Portland Magazine Fall 2019

Fall 2019

FEATURES

2 ON THE BLUFF 3 Visiting Voices 4 The Experts 6 Sports 8 Dream Teams 9 Campus Briefs 10 First Look

38 CLASS NOTES

24 Listening to America

42 In Memoriam 44 In Remembrance of Fr. Claude Pomerleau, CSC 46 An Ode to Howard Hall 49 For the Love of It

by Nathan R. Sherfinski ’05

12 Digging Toward Questions

by Jessica Murphy Moo Every summer a cohort of UP faculty and students looks for clues on ancient Rome and early Christianity in Mallorca. Here’s what they find.

He spent one summer answering phone calls for the White House Comments Line. What he heard stays with him still.

30 Margin Notes

by Shannon Mayer To write in the margins, or not to write in the margins: that is the question.

Fall 2019 Vol. 38, No. 1 President Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C. Editor Jessica Murphy Moo Designer Darsey Landoe Associate Editor Marcus Covert ’93 Contributors Rachel Barry-Arquit, Roya GhorbaniElizeh ’11, Anna Lageson-Kerns ’83, ’14, Hannah Pick, Amy Shelly ’95, ’01 Cover Illustration by Salvadoran artist Neto Rodríguez Portland is published three times a year by the University of Portland.

Copyright © 2019 by the University of Portland.

All rights reserved.

Editorial Offices Waldschmidt Hall, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203-5798 Email jmurphymoo@up.edu Online up.edu/portlandmagazine

20 I Hope I Can Make You Understand What It Is Like to Be at War Forever

by Maria Echenique and Karen Eifler Tomasa—a grandmother from Arcatao, El Salvador— shares her story.

Printed on 10% recycled and FSC-certified paper in Portland, OR.

32 Introducing DundonBerchtold Hall The newest building on campus embodies the University’s academic achievements and ambitions and its focus on student formation.

Third-class postage paid at Portland, OR 97203.

Canada Post International Publications Mail Product— Sales Agreement No. 40037899. Canadian Mail Distribution Information—Express Messenger International: PO Box 25058, London, Ontario, Canada N6C 6A8.

Opinions expressed in Portland are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University administration.

Postmaster: Send address changes to Portland Magazine, University of Portland, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203-5798.

EDITOR’S LETTER

A Moment ONE EVENING IN LATE SEPTEMBER I left the office at 6 o’clock, and there was a brilliant double rainbow over Dundon-Berchtold Hall and Waldschmidt. One of the rainbows made a full arc, colors lit with a kind of radioactive intensity. It was big enough, bright enough that students stopped in their tracks to take photos.

People asked to be photographed with the rainbow. Strangers spoke to each other—Did you see that?

Can you believe that? One student took a photo while zooming past me on his skateboard (which I admit made me very nervous for his safety).

The moment reminded me of many things. It reminded me of the work of artist Berndnaut Smilde, who uses mist machines to create clouds inside buildings and cathedrals and at the top of airport escalators—and then photographs the cloud formations before they disappear. The interactions among strangers reminded me of the year the Red Sox beat the Yankees and broke “The Curse,” and how everyone was talking to each other about the games on the T (people don’t really talk to strangers on the T in Boston).

The way everyone was facing in the same direction reminded me of people gathering to watch Notre-Dame as it burned—and I began wondering why it is we often need a tragedy to bind us, to make a hand go out to the stranger without hesitation. I started to think of the good things that have a here-and-goneness about them, like a live performance or a good meal, and I thought of one meal in particular that

I shared with Fr. Claude Pomerleau, CSC, months before he died, in which we talked on and on about our love for the art form of opera.

As these thoughts were flinging around my head on my walk home, I picked up my pace because I started to think of the youth of my children as a fleeting rainbow, and I didn’t want to miss another second of it. I began to think about how the whole of our lives and civilizations are here and gone, how each moment together is an opportunity for the hand of the stranger to reach out, an opportunity to observe and to listen to one another with everything we’ve got.

Jessica Murphy Moo, Editor

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CHRIS HO

Move-in day traditions continue, including the inflatable rooftop gorilla, drums, flags, kilts, confetti cannons, and Rojo the therapy llama.

ON THE BLUFF VISITING VOICES

From a Public Servant Delivering the first-ever talk in Dundon-Berchtold Hall’s Brian J. Doyle Auditorium: US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who was on campus to attend a memorial Mass for Fr. Claude Pomerleau, CSC, his beloved brother-in-law (“Mon Père frère” the senator called him affectionately, “My Father brother”). Senator Leahy fielded questions on environmental legislation, global warming, the need for sensible gun laws, bipartisanship, nuclear weapons, interfaith relations, Supreme Court confirmations, health care, and more. An excerpt of his remarks follows: On UP students looking forward to voting in their first presidential election:

On advice for student leaders who want to enter politics and become public servants:

“Don’t throw away your vote. Don’t fail to vote.

You’re never going to find the perfect candidate.

Go out there and listen to the candidates, talk to their staff. Are you going to agree on every single point? Of course not. The idea that you can have a checklist and if a candidate doesn’t agree with it 100 percent you can’t vote for them? That’s a mistake. You usually end up with the worst of all possible alternatives. Look behind the Twitter feeds; read and follow real information. Talk to your professors. They can steer you toward good objective information about Republican and Democratic candidates. Years ago, I was an observer as Nicaragua had its first free election in decades. At 4 in the morning people were lined up all the way down the street to vote.

By noon everybody had voted; not 60 percent or 70 percent, everybody. Our country had to fight for the right to vote; the Civil Rights fights; the things that happened during Jim Crow…if you saw some of the countries I’ve gone to where people have fought revolutions, people have been jailed, summarily executed, families destroyed for trying to have the right to vote…don’t throw away your vote, good Lord.”

“There’s no one size fits all. I went to law school at Georgetown… I always used to go to the Senate and just sit and watch, knowing I’d never serve there since Vermont was the only state in the union that had never elected a Democrat or a Catholic.

I went back home to Vermont to practice law.

There had been a scandal in the prosecutor’s office; he announced on a Friday that he was going to quit. The governor called me and said, ‘You need to take over that position on Monday.’ I told him, ‘Well, I’m practicing civil law,’ and he told me, ‘Get a couple of good criminal law books and read ’em. Just stay for a year and see.’ I stayed for eight years. I loved it because it was public service.

Something I never expected to be. I never planned for it. My point being, you never can say, ‘Okay, right now, here are the exact steps I need to take.’

I think what you do, if you’re interested in a life in politics, is find somebody you really care about who’s running. I don’t care if they’re Republican or Democrat—find somebody who inspires you. Go to work for them, volunteer for them.

Find things where you can make a difference.

Sometimes it’s a non-governmental organization; there are so many places in this country where somebody of your age and your talents can mean a great deal. Look at one of those, find something that interests you, volunteer. You might not make a lot of money, but you’ll get a better sense of where you want to go. If you really want to do it, you’ll get there. But there’s no point A to B to C, as there wasn’t for me.”

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ON THE BLUFF THE EXPERTS

TARA AUSTEN WEAVER

The Star of the Plate Meet the farmer who grows tomatoes for UP B Y TA R A AU S T E N W E AV E R

AT FIRST GLANCE, the Oregon Star tomatoes that Charlie Harris grows on his farm in Gaston, OR, might not impress you. They have none of the knobs and bulges of what we’ve come to think of as “heirloom” tomatoes. You might not give them a second glance—unless you saw how people line up for his stand at the farmers market, filling their bags with the weighty, torpedo-shaped red fruit all summer long.

“We have quite a following,” Harris admits, sitting in the shade at his Flamingo Ridge Organic Farm. Behind him a series of domed greenhouses cascade down the hillside, each of them containing a low jungle of sticky vines and ruddy fruit. “I’ve met chefs from Italy who say they’re some of the best tomatoes they’ve worked with and tasted in their life.”

General manager Kirk Mustain, who purchases Harris’s tomatoes for the University dining program, agrees. “They’re

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incredible,” he says, “so meaty and delicious.” As part of the University’s commitment to sourcing local foods, carried out through their partnership with Bon Appétit Management Company, Mustain has been buying tomatoes from Flamingo Ridge for more than 15 years. “You just don’t see store-bought tomatoes like that,” he says.

“We look forward to them every year.”

When the tomatoes are available, they’re treated like an entrée. “We like to do a tomato stand,” Mustain explains.

“We slice and serve them with sea salt, olive oil, fresh herbs, and balsamic vinegar. They’re the star of the plate. We try to show our students what awesome produce is really like.”

The Oregon Star is not a commonly grown tomato— you may never have heard of it. To Harris’s knowledge, he is the only one growing them commercially. The tomato was

Flamingo Ridge Organic Farm sells their Oregon Star tomatoes at the Hillsboro, Cedar Mill, Orenco Station, and Forest Grove farmers markets and also supplies Zupan’s Markets and Market of Choice.

Oregon Star tomato seed is available through Victory Seed Company (though currently sold out).

released to the public in 1993, one of many developed by famed plant breeder Dr. James R. Baggett for the agriculture program at Oregon State.

Oregon Star is a cross between Roma and Santiam. It’s a paste-style tomato that resembles its parent Roma but is larger and rounder and ripens early in the season. At Flamingo Ridge, they aim to have their first tomatoes ready mid-June.

What makes Oregon Star so special?

“They’re a low-acid tomato with a lot of flavor,” says Deva Harris, Charlie’s wife. “The skins are thin, so you don’t have to peel them if you want to can them or make sauce.

They’re meaty, with less moisture— you don’t have to cook them down.”

The afternoon I visited the farm, Deva had spent the day canning tomatoes in the farmhouse kitchen with a group of friends. She puts up 300 quarts of the densely fleshed fruit each summer. “The Oregon Star has been very good to us,” she says.

Why don’t other people grow the Oregon Star? According to Charlie Harris, it’s hard to track down the seed.

“They’re seedless tomatoes,” he explains, and they were bred that way.

Most Oregon Star tomatoes have no seeds at all—but at the very end of the season, in order to reproduce, each plant ripens a few fruits with seed.

Harris harvests the seed from these late-season tomatoes, a process that involves allowing the seeds to soak and ferment a bit, which dissolves the jellied pouch that protects each seed and prevents germination. These seeds he dries to save for next year’s plants. It’s a laborious process that many farmers wouldn’t bother with, but it’s how he’s managed to grow the cultivar for so many years.

Tomatoes are not the only thing that Harris grows.

There’s a crop of Romaine lettuce in the early spring, before the greenhouses fill up, some summer squash, melons, eggplants, and beans, but the vast bulk of his output comes from 13,000 Oregon Star plants he starts each January.

In addition to supplying all of Bon Appétit’s local accounts, he sells to 52 restaurants and several markets. He services an area from Wilsonville to Camas, WA, making all the deliveries himself. He leaves the farm at 3 am with 1.5 tons of produce in his truck, the vast majority of it Oregon Star tomatoes—some of which are destined for the salads, pizza, and pasta special at the Pilot House and Bauccio Commons.

Harris tells a story of a woman from New Jersey who showed up at a farmers market, swearing that no tomato could match the flavor of the fruit found in her home state, but she bought a few of his anyway. “She came back the next week and said ours were the best tomatoes she’d ever had!” he laughs.

Oregon Stars, indeed.

TARA AUSTEN WEAVER is the author, most recently, of Growing Berries and Fruit Trees in the Pacific Northwest.

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ON THE BLUFF SPORTS

Woman in the Boat BRIANNE ZBYLICKI HAD TWO GOALS when she arrived at University of Portland in August 2015: walking on to the women’s rowing team and making the most of research opportunities with the biology department.

She had no trouble making the team, and by spring semester she had been bumped up to the varsity 8.

For two years, she woke up every morning at 5 am to meet her teammates for the 20-minute ride to Vancouver Lake, where the rowing team practices for three hours (or longer) as the sun is rising.

Back on campus, after classes wrapped up, the biology major could be found in the microbiology lab with assistant professor Ryan Kenton conducting research on Vibrio vulnificus (an infectious disease similar to cholera).

All was on track until the spring of 2017, when she found a painful lump on her hip. She consulted with the athletic trainers, but the lump didn’t go away. Back home in Des Moines, Iowa, late that summer, Brianne went to see her doctor. In August she had surgery to remove the lump, and on the second day of classes that fall she was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, a type of cancer that forms in the bones or soft tissue around the bones.

