professors and mentors have suggested that Yo should narrow her focus, find a specialty or niche. And while she understands the importance of a focus, she never wants to cut herself off from an opportunity. “My curiosity is exactly why I’ve done so many things,” she says. “I am someone who is very, very curious.” Her family has a personal twist on an old proverb: “Curiosity killed the Kat; satisfaction brought her back.”
“I am starting to lean towards a style and focus through having an attention specific to the environment. My materials, the story I’m telling, and the process are converging towards who I am, what I want to establish and change in the theater industry.” After graduation, Yo plans to take a gap year and has been accepted to graduate school at California Institute of the Arts for 2022. “Everything’s open,” she says. “It’s a little bit scary—but I want to make art. There’s just no way I can sit in a room with four white walls and not want to paint on them.”
KAREN BRIDGES is a marketing and communications coordinator and writer for University of Portland.
Amazing
Sometimes the student and the parent end up learning a thing or two
THERE ARE MANY moments of grace that were born from deep wells of despair this past year, which I refer to as The Longest Spring Break Eva. But what stands out the most is the moment when Mr. K rode his motorcycle over to our house to connect personally with Teslyn and me, her struggling mom.
Teslyn is my fifth-grader. She is a creative wonder. She also struggles to learn new things. Some would call her developmentally delayed. I call her a gift we are still learning to unwrap.
Most of Teslyn’s growth happens because of teachers who know how to keep trying. Eventually, something sticks. In kindergarten, Teslyn’s instructional aide used rhythm to model “one-to-one correspondence.” Two years later, I witnessed the same aide using the same rhythm method as the foundation to teach addition and subtraction. In fourth grade, just before we left the school building for The Longest Spring Break Eva, Teslyn had solidified her method for solving addition and subtraction. However, she did not have a foundation for multiplication and division problems.
When it became clear that we would not be going back into the school building for learning, the teachers had a matter of weeks to create something where once…nothing existed. Their pivot was astounding. And it was messy.
Teslyn no longer had her math curriculum provided by instructional aides who knew her level. She was thrust into the regular fourth-grade math curriculum, including fractions. Fractions are hard to understand if you don’t know multiplication and division.
And yet, Teslyn made progress in her own ways, and I learned to support her by standing on scaffolding that the teachers were creating.
Fast forward to December 2020. Teslyn was now in fifth grade. Her curriculum was still astounding, creative, and messy. As the person at home, standing on scaffolding I still did not fully understand, one day I realized that if she could pick up a foundational math skill—multiplication tables—fractions would be much easier.
I put the question to her team, and Teslyn’s primary teacher, Mr. K, responded. He had noticed that Teslyn really responds to music, and that gave him an idea.
A week later, Mr. K pulled up to our house on his motorcycle. He produced an iPod and speaker and taught Teslyn how to use them. I noticed a picture on the iPod’s background photo. It was a school district advertisement from a decade ago that featured Mr. K’s own children. I breathed, as I realized just how much wisdom and experience had informed this moment. Mr. K had raised his own children through this school district, and he has been doing this sacred work for a long time.
The iPod contained songs about multiplication that use repetition and rhythm to encourage memorization. Mr. K asked Teslyn to listen to the music and sing along. He suggested that she move her body while listening—maybe a rhythmic exercise like jumping jacks or writing with chalk—so that the “motor muscle memory” of those multiplication tables could be absorbed.
Over the next month, Teslyn followed Mr. K’s recommendations. She exploded in her multiplication-table awareness. And then she exploded in her fluency with fractions.
And I am amazed. New Testament amazed. The New Testament writers used the word “amazed” to signal that something from the Divine was breaking open into the world. In Mr. K’s teaching moment, the Divine broke open into my life, and I saw the gifts already present inside my daughter and the power of teachers to build upon them.
Teslyn will continue to have some developmental delays. But now, Mom knows a secret: she is already amazing. Her gifts are already inside her. The wisdom and experience of teachers will continue to build on the foundation she already has. Amazing.
ASTIN MILLS ’04 was a nursing/Spanish major at UP, who benefited from the Air Force ROTC program. She served four years. She wants to express gratitude to those doing equity work at UP.
