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A TANGLE OF BEARBERRY My mother is driving me through the rain to the beach. I am applying for summer jobs. The rain is thorough and silvery. We do not speak. The trees along the road are scrubby and gnarled and assaulted by reeds. I am huddled in my jacket. No one else is on the road. You never thank your mother enough. The road is so wet that our tires send up tendrils and spouts of water behind us. I can see them flaring steadily in the mirror on my side. My mother is intent on the road. She would like to say something gentle about the interview I will have in a few minutes but she knows that I will not hear what she says. I will hear what I thought she said, which is not what she said. I heard a lot of what was not said or meant then instead of what was. My mother woke me that morning, and fed me, and handed me clean folded clothes, and handed me the plethora of forms I was supposed to have filled out but had not filled out and of course filled out hurriedly scribbledly scrawlingly as she drove me through the rain to the beach. We drove along silently as I scribbled and she maybe thought about all the things she would have liked to say but was too wise to say. This would have been a perfect time for me to say or whisper or even mumble my gratitude to my mother for eighteen years of extraordinary love and care. This would have been a great time for me to say something like I see your hard work, mom, and I see your weariness with all these kids, and I see how quietly worried you and dad are about money, and I can only faintly dimly imagine what it must be like to bear and coddle and raise and protect and educate and love children and have them be rude and vulgar and dismissive and contemptuous and worse. That would have been a great time for me to say something gentle for once. Rarely were we alone together for thirty minutes as we were that morning in the rain on the road to the beach. That would have been a great time for me to say quietly I see you, mom, and I love you, and I never say that, and I should say that every thirty seconds every blessed day, and I should touch my head to the holy earth every dawn and say thank you for you to whatever it is that we mean when we say The Mercy and the Coherence and The Imagination. That would have been the perfect time, alone in the quiet car in the quiet rain on the silent road among the gnarled little trees. By the time we got to the state park headquarters it was too late for me to say anything, and I hurried off to the interview, and I don’t know what my mother did for the next few minutes. Probably she went for a walk along the boardwalk, or sat in the car writing letters; she was always in motion, always quietly doing something even in moments when nothing needs to be done; that was how she was and still is, though now she moves very slowly indeed and does not drive at all. Now I drive, and she sits in the passenger seat, and we talk freely and cheerfully and deeply and avidly and eagerly and every time I talk to her I say I love you. We don’t say that enough. We don’t. After a while I came back from the interview and she started the car and we drove home through the ranks of the bent twisted little trees. There were pitch pines and salt cedars, and here and there beach plums, and thickets of sumac, and I thought I saw a tangle of bearberry but I could not be sure. Brian Doyle is the editor of this magazine, and the author of a new novel called Chicago (St. Martin’s Press).
F E A T U R E S 14 / Francis & Francis, by Timothy Egan How a pope and a saint changed the world, one heart at a time. 18 / We Cannot Afford to Walk Sightless Among Miracles, by Hob Osterlund Notes on courage and miracles and grace and albatrosses. page 14
22 / “The University was the best decision I ever made...” A conversation with cheerful Big Bang Theory actor Kunal Nayyar ’03.
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24 / The Year of Mercy, photograph by Daniel Etter “The Church is the house where everyone is welcomed and no one is rejected,” said Pope Francis, as he named 2016 as the Extraordinary Year of Mercy. In the “immigrants who land on our shores, we touch the flesh of Christ in he who is outcast, hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned, ill, unemployed, persecuted, in search of refuge…” 26 / I Am a Hard Worker, by Brian Doyle A girl from Iowa who wanted to be a doctor ends up hammering cancer way more than she could have if she had become a doctor. How did she do that? 30 / Missing, by Patrick Madden A dad’s story.
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34 / The Mathematics of Beauty, by Heather Dillon A University mechanical engineering professor and the mysterious magic of what is.
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3 / “Fanatics do not speak for Islam!” by Michael Berdine ‘68 5 / The remarkable young engineer Jean Paul Mugisha ‘18 6 / A note on teaching by politics professor Lauretta Frederking 7 / Engineering professor Jim Male’s great-great-grandfather: a note 8 / The eloquent passionate theology professor Rene Sanchez: a note 9 / “My job is to wipe tables and listen to students”: Twila Sylvia 10 / The wry salty brilliant graphic designer Joe Erceg ’55: a note 11 / The beaming national cyclocross champ: Clara Honsinger ‘19 12 / Sports, starring the quicksilver basketballist Alec Wintering ‘17 13 / University news and notes 37 / University co-founder Father John Zahm C.S.C., in Latin America 48 / The quiet grace of University caretaker Keltuma Singh
page 30 THE UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND MAGAZINE Spring 2016: Vol. 35, No. 1 President: Rev. Mark Poorman, C.S.C. Founding Editor: John Soisson Editor: Brian Doyle Disgruntled Obstinate Designers: Joseph Erceg ’55 & Chris Johnson Mooing Assistant Editors: Marc Covert ’93 & Amy Shelly ’95 Fitfully Contributing Editors: Louis Masson, Terry Favero, Anna Lageson-Kerns
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Cover: the young Saint Francis, by the young Maryland painter Matthew Adelberg (matthewadelberg.com).
Portland is published quarterly by the University of Portland. Copyright ©2016 by the University of Portland. All rights reserved. Editorial offices are located in Waldschmidt Hall, 5000 N. Willamette Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97203-5798. Telephone (503) 943-8225, fax (503) 943-7178, e-mail address: bdoyle@up.edu, Web site: http://www.up.edu/portland. 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. Printed in the USA. 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, The University of Portland Magazine, 5000 N. Willamette Boulevard, Portland, OR 97203-5798.
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“When I hear that robin sing / Well, I know it’s coming on spring / Ooo-eee and we’re starting a new life,” sings the great Irish mystic Van Morrison. ¶ Among the birds nesting on campus: red-tailed hawks, flickers, warblers, towhees, thrushes, wrens, sharpshinned hawks... ¶ Spring has been baseball season on The Bluff since before the University was born in 1901; the predecessor Methodist Portland U. laid out a baseball diamond in 1893. The current Pilots finish their season in late May against Saint Mary’s; see portlandpilots.com for details. ¶ Among the saints of spring: Caidoch, Cellach, Abundias, Ebba (the Younger), Agape, Benedict (the Moor), Gwerir, Tigernach, the Martyrs of Lesbos, Winebald, Concessa, Dotto, and who could not be delighted by the sweet fraught arcanery of Catholicism?
The University
Student affairs vice president Father John Donato, C.S.C., leads an Oregon Catholic Press pilgrimage to Italy June 3-14; Rome, Assisi, Florence, Ravenna, Como — whew. Information: Carol Stahl at OCP, Pilgrimages@ocp.org. ¶ The annual poignant Scholarship Luncheon, at which donors dine with the recipients of their largesse, is April 12. ¶ Commencement is May 1, and there will be two ceremonies this year, so that graduates can get more tickets for their
Arts & Letters
On the boards this spring in Mago Hunt Theater: the Bard’s Julius Caesar (April 8-15). ¶ In concert this spring, usually in BC Aud: the University’s Wind Symphony, Orchestra, University Singers, Women’s Chorale, Chamber Ensembles, Chapel Choir (awesome), and Jazz Band. The annual glorious hilarious Mocks Crest Productions’ Gilbert & Sullivan run (this year Ruddigore) will be June 3-26. ¶ Among litry events this spring: poet Sister Eva Hooker, C.S.C. (April 4), and poet Jae Choi (April 6), both hosted by the English department in the bookstore, at seven in the evening. Info on all arts and poets: the charming Kelly Brown, 503.943.7228, brownke@up.edu. ¶ Hosted by the Garaventa Center this spring: the Women in the Bible Concert (music and poetry inspired by the glorious women of The Book), April 2 at 7 p.m. in the Chapel of Christ the Teacher, and a talk by the sonorous brilliant entertaining courtly baritone Father Charlie Gordon, C.S.C., April 12 in Franz Hall at 7 p.m. Info: Sarah Nuxoll, 503.943.7702.