That diagnosis kicked off seven and a half months of chemotherapy. “I had to drop out of school—I missed a whole year,” she says. “But I actually felt lucky while this was happening. I knew the tumor had been removed, and I knew I was going to be ok.”

Ewing sarcoma has a high cure rate if caught early.

Still, the treatments—3 to 5 days in the hospital every two weeks—were grueling and a little boring. “My mom was an angel during that time,” she says. Her mom accompanied her to treatments and kept Brianne’s spirits up (they watched a lot of Madea movies together).

“I also kept in touch with my teammates and was even able to come out to campus twice to visit,” she says.

By spring 2018, the tumor was gone, chemo was complete, and Brianne was ready to get back to Portland.

She returned determined to row again and get back to her beloved research.

Life on campus didn’t exactly pause for Brianne—when she returned to the rowing team there was a whole new class of students she hadn’t met. But coach Pasha SpencerLevitan made sure she still had a place on the team and had arranged for a medical red shirt so she wouldn’t lose a year of eligibility. And Kenton held her research assistant position open for her until she was ready to return.

“Everyone was so accommodating when I returned,” she says of her teammates. “I mean I was sick and out of shape, but they took me back. The team dynamic was different because of the new faces, but I felt like I fit right back in.

“I’m still not as strong as I was before I got sick. I haven’t been able to beat my previous PRs. And I was worried about not being as sharp academically,” she laughs. She took a “lighter” course load of 13 credits last year (UP defines a full-time student as one who takes at least 12 credits) and managed a 4.0 both semesters.

This year is Brianne’s senior year and final rowing season. Her athletic goals include beating last season’s PRs, and she’s looking forward to the WCC Championships in May in Sacramento. She’ll continue her research with Kenton—they’ve recently published a paper in Microbiology Open—and after graduation plans to enter graduate school near her family in the Midwest.

Eventually she’ll earn a PhD. This is sometimes the point in the story where a cancer survivor says her illness or treatment inspired her to become a doctor or to research cures for cancer. Not Brianne. She’ll continue her research in microbiology.

“I just like bacteria,” she says and smiles.

—Amy Shelly ’95,’01

UP ATHLETICS

Brianne Zbylicki, center

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UP ATHLETICS

30 Years and Running HIRED TO LEAD UP’S cross country program 30 years ago at all of 26 years old, Rob Conner ’86 has put Pilot men’s and women’s running teams on the map—locally and nationally—and has proven his mettle in every manner that counts. His peers see it too—he has been named West Region Coach of the Year six times.

Conner’s Pilot men boast three NCAA National Championship podium finishes in the past five years, with back-to-back finishes in 2017 (second place) and 2018 (third place). Those are national wins, people, and the 2019 Pilot squad has been picked to finish second at the 2019 championships on November 1 in Los Angeles.

Nineteen Conner squads have made it to the NCAA Championships, with nine Top Ten finishes, and he has led his teams to 34 WCC cross country titles.

His years with the women’s squad were impressive too (he handed the baton to Ian Soloff ’95 in 2002): 12 conference titles in 13 years, a sixth place finish at the 1993 NCAA West Regionals, and a seventh place finish in 1994. Nicole Karr ’96 earned Women’s Cross Country All-Academic honors in 1994 and was named to the West Coast Conference Hall of Honor in 2018.

Many of Conner’s charges have gone on to take the distance running world by storm: Uli Steidl ’96 won the Boston Marathon master’s division in 2012 and 2014; Derek Mandell ’08 and Josh Illustre ’16 competed in the Summer Olympics for Guam; Scott Fauble ’15 was the top US finisher and placed seventh overall at the 2019 Boston Marathon; Tayte Pollman ’18, Nick Hauger ’18, and Woody Kincaid ’18 are running professionally. And speaking of Woody Kincaid: Conner was there to witness Woody’s 12:58:10 finish in the 5000m at Nike’s Michael Johnson Track on September 11, 2019, which makes Woody the fifth fastest man in U.S. running history.

Coaching careers can be said to live and die by the numbers, and Rob Conner certainly has numbers on his side, but his contributions and influence on campus range much more widely than simple wins and losses.

He’s a Pilot through and through, an unwavering advocate, taskmaster, and father figure for his runners, and an affable, engaging colleague to athletics staff and UP employees alike. For more than 30 years now he’s lived out the UP mission in every way imaginable, and we thank him with all our hearts.

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ON THE BLUFF DREAM TEAMS

After the Fire A major focus of the team’s efforts is to determine how much visitors would be willing to pay to see and experience Multnomah Falls. Right now entrance to the Falls is free. Still, “it has a value to people; otherwise, they wouldn’t make the effort of going there year after year,” Dittrich says. “We can’t measure its value unless we ask—hypothetically—how much they would be willing to pay for a visitor permit.” Her team hopes to use the data to get a clearer picture of the economic benefit Multnomah Falls produces as a visitor attraction.

The data from the survey and the trail counts will provide important information for the US Forest Service— they’ll better understand where to focus trail maintenance and rehabilitation efforts. Their immediate concerns are visitor safety and conservation of the Multnomah Falls experience, but, according to Dittrich, “determining willingness-to-pay estimates that measure how much the Falls are worth to visitors can help inform the larger debate on future development of the Columbia Gorge.”

—Marcus Covert ’93, ’97

BOB KERNS

BARELY HALF AN HOUR’S DRIVE from Portland, Multnomah Falls has long been Oregon’s most popular natural attraction, with some 2 to 3 million visitors from around the world each year. No wonder people across the Pacific Northwest were sick with grief as they choked on smoke and drifting ash from the 2017 Eagle Creek fire, eyes stinging from charred remains of a cherished place.

Two years later, visitors can breathe sighs of relief on seeing familiar trees, the tiered falls, iconic lodge, and open trails to the Benson Bridge and top viewing platform.

But many hiking trails in the Gorge are still too dangerous to reopen now if ever, and while Multnomah Falls Lodge is unscathed and open for business, fire damage still poses a visible threat—falling rocks are now caught in huge steel nets over the trails, and some trails are still in need of repair.

Ruth Dittrich, assistant professor of economics in UP’s Pamplin School of Business, is leading a study to determine how the fire has changed usage and perception of Multnomah Falls. Dittrich is an expert in the economics of climate change adaptation—a growing field of economists who work to help businesses, farmers, and government agencies make sound economic decisions after weighing risks or prior consequences of environmental change. (Her investment advice can be pretty concrete.

For instance, she helped a client in the UK determine how many trees to plant to slow flooding.)

This summer, Dittrich assembled an interdisciplinary team made up of economics major Connor Lorber ’20, civil engineering major Alex Junger ’20, and former Shiley School of Engineering dean Sharon Jones. They spent the summer of 2019 at Multnomah Falls tracking visitor numbers on trails from the main plaza to the top viewing platform using infrared and Bluetooth sensors and got more than 1,400 people to complete surveys on their experiences at the post-fire falls.

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ON THE BLUFF CAMPUS BRIEFS

New Rankings

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University of Portland now ranks second out of 113 institutions listed in the “Regional Universities—West” classification—its highest ranking to date—according to U.S. News & World Report. This ranking marks the 25th consecutive year the University has received a Top 10 ranking.

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In addition, the Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering was ranked 26th nationally among engineering schools whose highest degree is a bachelor’s or master’s—up from last year’s ranking of 29th nationally.

Pulitzer Prize-Winner in the House

A Cove by Any Other Name ALWAYS THE CONSUMMATE behind-the-scenes man, Jim Kuffner labored for more than a decade to make the Franz Campus a reality.

Spearheading the purchase of the 35-acre former industrial site (a Superfund site, no less) was just the beginning of Jim’s monumental task.

Since 2008 he worked tirelessly with the City of Portland, the Department of Environmental Quality, the Environmental Protection Agency, and nearby Native American tribes to hammer out short- and long-term plans for development of the property. Even though Jim partially retired in 2016, it’s been hard to tell as he continues shepherding the Franz Campus development through the inevitable permitting and planning hurdles. Jim would happily have kept his name and leadership mum, but his family had other ideas: they established the James J. Kuffner ’88 MBA Endowment to support Franz Campus beautification projects like landscaping, benches, lighting, and other amenities. Stay tuned: we’ll be keeping you posted on Franz Campus developments soon.

ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2019, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson delivered the 2019 Zahm Lecture titled “Wisdom and Knowledge” at the Chiles Center. In attendance were more than 1,200 people from University of Portland and the community at large.

“Wisdom and knowledge stand in such a complex relationship to one another that they invite metaphors drawn from deep reality,” she said. “They are a binary system like stars trapped within the pull of each other’s gravity.” Among many other insights on humanity’s blinders, mistakes, greed, and propensity for violence, Robinson also pushed back on the argument that religion and science are at odds. There are important questions to ask, reevaluate, and ask again. “As astonishing as the universe is, much more astonishing is the creature that insists on knowing it.”

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ON THE BLUFF FIRST LOOK

Global Faith, Global Community Each room in Dundon-Berchtold Hall has a unique crucifix, brought here by University of Portland faculty, staff, and students who have found meaningful relationships and experiences in these places around the world. And there are more to come!

Tanzania 2019 immersion

For the individual stories behind these crosses, go to up.edu/crosses Photo by Adam Guggenheim

Mondavio, Italy Summer opera workshop

El Salvador 2019 pilgrimage

El Salvador 2019 pilgrimage

El Salvador Early ’90s pilgrimage to tomb of St. Óscar Romero

Nicaragua 2017 immersion

Saint John’s Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota The annual Collegium, Colloquy on Faith and Intellectual Life

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Arizona 2019 border immersion

Assisi Tao Cross, St. Francis’s personal cross, symbol of the Franciscan order Hawaii Private collection of Earle A. Chiles

New Orleans Created by Polish sculptor Wiktor Szostalo 2018 civil rights immersion

Tanzania A gift of the Benedictine community Cuenca, Ecuador Education program, study abroad

El Salvador 2019 pilgrimage

Venice, San Marco Side-trip during the 2018 Salzburg summer session San Damiano, Assisi (the site of St. Francis’s conversion) Side-trip during a 2018 pilgrimage in France

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For the past five summers a cohort of dedicated UP faculty and students has traveled to an archeological dig in Mallorca hoping to find clues about ancient Rome and early Christianity.

BY J E S S ICA M U R P H Y MO O P H O T O S B Y A DA M G U G G E N H E I M

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“You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours.”

“Or the question it asks you, forcing you to answer…”

—from Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino THE STUDENT CRADLED the human skull in her hands.

With permission from the site’s physical anthropologist, she had pulled the skull from a clear bag, inside a crate with other bones from this individual—one individual among stacks and stacks of crates with meticulously catalogued and carbon-dated human remains ranging from the Roman era to the 13th century.

The students and faculty in the room were from University of Portland. Along with the Spanish anthropologist and other archeologists, they were working for the summer on the dig site at the ancient Roman city of Pollentia, located on the island of Mallorca off the coast of Spain. The students had been working in the field, digging up artifacts and human remains at a Roman and early Christian burial ground for several weeks, but this was the first time this student held a skull, and the air seemed to leave the room for the moment.

“Life-altering,” the student said, almost under her breath.

The skull (we thought it was from a male, wide-jawed) was incredibly light—it felt as light as a bar of soap—which seemed at odds with the weight of the moment. Attached to the skull was a jawbone and a full set of teeth.

She turned the skull toward her fellow student, who noted, “He didn’t even need braces.”

The student then placed the skull gently back in the bag and found the individual’s long arm and leg bones. She tied a label to each so they could be promptly and accurately returned after bringing them to the lab with their chemistry professor to run a test to try to determine the composition of the bones and therefore to piece together something of the individual’s diet, some clues about how he lived.

These bones pose many, many questions. Who were these people? Where were their ancestors from? What was their religion? What did they eat? Also among the questions are some that are challenging in a big-picture way: What are the ethics here? Is it ever ethical to dig up human remains for purposes of research, and if so how?

In partnership with Spanish colleagues, the Pollentia Undergraduate Research Expedition—known as UP PURE—leans in to all of these questions and many more.