302 from 2037
The professor she never knew she needed
2037 BERRY STREET. Grey walls, a rainy window. My red flowered quilt, pictures from a previous time. It’s the view I see every day. I sit at my teal desk, rubbing my eyes because all I ever do anymore is look at my computer screen. I know I should be thankful that I’m in school and still learning, yet I can’t help but wonder what I’ll actually retain from another semester of online classes. I ask myself almost every day how I’ll make it to Winter Break. Each Friday night, the idea of throwing my MacBook out my third-story window sounds more appealing than it did the week prior.
Monday and Wednesday at 4:10, however, everything changes. I’m not tired anymore. I’m thrilled at the opportunity to learn. To listen. To be taught. I pretend I’m in a real classroom, with real people, making real connections. Suddenly, I’m not sitting in my room, at my teal desk, looking out my window at the rain. I’m in a new, refreshing environment that isn’t draining or tiring. It’s the closest thing to a real classroom that I’ve experienced in months.
After two consecutive semesters, I’ve never met her. I don’t know how tall she is, or what her mannerisms are like in real life. I don’t know if she talks with her hands or if she paces back and forth across the classroom as she lectures. I don’t know what it would be like to be in the same physical space. All I know is what I’ve seen from the tiny Zoom box labeled “Alexandra Hill.” I know that every day at 5 p.m., her dogs bark at the door and she laughs and says, “Ah! Die Post ist da!” I know that she genuinely cares for the students she teaches and that she doesn’t work for the paycheck.
After fewer than two semesters, I already know that she’ll be one of the professors I look back on and tell my kids about. On September 14 at 4:10 p.m., I came to this realization. It seems that the times in which one is faced with challenges are the most revealing of character. In early September, the West Coast erupted in devastating wildfires that spread through California, Oregon, and Washington, destroying everything in their paths. Childhood homes were burned, forests were torched, people were killed. Smoke suffocated every community for hundreds of miles. Instead of wishing us the best and continuing on with the lecture, we talked about it. As a class, as a community. She listened. It wasn’t some grand gesture or seminar; it was a simple question. She asked, “Are you okay?” It was not the kind of question that warrants an “I’m fine.” No. She wanted to know what was on our minds, what our weeks had been like. She wanted to know how we had been impacted, if everyone we love was safe. She wanted to know the small things that were holding us down and opened up the class time for a discussion about our feelings. A space to rant. A space to cry. All in a Zoom meeting. That is the kind of professor she is, the kind who makes someone feel heard and appreciated and loved without having to say it.
This is what distinguishes a good educator from a great one: an unspoken mutual appreciation. It wasn’t just September 14 that felt like that. It was September 16, and October 21, and January 25, and April 5, and every day in between. It was each and every time I signed in to German 302, and each and every time I joined Alexandra Hill’s Personal Meeting room. Truth be told, I can’t tell you a specific moment that shows how Dr. Hill is the reason educators are so important, because every moment I’ve spent in her virtual classroom has reflected that. I feel heard and appreciated over Zoom, and it takes a special person to do that. So, thank you, Dr. Hill, for being the professor I never knew I needed.
CLAIRE LANG just finished her first year at UP. She is double majoring in Political Science and German.
Super Cool
Retired reading specialist to the rescue
MY DAUGHTER KEEVA’S first experience on Zoom preschool last April was pretty telling: She wandered off every few minutes, technical difficulties occurred on both sides, and she refused to wear clothes. Virtual learning was off the table before it was ever on the table. At the time, Keeva was only three and a half, so the decision to pull her out of pre-K felt like an easy one—after all, I’d recently been laid off, so I would be home, plus everything would be back to normal by the fall (it had to be, right?!).
As weeks and eventually months passed, as the days lost all structure, we knew we had to come up with another plan. We reached out to my mother-in-law, Rosanne Skinner (a University of Portland grad, Class of 1968, recently retired), who had been an elementary school teacher and reading specialist for over 40 years. Rosanne and I had many conversations about what the solution might be for Keeva’s schooling. Maybe she could just set us up and give me a crash course in teaching. Instead, when cases started to decline in late summer, she booked a one-way flight from Vancouver, WA, to New Jersey.