Student Life
This April marks the last tactile issue of The Beacon, after 80 years; the student weekly (the best small university newspaper in America last year) will go utterly digital under the direction of new editor Malika Andrews ’17. ¶ The annual spring Weekend on The Bluff for prospective students is April 8-10; students stay in the dorms with hosts and attend classes to get a feel for real life here. ¶ Founders Day is April 12, and the daylong seethe and burble has become epic. Classes are canceled and there are more than a thousand student presentations of all sorts. ¶ Late March has been lu’au season for 38 years on The Bluff: the 39th lu’au (Pi’i Mai Ka Nalu, riding a wave) is March 28. One highlight this year: faculty and staff dancing the ancient graceful Hawaiian ritual with students. ¶ Graduating May 1: an estimated 1,000 undergrad and graduate students, in two ceremonies, wow.
The Faculty
May 3 is the annual Faculty Awards Gala, at which the teacher and scholar of the year honors are announced and the Culligan Medal awarded. Last year’s Culligan, for superb service in and out of the classroom, went to the wry philosopher Norah Martin. ¶ The annual Faculty Retirement event is April 22 in BC Aud; this year we lose the terrific geoscience prof “Coach Bob” Butler, businessmen Howard Feldman and Jim Seal, theologian Father Tom Hosinski, C.S.C., and library dean Drew Harrington (see page 5). Sigh. We are happy for them, we guess,
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and grateful for their talents at play here, but still. ¶ On Utah Public Radio recently: biologist Laurie Dizney, talking about how loss of biodiversity affects disease transmission. ¶ Winning the 2015 Spirit of Holy Cross Award from the Congregation of Holy Cross in these United States: education professor and Garaventa center codirector Karen Eifler, who totally deserved it.
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April 3, thought the great American writer Kurt Vonnegut, ought to be named international Writers’ Day, because the testy genius Samuel Johnson wrote this in his diary on that day in 1753: “O God, who hast hitherto supported me, enable me to proceed in this labour & in the Whole task of my present state, that when I shall render up at the last day an account of the talent committed to me, I may receive pardon, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶ April 10, 1967: The University’s Board of Regents meets for the first time ever; a few days later they were the legal owners of the University, as the Congregation of Holy Cross handed over the property and state charter. ¶ Great musicians born in May: James Brown and Pete Seeger (3), and Stevie Wonder (13). ¶ Among April’s epic events: Ponce de Leon entertainingly claims Florida for Spain (2), America’s savage Civil War finally ends (9), American soldiers free the Nazi camp Buchenwald (10), Thomas Jefferson emerges from his mother (13), the Warsaw ghetto revolt by Jews against the Nazis (19), the first American state (Colorado) legalizes abortion (25).
ART BY MILAN ERCEG
The Season
families. Commencement One (Arts and Sciences and Education graduates) is at 10 a.m., and Two (Business, Engineering, and Nursing) is at 2 p.m. ¶ The University ranges far afield this spring, so to speak, with a State of the University evening in Chicago, May 9, starring University president Father Mark Poorman, C.S.C. Info: Father Ed Obermiller, C.S.C., 503.043.7488. ¶ Reunion Weekend is June 23-26 all over campus; call the alumni office at 503.943.7328.
FANATICS DO NOT SPEAK FOR ISLAM We have never before reprinted a piece from a past issue; but we do so here, because we want everyone in the world to read what Michael Berdine ’68 wrote in the Winter 2009 issue. Michael is a devout Muslim; and a learned and furious one, too, as you see. As-salaam-u alaykum, peace be to you, we say in Islam — much as in the Catholic Mass we say the peace of the Lord be with you, and the responses are similar also: and with your spirit in the Catholic Mass, and wa alaykum as-salaam, and to you be peace, in Islamic culture. I start with the word peace because I wish to say bluntly and clearly and loudly that Islam is not the twisted creed of the malefactors who perpetrated heinous crimes on September 11, the thugs who have distorted the true meaning and teachings of Islam ever since. The root of the word Islam is silm and salam, which mean peace, and Islam is about living in peace with the Creator, with yourself, with other people, and with all the creation that we have been granted by the One. “If anyone kills a person — unless retribution for murder or spreading corruption across the land — it is as if he kills all mankind, while if any saves a life it is as if he saves the lives of all mankind,” says the Al Ma’idah. Nowhere in the Qur’an (which Muslims believe to be the exact word of God revealed to the Prophet Muhammad), or in the hadith (the teachings of the Prophet himself), do we read that the ends justify the means. Nowhere. Moreover, if we mistake our motivation and values, attributing false righteousness to ourselves, we will have lost our cause and, perhaps, our souls. So to those who claim to speak for Islam, who claim that terrorism and the murder of innocents is a right path, I say: you do not speak for the faith, and you should beware the loss of your holy soul. In the Hadith al-Qudsi: “The first of people against whom judgment
will be pronounced on the Day of Resurrection will be a man who died a martyr... He will say [to the Almighty]: ‘I fought for you until I died a martyr.’ [The Almighty] will say: ‘you have lied: you only fought that it might be said: ‘He is courageous. And so it has been said.’ Then he will be dragged on his face to the Hellfire.” The cold fact of the matter when we talk about “Islamic” terrorism is that the murderers, for that is what they are, are not true Muslims. They
are mere actors. They commit crimes for effect, to make an impression. They seek to gain their objectives through the manipulation of an audience. But these actors use real bombs, assassinations, murders, rapes, and mayhem to manipulate others to their will. Their agenda is political change, and no matter how assiduously they insist that their motives are religious, they are not the motives of Islam. Do not grant them that which is not theirs to claim. Even their use of the word jihad is false. There is no such thing as a holy war in Islam. Only God is holy in Islam. The word jihad has a root verb — jahada — which in Arabic means exerting maximum effort or striving. The theological connotation is striving for betterment. Its major form — the “Greater Jihad,” jihad alkhabir — is the struggle within oneself for self-improvement, elevation, purification and getting closer to God. In short, it is a spiritual struggle to do good and avoid evil so one will attain heaven in the afterlife. Another form of jihad is using economic power to uplift the condition of the Spring 2016 3
downtrodden and to finance the struggle for justice and liberation. The last, but not least form of the word, known as the “Lesser Jihad,” or jihad al-Saghrir, is the physical form, where people actually fight against oppression. The principles of that form are stipulated clearly in the Qur’an and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad: Fighting is only to defend against those oppressors who attack Muslims to force them to convert away from their religion or to drive them out of their homes. Fighting is limited to combatants. The Prophet commanded that the lives of civilians are to be protected. The word jihad is an Islamic-Arabic term that has been incorrectly translated and largely misunderstood. There is no equivalent to the term “holy war” in Islamic terminology. There is no mention of “holy war” in either the Qur’an or Hadiths (teachings of the Prophet Muhammad), which are the primary sources of Islamic teachings. Every aspect of each Qur’anic mandate is aimed at nurturing an environment that will allow peace to emerge and prevail. Recognizing that humanity is flawed and will err, Islam provides a system to eradicate injustice and allow peace to flourish. In the spirit of its universal message of peace and respect for diversity, Islam’s goal is not to impose itself by force or declare war against non-Muslims. For a believing Muslim, specifically one who practices his/her religion according to the Qur’an and the Sunnah, the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and justice are always superior to war for those who are conscious of God. As-salaam-u alaykum, peace be to you. Michael Berdine ’68 was the first director of the Cambridge Muslim College in England, where he is now a research fellow.
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One great thing about having a Dean of the Library who is not only an excellent dean, and fought for years to get the Clark Library completely renovated and doubled and made to gleam, but a good painter of pictures, is that occasionally she makes a painting that you can stare at for a week with pleasure. “Taos,” by our retiring library dean Drew Harrington, from a recent campus show of artwork by library staff. Portland 4
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Now here is a most interesting sophomore: the shy brilliant Jean Paul Mugisha, whose family fled war-battered Congo for a refugee camp in Rwanda, where Jean Paul and his family lived in a mud house, no electricity, no plumbing, one meal a day. Studying math, physics, and chemistry on his own, he got a perfect score on the Rwandan national high school exam — but as a refugee he was banned from scholarships to Rwandan universities. But the nonprofit These Numbers Have Faces discovered him, the United Nations settled his (ten strong) family in Portland, and Jean Paul spent last year studying at PCC and interning at Allison Engineering. By chance he met University president Father Mark Poorman, C.S.C., who was so impressed that he offered Jean Paul a scholarship; and today he is an electrical engineering major, a Villa Maria resident, and a soccer fanatic. His ambition: somehow, someday, bring electricity to his Rwandan community. Question: Why are we always wheedling money for scholarships? Answer: Jean Paul. What if Father Mark could make a hundred offers like that? What if?