The Partnership July 2019 marked the fifth summer that University of Portland has sent a team of students and professors to work at Pollentia. Over the years the team has been interdisciplinary—chemists, a geneticist, engineers, a microbiologist, theologians, education and library science professors, and business, marketing, and English majors have all found points of inquiry from this site and from the bones excavated there. Members of all these disciplines have also gotten out in the field and done the slow, often back-aching,

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knee-crunching, centimeter-by-centimeter work of excavating artifacts in the blazing Mallorcan sun.

University of Portland started coming here because of the scholarship and overall wonderful good-nature of theologian and professor Fr. Richard Rutherford, CSC. He met the co-director of Pollentia, Miguel Ángel Cau Ontiveros, in Sardinia after realizing they had a shared interest in early Christianity. Fr. Rutherfold’s scholarship had been in early baptistries. Cau invited him to Pollentia, a Roman city dating from 123 BC, to see if they might partner in the excavation of an area within the site that had yielded some indications of early Christian burials and potentially the wall of a former basilica (this has yet to be confirmed).

“It was something very informal in a way at the beginning, but then it evolved into the program we have with Portland being part of the team in Pollentia,” says Cau. Six years in, University of Portland is listed as a partner on the tourist signage.

A typical day begins onsite at 7:30 am (6 am if anyone needed 3D imagery with the morning light), then the wheelbarrow, pickaxes, Harris tools, and brushes come out, and everybody gets to their assigned grave to dig, standing in the grave if it is big and deep enough or lying on their bellies and reaching down into the graves to scrape and brush. They work until the mid-morning desayuno sandwich break along with the other Spanish archeologists in the shadow of two almond trees and one olive tree. Then back to digging until one o’clock, lunch, break, and then research from 3–6 pm.

This summer research program is not for people who like to sleep late or for academics who don’t like to get dirty.

The Roman City Before we get too close up to the discoveries, let’s get the big-picture view and bearings on geography. At 30 to 50 acres (depending on if you include the burial grounds), Pollentia is one of two Roman cities on the island of Mallorca, but it’s the only active excavation. The other Roman city on the island is buried underneath the modern city of Palma, the city with the major airport. Because Pollentia is under farmland—and not under highways and high rises—the entire Roman city can be excavated.

(To avoid building over ancient Roman cities, sometimes new builds don’t happen in Europe without an archeologist first reviewing the site. It’s very (very) hard to imagine an archeological-survey requirement for the speed-of-light development in say, Seattle, WA, where there seem to be as many cranes as there are cars.)

Pollentia has all the elements of a Roman city. As Romans spread their empire to new places, they were pretty consistent city-blueprint-wise. They always situated their forum at the city’s nerve center, then fanned out with roads and

Katie Norris ’20 and Sam Rivas ’20 excavate and identify bones.

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A bronze object discovered in the tabernae (or Roman workshops), where a major fire destroyed parts of the city around 270 –280 AD.

THE CIVILIZATIONS OF POLLENTIA—A TIMELINE

BC

Written records state that the Roman Empire conquered the Balearic Islands (Mallorca and Menorca), defeating the Talayotic people.

70BC

The first archeological evidence of the Roman city in Pollentia.

AUGUSTAN PERIOD

Pollentia undergoes a revitalization and a process of monumentalization.

Pollentia is refurbished.

455

The Vandals conquer the Balearics.

2nd 3rd century AD

The island becomes part of the Byzantine Empire.

 

533 534

Conquest of Mallorca by Isam al-Khawlaní, which begins Muslim rule of the islands.

Catalan conquest by King James I. Around 1300 King James II builds a wall around Alcúdia and forces everyone to move inside, presumably so he could control and tax them, which means civilizations stop building over Pollentia and it becomes farmland.

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

temples, shops, often a market, residential homes, and a theater. Until Christianity became the official religion, the cemetery (also called a necropolis) was typically outside the city walls.

Located on a hill between two bays, Pollentia would have made an impressive sight for ships heading in to port.

The city, the buildings, and the thousand-seat theater would have conveyed power. Today you won’t see any of those “grand buildings on the hill” when you walk the site.

Only 10 percent of Pollentia has been excavated; 90 percent is still underground. Even the things you do see that have to do with buildings are only inches high. You essentially see a true-to-size blueprint—the bases of walls and columns, the base of a pedestal where a sculpture of an emperor probably stood, when the city got a facelift at the end of the 2nd century AD. You have to use your imagination.

“As magnificent as it was—and this was a minor Roman colony—it’s been buried for years, lost,” says UP PURE director Ronda Bard. “The Roman Empire seemed invincible. It fell apart.”

If you feel an eerie moment of self-reflection about another world power that might sometimes act like it’s invincible, all I’ll say here is that you aren’t alone in your thoughts. Cau told me that the work of archeology—really contemplating the vast passage of time, how sophisticated societies end up a layer in the dirt, and the short span of a human life—inspires him to leave behind the best possible record he can for future generations and to make sure he spends enough time with his family.

The Artifacts There were a surprising number of discoveries in the week I visited, enough to keep everyone digging, enough to keep Indiana Jones references on rotation.

At the necropolis one student found a teeny-tiny coin, encrusted in minerals, which appeared about half the circumference of a dime. (How she found this, I don’t know; it really looked like dirt.) Another student found a coin cut in half. Everyone found many shards of pottery, which they later washed and another group catalogued and puzzlepieced back together. Everyone also found a startling number of bones, most of which had been jumbled together from a previous dig. Students who had taken anatomy identified the bones. One grave had about five adult skulls; through a crack in one of them we could see the trace of a blood vessel on the interior of the cranium. Kara Breuer (’96, ’06), who teaches the organic chemistry labs at UP, found the minuscule ribs of a baby, which stopped my breath for a moment.

“As a parent, it’s always very moving to find a child,” says Bard. She has found three in the years she has been doing the program. “You can’t help but wonder what happened.

Of course there was grief.”

On the final week, they discovered two never-before uncovered graves. Inside one was a complete skeleton of a child, the head tilted to the side; one hand was at the child’s side, one over the body. The body had been buried with an amphora and a glass. What I can’t shake is the image of the child’s tiny knee caps still nestled over the knees.

Scholarly Fireworks “Archeology nowadays has become a discipline that takes more and more advantage of techniques and methodologies coming from experimental sciences,” says Cau. “UP people—apart from helping in the excavation process—really help us a lot in that analytical work that we do with our materials.”

Pollentia has inspired a wide range of scholarship and makes a strong case for a multi-disciplinary liberal arts education today. Some of that research happens in Alcúdia—the walled city next to Pollentia—and this summer’s research involved X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy scans of bones and of paint pigments in the local church museum. All of the data from this research comes back to University of Portland for further analysis.

UP geneticist and biology professor Ami Ahern-Rindell went to Pollentia in 2016 with the ethics of scientific research fresh on her mind. With support of the DundonBerchtold ethics program, she had conducted a study to determine if students would learn ethical standards for scientific research by watching mentors or if students would benefit more from formal training. In partnership with an undergrad researcher she found that ethics cannot transmit “through osmosis.” Now all students and faculty who take part in any research at UP must go through formal ethics training.

She applied these findings to her work in Pollentia.

One project involved another Dundon-Berchtold Scholar —also an alum of UP PURE—on a study that used the example of the Kennewick Man to examine whether and how scientists can ethically study human remains.

“There’s always a context,” says Ahern-Rindell. “What are the ramifications of what we do? What is the buy-in from the people this impacts? It’s not just about science.

You have to be respectful of ethics and of the culture.”

Ahern-Rindell also returned from Mallorca (with permission from the Spanish government) with a plan to use bones to study their ancient DNA and to try to piece together their genetic origins through Y-chromosome analysis.

Another line of research is led by chemistry professor Sr. Angela Hoffman, OSB, who brings back tiny containers of dirt from the graves to see if she can grow ancient bacteria that might help fight modern diseases. (The dirt samples she brought back from the child’s grave this summer are growing like gangbusters.) We’ve all heard about superbugs and drug-resistant bacteria. Hoffman proposes that these ancient bacteria, having been buried in the dirt for centuries, haven’t been exposed to modern microbes. Captured and grown in the right medium today, these ancient bacteria might be useful against modern bacteria or even cancer cells.

An entirely different scientific study is spearheaded

by Valerie Walters, who is also on UP’s chemistry faculty.

She and her student collaborators use spectroscopy to test the pigments of a 15th-century altarpiece painting from a chapel on the Pollentia site. They found that the painting, now housed at Alcúdia’s church museum, has ultramarine in the blue paint of Mary’s robes, a pigment that, at the time, was more valuable than gold.

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“There’s always a context,” says biology professor Ami Ahern-Rindell. “What are the ramifications of what we do? What is the buy-in from the people this impacts? It’s not just about science. You have to be respectful of ethics and of the culture.”

(top) Every afternoon students and faculty wash recently excavated pottery in preparation for documentation. (right) Reina Inlow ’19 and Ronda Bard take 3D scans of the Can Fanals necropolis for Pollentia’s archeological records.

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Students as Colleagues All of this research is done with the students. These undergrads get the hands-on research experience and often get to publish and present this work. One UP PURE alum, who is now applying to medical school, told me he valued not only the research experience but also the chance to present and work on his public speaking.

Professors also benefit from taking the student-teacher relationship outside the classroom. “Here, I feel like we’re really colleagues,” says Bard, who is on UP’s chemistry faculty and leads the XRF spectroscopy research on bone and coin composition. “We’re working to ask questions and solve problems together. It’s exciting to bring them into a scientific study as colleagues.”

Enabling students to learn through Pollentia is baked into its roots.

“The formative nature of Pollentia is very important,” Cau says.

Both he and one of the other co-directors Esther Chávez Álvarez started as student archaeologists in Pollentia and have been working here since the 1980s. Cau is now the ICREA research professor in archaeology at University of Barcelona; and Chávez is a professor of archaeology at University of La Laguna.

Working closely with her professors has given math major Sam Rivas ’20 more confidence to ask questions. “They’re willing to answer all of our questions and even take our ideas and look into what we’re thinking,” she says. She feels that the experience helped her to “gain the independence and courage to speak up.”

In 2017 UP PURE alum Jonathan Wiley ’19 wrote a reflection about how digging in Pollentia, the repetitive nature of the work, was a type of “academic liturgy” that opened a space for personal growth. David Turnbloom, assistant professor of theology, elaborated on this idea—crediting its source, of course—with an essay in a Jesuit magazine, arguing that with the right perspective those moments of “going through the motions”—in archeology, in the science lab, in yardwork, in our faith traditions—might also lead to a greater sense of self-awareness, community, and mystery.

More Questions At the end of the month, Pollentia hosted a big open house for the local people of the city of Alcúdia to visit the site and see the work up close. Pollentia is, after all, their history, their ancestry. They value it.

During the open house, the child’s skeleton was still in the grave for viewing. After the open house, Bard ran an XRF test on the nails of the coffin—the wooden coffin, itself, had decomposed—and they found that the nails were made of iron. With the help of scientific technology, some questions are answerable.

The team then documented and exhumed the child’s skeleton so that it could eventually be carbon dated. When they carefully removed the skull from the dirt, they saw that behind the child’s skull was a small ring. I can’t help but wonder about who placed it there and why?

Some questions remain. How old are these bones?

Was this a Christian burial? Next summer, they’ll dig toward these questions and see what they find.

JESSICA MURPHY MOO is the editor of this magazine.

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BY MARIA ECHENIQUE AND K AREN EIFLER I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y S A LVA D O R A N A R T I S T NETO RODRÍGUEZ

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ome stories from the 12 years of armed conflict in El Salvador throughout the 1980s have made their way to the wider consciousness of the United States; some have not. We know about St. Archbishop Óscar Romero, the four church women, six Jesuit priests, and two of their female colleagues, all who were assassinated by trained military death squads for standing firmly on the side of the poor and powerless. We know the civil war was fought between the right-wing government and the leftist guerillas. We know that the US stood with the Salvadoran government. But we don’t know the full effect of that support. We don’t know all the stories.

We also don’t know all the ways in which the war has lasting effects today.

In May 2019, University of Portland’s Office of Campus Ministry sponsored a pilgrimage to El Salvador. We walked in the footsteps of martyrs. At each stage of our pilgrimage, the twelve of us were reminded that El Salvador does not need people from Los Estados Unidos to come down and build schools or paint orphanages.