On Keeva’s first day of school, she put on her backpack and best outfit and proudly marched up the stairs to her “super cool” new classroom. Over the next six months, Keeva impressed us with her ability to adapt, her incredible memory, and her natural affinity for science and reading— but she was only half of the equation.
Rosanne was the other half. She had never taught children as young as Keeva before—so she saw it as a challenge, one she embarked upon with gusto. Day by day, as cheers and giggles began to erupt from the classroom upstairs, it became clear why Rosanne was often referred to as “the best teacher ever” by her past students. Besides navigating the role of being both Keeva’s teacher and her grandmother with ease, she poured immense energy and enthusiasm into this “job” on a daily basis. We were floored.
At a time where some children don’t have access to any education at all, we consider ourselves incredibly lucky that Keeva has a grandparent who was willing and able to move across the country during a pandemic to ensure her education was taken care of. The other day Rosanne reminded me how lucky she has felt throughout this whole journey too. As she described it, teaching Keeva was her “happy place”—something that allowed her to escape the anxieties of the pandemic and focus on something she truly loved (and still loves) doing.
There really aren’t adequate words to describe what Rosanne did for Keeva these past six months. Yes, she taught Keeva reading, math, geography, and science, but Rosanne did something else completely immeasurable. She grew Keeva’s confidence, she nurtured her curiosity, and she gave her structure when there was very little of that to be found elsewhere. In the end, education became a salve for our whole family during this crazy year—the teacher, the student, and those of us lucky enough to witness the unadulterated joy that learning something new can bring.
DANIELA ZANGARA knows she hit the motherin-law jackpot. It is worth noting that both Pat Moran ’70, Keeva’s grandfather, and Daniela (unbeknownst to each other) submitted an essay about Rosanne for the Portland contest. Unfortunately, we only had room for one!
PHOTOS AND CAPTIONS BY JANNA MACHALEK ’08
WHEN UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND purchased the land along the Willamette River to develop the Franz River Campus, a few crumbling industrial buildings came along with the acquisition. Where the University saw safety concerns, a crew of graffiti artists saw a canvas. For nearly a year, Janna Machalek ’08 interviewed the crew for her senior sociology thesis. Her work was so thorough that sociology professor Martin Monto invited her to co-author an academic paper for the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. The buildings are gone now. Pirate Town, as the area had come to be known by some, is no more. But Machalek’s contribution persists. The crew invited her to come along and she listened to them. And in doing so, she captured a window into the work and concerns of a small crew of prolific graffiti artists who returned to write on the walls of these buildings again and again and again. They had a range of styles and techniques. They all, in one way or another, told us that they were here.
Where others see swathes of paint left by graffiti abatement efforts (aka the “buff”), artist SASQUATCH sees shapes that inspire dream-like faces and figures.
DEKOY, a member of the TSA crew, wraps up a piece on an outing to the main chamber of the “Share Davies” building with Machalek and crew-mate ANGST.
OMEN, half of the two-man crew PAULRUS IS DEAD, takes advantage of a found ladder. This playful use of space is characteristic of the duo and contributes to the notoriety of their mysterious tag, the meaning of which continues to be the subject of much speculation online.
An example of the smaller personal messages that often accompany larger graffiti pieces.
JANNA MACHALEK ’08 of rural Alaska has many fond memories of life in Portland while completing this project and her degrees. Her hope is that her graffiti research will inform others, and that her story will inspire students to research topics that thrill them.
BOB KERNS
Introducing Gina
Gina Amato Yazzolino ’96 is UP’s—no, your—new director of alumni and parent relations, and she has hit the ground running here on The Bluff. Days into her new position, she masked up and joined the assembly line of volunteers who packed the commencement boxes for our 2021 graduates, the newest members to join the community of UP alums doing amazing things out in the world. She has also connected with Air Force ROTC Commander Col. Scott Grainger ’94 in support of a new Air Force ROTC alumni affinity group.
She wants to hear from you, not only about what you’re up to, but also how you want to be involved in UP’s future. If you have ideas, please reach out!