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may be an opportunity. Success and failure are equal imposters. Most often, this teaching happens outside the classroom. One of my students came to me in the process of, and then in the final stage of, being dismissed from the university. He was devastated and also entirely to blame for the actions that led to By politics professor Lauretta Frederking, his dismissal. I assured him that this might be the most defining moment from a forthcoming collection of essays of his life, not at all because of failure by University faculty about how but because of its opportunity. “This they are not primarily professors of could be the moment when you distheir subjects, but of something else cover who you want to be and not altogether, to be edited by physicist be. Seize it. Wallow in it. But don’t Shannon Mayer and biologist Jacquie ever forget that life is long enough Van Hoomissen. and grace is powerful enough that this horrible moment may be your My richest learning and teaching haven’t happened in the classroom, great opportunity.” or in the formal places of intellectual I have caught more than one student in the midst of cheating on a exchange. What I really teach has happened at those in-between places, quiz, a test, an assignment. Certainly the university has a protocol for the falling down moments, when I cheating. However, more important purposely shed my expertise. What I really teach seems to have happened to me than the administrative steps, I ask a student if he or she is a cheater. when I am not teaching at all, just living a relationship of communion Almost always, they respond no, no way, this was an accident, a mistake, with students. A few years ago I was introduced etc. My response is simple and always the same: ‘If you cheat, you become a to the word ‘sophrosyne’. There is no cheater. If you aren’t a cheater, don’t precise translation of the Greek word into English. Really it can be explained cheat, not even once. This is your time to figure out who you are. Let me only by a run of complexities, a balance of contraries: success and failure know when you have figured it out.’ are equal imposters; everything mat- Often I see the outcome. He or she ters for who we may be becoming and declares the turnaround to never cheat again, and they don’t. I believe simultaneously nothing matters in terms of who we are. When pressed, them. Sometimes there is silence, or the student drops out of the class. it can be described with simplicity as “temperance” or “wisdom” though While troubling, maybe those students have figured out who they are as well. neither fully captures its essence. I trust that our students’ roads extend Sophrosyne is what I teach students beyond their time here on The Bluff, during those in-between places and falling down moments. Things are often not as they appear on the surface or in the moment. Be cautious with good news because it may not be what you hoped for and be open to bad news because it may be the first carving out of a path of self-discovery. I remember the long arc back to my college years when life appeared in binary terms — success/failure, acceptance/rejection, love/loss — and I vividly remember the stings and ecstasies of both. I see that similar disposition in students. A ‘C’ grade ruins them, a heartbreak destroys all future possibilities of happiness, and then on the other track an ‘A’ grade glorifies them, and a triumph affirms their superstardom destiny; and again and again, I try to be the sandpaper that reminds them an ‘A’ is a challenge, just as a ‘C/D/F’ Portland 6
and each student carries the experiences and conversations and moments of reflection with them. Grace rarely happens in an expected way. The University of Portland invites students and professors into relationship. I accept that a lot of my job is sharing information and expertise; but after 13 years here I realize there have been students who, for whatever reason or spiritual mystery, reach out in a way that invites me into being part of their life journey, figuring out who they are. We can keep it clean and transactional — you give me a paper and I give you a grade — or we can open it up to be a potentially meaningful place of growth. In so many ways, our students come to us socially hard-wired to think like strategic calculators when it comes to teachers and academic environments, and I want to tear down that assumption. We are different here, where teaching is more than being the most learned person in the room. Being there when students are overcoming adversity, and penetrating their authentic purpose, puts us at the center of who they are and what they will bring to the world. I hope our students have many successes and many failures — not to learn how to avoid the latter and win more of the former, but rather to learn that who they are is the same good and growing person regardless of what society gives them. Living from a place of who we are, less driven by illusions or expectations of where we think we need to be going, takes practice. We provide a safe place to figure it out. Sophrosyne.
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One of the glories of the University’s library is its digital collections site, where you can read a journal kept by engineering professor Jim Male’s great-great-grandfather, William Skinner, who sailed the Pacific in the whaler Mariner in 1836. The library’s Philip Vue scanned and stored the journal and made superb prints to be bound into volumes at Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey in Oregon. Thus a diligent man’s notes from his wild adventure long ago (five years before Herman Melville sailed with the whaler Achushnet) are preserved forever. Do we welcome gifts to the library for extraordinary efforts like this? Sure we do. Call library dean Drew Harrington, 503.943.7111, harringd@up.edu. Spring 2016 7
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NOT WITHOUT LOVE... I ask theology professor Rene Sanchez one question: how does he teach Theology 105, the basic required intro course, now that there is such ethnic and religious diversity on The Bluff? Because, he says, everyone who teaches it on The Bluff begins with the idea that every student, regardless of their tradition, asks certain questions: “Why am I here? What makes us human? What is the purpose of my life? Why is there suffering? Why do bad things happen? To us these are theological questions,” says Sanchez. “I use the Augustinian priest John Shea’s great line: ‘Faith is not believing in something that you cannot see; rather it is responding to something that you cannot deny.’ “I ask my students, ‘So what are the things we cannot deny? And my experience has been that students are fairly receptive. My experience has also been that other faiths — and I have a lot of Muslim students — are very respectful. The Muslim kids really understand religious respect.” Long before he came to the University 5 years ago, long before many years teaching at Moreau High School in Hayward, California, he came out of El Paso’s notorious Segundo Barrio, an impoverished immigrant community squeezed up against the border, where his father picked cotton and the family lived in a house with no windows. He moved with his parents as they followed opportunities for work, to New Mexico, to Tucson’s Anita Barrio, where the family finally had running water. Here Rene began first grade at Davis Elementary, today a bicultural magnet school — but back in the late sixties, Rene and his friends were beaten for speaking Spanish. In 1969, when they moved north to Santa Rosa at the invitation of his mother’s family, there was work in an apple cannery. Here his family at last made a true home. Rene thrived in school, but he has carried with him memories of the suffering he saw in
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those immigrant neighborhoods of the Southwest, the hopelessness, the drugs, the suicides. He has tenderly nursed his memories of the young men and women who never made it out of poverty’s despair, and he brings their stories into the classroom. At Santa Rosa’s Piner High School, after arguing brilliantly in a student mock trial, Sanchez was offered a full ride to college and law school by a senior partner of the local law firm that mentored the classroom law project. But Sanchez no longer wanted to follow his older sister Alicia into law. “I remember looking at this man, face
and Marie-Dominique Chenu, the French Dominican who taught Schillebeeckx and Yves Congar. Self-taught and theology-smitten, Sanchez didn’t go back to college until he was 27. At Holy Names College he earned a BA in history and religious studies, and then began teaching at Moreau High, which is named for the founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Blessed Basil Moreau. Then on to Notre Dame and Boston College, where he “came to realize we don’t understand what love is. We tend to want to impose a kind of artificial one-ness, a unity through uniformity, and not look at distinctions and particularities. So as an example, let’s say a racial discourse: the idea of I don’t see color: That’s a problem! I understand where it comes from, but it’s a problem. Unfortunately the Christian mistake frequently has been to impose our view of love on the Other. In social ethics, which is what I specialize in, it means learning the history of the Other. If we are Christian and we say we love the undocumented migrant, but we don’t know about the history of the United States in relation to Latin America, we do not love the undocumented migrant. So we must learn that history. And then go back to our communities of origin and translate for our people the messages and the wisdom given to us by the Other.” “I can’t tell you what justice is, but I can tell you what it’s not,” he says to his students. “If I’m just looking out just for Rene Sanchez, that’s not to face, and telling him no. And they Christian. If I’m looking out just were like, ‘Are you insane, kid? We’re for Chicanos, that’s not love either. offering you the world.’” But it wasn’t And Catholic justice can never be the world he wanted; he wanted to be about just us Catholics. When I look a healer. at politicians now, I don’t ask what “I look back now and I think I was they’re going to do for Chicanos; inlooking for some kind of peace or stead, I ask, What are they going to serenity, he says. He quotes St. do for women? Young people? Gay, lesbian, transgender? The elderly? Augustine: “Our hearts are restless I’ve got to care about the communiuntil they find rest in Thee.” He became a youth minister at Res- ties that I don’t belong to. I’ve got to urrection Parish. He discovered Father worry about The Others. My teachRichard McBrien’s superb book Caing philosophy begins and ends, in tholicism. “I would read a paragraph or a very real sense, with loving my two on a thinker, and if I really liked students. I know it may sound simhim, I would go to the library and ple, but it is an absolute necessity. check out a book. So I read Augustine Without love, everything else is of and Aquinas and Rahner,” and then little value…” Marx and Jung and Michael Parenti, — Martha Gies Portland 8
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Meet the estimable wry Twila Genevieve Sylvia, who has worked for eighteen years in Bauccio Commons. Job? “Washing tables and listening to students.” Age: “None of your business, although I have a great-greatgrandson.” Works lunches five days a week. Keeps a sharp eye out for students who are crying, sitting alone, who want to talk. “They get so homesick,” she says. “They get lonely. They like to see a friendly face. I listen a lot. A lot of them stay in touch after they graduate, sure. I get letters and cards and visits. One student wrote a paper about me for class. We forget they are just kids. They’re so tall and they seem so confident but they get awfully lonely. At least they have me, is how I look at it. I have the time for them. Sure I do.” How many kids has she spoken gently to and listened carefully to, in eighteen years? About 15,000, by our count. There are many quiet ways to do great things. Thank you, Twila Sylvia.