They have all the laborers they need to re-build their country. Talented, resolute human resources abound in El Salvador. The land itself is verdant. El Salvador does need—we were told again and again—people to listen to the stories of crushing misfortune and injustice, resilience and faith that teem in every pocket of this Central American country that has known war of one kind or another for most of a century.

One story we heard was Tomasa’s.

Her home is in the tiny village of Arcatao, in the department of Chalatenango, bounded by small forested mountains that form the border with Honduras; in fact, our cell phones all thought we were in Honduras during our stay there. While there are many trails up those mountains, there are no switchbacks; you get to the top of La Cañada by walking straight up. It takes eight hours round trip.

Thirty years earlier, Mamita (“little mother”) Tomasa made the round trip to La Cañada countless times during the civil war, always at night and always with two small children bound to her back and chest with rags (while she held the hands of at least two slightly older children), almost always with bullets flying over her head and often in bare feet, because when the soldiers started firing, shoes got abandoned.

Today Tomasa is a revered village elder, with a stately gait and a serene face, waist-length white hair and steady chocolaty eyes that give no hint of the torments she endured and witnessed during the civil war. We sat for several hours with Tomasa in her kitchen in the immaculate cinderblock house with the sheet tin roof she shares with her youngest son—who was born on that mountain—his wife, and their impish four-year-old son whom we called El Coqueto because of his incessant flirting.

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“Enséñanos, Tomasa—teach us, Tomasa,” we asked and scribbled as quickly as we could the words that cascaded from her. In a voice that never trembled, she recounted her days as a young mother of four, then five, and ultimately eleven children. These are Mamita Tomasa’s words, edited for length and translated from her Spanish.

“I hope I can make you understand what it is like to be at war forever. I loved learning but left school in fourth grade. Even then, the soldiers from the government could not tolerate the songs the catechists taught us. One I remember had the chorus ‘Peace and learn to read, Peace and learn to write.

If you read and study, you have the land where you can sow.’ We didn’t want mansions; we wanted a little milpa (cornfield) where we could grow our own food.

Hearing that song was too much for the military, so they captured some of our teachers and tied them against a tree and tortured them with cigarette burns.

After that, teachers and catechists wouldn’t come anymore. Then the horrors started. My husband and

brother were captured and tortured and miraculously returned, but they had to go into hiding up in the mountains. By then I was carrying our fifth child, scurrying between my village and my husband’s to stay ahead of the soldiers, who were always kidnapping people to get information about the guerillas. We lived on handfuls of beans, and maybe because of so little food, that baby was premature and died right after being born. For a while after that, we lived behind some animals in a barn in an abandoned village.

I snuck out to take care of our tiny milpa, but then the soldiers came and killed my mother and motherin-law and made it clear we couldn’t stay there.

Then things got worse: babies ripped from their mothers and bayoneted. We kept going higher and higher up the mountain to stay ahead of the soldiers.

We grabbed whatever grain we could, and for a while I went back down the mountain to retrieve some of the food we had left behind. We just put the maize in water and ate it that way. If we heated it, the soldiers would see the smoke and come for us. My husband and others dug caves into the mountains, and we hid in there, once for twentytwo days, fourteen of us. They had to make a hole for air. In that stretch, we had no food, just a capful of water for each person to drink. No bathing.

The smell was horrible. We had to sit silently against the wall—no standing up to stretch was permitted— and keep our children from making any noise, because the soldiers were always looking for us, and any sound would give us away. Some mothers accidentally smothered their children, keeping their mouths and noses covered too tightly. Many times I went to sleep and did not even care if I woke up, or think it was possible to wake up. I had another baby in the mountains, and he died because I could not give him any milk. The young sanitarias (nurses who trained in the hills at night) gave him sugar water, which we knew wasn’t nourishing, but it’s all we had. It was so hard to watch my children endure this malnutrition and not be able to help them. And the bugs that drilled into our ears day and night! But la vida continúa. Telling you my story keeps memories of the seven children I lost to the war flickering. Many others lost so much more than I did. You will meet my four children tonight at the fiesta we are hosting to honor your visit with us.”

Three sons and a daughter, their spouses, and boisterous children, who all know the unrivaled scrumptiousness of Mamita Tomasa’s pupusas, crammed the kitchen a few hours later. The gentlest, wisest of queens reigned quietly over it all.

MARIA ECHENIQUE teaches in UP’s international languages and cultures department. KAREN EIFLER co-directs UP’s Garaventa Center for Catholic Intellectual Life & American Culture.

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When the American people called The White House, this alum picked up the phone.

B Y N AT H A N R . S H E R F I N S K I ’ 0 5

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he woman on the other end of the phone was crying.

“Ma’am, I can’t make out what you’re saying,” I said.

“Can you slow down?”

“I think I’m going to lose my home,” she said in a barely audible voice. “I’ve already lost my job.”

Seated at a small desk facing a wall, I closed my eyes.

“I’m so sorry; that must be incredibly stressful and scary.

I am so glad that you called today.” I proceeded to describe to the caller various federal programs that may be able to assist her with her housing situation and relevant information to ensure that she was in good standing to continue receiving unemployment benefits while she looked for work. I read off the contact information for the appropriate agencies handling these matters; I had the caller read them back to me to be certain that she had them down correctly.

“Thank you,” she said. “People are struggling, and he needs to know that.” She blew her nose.

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll be sure that your sentiments are passed along to the president,” I told her. We said good-bye to one another, and I captured the substance of the call in a data platform. My headset was already buzzing with another call. I put my eyeglasses on the desk, leaned back, and answered it saying, “Hello, you’ve reached the White House Comment Line.”

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DURING THE SUMMER of 2010, I was one of the team of people who answered the president’s phones. I answered what is still known as the White House Comment Line.

At the time, President Barack Obama received more than 2,500 calls per day. He also received 100,000 emails, 9,000 paper letters, and 1,000 faxes per day. The Office of Presidential Correspondence (OPC) was comprised of a team of about 50 staffers, 35 interns, and hundreds of volunteers charged with the task of fielding and tracking this communication with the president. We were there to help the sitting president hear from the people he had been elected to represent. It was my job to listen closely.

I had practiced the art of listening as a social work graduate student and had done a few years of direct practice social work with homeless families and adjudicated youth. I was only 28 years old—and I still did not own a dress suit—but I felt up to the task.

Through my training, I had learned about the power of reflective listening as a means to connect with someone.

It worked. In addition to my professional training, I brought my personal perspective to work. I am legally blind and have spent most of my life listening closely.

By the end of that summer, a manual that I authored would guide the way in which every operator on the White House Comment Line answered, listened, and responded to the thousands of daily calls. I later learned that the manual was the model for other departments around OPC, and I feel proud of this small contribution to the administration and the way in which it strived to connect with people across the country.

“Thank you,” she said.

“People are struggling, and he needs to know that.”

HISTORIANS OFTEN REMARK that presidents can be insulated from the pulse of the country and are at risk of being in a “bubble.” Every president, or public official for that matter, must endeavor to remain connected to the constituents she or he serves. When George Washington was president, mail arrived on horseback, and there were said to be just a handful of letters per delivery, all of which he responded to personally. By the time William McKinley was president in the late 1800s, he received about one hundred letters per day and found reason to establish a formal office at the White House, now known as OPC. Under FDR, letters were coming in by the hundreds of thousands, as he shepherded the country through the Great Depression. In 1993, President Bill Clinton went live with the first-ever public email address. President Richard Nixon reportedly did not like reading negative letters from the public, yet he had the foresight to realize that the White House switchboard was overwhelmed with callers, so he invited teams of volunteers to assist with the load.

He may not have listened to the calls himself, but he knew the importance of institutional listening. It was a decision that remained part of the White House for decades into my time in OPC, where I worked side-by-side with people who had answered phones for administrations past and present.

In President Obama’s case, he read ten letters a day from people across the country that were seen to capture the state, tone, and heartbeat of people across America at that day in time. OPC was the eyes, ears, and voice of the administration. It handled and responded to all manner of communications from phone calls to handwritten letters from schoolchildren inquiring about what kind of vegetables were in First Lady Michelle Obama’s garden.

It also covered every issue across the policy portfolio from domestic to foreign affairs and everything in between.

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DURING MY SUMMER WITH OPC , I had the privilege of listening to America. President Barack Obama had been in office for hardly eighteen months. The economy was still finding its footing, the British Petroleum oil spill was dominating the news, the war in Iraq was not yet formally concluded, and the war in Afghanistan persisted. The unemployment rate was 9.5 percent, two-and-a-half times what it is today. There were approximately 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan, some ten to twenty times more than today. The Affordable Care Act had only been law for about three months.

I heard from thousands of people from across the country. My job was to pick up the phone and listen.

Here’s some of what I heard: Some called and cried. Some called to wish the president a happy birthday. Some called to express anger about a specific policy. Some called and expressed just anger at the system. Some heard the president’s speech and heard one thing. Some heard that same speech and heard another thing. Some called to inquire about a greeting card from the president on the occasion of a new grandchild. Some called and yelled. Some called and spoke so softly. Some called and talked about how they disliked their job. Some called and said they were retired from a fulfilling career. Some called and said they had two jobs. Some called and said they lost their job.

Some called and said they were worried no one would hire them. Some spoke with an accent. Some said they lived in a big city. Some said they lived in a small town.

Some called and asked my name. Some called and asked about the president’s dog. Some called and spoke of a lost family member who served in the armed forces.

Some called and laughed. Some called and forgot what they were going to say. Some called and sounded exhausted. Some called and sounded really energetic.

Some called and really liked the president. Some called and wished the country had a different president.

Everyone who called really cared about America.

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Some called and sounded exhausted. Some called and sounded really energetic.

Some called and really liked the president. Some called and wished the country had a different president.

Everyone who called really cared about America.

OUR COUNTRY IS SO VAST, and my world is oftentimes so small in comparison. For that summer, my world was made much bigger by the voices from across America.

I spent a few moments with thousands of people. It taught me to stop, listen, and really try to hear people when they speak, for their words may mask the depth of their feelings. They may express anger but be feeling pain so frightening that they do not know what else to do but yell at someone on the phone.

I sometimes wonder what happened to the people with whom I spoke. Did that man from Alaska finally find a job?

Did that woman from Colorado stay in her home? Did that grandfather from Arkansas receive that greeting card?

Does he still have it? Did that retired teacher from Ohio find part-time work to help support her grandchildren?

Did that military veteran sort out her health benefits?

Did that man from Louisiana relocate to be closer to his daughter? Did that elderly woman from California pass away? I will never know what happened to the people with whom I shared a few minutes. They also will never truly know how much they have influenced my life.

I will never see their faces or, most likely, hear their voices ever again. Yet, they taught me about the human struggle to tackle life; the joy in telling a stranger they had a new grandchild in the family; and the anxiety, fear, and despair they felt about how they or their families would survive. Ultimately, they taught me about the bravery it takes to reach out to another person and the courage to believe that someone just might listen to them. And how, if you stop and really listen, people will let you in on what matters to them. In my case, I did my best to listen on behalf of their president.

NATHAN R. SHERFINSKI ’05 works in city government in Brooklyn, NY. He holds graduate degrees in public administration and social work from Columbia University.

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Margin Notes On treasure maps and spiritual imaginings written in the tiniest of spaces

B Y S H A N N O N M AY E R

I

live in a house divided, where a friendly skirmish over principle is ever at-the-ready. The scuffle is about book margins. “Books are sacrosanct,” my beloved tells the children. “Only a Neanderthal would scribble in the margins!”

“Write,” I say, “Write!” Record your thoughts, your questions, your applause or angst, however the text moves you.

Respond. React. Engage. Leave your legacy—in pencil or in ink if you are so bold—a reminder that you walked the path of the pages, that you were more than just a passive reader.

One of the most famous of margin notes, at least among mathematically dexterous readers, is Fermat’s last theorem, found after his death in the margin of a copy of Arithmetica, one of a series of books on algebra by Hellenistic mathematician Diophantus of Alexandria.

Fermat proposes in the margin that a particular algebraic equation has no integer solutions and then states simply, “I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that this margin is too narrow to contain.”

A bold and intriguing claim, providing a glimpse of a conversation across the chasm of time between two great mathematical minds. Courteous too, if you think about it, this brief note—like an X on a treasure map, left to be discovered, enticing other explorers to join the journey and find the proof of his claim. His margin notes suggest there is treasure to be found. Will you pursue it? It will prove to be a journey of hundreds of years. Neither compass nor map will guide the way. Ingenuity, mathematical acumen, persistence—they are the tools of this trade.