Gina has spent her career in the world of nonprofits— from Make-a-Wish Foundation of Oregon to Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Archbishop Howard School at St. Rose. But UP is the first nonprofit where, on her first day on the job, as she drove that familiar bend on North Willamette Boulevard toward the University’s main entrance, she took a deep breath and thought, “I’m home.”
70s
1978
We heard recently from Thomas P. Jordan ’78, who writes: “I have been working in the natural stone business for 39 years. I started in São Paulo, Brazil, working at a stone factory monitoring the production of a large exterior-clad office building in Texas. Since 2003 I have lived in Xiamen, China, as president and owner of CHS Stone, a fabricator and supplier of cut stone for commercial projects in the US and Asia.”
80s
1980
Francine Goteiner ’80 dropped us a line recently: “After graduating from the School of Nursing, I spent the next 31-plus years working in public health as a community health nurse in a variety of positions, focusing on maternal infant nursing. My years before retirement were spent making home visits to Spanish-speaking women who were pregnant and/or parenting young children. In 2020 I opened an online business reading astrological natal charts via Zoom. You can find me at francinegoteinerastrologerllc.com. Thanks, and stay well!”
1982
Tina Tehranchian ’82, senior wealth advisor for Assante Capital Management Ltd., was recently selected as Senior Wealth Advisor of the Decade by the International Association of Top Professionals (IAOTP). Tina is the first woman and the first Canadian to receive this distinction.
1984
Here’s the latest from Erik Krauss ’84, who writes: “I have just completed five years of service at the University of Central Asia where I was a part of a team that built and opened modern campuses in remote areas of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. I was also responsible for all of UCA’s student affairs operations. I have recently taken a position as dean of student success at Sampoerna University in Jakarta, Indonesia.”
1985
Gene DeMello Jr. ’85 was confirmed by the Hawai'i State Senate to serve on the Hawai'i Paroling Authority (HPA) board, an independent quasi-judicial body attached to the Department of Public Safety, for a term of four years. In his federal career he worked as a probation officer, supervisor, and assistant deputy chief before retiring in June 2020 after 28 years of service.
1988
Wade Webber ’88 has been named head coach of the United Soccer League’s
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Nobel Peace Prize 2020
When David Austin graduated from UP’s newly minted MBA in Nonprofit Management program in 2013, he earned the Moreau Fellows Award for Outstanding Service and Leadership for his work with Mercy Corps. Turns out, that was just a hint of much—much—bigger things to come.
This year, Austin and the rest of his team at the United Nations World Food Programme were awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to combat hunger and prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war.
“Access to food is a human right according to the UN charter, so if people don’t have access to food, we try to get it to them,” says Austin, director of strategic partnerships. “We’re currently feeding about 114 million people a day in 84 countries.” And due to COVID-19, the number of hungry people nearly doubled in the past year.
Also, thanks to the WFP’s efforts, the UN Security Council passed a resolution last year directly linking food security to peace and international security. “We were able to show with data that global security is directly tied to food security,” says Austin. “Hunger is a driver of conflict globally. That’s why two-thirds of our budget right now—which is about 8 billion dollars this year—is going to conflict zones.”
Of course, 2020 was the year of pivots. As the transportation world shut down, the WFP used its extensive global supply chain to deliver a lot more than food, including 145,500 cubic meters of PPE to 173 countries, and served as the humanitarian air bridge for nonprofit relief workers around the world.
“We were the last resort, and we stepped up,” Austin says.
Tacoma Defiance. His pro career included 53 MLS appearances for Dallas and Miami from 1997 to 1999, and he led the Pilots to the NCAA Final Four as a senior.
90s
1994
Lee Kum Kee Sauce Group has hired Katty Lam ’94 as chief executive officer. Lam has over 25 years of experience with renowned multinational food companies.
Toby Taniguchi ’94, president and COO of KTA Super Stores, served as a panelist for Hawaii Business Magazine’s Community and Economy Forum on February 25, 2021. He is the president/chairman of the Hawai'i Island Chamber of Commerce.