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JOSEPH It is a capital mistake for a magazine to allow discussion of its staff in its pages, I have always felt; the sprawling open country of the pages of a magazine should be reserved for more important matters, like pain and grace and courage and prayer and music and laughter and life and creativity and, if possible, photographs of hilarious children; and this principle is all the more crucial here at the University of Portland, I think, for here the very product, the point of the organization itself, is creativity and innovation and epiphany and camaraderie and discovery and enlightenment and laughter and love, and of those things there is no end, and far more stories than we can fit in the bushel basket of the magazine, even with its electric acolytes, nowadays. Yet once in a while there is a person who is the magazine, and should be saluted as such, and in these pages we have mentioned the late Bob Boehmer, who was a wonderful wry editor and writer and the most honest man we ever knew; and we have mentioned Sue Säfve, who spent more than forty years in service to the University’s clarity and coherence in public discourse, and for twenty of those years was the meticulous brilliant
testy typesetter of nearly every page that ever went to print; and we have mentioned the lean intense John Soisson, who invented the magazine, and saw it into being against the wishes of those who would have made it merely a prim and shallow newsletter, or a tinny shill for cash, and who edited it with courage and elegance for seven years, until handing it over, bravely, to the undersigned; and today, finally, we will mention and celebrate the magazine’s art director and graphic designer, for this issue marks the thirtieth year that he has chosen the paintings and photographs and drawings that grace these pages, the thirtieth year that he has judiciously and intelligently chosen how the stories and the art should stroll hand in hand, the thirtieth year that he has pored over every page with a maniacal and tempestuous eye, and caught typographical errors, and errors of symmetry, and errors of fact, and errors of editorial judgment, few and rare though those latter be. Thirty years he has spent caring about the look and feel and balance and pace of the magazine, its architecture and composition, the manner and style with which readers engage it. Thirty years he has worried about Portland 10
color density and headlines and captions and outtakes and rubrics and decks and all the other lovely ephemera of the printed page. And perhaps most of all, for nearly all of those thirty years he has had to deal with an editor of towering ego and chaotic imagination, of overweening confidence and minimal technical acumen, of infinitesimal financial knowledge and epic absorption in his own soaring ideas of what is best for the magazine that represents and encapsulates and in many ways incarnates the University of Portland itself. So it is that we break our usual excellent law against magazine staff being mentioned in the pages of the magazine, and here salute and celebrate and thank Joseph Erceg, of the University’s Class of 1955, who has labored with rare skill and creativity to make this magazine roar and sing and swing and sail into the hearts and minds and souls of its readers; and we hope, very much, that many readers will join us in thanking him also, in which case his e-mail address is jedesign@ spiritone.com, and we hope, grinning, that his in-box explodes with your notes. — Editor
ADAM GUGGENHEIM
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Ladies and gentlemen, the national college cyclocross champion this year, from Ashland, Oregon: the refreshingly humble freshman Clara Honsinger, who finished waaay ahead of her closest pursuer. Cyclocross is something like racing and wrestling your bike over a muddy obstacle course; Honsinger says it clears her mind for her biochemistry studies. Ambitions: redesign the Pilot cycling club jersey, and maybe race professionally eventually as a sideline. Spring 2016 11
S P O R T S The Fastest Times in the Nation in the 3000- and 5000-meter races this spring were from Pilot Woody Kincaid, whose 7:48.89 in the 3000 against pros in the TrackTown Meet was also a University record. ¶ Woody’s feats pushed the University’s track and field team to 20th in America, its highest ranking ever. ¶ Nathan DeVaughn also set a school record in the long jump (22-1.5 feet), as did freshman Jack Welch in the 300m (35.57) in his first race in purple. And all this without a track or a field. ¶ Alumni Scott Fauble, Stephen Kersh, Allison Ritchie, and Lyndy Davis all qualified for the 2016 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in the marathon. Wow. Basketball Jet-quick point guard Alec Wintering led the men in almost everything (see below) as they battled through the WCC schedule; one highlight was a tense 84-82 upset of BYU in the Chiles Center. ¶ On a sad note, Bill Johnson, the radio voice of the Pilots for 23 years, died in November
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at age 71. Bill also called Oregon, Linfield, PSU, and Lewis & Clark games over the years, as well as the NBA Trailblazers from 1974-1976. ¶ Tough year for the women (2-20 at presstime), but the surprise highlight was freshman Ellie Woerner from Sammamish, Washington, who scored 19 points on opening night and was averaging 13 points and 4 rebounds a game. Volleyball Great year for the Pilots: they finished 16-15, the first winning season in 25 years. Sophomore defender Morgan Robinson was named to the West Coast Conference All-Academic team, and senior Emily Liger, who averaged four points a set, was named all-WCC. ¶ Star recruit Cali Thompson, from Henderson, was named the Nevada Player of the Year by USA Today. Baseball The Pilots’ first night game ever at Joe Etzel Field was February 26 before a packed house (and television audience). A new era dawns. ¶ Back for the men as they start their first season under Geoff Loomis ’94: first baseman Kevin Wade, who hit
Leading the Pilots in scoring, assists, steals, and accuracy: their quicksilver junior point guard Alec Wintering, who writes the names of those he loves on his sneakers before every game. A shy unstoppable delight, this student.
.331 in league play and only had two errors in 171 chances. ¶ Called up to the San Diego Padres for the last month of the 2015 season: catcher Rocky Gale ’10, the WCC Defensive Player of the Year as a senior (when he hit .431 and led the nation in throwing out base-stealers). ¶ Sad news: former Pilot player and coach Bob Glennen ’55 died in December at age 82. Among his many accomplishments in later life was the presidency of Emporia State University, but he will be remembered here as the 23-year-old head coach who led the Pilots to two NCAA playoff berths and was the national Collegiate Baseball Coach of the Year in 1958. Tennis The men, 12-8 last season, are young (two freshmen and four sophomores in the singles starting lineup), and face four nationally ranked teams in the WCC alone. New faces: Felix Fan from Canada and Carlos Donat from Spain, joining players from France and Cyprus. ¶ The women, second in the WCC last year, are led by all-WCC senior Lucia Butkovska, and feature students from seven countries. Rowing The Pilots, fifth in the WCC this year, welcomed a new assistant coach this winter: former Bulgarian national champ Plamen Petrov, president of Oregon Rowing Unlimited since 2012. Men’s Soccer The new coach of the men, succeeding longtime skipper Bill Irwin: the star recruiter and offensive guru Nick Carlin-Voigt, associate head coach at UCLA. ¶ We salute Bill Irwin, who in his 29 years here as a coach went to ten Final Fours with the men and women, trained six pro goalkeepers, and worked with both the women’s and men’s National teams, World Cup team, and Olympic team. What a career. Most sincere thanks. ¶ The Major League Soccer 2015 Goalkeeper of the Year: Luis Robles ’06, who led the league with 18 wins. Women’s Soccer Back for the Pilots as they open their season in August: All-WCC defender Ellie Boon, midfielder Allison Wetherington, and Danish forward Cecilia Pedersen. Six women were named to the league All-Academic Team, among them Grant High alumna and math major Parkes Kendrick, who has a 4.0 grade-point average through three years on The Bluff. Whew. SCHEDULES & TICKETS: PORTLANDPILOTS.COM
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PHOTO: STEVE WOLTMANN
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B R I E F LY Second in America in the annual national accounting competition (did you know there was such a thing?): University juniors Isaac Mansuetti, Lance Chee, and Connor Ward, advised by the remarkable professor Ellen Lippman, whose team won the national title last year. Wow. The students won $13,000 for their efforts. First in Oregon for alumni earning potential, says Business Insider web site, of the University of Portland; while the total annual cost for an education on The Bluff has risen to $52,000, alumni can also expect to average $52,000 ten years after graduating. The site based its ranking on studies by Georgetown U. and the U.S. Department of Education. Faculty Feats A national grant for the University’s social work, Spanish, and studies abroad programs, to reestablish study abroad programs in Latin America... ¶ Nursing professor (and nurse practitioner) Amber Vermeesch was one of 8 professors nationally to be chosen for a health care policy summit in Washington, D.C. ¶ Business professor Sam Holloway received the Ascendant Scholar Award from the Western Academy of Management; Sam’s an expert on entrepreneurism and craft brewing, and we note happily, helps run Oakshire Brewing in Eugene. Vaunted Visitors Among recent guests: former Boston Red Sox pitcher Alan Embree (a Brush Prairie native who famously finished the greatest comeback in baseball history in 2004 when Our Heroes beat the detestable Yankees for the pennant), speaking at the annual Diamond Dinner baseball fundraiser; the Oregon Symphony, in the persons of its Arnica Quartet; noted New York Times columnist David Brooks, as a guest of our Dundon-Berchtold Institute for morality and ethics; the Muslim-American novelist (and Pulitzer Prize finalist) Laila Lalami, as our Schoenfeldt Writers Series guest; and Dan Misleh, executive director of the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, on campus for the annual Earth Care Summit. Student Feats Freshman Clara Honsinger won the national cyclocross title (see page 11), and freshman rockclimber Brendan Robinson went to the National Bouldering Championships in Wisconsin. A crucial part of his training, he says: yoga sessions in the new Beauchamp Rec Center.