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A

mong the most beautiful of margin notes must surely be the artwork and embellishments found in the margins of Medieval manuscripts.

Illuminated manuscripts they are called, for their vivid colors and for the gold and silver foil often used to make the artwork radiant.

But, perhaps more aptly, illuminated for the way the images capture and enlighten the spiritual imagination of the reader. Such margin notes are the work of scribes who, in the nimble words of poet Billy Collins (in his poem “Marginalia”), were “anonymous men catching a ride into the future / on the vessel more lasting than themselves.”

The margins of my Bible are filled with marginalia. Like souvenirs collected on a long journey, the insights, reflections, questions, and dates that mark the pages are monuments commemorating encounters when the written Word became, for me, the Living Word; Emmanuel, God with us.

A favorite treasure in the margins of my Bible is a scattering of names each linked to a scripture, reminding me of the many friends who have graced my life. Small remembrances, a name, sometimes a date, tucked in alongside a verse, prompting me to pray for those whose lives have been woven together with mine for a season and a lifetime. These notes honor a legacy of friendship. For Carolyn, from Psalm 18—“Thy gentleness makes me strong”—a Psalm of David and a reflection on God’s way of love, mirrored in her gift of love given to a bold and confident daughter. For Eric, from Psalm 1—“His delight is in the law of the Lord…he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season”—for how a lifetime of faithfulness cultivates fruitfulness. For my youngest girl, from James 1—“And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing”—a reminder, at the beginning of the journey into the vast and complex world, that joy and trial can be gifts in equal measure. For Rick, just one word, the adverb “as,” circled in purple ink in John 15, a reminder of a conversation about what it might look like to love as Jesus loves, a conversation that changed my faith, and my life, in profound and unexpected ways.

Margin notes, indeed. My own illuminated manuscript. Assuredly, a hint of something marvelous that the margin is too narrow to contain.

Dog-eared pages? Now that’s another matter entirely. Only a Neanderthal would fold over the corner of a book.

Physics professor SHANNON MAYER is the co-editor of Awaken the Stars, an essay collection by UP faculty about spirited university teaching.

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Introducing

Dundon-Berchtold Hall First, a note of thanks.

NASCHO PHOTO

As we introduce to you UP’s new showstopper of an academic building, we begin with immense gratitude to our visionary supporters: Amy DundonBerchtold and Jim Berchtold ’63 and key alumni and friends whose significant contributions made this building a reality. Their dedication and generosity have transformed UP’s campus and created a signature building that sends a clear message about the University’s academic ambitions—past, present, and future.

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New Quad on Campus Dundon-Berchtold Hall forms a new quad with Waldschmidt Hall.

NASCHO PHOTO

ALL PHOTOS BY ADAM GUGGENHEIM UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED

This 65,616 square-foot academic center houses 17 classrooms, 35 faculty offices, and 12 informal and formal meeting spaces. The architects—Soderstrom Architects (based in Portland) and Robert A.M. Stern Architects (based in New York)—put collaborative teaching at the center of their classroom designs.

The Institute The Dundon-Berchtold Institute for Moral Formation and Applied Ethics has been going strong for eight years in the form of student-faculty research and through the Character Project class (team taught by Fr. Mark Poorman and others every spring). The brilliance of this Institute is the core belief that the study of ethics and character should not live in the theology department alone but should be taught to students in every academic discipline—because ethical demands and questions will inevitably surface in every field out in the world. Now, with this new building, the Institute has a home.

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The Brian J. Doyle Auditorium Many friends and fans of the late writer and editor Brian Doyle decided a room in the new building should be named in his honor. This 146-seat lecture hall now dons his name. With options for video recording and video display, this warm space has excellent acoustics and is the perfect size for smaller readings and lectures. Fun fact: the contractors buried relics—tarnished chalices and old robes that have been blessed—underneath the podium.

One Long River of Song Over the 25 years that Brian Doyle served as editor of Portland magazine, his essays, stories, reviews, poems, proems, novels, and correspondence poured out of him in a steady torrent, published in outlets too numerous for even Brian to recall. Anyone who thinks they’ve read all of the Brian Doyle can always look forward to a pleasant surprise, a previously unseen nugget discovered at a time when most needed.

In the years since his passing, a group of Brian’s fellow writers and editors put forth the herculean effort of collecting his far-flung work and consolidating a selection in one volume. On December 3, 2019, the collection, One Long River of Song: Notes on Wonder for the Spiritual and Nonspiritual Alike, will be published by Little Brown, with proceeds going to Brian’s family. In the publisher’s words, “A life’s work, One Long River of Song invites readers to experience joy and wonder in ordinary moments that become, under Doyle’s rapturous and exuberant gaze, extraordinary.” Portland magazine readers may soon have to relinquish Brian’s “best-keptsecret” status to the national audience he so richly deserves.

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If you build it, they will come back When Kevin Kelly ’12 learned that the engineering firm where he worked was going to put in a bid to build DundonBerchtold Hall, he said to his boss, “If we get this job, I want to work on it.” The stars aligned, Fortis was hired as the contractor, and Kelly became the project engineer—the liaison between the University, the architects, and the masons and contractors actually putting this new signature academic building together. He had to know everything from the big-picture ambitions to minute details—such as the color of the bricks and the custom-made blades created for the inside trim.

And Kelly wasn’t the only UP civil engineering alum to work on the building. Structural engineer Aaron Wegner ’03, who also worked on Lund Family Hall and plans to return for the new Physical Plant, engineered the steel frame, the bracing, the foundation, and the basement walls.

Steven O’Dowd ’12, also a structural engineer, designed and implemented the specific type of anchoring (called “cladding”) used to affix the brick and the limestone to the structure of the building, accounting for wind surfacepressures, seismic load, and even the chemical compatibility to the limestone.

The limestone—a signature feature of the building—is an unusual material for the Northwest. In other locations the limestone might have been cut onsite, but this limestone had to be cut to exact design and specifications in Indiana before being shipped here in 30 semi-trucks. “Putting it together was almost like a giant puzzle,” Kelly says.

How cool is it that these alumni are applying their engineering knowledge—which they first gained here as civil engineering majors on The Bluff—to their alma mater? All three of them spoke highly of their engineering professors, the community they found here, and the opportunity to give back to UP. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime project,” says Kelly.

We caught Kelly on his last day onsite in late August, after starting in February of 2018. He has an additional connection to UP because his parents, Pat Kelly ’76 and Kathy Kelly ’79, met here, and his brother James ’08 also went here, and so it makes sense that he thinks of UP in terms of generations and legacy. “I wanted to build a place my kids could go to,” he says.

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Made for Walking Ever since Juliana (Flores) Baza ’13 was three years old, she flew from Guam (where she is from) to Chicago to visit family, so she spent a lot of time on airplanes enthralled by flight and space and the mechanics and aspiration of it all. So she became a mechanical engineer at UP, and she got herself an internship with NASA during her junior year.

It was a dream come true, though the internship offered a somewhat surprising life lesson. NASA was an exercise in necessary but heavy regulations, caution, and slow decisionmaking, and she realized her personality was drawn to new ideas and nimble changes and solutions.

So she tried something entirely different. Her first job out of school was with a helmet company doing destruction testing. She stressed and broke bike helmets and took down the data to figure out ways to engineer better ones.

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Then Nike called and asked her to start destroying shoes—specifically their anti-clog soccer cleats.

“I went from airplanes to mud,” she says, and she had a blast.

Now, six years later, she is a product engineer with Nike, and she makes the shoes. She tests all the different materials and textiles, from the rubber soles to the pieces of metal near the lacings and everything else in between. She works on the newest versions of shoes up to 18 months in advance, and she is on the telephone with Nike’s factories in Asia nearly every day.

So far she has visited the factories in Taiwan, Vietnam, and China twice—and she always makes sure to squeeze in a visit with her family in Guam on the way home.

Juliana is also on the leadership team of UP’s Engineering Alumni Chapter. If you want to learn more, go to up.edu/engineeringalumni.

CLASS NOTES

70s 1972

Marcia Poole ’72 was featured in the Sioux City Journal for her career at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center. She started the center in 2002, handling promotions and publicity for its grand opening. Before that she worked at the Sioux City Journal as a feature writer and food editor, and the history bug led her to delve deeply into local legend, lore, and historical figures. In keeping with her dream to provide programming for young visitors, the Marcia Poole Youth Program Fund was established by grateful colleagues and admirers. Marcia and her husband, UP thespian Richard Poole ’72, plan to move to Bowling Green, KY, to be near their son, Alex, and their 11- and 13-year-old granddaughters. Congratulations on your retirement!

1977

The Clarence Bee recently featured Tom Evans ’77 in an article—“Humble poet and author finds baseball the perfect subject”—on his latest book, In Elysian Fields.

Tom is a librarian and lives outside New York City in the town of Irvington. He published his first book, Where Do the Children Play?, in 2008.

80s 1981

In May Donna Greenwood ’81 was featured in the Independent Record, a daily

newspaper in Helena, MT. Donna retired from her 38-year career teaching nursing at Carroll College at the completion of the 2018–2019 academic year.

Donna earned her nursing degree at Montana State University in 1973, and worked for seven years at the VA Regional Medical Center at Fort Harrison, MT. There she discovered her vocation for education and the learning process; in 1979 a close friend steered her to the University of Portland School of Nursing, where she earned her MS in nursing. To honor her for a stellar career and her unflagging zeal in promoting and supporting the nursing profession, the Independent Record named her one of 10 honorees at its inaugural Nurses Appreciation Event in May.

90s 1998

Juan Flores ’98 is the new Superintendent of Catholic Education in Guam, effective July 8, 2019. Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes announced Flores’ appointment.

Flores was the superintendent for the Guam Public School System from 2003 to 2006, which is now the Guam Department of Education. As a teacher, Flores focused on physics, chemistry, biology, and algebra. His more recent work included curriculum and assessment, college counseling, and teacher evaluation.

1999

William Watson ’99 was named to the position of Superintendent of Catholic Schools in Camden, NJ, by Bishop Dennis Sullivan,

#LifeGoals

After chatting with retired fifth-grade teacher Neal Hook ’49, we at Portland magazine are finding that we have new life goals. A World War II army veteran and father of four, Hook is 95 years old and still gardens and plays tennis three times a week. He and his wife, Frances, just celebrated 70 years of marriage. Most mornings they read the funnies because they like to start the day with a laugh. Every day, Neal makes breakfast and coffee for Frances as an act of gratitude to her.

How he arrived at this morning routine is worth an explanation. He was inspired to start this routine by following the example of a former inmate he’d worked with in his prison ministry at Donovan Prison on the Mexican border near Tijuana. (Neal has been involved in Kairos Prison Ministry for 20 years.) After this man’s release, he and Neal kept in touch, and the man told Neal that he decided that making breakfast would be his small way of thanking his wife for standing by him during his darkest hour.

Neal found this act of gratitude to be a “revelation” (his word). He woke up the next morning and started making breakfast for Frances.

And one more thing: he deflected all our questions about his “secrets” for a long and happy life toward praise for his wife (which maybe is his secret).

With best wishes on your anniversary!

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CLASS NOTES

according to the Catholic Star Herald. Watson joined the Camden diocese in 2013 and works with the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education in leading K-12 curriculum revitalization in math, science, social studies, and language arts.

Over the years he has worked at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and served as education director for the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center in Mobile, AL.

00s 2002

Supporting Latinx Journalists

Meet Lupita Ruiz-Tolento ’13, a Gates Scholar, first-generation college graduate, and French, Spanish, and psychology major (with neuroscience minor). After earning her MA in Latin American Studies at UCSD and a year of teaching English in Quito, Ecuador, Lupita is now director of institutional development for SembraMedia, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting independent digital journalism in Latin America.

SembraMedia could be the poster child for 21stcentury business/nonprofit models. Virtual team members live and work in some 15 countries around the world; Lupita works from Portland, OR. Her next annual conference with the SembraMedia team is scheduled for 2020 in Buenos Aires. “I work with highcaliber, top-notch journalists,” she says. “They’re very passionate people, and it’s so contagious.”

Today SembraMedia boasts a regional network of more than 800 digital publishers in Latin America, the US, and Spain. Of the three new initiatives launched in 2019, Lupita feels especially connected to SembraMex, which provides grants and sustainability counseling to independent digital media along the US/Mexico border.