1995
Here’s a note from Rev. Dr. Lloyd George Abrams ’95: “I have graduated five times from five different universities, and UP is the only university to wish me happy birthday. Thank you very much. I won’t forget you. Another thought: I remember taking a Renaissance class from Dr. Jim Covert ’59. I remember how he had all of us go out on The Bluff (to flee the black death) and take up an art form of some kind like many of the wealthy people did hundreds of years ago. I never would have even imagined that, in the 21st century, I would flee my city to escape the COVID19 plague and hunt for fossils in the Anza Borrego State Park, Borrego Springs, California. Dr. Covert was way ahead of his time! I was the one to be blessed from his fabulous teaching.”
Peter Mougey ’95 is a partner at Levin Papantonio in Pensacola, FL, and chair of their Securities and Business Litigation department. His most recent efforts have been directed to the multibillion-dollar National Opioid Litigation settlement, serving as co-lead of the Distributor Case. According to a press release, The Washington Post called this “the largest civil action in U.S. history.” The proposed settlement “will force drug companies and distributors to pay $26 billion dollars to communities that have had to shoulder the burden of the opioid crisis.”
1998
Joseph Cavalli ’98 was granted tenure during the Clark College Board of Trustees meeting on March 10, 2021. Cavalli earned his MA in history at UP and has experience teaching in private high schools in Croatia, Italy, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Portland.
00s
2004
Portland Business Journal recently profiled UP alum and Sugarpine Drive-in co-owner Ryan Domingo ’04. He and his wife, Emily, opened Sugarpine in 2018 and offer soft serve ice cream, snacks, salads, and sandwiches with an eye toward locally sourced ingredients.
2006
The Sherwood, OR, Regional Family YMCA has a new executive director: Scott Pierce ’06, who earned his
Neighbor to Neighbor
In some ways, the pandemic changed the focus of Tara Benavente’s day-to-day work. In other ways, she is doing what she has always done since she graduated from UP in 2014—bringing her abiding belief in hospitality to the community where she lives. A longtime barista (if you’ve ever frequented Cathedral Coffee in St. Johns, she’ll be a familiar face), she is now working as the program manager for St. Johns Village, a new transitional housing community for formerly houseless individuals.
A social work major at UP, Benavente tends to jump in wherever she sees a need. “I’ve always had a heart for working at the margins,” she says. “I’m a big believer in neighbors taking care of neighbors, that everything we need can be found in the community.” That local businesses donated more than $200,000 toward St. Johns Village seems to support her belief.
She officially works for Do Good Multnomah, an organization that focuses on getting housing and services to veterans. Before opening St. Johns Village, Tara was part of the effort that transformed the Charles Jordan Community Center into a 90-bed shelter, and she also managed one of the emergency motel shelters that opened last year in response to the pandemic.
Then she jumped into getting St. Johns Village ready, painting and caulking and furnishing the single occupancy pods and preparing the communal kitchen, washroom, and restroom. At this point, 16 of the 19 pods are occupied, and she is doing less painting and more community work with the villagers. A recent meeting involved finding the process for tackling the universal shared-space dilemma: dishes. The residents came to the meeting with great ideas.
MBA on The Bluff. Scott served as executive director of the Beaverton YMCA for five years prior to joining the Sherwood YMCA.
2007
Luke Raynor ’07 and Hannah Wentz were married in September 2020 at the Oregon Coast in the presence of their parents and closest friends.
Dr. Emily Sorenson Reinig ’07 and her husband Zack ’10 now live in Coos Bay, OR, where Emily works in a hospital in Bandon, according to Fr. Jim Connelly, CSC.
Christina Trautman ’07 was interviewed in December 2020 by The Columbian about her work as a pelvic floor physical therapist, a specialty that began as she was pursuing her undergraduate degree at UP. She operated her business, The Pelvic Floor Place, out of her home in Hazel Dell, WA.