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¶ 620 transfer students applied for admission this year, and 90 enrolled. Some of their reasons? “I wanted to be challenged...there are so many ways to be involved here... At my first school I kept thinking, Is this as good as it gets?” ¶ Five recent graduates joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps this winter, serving in Wisconsin, Texas, Alaska, Montana, and Washington state. Some 100 alumni have donated a year of their wild and precious lives to the Corps. ¶ Ryan Cebula ’16 and Katie Heitkemper ’17 were named Innovation Fellows by the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (which is funded by the National Science Foundation and run by Stanford University). Fellows design innovation spaces, start entrepreneurship organizations, host experiential learning events and work with faculty to develop new courses.
Gifts & Grants The University received $45,000 from the Oregon Alliance of Independent Colleges & Universities and the Oregon Community Foundation for undergraduate student research projects dealing with environmental and sustainability issues; the projects must, fairly enough, “show a long-term benefit to the people and/or natural areas of Oregon.” ¶ And $75,000 from Work Systems to create curricula for at-risk youth in Multnomah and Washington counties to learn infrastructure, manufacturing, information technology, and health care. ¶ Uganda’s Newest Bishop is a 1990 University MAT graduate: Pope Francis appointed Father Vincent Kirabo, a professor at St. Mary’s Seminary in Ggaba, as the new Bishop of Hoima, in western Uganda — a region that is home to more than a million Catholics.
In Laurie Kelley’s nine years as the University’s marketing czar, 300 million people saw the University’s work on television, 24 million read stories of us, a million came to University events, and we raised $200 million for students. Unreal numbers; but it is her ferocious focus on students that we will miss most. She went off to run Providence Health’s fundraising efforts. That’s great work. But she elevated the lives of thousands of lanky children here. We’ll never forget that.
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Francis&Francis How a pope and a saint changed the world, one heart at a time.
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he most popular figure on the planet — the only priest who’s ever been on the cover of Rolling Stone, National Geographic, The Advocate, and Time, among many other periodicals — is a 78-year-old man with only a single functioning lung. His birth name is Jorge Bergoglio; his chosen name is Pope Francis, a name he chose to honor his spiritual mentor: that half-starved ascetic, that pauper who didn’t own money, property, or even shoes — Francis of Assisi, one of Italy’s two patron saints. Most of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics know something of Saint Francis, but he is revered by many others as well. You can go to secular Berkeley, or equally secular France, and find the stone bird bath of Francis. He’s the nature saint. The patron saint of the environment. But he was much, much more. Choosing his name — surprisingly, the first pope named for this revered figure — says much about the lasting power and impact of the saint from Assisi. And just how did this scrawny figure, dressed in a filthy tunic, with sores and boils all over his skin, living in a hovel, become so powerful?
A few biographical notes: He was born in 1181, or 82. He was a nobleman’s son. A bit of hellraiser. A party animal. His merchant family had money. The path was set for Francis to take over the business. His life, an easy life, was set for him. Francis committed “every kind of debauchery,” an early biographer said. Remember, this was almost 400 years before the Renaissance. The early era of the Holy Roman Empire — which was neither holy, nor Roman. Italy’s hilltop towns were always at war with each other. And Francis went to war, against the neighboring town of Perugia. At the age of 21, he was a high-spirited warrior. Ready for adventure! Pillage! Bloodshedding! The rah-rah didn’t last long. Perugia defeated Assisi. Francis was captured, thrown in a dungeon with rats and a cold floor. There he spent a year before his father came up with ransom money to spring him. But something had happened to him in that dank, dark place. After his release, he didn’t return home. He holed up in an abandoned church and prayed. When he emerged, he was a different man. He refused his father’s pleadings. He said he wasn’t Portland 14
interested in wealth, or a career in the merchant business. He was interested in the lost souls, the untouchable lepers in the valleys, the poor, the passed over. This greatly alarmed his father. At the age of 25, Francis was hauled into court by his dad, who claimed that he refused to accept his family responsibility. There, Francis is said to have torn off his nobleman’s clothes, and renounced family and wealth. He stood, nearly naked. You can see this stunning narrative in the Basilica at Assisi, the Giotto frescoes. Thereafter, Francis devoted his life to the marginalized and the forgotten. He said the church had grown too wealthy, too complacent, too removed from Christ. The poor lived shunned lives in the malarial shadows below the sun-washed hill towns, while bishops and other clerics resided in opulent splendor. Francis was a radical. A mystic. But he was a radical by example. As his mythic status expanded, he attracted many followers. He asked only that they sell all goods and give them to the poor. They dressed in simple tunics, usually shoeless like him.
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By Timothy Egan
He felt, in order to get closer to God, you had to rid yourself of material distraction. He was, in one view, the original hippie (very Oregonian), with his rejection of conventional life, his view that all living things have meaning and are connected. They called him, Il Poverello, the Little Poor Man. Fire was a brother. So was the moon. So were the stars. So, in the end, was death. Famously — though perhaps apocryphally — he charmed a wolf that was menacing the town. He preached to birds. By one definition, he was crazy. By another, he was brilliant.