The first new grants went to digital news startups in the cities of Monterrey and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.

The grants help independent media increase their business acumen and revenue. In this particular case, the work is personal. Originally from Mexico, Lupita has an interest in promoting independent journalists there. “SembraMex is very special to me. Anything that has to do with Mexico really tugs at my heartstrings, because it has everything to do with my personal history and identity.”

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Ashley Spitzer Petersen ’02 made the Portland Business Journal “40 Under 40” list recently. Ashley serves as CFO of CENTRL Office in Portland and started there in May 2015. CENTRL provides coworking space at four locations in the Portland metro area.

2004

Kimberly Pointer Corbett ’04 is vice president of mobile publishing and analytics at Warner Bros. (WB) Games.

Hopelessly addicted gamer nerds will no doubt recognize top-grossing titles like Game of Thrones: Conquest and Mortal Kombat II, both of which benefit from Kimberly’s laser-like marketing skills and data analytics acumen. While she marvels at the quantitative nature of the gaming industry and its part in uniting players from around the world, Kimberly points out, “It also helps that games are fun!”

Kevin O’Brien ’04 was named to the latest Portland Business Journal “40 Under 40” list. Kevin leveraged his

accounting degree into a dynamic career in finance and accounting for the beverage industry. He now serves as senior vice president with Zepponi & Co., a merger and acquisition advisory firm that provides corporate finance and transaction services to the global beverage alcohol industry.

SEND US YOUR NEWS Share the latest on your family, career, or accomplishments.

Send updates to mcovert@up.edu

2008

Mohammed Hassan Alwan ’08 has been appointed as head of the literature, translation, and publishing department at the Saudi Arabian Culture Ministry, according to the Arab News.

Alwan is a Saudi novelist and author, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Words Without Borders, and Banipal magazine. Alwan was a columnist for AlWatan newspaper from 2007 to 2012 and now writes for Independent Arabia. He was selected as one of the most promising Arab authors under the age of 40 at the Beirut39 Festival in 2010. In 2013, his novel Al-Qundus was nominated for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. In 2015, the French version of Al-Qundus won the Arab World Institute Award as the best Arabic novel translated into French that year.

In 2017, his novel Mouton Sageer won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction.

10s 2010

Anna (Sokolov) Harryman ’10 earned her master of arts in teaching at Western Oregon University in 2013 and a master of arts in school counseling in 2018.

Her career since graduation from UP has centered on working in alternative education with at-risk high school students in Albany, OR. She currently serves at Albany Options School.

2011

We heard recently from Lisa McMahan ’11, who writes: “Our 2008–2009 Salzburg study abroad group (we call ourselves The Riders of Johann as a tribute to our trusty bus driver, who expertly navigated the narrow streets of Padua on our spring tour) planned a reunion in Leavenworth to celebrate 10 years of friendship and memories.

We spent one of the most formative years of our lives traveling and learning together and continue to enjoy the company of the 40 best friends that anyone could have (plus some partners and kids who have been brought into the fold).

Prost to many more celebrations in our future!” Thanks so much for writing, Lisa.

2012

Holly Duffy ’12 was promoted to assistant vice president for Timberland Bank in Grays Harbor, WA, in April 2019. Duffy joined Timberland in 2016 as a marketing and data coordinator.

We heard from Moon Wilkman ’12 recently, who writes: “I’m so happy to see that Portland magazine is

back from hiatus! My family and I have enjoyed reading it over the years. It is in great hands. I’m writing to share the news that Eric Wilkman ’12 and I got married a couple years ago, and we’d love to announce it in the magazine now that it’s back. The ceremony was held on October 21, 2017, at St. Rita Catholic Church in Sierra Madre, CA. We met at UP as freshmen in 2009.

Thank you!” Thank you, too, Moon and Eric, and congratulations!

2015

Julissa Vasquez ’15 was named to the latest Portland Business Journal “40 Under 40” list, thanks to the outstanding job she does as diversity talent acquisition manager for Intel.

Sidra Saba Zaidi and Sean Michael Galvin ’15 were married on June 22, 2019, at Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, AK. Sidra and Sean met while studying law at New York University. Sean is a litigation associate at Goodwin in New York.

2016

We heard from Jenny Labrousse ’16 recently, and she writes: “My twin sister Allie Labrousse ’16 and I recently started up a private counseling practice—the Willamette Anxiety Clinic— in Tigard, OR. We focus on providing counseling services for individuals experiencing anxiety and mood disorders. We have a passion for helping our clients experience healing and are dedicated to their mental wellness.”

Megan Worthington ’16 was recently hired as an administrative coordinator by Shannon & Wilson, an engineering firm specializing in infrastructure and

environmental projects, to work in its Portland office, according to the Daily Journal of Commerce. Megan majored in French studies with a psychology minor here on The Bluff. Toutes mes felicitations, Megan! (Trudie Booth helped us with that!)

Chloe Van Gilder ’16 is moving from Fort Lauderdale, FL, back to Portland, and she’s pretty excited about it. Chloe has been putting her biology degree to good use as a veterinary ICU nurse and hopes to be a Portland resident in September. Welcome back, Chloe!

2017

Here’s some great news, compliments of UP’s assistant director of student media Nancy Copic: “Clare Duffy ’17, former managing editor of The Beacon, just called me. She has accepted a position from CNN Business covering Google, Facebook, and Amazon!

And, of course, her former Beacon colleague and classmate Malika Andrews ’17 is really killing it at ESPN covering the NBA.” Thanks, Nancy, for the update on our rising UP alumnae stars.

2018

Nick Hauger ’18 signed with HOKA NAZ Elite, a professional sports organization that recruits and develops distance runners to compete at the very highest level of international athletics.

According to a story in the Spokane Spokesman-Review, “Based in Flagstaff, Arizona, Northern Arizona Elite provides gear, coaching and living amenities, and pays its athletes’ way to competitions. Runners earn most of their living from placing in major, big-money races around the globe.” Nick was a two-time NCAA All

American in cross country, helping lead the Pilots to podium finishes at the NCAA Championships in 2017 and 2018.

Lauren LaRocco ’18 has been nominated as a candidate for the 2019 NCAA Woman of the Year Award as the West Coast Conference’s honoree.

Throughout her five-year stint running for the Pilots, LaRocco broke numerous program records. She currently holds the best time in program history in the 10,000m for her fourth-place finish at the 2016 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, as well as the second fastest time in program history for her sixth-place finish in the 5000m that same year. More recently, Lauren earned an eighth-place finish at the Cross Country West Regional meet, following her secondplace showing at the WCC Championships. She was also named to the 2019 WCC and US Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association all-academic teams and was recognized with Mountain Pacific Sports Federation's allacademic honors.

FACULTY, STAFF, FRIENDS Former UP engineering professor Syed Mansoor Sarwar was appointed as vice chancellor of the University of Engineering and Technology (UET) in Lahore, Pakistan. Sarwar has more than 31 years of teaching experience in the US, Kuwait, and Pakistan, including 11 years as a tenured associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Portland.

We remember him well and send our congratulations.

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CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

Our heartfelt prayers and condolences go out to the families of the following individuals. Requiescat in pace.

Richard Alexander Wilkes ’46 passed away of natural causes on May 11, 2019.

He was surrounded by family during his final days.

A native of Portland, Dick attended Holy Redeemer Elementary School and graduated from Jefferson High School. During World War II and shortly after, he served as a military police officer. In Portland he met the love of his life, Betty Wallin, and married her in 1947. Survivors include four children, nine grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

William “Bill” McGreal Keller ’48 passed peacefully at home on March 19, 2019.

Bill’s education at UP was interrupted briefly when he served in the US Army in Korea. After earning his law degree at Georgetown, he returned to Portland to join his father’s law practice, which eventually included his son John and grandson David. Bill married Frances McGreevy in 1953, and they raised seven children. Over the years Bill served as a board member of Oregon Catholic Press, the St. Mary’s Home for Boys, and on the Advisory Council for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. He was a lifelong member of St. Agatha Parish in Southeast Portland and was a founding member of Friends of St. Agatha. He was also a dedicated fan of the Portland Pilots, not to mention proud patriarch of one of the great UP legacy families, which includes Joseph ’75, John ’76, Paul ’81, Margaret ’85, and grandchildren William

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’02, Patrick ’03, Charles ’05, and Gillian Keller Ashment ’11. Many of his children married UP alumni as well.

He is survived by seven children, 16 grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and numerous sons- and daughters-in-law, nieces, and nephews.

Wilfred Gabriel ’50 died on January 19, 2019, in Shoreline, WA. Survivors include four children and one grandson. His wife of 56 years, Mary, predeceased him. He had a varied and fulfilling career in construction with General Construction Company and Wright Schuchart, Inc., and was a long-time parishioner of St. Luke Catholic Church.

John “Jack” Lumber ’50, a lifelong Oregonian and St. Johns native, passed away on July 8, 2019. He enlisted in the Navy Air Corps during World War II and was among the teeming throngs of veterans who descended on UP thanks to the GI Bill. In 1947 Jack married Barbara Bottler, and they had four children. She passed in 1978. Jack married Loretta Leonard in 1981.

She passed in 1992, and in 2000 he married Nancy Carpenter, who survives him. Jack had a 39-year career with American Steel.

Survivors include four children, two stepdaughters, and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Lloyd L. Evans ’51 of Baker City, OR, died May 14, 2019, at his home. He was awarded a basketball

scholarship to the University of Portland, which was the alma mater of his beloved coach, Father Stone. Lloyd married Ida Sue Taylor in 1947, and they had a daughter, Diana. In 1950 he married Ramona (Dolly) Hendrikse, and they had two daughters, Linda and Eileen.

Lloyd enlisted in the US Air Force in 1951 and served for four years, including the Korean War. In 1968 he married Myrna Reinhart and they moved to Baker City and built a home in 1975.

He continued to work for Ellingson Lumber Company and retired in 1992 after nearly 37 years. Survivors include Myrna, his three daughters, numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandson.

Kathleen (Spada) Nemarnik ’51 passed away at home surrounded by loved ones on July 21, 2019. She grew up in the Italian neighborhood of SE Portland, attended St. Philip Neri, and St. Mary’s Academy, and studied music at Marylhurst and the University of Portland.

“While attending a Central Catholic High School football game one evening,” according to her family, “she noticed a young man playing quarterback. His name was Emil Nemarnik ’50. She turned to the friend sitting next to her and said, ‘I’m going to marry that guy someday.’ It was love at first sight. Kathleen and Emil were married in 1951.”

Kathleen and Emil founded Pacific Coast Fruit Company and turned it into a highly

successful family-run business. Survivors include her children, Nancy ’86, Dave ’80, MaryAnn ’77, John, and Diane ’76; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers and in the spirit of Kathleen’s love of music, the family suggests a donation to the Lena D. Amato Music Scholarship at the University of Portland.

Dick Barnard ’54 died on March 28, 2019. He started his military service in the reserves and, on July 15, 1954, entered the active Air Force as a jet pilot. He left active duty on June 30, 1968, went back to the reserves, and finally retired from military service on June 7, 1990. He was very proud of his time serving the US Air Force. His favorite job? Dick always said it was serving for five years as a conductor for the Portland Trolley. Survivors include his wife and soulmate of almost 24 years, Debby, and his three children.

George Burke Mims ’54 died on April 9, 2019, at Emanuel Hospital in Portland, surrounded by loved ones.

Burke attended the University of Portland on a tennis scholarship and was part of the 1952–56 men’s tennis team. The team won 79 straight matches over three consecutive seasons. In 1995 the team was inducted into the UP Athletics Hall of Fame. After serving in the US Air Force, he settled into a long career in accounting.

He is survived by his wife of 65 years, Sheila; their six

children; 12 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

James Chris George ’55 passed away on May 4, 2019.

According to his obituary, he worked his way through the University of Portland by taking odd jobs at the slaughterhouse and paper mill in Camas and graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts in business administration. He was commissioned into the US Air Force upon his college graduation and served as a senior navigator instructor on early air-to-air refueling missions, training crews for the Strategic Air Command.

In civilian life James became a portfolio manager with First Interstate and served as chief investment officer for the Oregon State Treasury for 26 years.

He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Georgia; three children; seven grandchildren; and one sister.