2008
Elizabeth (Corr) Sheils ’08 reconnected with UP in a recent note: “I am reaching out because I had a pretty cool UP ‘come full circle’ experience. My company (Rock Paper Coin) just closed our third round of funding. During the process I reconnected with a fellow alum: Mason Walker ’03. It was a lot of fun reconnecting with him. Leaning on him for advice and now considering him part of the Rock Paper Coin family is a wonderful experience. Thought it might be fun to share our story in some way to the UP community. Rock Paper Coin provides event professionals and clients a simple and easy way to process contracts, invoices, and payments for weddings.”
2009
Wonderful news from Kyle Bunch ’09, ’11, who writes: “Hope this note finds you well. I just wanted to share the news that Rachael and I welcomed another future Pilot into the Bunch family. Gemma joined this world on January 26. She joins her sisters Amelia (4) and Miriam (7). All my best!”
Tanya Denne ’09 graduated this year from Bastyr University in Kenmore, WA, with a doctoral degree in naturopathic medicine, according to an article in the Baker City Herald. Her work has been centered on a plant named Mucuna pruriens that could help combat Parkinson’s disease.
Paul Senz ’09, ’15 has published a new book, Fatima: 100 Questions and Answers About the Marian Apparitions.
10s
2010
Jennifer Piper ’10 is the new executive director of the Wallowa County Chamber of Commerce and couldn’t be happier about it. She started her new position on December 7, 2020, bringing her full circle to her childhood home of Enterprise, OR. “Now I’m back home in the best place in the world!” she says.
2011
Conor Eifler ’11 won the Oregon Book Award’s Angus Bowmer Award for Drama for his play You Cannot Undo This Action. The script was commissioned by TeenWest and SouthWest StageWorks (whose artistic director is Jamie Miller ’95), and it managed to finish its full production run right before the pandemic turned every theater dark. Congrats!
2013
Simply the best kind of news to share, in a note by Taylor Cothran ’13: “My husband, Brandon Cronan, and I recently welcomed our sweet baby girl into the world. Zoey Cothran Cronan was born at home on December 15, 2020! She is a very happy girl, and we are very happy parents. Her arrival makes my brother, Sully Cothran ’16, a first-time uncle!”
Will Hoppes ’13 has been named managing director of Fidélitas Wines in Richland, WA, according to Great Northwest Wine.
2014
Laura Butler ’14, resident services coordinator at St. Francis Park Apartments in Portland, was featured in an article in the December 16, 2020 edition of the Catholic Sentinel. The COVID-19 pandemic has had wide-ranging effects on Catholic Charities’ efforts to assist vulnerable members of the Portland and statewide communities.
According to a feature article in the Douglas County News-Review, Melrose Elementary School students kicked off STEAM Week with a virtual assembly hosted by robotics engineer Mike Hector ’14, who happens to be an alumnus of the small school in Roseburg and a roboticist for top tech companies around the world.
2015
Tamim Almousa ’15 is an award-winning writer and storyteller, penning feature screenplays, short films, and sketches. His script Knee Socks won first place in the 2019 PAGE International Screenwriting Awards’ Best Short Film Script category. He got his start volunteering for KDUP and later worked for the 99.1 FM Portland Radio Project, where he wrote scripts and interview questions, pitched ideas for segments, and much more.
Taran Patel ’15, managing principal for A-1 Hospitality Group, was interviewed about his family’s success in the hospitality industry in the March 2021 edition of the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business.
2016
Distance runner Reid Buchanan ’16 was profiled by Athletics Illustrated on training for his first marathon at The Marathon Project on December 20, 2020.
Tori Dunlap ’16 was featured in an article in The Beacon, UP’s student news publication, on March 17, 2021. According to the article, Tori reached her goal of saving $100,000 within three years of graduation; she was also featured on Business Insider, Good Morning America, Forbes, and other media outlets on how she was able to tackle such an ambitious goal. Her mission is to help women by improving their financial literacy through programs she has developed.
2018
Pilots soccer alumnus Benji Michel ’18 was featured in SBNation. Sounds like we should keep an eye on Benji as he works his way up the Major League Soccer and international competition ladder: “With his recent inclusion in the Olympic qualifying squad, Michel has the opportunity to prove his viability as a consistent, versatile option in the attacking core.”
Mustaf Mohamed ’18 has joined Harper Houf Peterson Righellis as a civil designer in its Portland office.