He was not a priest, or even, by today’s measure, an evangelical. He was a life force, similar to Ghandi. But he was not a humorless scourge. Not a scold. Certainly not a statue. He was playful. Fun. Gregarious. He liked a joke. He would dance while preaching. Sing. Strip to his undergarments. He felt he and brothers were inferior to all, superior to none. Humility — again, by example — gave him an aura, his power. As his fame spread throughout Europe, he could have been like Martin Luther, and led a breakaway religion. Instead, he never directly
challenged church authorities — except, of course by example. One of the most daring things he did was go to North Africa, at great danger to himself, to meet with leading Muslims, this at a time when one of the crusades against Muslims and other infidels was going on. He walked much of the way, and it cost him. Returning from Africa, in his late 30s, Francis got very sick. He had contracted malaria while in Egypt. Also had trachoma, a horrible eye infection. He seemed to wither away before people’s eyes, and yet, his power grew. Two years before he
PAINTING BY PJ CROOK/PRIVATE COLLECTION/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES
died, he experienced the stigmata — the wounds of Christ. As his condition worsened, he retreated to even more austere conditions. He lived in a dirt-floored hovel, like his prison dungeon. Shivering with malaria. Vomiting. To him, it was liberating. He died in 1226, at the age of 45. And that should have been that. Remember: Francis had no army. His followers were poor and powerless. He had invented nothing. He had not written any great manifesto. But 800 years later, Francis is still immensely popular, perhaps more so than ever. He appeals to liberals and conservatives, believers and nonbelievers, all over the world. Cut to 2013, and a conclave of cardinals, trying to pick a pope. From the Sistine Chapel, white smoke appears. Birds alight — a sign. An Italian immigrant from Argentina — Jorge Mario Bergoglio – who rode on the back of the bus through slums, washed feet of prisoners and AIDS victims, is named pope. He is the first Jesuit pope. The first non-European pope in 1,000 years. And the only pope who once worked as a bouncer at a club. He takes the name of the pauper from Assisi. This new Francis, striding through St. Peter’s Square, bypasses the limousine waiting for him and climbs aboard a bus, with other clerics. He pays his own hotel bill before checking out. He decides not to live in the Apostalic Place, but reside instead in a two-bedroom guest house. He will get around in a Ford Focus, not the Papal Mercedes. His first words are Fratelli and Sorelle, buona sera! “Brothers and sisters, good evening!” Instantly, people feel a whoosh of fresh air in Saint Peter’s Square. Then, to cardinals who selected him, he says, “May God forgive you for what you’ve done.” Humor! Another fresh air breeze. As before, he washes feet of the poor and outcast, washes the feet of women and Muslims. He dials complete strangers up by phone and offers them encouraging words, or just says hello. One man hangs up on him — three times; he can’t believe the pope is calling him. He eats in the Vatican cafeteria, wears a plastic watch. All symbolic, yes. But like that other Francis, radical by example, following the admonition of Francis of Assisi: “Preach the Gospel, and if necessary use words.”
And also, like the earlier Francis, the pope is playful, exuding an unusual amount of joy. He likes books, soccer, tango music, and gnocchi. He appears not to take himself seriously. He knows how to seize a moment. He goes to Naples, the heart of Mafia, and in words that could only have come from a former boxer says, “Corrupt society stinks.” The most astonishing thing happens on return flight from South America. He’s asked about gays in the church, long a troubled spot for Catholic hierarchy. The Church had called homosexuality “an objective disorder.” Francis looks at the reporters, shrugs and says, “Who am I to judge?” No more famous words have ever been uttered by a Pope. But there it is — the simplicity, the humility, the lightness of being. His power comes from exuding pow-
In the curia in Rome, the old line clerics scowl. One is quoted as saying, “He’ll be gone soon, but we’ll still be here.” That’s what they said about Francis of Assisi. erlessness. He changes hearts by example. The church, rather suddenly, seems to be no longer about what it’s against, but what it’s for. Like Francis the nature saint, this Francis emphasis our duty to creation. He issues an encyclical on the environment. In a speech before a joint session of Congress — the only pope ever granted such an audience — Francis challenges climate change skeptics. Think about that: the Church that put Galileo under house arrest for promoting sound science is now challenging the science deniers in power. Last year, he was asked about his secret to happiness. He said, Slow down. Take time off. Live and let live. Don’t proselytize. Work for peace. Work at a job that offers basic human dignity. Don’t hold on to negative Spring 2016 17
feelings. Move calmly through life. Enjoy books, art, playfulness. Regarding money, he said, “I ask you to ensure that humanity is served by wealth, and not ruled by it.” Has he changed church doctrine? Not really. Not substantively. But by his choice of words, his emphasis, he has moved mountains. He embraced unwed mothers. He embraced divorced Catholics, welcoming them back into the church fold, many of whom said they felt unwanted. He said those who’ve had abortions can be forgiven, a similar welcoming. In the curia in Rome, the old line clerics scowl. One is quoted as saying, “He’ll be gone soon, but we’ll still be here.” That’s what they said about Francis of Assisi. So, not yet three years into his papacy, has he changed hearts? I consider myself similar to a lot of American Catholics — culturally bound to the church, but not to follow its dogma, particularly sexual dictates, on things like birth control. Europe has never had fewer practicing Christians. Their great cathedrals are empty — except for tourists. The United States, according to a Pew Center survey, is trending the same way, led by millennials, who are wary of pontifical certainty. But many people are giving the church a second look, or a first. So we have this paradox: as much of the world has become less identified with organized religion, the leader of the most organized of religions is the most popular man in the world. After observing Francis in the first year of his papacy, I wrote a column for The New York Times called “Lapsed but Listening.” Not long ago, I ran into Father Steve Sundborg, my Jesuit friend from high school, now president of Seattle University. He said: Which is it now? And I said: Less lapsed, more listening. Tim Egan is a columnist for The New York Times and the author of many remarkable books, among them the Northwest classic The Good Rain and the National Book Award-winning The Worst Hard Time, about the Dust Bowl. This essay is drawn from his visit to campus last fall, when he delivered the annual free Father John Zahm, C.S.C., Lecture, honoring the University’s co-founder. The 2016 Zahmist will be Franciscan Sister Delia Ilio — cosmologist, doctor of pharmacology, Teilhard de Chardin fan – on September 22, 2016. Details: 503.943.7702.
We Cannot Afford to Walk Sightless Among Miracles Notes on courage and miracles and grace and albatrosses.
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ecently the National Weather Service reported a bizarre cloud formation moving erratically over southern Illinois. The “biological targets,” as the NWS called them, turned out to be a huge swarm of monarch butterflies migrating south. Despite risks related to drought and dwindling milkweed, they were headed to Mexico. If you’re an insect that weighs less than a postage stamp, how do you even consider a trip across the border? What if your brain is no bigger than the tip of a pencil, then what? Laysan albatross are gargantuan compared to monarchs. Still, you’d be hard pressed to get a radar image of them unless they’ve gathered to feed at some mass squid spawn or the smorgasbord surrounding a factory fishing ship. At sea there is nothing albatrossian that resembles flocks of finches, parliaments of owls, or murders of crows. “Colony” is a collective term, but it only refers to the time they spend on the ground during nesting season. In other words, about 5 percent of their lives. To make an accurate map of meandering albatross, you have to be a scientist with permits and access to a sizable colony. You have to capture and release a few parents, then
wait for the birds to return with data. The good folks from Oikonos Ecosystem Knowledge, Pacific Rim Conservation, and the US Geological Survey accomplished all these tasks in the summer of 2014. They taped temporary lightweight GPS tags to the back feathers of a dozen birds and tracked them over a time span of seventy-nine days. They assigned an individual color to each bird and superimposed their flights on a map. The visual result: bright multi-colored lines — each line depicting the travels of a single bird — extending over a vast expanse of ocean. I showed the map to a few friends, and it turned out to be an interesting Rorschach. One person saw strands of candy, sweet and full of promise. Another person saw a frightening pattern of ocean depletion and pelagic plastic. One person saw the earth exhaling, another saw a fire. One Seattle artist saw an image of colorful streamers billowing in the wind. He was most impressed with how the birds’ origins and destinations were always the same. “What’s most mind-blowing,” he said, “is not the fact that they can fly such long distances but that they find their way home at all.” Like dozens of swifts diving down a chimney to Portland 18
roost, the streamers converged, swirled, and disappeared into a single point, signified on the map by a bright yellow star. Of course, the birds’ real destination was minuscule, and much smaller than the yellow star made it appear. The actual geographic location on Kaua’i was a fenced bluff at the edge of a botanical garden with an area smaller than an American football field. About forty pairs of birds nested there, and dozens of subadults came and went, searching for the perfect mate. With such easy access to the trade winds, it was a great spot for a colony. There was no need for a runway. The birds simply walked to the cliff, spread their wings, and were summoned heavenward. Once airborne, they banked north toward Alaska. If the distance from Kaua’i to the southern Aleutians is roughly two thousand miles, and the birds’ eastwest foraging range is about the same, the colorful streamers were billowing over an area of about four million square miles. Compare and contrast: the entire United States is 3.8 million square miles. In other words, to find food for their chick, a pair of Laysan albatross may search an area the size of the entire United States.