Patrick Joseph Monaghan ’56, “an Irishman through and through,” died on Thursday, June 6, 2019, at Salem Hospital after a brief illness.

He was 84. Pat had a long career in food distribution, finally starting his own food brokerage business with his close friend Charles Smutny.

Patrick moved to Salem in 1996 when he took the job as vice president of sales for Agri-Pac. He retired in 2001 but still did consulting work for various food companies.

Patrick married Mary Ann Hallahan in 1963, and they had two sons, Daniel and Michael. Mary Ann died in 2001, and in 2006 he

married Kathleen Kelly “KK” Burrell ’68. Survivors include KK, his sons, stepdaughters, and eight grandchildren.

Carol Eberdt ’57 passed away on July 3, 2019. Carol married Ed Eberdt in 1958, and they had three children.

In 1965 they settled into their distinctive stone house on North Willamette Blvd., where Carol raised her kids and worked many years for attorney Homer Allen. The Eberdts were members of Queen of Peace and Holy Redeemer Catholic parishes.

Survivors include her sister, children, a niece, nephews, cousins, and good friends.

Joseph (Craig) Hambleton ’58 passed away on May 19, 2019, in Monterey, CA. Craig worked in pharmaceuticals for Mead Johnson for most of his career, traveling frequently throughout Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. He and his wife, Deerdre, were avid travelers, enjoying trips to Scotland, Nova Scotia, the Mediterranean, and many other places in their retirement. Deerdre, to Craig’s great sorrow, passed away in December of 2016. He moved from Vancouver, WA, to the Monterey area after her passing and spent his days at the beach and at the dog park with his granddaughter, Mia, and dog, Willy.

He is also survived by his son, daughter, and sister.

William Joseph Sheridan ’59 passed away on May 9, 2019, surrounded by his loving family. According to his obituary, “Bill enjoyed

golf, watching The Price Is Right, cooking the best lamb this side of the Mississippi, and family time. He was also actively involved in his local church.” He was preceded in death by his wife of 45 years, Frances; survivors include seven children, five grandkids, and one sister.

Dr. Russell J. Keizer ’60 passed away on June 11, 2019, at OHSU due to trauma from an auto accident. He was surrounded with love by his wife, Linda, and their children and grandchildren. Russell started his medical practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Portland in 1972. He practiced at the North Bend Medical Clinic, followed by an active practice in Astoria and retired in 2007. Survivors include Linda, five children, four grandchildren, and one sibling. He was preceded in death by his previous wife, Joanne.

Bernard Greco ’61 passed away on July 18, 2019, in Edmonds, WA. He served in the US Air Force with the rank of 1st Lieutenant at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX, and married Barbara Stelzel in 1962.

He supported Holy Family Catholic Church, Trailseekers, Southeast Community Center, Habitat for Humanity, the YMCA’s ASPIRE Youth Mentorship program, March of Dimes Walk-aThons, and Yakima Air Fair.

After a long career in the mortgage field, Ben became owner of Hop Services of Yakima, doing the Lord’s work for lovers of good beer.

Survivors include four children, eight grandchildren, and one brother.

Donald (Don) E. McMullen ’63 passed away unexpectedly on April 30, 2019, in El Dorado Hills, CA, after spending an enjoyable weekend doing his favorite things—biking, reading, and drinking fine wine with family. He earned the love and respect of many during his 52-year banking career, as an active member in his Catholic Church, and by touching many lives with his good-natured spirit, generous heart, and positive outlook on life. Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Irene; three children; and seven grandchildren.

Rita Nelson ’65 passed away on January 12, 2019, in Logan, UT. Rita met and married her husband of 53 years, John Nelson ’65, on The Bluff, and then went to OHSU for a master of science degree in biochemistry in 1969.

Survivors include John and their daughters, Bridget Lefor ’89 and Meghan Steele ’95.

Instead of flowers, please remember Rita with donations to the American Red Cross Blood Program, to The Hope Alliance, or to Hospitalito Atitlan or La Puerta Abierta children’s school in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala.

Mary Clare Smothers ’67 passed away at her home in Lincoln City, OR, on June 13, 2019. In 1971 Mary married Leo Smothers; they honeymooned in Hawaii and Fiji while traveling to their new CONTINUED ON PAGE 47

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CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

In Remembrance of Fr. Claude Pomerleau, CSC August 16, 1938–July 21, 2019

FROM A BROTH ER

A Skip and a Jump A Holy Cross priest and a man of prayer, our brother Claude encountered God everywhere: a Bach sonata, a grieving student, a hauntingly beautiful sip of Oregon pinot, a sunset over Lake Champlain, his own physical decline.

He knew what belonged to God: all of this world—its joys and sorrows, its pain and glory. Every inch and atom of it.

Claude studied aeronautical engineering and then philosophy at Notre Dame and then theology in Rome before being ordained a Holy Cross priest. Whether it was rockets, Rousseau, or the Book of Revelation, Claude, it seems, was fascinated by systems—of human beings and communities and tribes and nations and stories and beliefs. Or the melodies he played so beautifully on his clarinet. After heading off to Denver to get his PhD in international relations, he started teaching and having amazing conversations with young people, mostly, but

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really with just about anyone he met—in South Bend; Portland; Santiago, Chile; and Kampala, Uganda, where he helped establish the Department of Diplomacy and International Studies at Ugandan Martyrs University.

He was in the classroom until (nearly) the very end, his eyes always drawn to the intricacies of Love and God. One image of Fr. Claude remains with me. I had joined him and his cousins on a boat trip one dusky night a few years ago across Lake Champlain. Both of Claude’s arms were extended upward, like the arms of a distance runner who has crossed the finish line. His eyes were closed, his smile wide. The lake wind washed over him happily, like the sweet breath of God. It seems to me that for Claude the border between heaven and earth, between grace and humanity, was negligible. A skip and jump and you’re there.

—Fr. Patrick Hannon, CSC ’82

FROM A FORMER STU DENT

Good-bye, My Friend I have never believed that our dreams possess secret meanings, but when Fr. Claude Pomerleau appeared in one of my dreams to let me know he had passed on, I honestly didn’t know what to think. I knew he was ill and that his recent chemo had resulted in, as he put it, a “bad reaction.”

But I had just corresponded with him, and I thought he might live on for many more weeks, or even months.

His spirits seemed so high in the emails he wrote.

He had told me years before that he knew the cancer would take his life. It was not the kind that went away, but it was the kind that could stay subdued for a long time.

One could only hope. When I spoke to him then, he was happy to be feeling better after finishing up with a recent round of chemo. My wife, daughter, and I went with him to an Italian dinner in St. Johns. He loved all the food (as usual) and his thoughts traversed diverse terrain (as usual).

He had a lot to say about politics, music, art, food, religion, new jokes…it was classic Fr. Claude.

I loved talking to Fr. Claude. As his student, I always looked forward to his lectures. Of course, it was almost impossible to take notes while he was lecturing. His lessons had a tendency to roam. But I found that if I put the pencil down and just listened, I would leave class with a head full of new insights and plenty to mull over.

He once came to class ten minutes late. The students were restless. He bounded in, apologized, and let us know that it was such a beautiful spring day that he had decided to sit outside and have a glass of wine. Out there in the sun, he had completely lost track of time. He was sorry for being late, but not too sorry. After all, one had to appreciate a beautiful day.

Some years later he showed up ten minutes late for my wedding rehearsal. He arrived with a big smile on his face.

Things were a wee bit stressful for the bride and me, as I had barely made it back from one of those always-gettingextended military deployments. We were scrambling to get ready. Fr. Claude smiled and told us the secret to staying stress free during a wedding: you just have to remember that whatever happens is supposed to happen. The wedding turned out great, and his advice has worked wonders even beyond the wedding ceremony.

I was his student, but he was more than a professor to me. We kept in touch over the years. He was a superb advice-giver, even if he never suggested I take any particular course of action. He could be a spiritual mentor without speaking explicitly of faith. I wanted him to know about the big developments in my life, so I’d reach out at key moments. I left the military and joined the Department of State. I specialized in Latin America, just like him. My wife and I had a daughter. I was going to Iraq right when things with ISIS seemed to be getting a lot worse. Finally, one day, I told him I was coming back to the Northwest. I was tired

of being away. Away from my wife and daughter (half of our marriage and half of my daughter’s life) and away from the only place I ever felt at home.

I saw Fr. Claude a few times after I returned.

I regret it wasn’t more.

I wanted to ask him more about his time in Chile under a dictatorship and how he processed the things he saw and experienced. I wanted to talk to him about our current state of politics. About faith. I had been through Fr. Claude playing his new a lot since I left UP, and bass clarinet in 2018 for my I hadn’t really processed 6-year-old daughter. it all. I had a hunger for wisdom, and, to me, Fr. Claude was as wise as they come.

I can vividly recall one of Fr. Claude’s homilies shortly before I graduated from UP. It was a student Mass. Fr. Claude spoke about the power of words. He likened them to little birds or butterflies we send to each other. If you say a kind word, you don’t know exactly how or when it will really register with somebody, but it will be there, fluttering away.

And one day it will land.

A few days before Fr. Claude appeared in my dream, I had written him a letter. I wanted him to know that I considered him one of the truly great individuals I had met in my life. I thanked him for all he had taught me. I don’t know if he ever read those words. I do know that he had not, in fact, passed away the night he appeared in my dream. He would live for two more days. My letter might have arrived just in time, but he was receiving many letters, and feeling ill, and, well, who knows?

I still don’t believe that Fr. Claude’s appearance in my dream had a higher significance. He was on my mind; that’s all. I do, however, have some other beliefs, and many of these I can trace back to my interactions with Fr. Claude.

I believe that learning comes from listening. I believe we are happiest when we stop trying to control everything.

I believe that ambition should not come at the expense of family. I believe the ideal of service compels us to go where the challenges are greatest. And I believe in the power of words. So I say these words of gratitude with the belief they will take flight and find their way home: Thank you for everything, Fr. Claude. You will be missed.

—Hank Smith ’03

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An Ode to Howard Hall The old pile had to go, yes, but saying good-bye came a little harder than most of us expected. female athletes and even for secret Portland Trail Blazers’ IN 1928, HOWARD HALL was an ambitious undertaking for a small, cash-strapped university. But the old Columbia Colosseum—a giant wooden Quonset hut that reacted to wind much like a sail—was leaking and falling apart.

So the Holy Cross fathers launched a fundraising drive and built Howard Hall for about $75,000. The designers utilized every available cent and centimeter: the single basketball court could be used as an auditorium thanks to the stage at one end; a three-story “tower” held offices and storage rooms; and the ground floor was packed with locker rooms, weight rooms, more offices, practice rooms for the music department, and a swimming pool. Basketball games could seat some 1,000 spectators, and plays, performances, Masses, and graduations could hold nearly 2,500. It seemed a great leap of faith on the part of the priests, that the University would grow into and around its new athletic facility.

Growing up as a UP faculty brat in the 1960s and 1970s, I could see Howard Hall had already passed from the “splendid edifice” to its more familiar battered state. Fortyplus years of constant use and at least one near-gutting by fire in 1949 had taken their toll, but I remember Howard as a place of great fun and opportunity. You didn’t need to be a faculty member’s kid to have free run of the place; as long as you didn’t cause any problems, just about anyone from the neighborhood could play pickup basketball, pummel friends with medicine balls, or try to hit the shallow end from the pool’s ridiculously torqued diving board.

For all its faults and shortcomings, Howard Hall was rarely quiet. Even though it was used for a dizzying number of events, basketball was its foremost draw for male and

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scrimmages. For a time in the 1970s, faculty members, administrators, employees, and some of the more daring students would gather after work for raucous street-rules basketball games. Just to make it interesting, according to my dad, Jim Covert, the winners got to adjust the shower temperatures for the losers.

My most vivid memories are from the Pilot varsity basketball games held there from about 1968 to 1976.

This was Howard Hall in all its shabby glory. Opposing teams seemed to wonder what they’d gotten themselves into when faced with 1,000 or more tightly packed, hooting Pilot fans bent upon shaking old Howard into a boisterous heap. For a couple of years Pilot games featured a special guest cheerleader carried to midcourt in a purple coffin.

Fans would erupt as the mystery guest sprung from the coffin—Manny Macias, Art Schulte, Joe McCoy, Jim Covert, Ernie Hays—dressed in their signature hat and overalls.