ART BY SUSAN DIERKER
By Hob Osterlund
Talk about your hard-working parents. Even though traveling such distances is unimaginable, the feat is trumped by the extraordinary fact that albatross can find their way home in such an empire. If a pyramid can be declared a Wonder of the World and a person can be anointed a saint, shouldn’t there be awards for nature’s most astounding achievements? The competition would be crazy, but if I ever got a chance to serve on that nominating committee, I would lobby for albatross navigation. Ask yourself if you could find a few tiny acres in so many millions, especially if you had no landmarks to guide you. Of course you couldn’t; none of us could. Even if you were a sea captain with a sextant and a feel for celestial guidance, Pacific skies are often layered with clouds, so steering by the stars would prove difficult anyway. We humans are just starting to learn how it is we can find our way across town. The 2014 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to three scientists who discovered the mechanism of our inner GPS. They described “place” and “grid” nerve cells that are responsible for giving us an idea how to get places without having to consult maps at every turn. Their first clue to the discovery came from studying a rat’s brain. If we can learn about wayfinding from caged rodents whose ancestors have lived in captivity for hundreds of generations, imagine what we could learn from the wild, long-distance travelers among us. Author and conservationist Carl Safina, author of Eye of the Albatross, spoke of their many talents. He described how dolphins and bats virtually image a high-definition sonic world, in darkness and at great speed. “Many creatures,” he said, “blow us away with sight, hearing,smell, response time, diving and flying capacities, sonar abilities, migratory and homing abilities.” The list goes on. What if albatross don’t find their way home with their brains? Even if they steer by the earth’s magnetic field, magnetoception doesn’t tell the whole story. Even if they’re guided by what they smell, their olfactory expertise doesn’t complete the picture either. Plus there’s the matter of timing to consider. Not just time of year, but the rendezvous time coordinated with mates whom they presumably have not seen for months. How do they know whose turn it is on the egg, and whose turn it is to feed the baby? Even if we
think “instinct” alone entirely answers the question, that doesn’t mean instinct itself isn’t a miracle. Maybe the birds match each other’s frequency. Maybe they visualize the outcome they want and follow that vision. Maybe they just go with the flow, trusting wind, gravity, stars, smells and magnetism to guide them. Maybe they are swayed by stories they hear from other birds. Maybe they find their way home with all their hearts, guided by love. Who can rule out any of these possibilities? Just like they are rooted to their place of hatch, I am anchored to certain immutable truths: when and where I was born, who my ancestors were, what my primary culture admires and abhors, what wars exploded, who broke my heart. All these
If a pyramid can be declared a Wonder of the World, and a person can be anointed a saint, shouldn’t there be awards for nature’s most astounding achievements? details sleep in my bed with me, beyond my awareness and more central to my life than I can possibly imagine. Old friends of mine, a married couple, volunteered for a medical mission many years ago. They adopted two infants from Bangladesh and brought them back to the United States. One daughter did well, but the other was troubled. By the time Maria was fourteen, she was regularly skipping school, using drugs, and doing her best to get pregnant. To prevent her from running away, my friends had to sleep on the floor outside her bedroom. When she did manage to escape, Maria often mysteriously wound up at the city train station. Her exhausted parents ran out of viable therapeutic options, so they took her for a visit to Dhaka. They hoped her birth home Spring 2016 21
would ground her and give her a sense of belonging. They sought counsel from the adoption agency. When the representative opened their file, my friends discovered an astonishing fact: their daughter’s biological mother died in childbirth. She had been living in a train station. Maybe my primary job is not much different than Maria’s, or that of an albatross. Maybe I don’t have millions of square miles to navigate, but I do have countless judgments that keep me from finding my way home. Home: a place I belong, a place where I am forgiven and forgiving. A place where I am authentic, where I laugh, where ancestors visit my dreams. A place where there is justice. A place where swifts dive down chimneys and butterflies have all the milkweed they need. A place where birds lead the way. In order to do my job, I’ve had to learn to be vigilant for predators. Some are human, some are mental. People have judged, manipulated, scared, and angered me. They have inspired guilt, caused me to lose sleep, blamed me, underestimated me, lied to me, wasted my time, hurt and betrayed me. But my own mind has been more than an equal co-conspirator: it has judged, manipulated, scared, and angered me. It has inspired guilt, caused me to lose sleep, blamed me, underestimated me, lied to me, wasted my time, hurt and betrayed me. If I want to stay above all that chaos, I have to lock my wings like a switchblade and fly steady — albatross style. Most days the task seems impossible. But isn’t impossibility a crucial aspect of any pilgrimage? If it were easy, I wouldn’t value it. It has to be unfathomable. How possible is it for a monarch to migrate across a continent? For an albatross to find her chick on a tiny volcanic rock in the most remote island chain in the world? When I consider the challenges my fellow beings face, how can I not emulate their creativity and courage? As author Dani Shapiro says, “We cannot afford to walk sightless among miracles.” From the book Holy Mõlí: Albatross & Other Ancestors, which will be published in April by Oregon State University Press. Hob Osterlund, long a nurse at Queen’s Hospital in Hawaii, has contributed many lovely haunting essays to this magazine, notably about nursing as witness.
“THE UNIVERSITY WAS THE BEST DECISION I EVER MADE.” The University’s most recognizable young alumnus at the moment, all due respect to soccer star Megan Rapinoe, is probably Kunal Nayyar ‘03, an actor on the popular television show The Big Bang Theory. We chatted with him recently as he finished a stint on Broadway, starring with film actor Jesse Eisenberg in Eisenberg’s play The Spoils.
PHOTO: PETER YANG
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got my start in theater at the University of Portland — that’s where Mindy Logan taught me to act, and I still use all of her acting methods to this day. Those were such formative years for me. I hadn’t done a play in eight years, being so busy on Big Bang. To do a play right you really have to have time to rehearse. I was honored that Jesse asked me to be in his play with him, and I jumped at the chance, feeling that the play was right, I had the proper time to prepare, and I could be on stage with Jesse. It was wonderful. My new book is called Yes, My Accent is Real. It’s little snippets of my life. It’s about my journey from New Delhi to Los Angeles. It’s not a memoir; I’m too young to write a memoir. A lot of people know Raj Koothrappali from Big Bang Theory, but people don’t know that I’m actually from India. People call me an Indian-American actor or British-Indian actor, but I grew up in New Delhi. I wanted to tell my story so that it would inspire young people to realize that dreams can come true if you take a chance. From the time I was 18 I really wanted to be in a college that was close to my brother, who was at Reed. I had looked at lots of colleges and the University of Portland really caught my eye. I got a good scholarship, and that was that for the decision. I never even visited
or saw the campus. I just took a chance, and it ended up being the best decision I ever made. I lived in Corrado Hall, which had just opened. I remember so many things so vividly... I didn’t know what I was doing. I had a great funny roommate. I was always falling in love with girls who were never falling in love with me. I could never figure out what time to show up to parties. I didn’t understand the cadence of sarcasm. I would just laugh at everything even if I didn’t understand the jokes. Because some of the jokes are cultural, you know. But I would just laugh because I wanted to be included. People probably thought I was an idiot who just laughed at everything. I worked in housekeeping my first summer, cleaning a lot of offices, and then I became a computer lab manager, without actually knowing anything about computers. Or managing. I majored in business, and never did actually get a minor in theater — too lazy. I’d have had to take set design and costumes and such but all I wanted to do was act. So every semester I just took my entire business classload and then I did as much acting as I could. My parents advised me to get a business degree, and I agreed with them — we wanted to have something I could fall back on in case my acting dream didn’t work out. I’m blessed to have parents who supported me in whatever I wanted to do. What they really cared about was the kind of human being I turn out to be. They’re happy that I’m financially comfortable and that I’ve worked very hard to achieve things, but those things don’t matter to them. I think they’re just happy that I’ve made a good life for myself. And that I have a good family and I work hard. I’m a decent human being, I think, and that is what they are most proud of. Spring 2016 23
I have been married for four years now. My priorities shifted radically. For the first time in my life I feel more responsible for someone else than just me. Plus it’s nice to have a partner in crime. My wife Neha is Indian also, and we get homesick, but we are very busy — Neha is a fashion designer, launching her own label, and I’m busy with the show. We long to go home to India, but when we go home we have to see a thousand people in ten days. We wish we could marry our universes and have our families in Los Angeles, but... Where do we live in the future? Do we raise our kids in India? Do we raise them here? How is that going to play out? But, you know, we’ll be fine. We just have to trust in the universe and it will all work out. Neha and I did establish a theater scholarship at the University, yes. We wanted to give back. I know how much help the theater department needed. And I wanted to honor Mindy Logan, a truly wonderful acting coach. I didn’t know what I was doing when I started. I needed direction, and she gave me confidence. She taught me how much hard work it takes to really learn how to act, how much hard work and sacrifice it takes to be good at your craft. She laid the foundation of everything that I’ve achieved in my craft. Everything. When I was in Jesse’s play I consciously went back to her training. Whether you’re a singer or a dancer or painter or athlete or whatever you do, your foundational training is what you build on. You must have strong foundations to be able to build. Mindy was amazing. I remember how much I needed help when I was in college — maybe Neha and I can help someone else in the years to come... — Laurie Kelley