Even UP president Fr. Paul Waldschmidt, CSC, got in on the act and found it hilarious when the coffin wouldn’t close thanks to his love of good beer and bratwurst. They were riotous, warm, even intimate gatherings, a shared UP experience fading each year from living memory.

Sentimentalists will say a space like Howard Hall still reverberates with the love and energy it once hosted, and I have to say I agree. Around the time our recreational services office moved into the gleaming new Beauchamp Center, I paid my last visit to the old basketball court, eerily quiet after so many million dribbles and footfalls. It was perfect. Alone with my thoughts, silent but for the creaks and groans and hisses of the venerable old structure, I could hear the echoes loud and clear.

—Marcus Covert ’93, ’97

CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 43

teaching jobs in Australia.

In their nearly 37 years of marriage Mary and Leo traveled in 22 countries and lived in Australia, Eugene, Iceland, Germany, Santa Barbara, and Klamath Falls. Mary was a pilot for 25 years and was an active member of the Klamath Chapter of the Oregon Pilots Association. Leo died in 2008, and survivors include her stepchildren and eleven grandchildren.

Her family says it best: “In lieu of a service, Mary asks that you remember her the next time you see a dog running, or hear a small airplane flying overhead, or walk on the beach, or watch a beautiful sunset over the ocean.”

Peggy (Dryden) Hartl ’69 passed away on March 16, 2019. She enjoyed a 31-year career with the Oregon Children’s Services Division.

On August 16, 1975, she married the love of her life, Tom Hartl. She is survived

by Tom, one daughter, three brothers, two sisters, and many nieces, nephews, cousins, and close friends.

Lyndon Gabriel ’69 died on March 7, 2019. He served in the US Air Force from 1959 to 1964, first in Misawa, Japan, and then in Trabzon, Turkey. It was during this time that he began courting Carol V. Loron of Camas, WA, via letter correspondence, finally convincing her to marry him on September 19, 1965. Lynn worked for the Bonneville Power Administration and was head of the Field Services Test Unit when he retired in 1999 after 32 years of civil service. He is survived

by Carol, their two children, and seven grandchildren.

David George Schlosser ’69 died peacefully with his son Scott by his side on May 2, 2019. He moved to Alaska after graduation from UP and worked in building materials sales for nearly 50 years.

His son Michael Boese is a 1990 alumnus of UP, and David’s sister Julie Fehrenbacher graduated in 1970. Survivors include three additional children and 10 grandchildren.

William Lawrence “Larry” Swanton ’70 died on May 19, 2019, in Portland, OR. Born in Casper, WY, on September 23, 1944, he earned a bachelor’s degree in business finance at UP. Larry married Margaret “Peg” Hafner in Sublimity, OR; they raised their family in Portland. Larry worked at Pacific Power and Light/ Nerco in accounting and at Mentor Graphics. Survivors include Peg, three children, one granddaughter, and siblings. His grandson Noah predeceased him.

Therese A. “Terry” Chester ’71 passed away on May 7, 2019, in Vancouver, WA. Terry worked for the Portland school district for 12 years, mostly at Columbia Whittaker Middle School, as a teacher and curriculum associate and earned her MA from UP in 1976. Terry had a deep interest in women’s rights, helping the poor and those in need, and in supporting causes and politicians who believed in those same issues. She was at her heart an artist, enjoying painting, making purses, jewelry making, and other crafting. Survivors

include her husband, Randy Ventgen; one daughter; and seven siblings.

Edward “Ed” Kamholz ’74 passed away peacefully surrounded by family and friends on July 3, 2019, of complications from ALS. He served in Vietnam in the US Army and began his career in the technology sector after graduation from UP. In 2001 Ed began his second career as a book designer and pursued his interest in forest history research. In recent years he led the Oregon Historic Railroads Project, an effort to map every mile of railroad in Oregon.

Lowell Randolph “Randy” Todd ’74 died on May 4, 2019. By all accounts he lived life to the fullest and was grateful for its many gifts, which included “a long and successful career in banking, as well as forays into record producing, horse ranching, and law enforcement. He loved sharing music, travel adventures, fun, and laughter with family and friends.” Survivors include two sons, one brother, and his girlfriend, Judy Ellen Murphy.

Alyce R. Rubin ’78 died peacefully on May 23, 2019, after a long battle with ovarian cancer. Her husband and friends were at her side.

She and her former husband moved from Michigan to Portland for “their great West Coast adventure,” and Alyce joined Tektronix in 1974. In 1987, she met Wolfgang Dempke. Together they traveled the West with their cat in their RV. Traveling remained a passion throughout their 30-year marriage. In 2009 Alyce qualified as a volunteer

long-term care ombudsman for the state of Oregon.

She loved befriending and assisting residents of long-term care facilities, especially those residents afflicted with dementia.

This remained her passion for the final 10 years of her life.

Survivors include Wolfgang; her cat, Winnie; one sibling; and extended family.

Eric DuBois ’80 died at the age of 67 on January 22, 2019, after a long illness.

After being drafted, he joined the Navy and became a medical technician, serving aboard the USS Ajax in the Pacific.

Eric moved to Portland to study nursing and received his BSN from the University of Portland. He worked initially for Kaiser Permanente, then moved to the Veteran’s Administration, serving eventually with the Northwest VA Cancer Registry Center.

His personal interests included politics, astronomy, design, leathercraft, and trivia topics. Survivors include his brother and sister, nieces, nephews, and a multitude of friends.

Daniel Francis Padon ’83 died peacefully from his battle with leukemia on April 20, 2019. He was at home in Bozeman, MT, in the company of his wife, Stacey. According to Dan’s obituary, “He was loyal and reliable, especially when others needed help. He was always available for assistance and was committed to a life of service.

Danny began his career in paper sales at his company, Norwest Business Forms.

From there he began driving a bus to transport disabled and elderly people in Spokane and later in

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CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

Bozeman.” That sounds like the Dan Padon we knew here on The Bluff in the early 1980s. Survivors include Stacey, their son and daughter, and four stepdaughters. He was the sixth of nine children, son to Charlotte ’77 and Jack Padon, and will be mourned by his siblings and extended family.

FACULTY, STAFF, FRIENDS Please remember Mary Vhay ’62 and her family in your prayers as they mourn the death of her husband, Michael Scott, on February 14, 2019, in Spokane, WA. Mike had a big, kind heart and made friends everywhere he went. He supplemented his auto-parts career with his love of woodworking; his furniture is timeless and lives on in homes in Oregon and Washington. Survivors include Mary, two daughters, three grandchildren, three step-children, and many step-grandchildren.

Prayers, please, for Sharon Bystran ’64 and her family on the loss of Edward Bystran, her husband of 47 years, on February 20, 2019. He is survived by Sharon, three brothers, five brothers-in-law, and extended family. Ed had a long career with the National Security Agency and since retirement spent time involved in community, church and charity work with Sharon, plus travel to Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Mexico, Central America, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Please remember Marcia (McCabe) Hubler ’65 in your prayers, as she lost her husband, James T. Hubler, on

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July 10, 2019. He attended the University of Portland for his freshman year, and there they met. They were married for more than 54 years. Survivors include Marcia, their three children, and a niece and nephew they raised as their own.

Please remember Judith Smith ’68 in your prayers on the loss of her husband, Michael L. Smith, on March 16, 2019. Michael served in the US Army during the Vietnam War, then started his career at Pacific Metal Company and opened his own business, Formco Machinery, in 1981. He and Judy married in December of 1969, and together they raised two children, Jason and Joelle. Mike loved traveling with Judith and watching their four grandchildren play sports.

Prayers, please, for Michael Roholt ’73 on the loss of his wife of 50 years, Linda Roholt, on March 4, 2019, after a long and hard fight with lung cancer and its many complications.

Survivors include two children, one cousin, and numerous nieces and nephews. Linda loved her dogs and asked that remembrances be made to the Oregon Humane Society.

Please remember Debra Anderson ’77 and her family in your prayers on the loss of her mother, Virginia Hart, on March 3, 2019. She was a lifelong active member of the Catholic Church, with many a Sunday spent enjoying brunch after Mass with her family. Survivors besides Debra include five other children, 25 grandchildren, and 21 great-grandchildren. Virginia’s daughter Joan Hart died in 1965.

Please remember Adrienne Hartmeier ’79 in your prayers on the death of her mother, Paula Marie Hartmeier, on May 27, 2019.

Paula was preceded in death by her husband, Mel, and is survived by her five children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

According to her family, “Paula was a loving mother and grandmother. She worked for St. Vincent’s Hospital for over 25 years in tumor registry. She enjoyed entertaining and was famous for her pool parties.”

Prayers, please, for Ryan Bergio ’16 and his family on the death of his father, Dave Bergio, on March 25, 2019. Dave was a wellrespected tile and marble contractor who worked in the Portland metro area for more than 30 years.

He was preceded in death by his wife, Linda Jeffries Bergio, and survived by his wife, Rebecca; four sons; and four sisters. The family asks that any memorial donations are made to the Oregon and SW Washington Chapter of the ALS Association or the Wounded Warrior Project.

Phyllis Rose Orrico passed away on June 10, 2019, at home and surrounded by her loving family. Those who have visited Orrico Hall on the UP campus have seen the vibrant painting of Rose and her late husband Frank gracing the lobby of the Health and Counseling Center. The building bears the family name thanks to the generosity of their son Brent Orrico, who, like his father, is a former UP regent.

Phyllis and Frank married on August 10, 1948, and together they raised six children at their home in

Yarrow Point, WA. By all accounts a warm, gracious, gregarious woman, Phyllis always threw open her doors to family and friends for gatherings—birthdays, picnics, reunions, and most of all, Christmas celebrations. She was predeceased

by Frank in 1994 and their son, Kevin, in 2015, as well as two grandchildren.

Survivors include children Brent, Mark, Dean, Diane, and Paul; 16 grandchildren, and 17 great-grandchildren.

Beloved UP housekeeper Peng “Mona” Wang passed away in May 2019, according to a campus-wide letter from interim physical plant director Joe Cates. “Mona was respected and appreciated by all who knew her,” he writes. “She held herself to the highest standard, and had a way of winning over even the most challenging of people. I reflect back to just over a year ago when Mona was walking across the stage at the employee Christmas luncheon to accept the Deiss/Dodson award. Her excitement and enthusiasm lit up the room as her friends in the physical plant all cheered her on. I am grateful for this memory, and for the opportunity to know Mona, and share in her light. Mona was a wonderful member of our community, a beloved wife and mother, and we are fortunate to have had her in our lives. Please keep Mona and her loved ones in your thoughts and prayers.” Amen to that.

DARSEY LANDOE

FOR THE LOVE OF IT

I Go In ONE DAY NOT so long ago a friend who I used to road-trip with for work told me about her love of the Oregon coast.

She said it’s where she goes when she needs to get away.

She told me she likes to “go out,” referring not to her affinity for night life but to the coast and to the thrill of being on the edge of a continent.

After only a brief pause I responded that when I need to get away, “I go in.” In the moment I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant, but I knew that “in” felt truer for me than “out.”

I’ve always known this about myself. I’m drawn to the centers of things, things that are grounded, and ground that is sturdy. Like a deep conversation with a long-time friend or reading a book just one more time, I enjoy being in the familiar or discovering something new in what’s already been. Edges make me nervous, as if I am unmoored.

Here in Oregon, my home since 2001, I’ve spent appreciable time in 34 of its 36 counties. Despite miles of stunning coastline, I’m always drawn “in.” The expanse of Summer

Lake (which is frequently too dry to be a lake at all) convinces me that a strong foundation lasts. The bends of the North Umpqua River (where, on the inner turn, the water momentarily slows) remind me to pause and look back at where I came from before charging ahead into whatever comes next.

Every turn through the Painted Hills brings a different perspective and light (literally), which makes me feel as though I’m simultaneously moving into and emerging from insight.

Going “in” inspires me to behold what lies in the heart.

I tend to seek out answers, knowledge, and wisdom in what has been, as opposed to what could be. Going “in” challenges me to be humble in the face of time. I realize this isn’t an absolute. “In” doesn’t negate “out.” Expansion and contraction are what keep us alive after all. But where my friend might embrace a visionary growing edge, I lean into well-trodden earth.

—Annie Kaffen is University of Portland’s associate director of grants.

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