THE YEAR OF MERCY “T
he Father... is rich in mercy and extends it abundantly upon those who appeal to Him with a sincere heart,” said Pope Francis, as he announced 2016 as Iubilaeum Extraordinarium Misericordiae, the Extraordinary Year of Mercy, during which every Catholic church in the world will open its doors and leave them open, and “we will not stop at the surface of things, especially when we have a person before us. No one can be excluded from the mercy of God; and the Church is the house where everyone is welcomed and no one is rejected. The Church’s mission is to be a witness to mercy... we are all called to give comfort to every man and every woman of our time... The Church is a field hospital, where treatment is given above all to those who are most wounded...” Every man and woman and child of our time. Every color and gender and religion and orientation and ethnicity and nationality. The nine million prisoners in the world, most of them in America and China and Russia. The 500 million people in the world suffering from mental and emotional duress. The 60 million refugees in the world, the most ever recorded. The millions of people like Laith Majid here, who fled terrorists in Syria with wife and their four children, and arrived safely in Greece, after an unimaginable ordeal. God forbid you were in his position, trying to save his family. In the “immigrants who have survived the crossing and who land on our shores, we touch the flesh of Christ in he who is outcast, hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned, ill, unemployed, persecuted, in search of refuge…” — Editor
PHOTO: DANIEL ETTER/REDUX
I am a Hard Worker A girl from Iowa who wanted to be a doctor ends up hammering cancer way more than she could have if she had become a doctor. How did she do that? By Brian Doyle
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e are in Iowa. We are near the Raccoon River. It is snowing gently. It snows more months than not, in Iowa. A girl and her brother are hiding behind a tree on the corner of Caulder and Seventh. She is ten years old. This is on the south side of Des Moines where most of the Italians live. Her parish is Saint Anthony’s. Her grandfather is Anthony. Her brother is Anthony. Her family is from Tuscany. She and her brother Anthony are making snowballs. They are plotting to attack cars and one particular car comes into view, a pristine meticulous beautiful 1967 Ford Mustang owned by a hot-tempered boy whose family runs the local Dairy Queen. His name is Francis. His family is from Sicily. They hear the car grumbling faintly through the snow and they take up their positions and when Frank Renda’s car thunders past they pelt it with snowballs and then Tony and Larree Moro take off running as fast as they can from the burly boy who leaps roaring out of his car, not ever imagining that someday, amazingly, incredibly, this girl sprinting into the whirling snow will be his beloved wife, the mother of their beloved children; but amazingly, incredibly, this will come to pass. More things are possible than we ever imagine are possible. She went to Abraham Lincoln High School. She was a terrific athlete, a sprinter, a hurdler, a softball star. She was a terrific student. She thought
about the University of Iowa. She would have been admitted in a heartbeat. She probably would have earned a scholarship. She thought about being a doctor. But her dad withered and faded and died. Cancer ate him from the inside and by the time he died he was half the burly sinewy
man he had been. He never stopped being the gentle cheerful man he had been, though. She remembers that. Cancer could not kill the man inside the broken body of the man. She remembers that. He was buried on her sixteenth birthday. Her mother was gone. Her stepmother was cold and dark. Her stepmother sold the family house out from under the Portland 26
brother and sister. She graduated from high school at seventeen. She never went to the prom. She worked furiously to afford an apartment. She baby-sat and shoveled snow and raked leaves and worked at the Iowa State Fair frying chicken fourteen hours a day in the hot dense thick blanket of high summer in Iowa. One day she walked down Ninth Street in Des Moines knocking on doors and asking for work. I am a hard worker and I could start today. First stop: Dairy Queen. No. Second stop: Bing’s Stationery. No. Third door: the Safeway grocery store. I am a hard worker and I could start today. Answer: Yes. You can start tomorrow. She bagged groceries for two days. Eggs on top. Fragile things on top, where the customer can see them and register that they are fragile. On her third day she was promoted to checkout girl. Four-hour shifts, eight hours on the weekends, Sundays too. Then she was promoted to the booth, handling checks and money. She stocked shelves. She mopped floors. She cleaned the windows and the toilets. She wrote orders and checked inventory and changed prices and flagged shoplifters. I am a hard worker. She was promoted to manager of the produce department. She was eighteen. Her friends went off to college. She was promoted to assistant manager of the store, and then store manager of her first store in Des Moines. I am a hard worker. She was twenty-one. One
day she fell in love. He was dashing and handsome and amazingly, incredibly, he was Frank Renda, the boy with the Mustang, and the girl who had pelted his car with snowballs was now a very alluring and accomplished young woman and they laughed about those snowballs for the rest of their married life. At age twenty-two she was promoted and sent to manage a store in Houston. Then she was promoted to a “show” store, and then to a gleaming new store, and then came The Test. You do not advance to district manager at Safeway unless you pass the grueling draining strenuous Test. Three days of judgment, decisions, grace under duress, behavior patterns, management style, knowledge
of industry, intelligence, creativity. The woman who never got a chance to go to college nailed The Test. She earned the third-highest score in the United States. I am a hard worker. She was promoted to district manager. She and Frank married. They had three children, each one born in a different Safeway district. At thirty-three she was a vice president. Then she was in charge of 120 stores. Then she was a senior vice president. Then she was the executive vice president. Then she was named president of Safeway Health. And along the way, she founded and chaired The Safeway Foundation and right here is where Larree Renda’s face lights up and she gets passionate and tears come to her eyes, and the girl who walked down Ninth Street knocking
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on doors so that she could eat and pay the rent at sixteen, the girl who was the first woman ever in several different positions for one of the biggest and best corporations in America, the girl who dreamed of being a doctor but never got a chance to chase that dream — that girl starts to talk about what she is proudest of in her glittering career, what she truly loved, what would have made her dad proudest, what might help make cancer a faint dark bleak memory, something that you have to find in dusty history books. That might happen. More things are possible than we ever imagine are possible. “It started because we felt we had a responsibility to help our employees be healthier,” she says. “Then the idea
grew. We were not just selling groceries. We were in the community business. We were in the social responsibility business. You are a stupid company if you are not socially responsible. It saves money. You make more money. People want to work for you. The best people want to work for you. And we went for it. We pushed the whole industry. I am very proud of that. Free-range chickens, non-caged eggs, betterraised pork, fresher and more local produce and producers, smaller carbon footprint — we really pushed, and we changed for the better, and we changed the industry for the better. “And we pushed in so many other ways. We started a jobs program for veterans. Incredible employees, smart
and honest and disciplined and incredibly hard workers. Why do companies not leap to hire veterans? Stupid. And we were raising money in all sorts of ways for all sorts of causes and charities that meant the world to our employees. We raised money to fight cancer, and money to fight hunger. Why are there so many hungry children in America? That’s sinful. That’s not acceptable. As a food company we were responsible to fight that, I thought, and fight we did. We raised money for education, and to work with people with disabilities, and for health and human services. We raised over a billion dollars. We gave away $250 million a year. Those are good numbers. Believe me, after forty years of studying numbers, I know good numbers. But it’s the money we raised for cancer that makes me the most proud, I think. It meant the most to me. My dad died of cancer, and my husband Frank died of cancer, and I was going to be a doctor to fight the cancer that killed my dad, but I never got
“We were in the social responsibility business. You are a stupid company if you are not socially responsible. the chance. That didn’t happen. But I played the cards I was dealt. I got a chance to start a foundation that changed a lot of lives, that meant a lot in healing, that might play a key role in beating cancers. My dad would be proud of that. Frank was proud of that. You know what’s worse than watching your husband die? Watching your kids watching their dad die. That was terribly hard. That was awful. All I can do is hope my work made that a little less possible for others someday...” The girl who whipped those snowballs through the swirling snow, the girl who walked down Ninth Street desperate and brave and knocking on doors, the girl who never got to go to college, the woman who rose faster and higher through her company than any other woman ever, Spring 2016 29
the woman who married the man of her dreams, that woman retired from Safeway last year, at age 56, after forty years of hard and creative work. I am a hard worker. She earned pretty much every honor her industry awards. She serves on several boards, among them, rivetingly, the International Speedway Corporation — “honoring my dad, who raced cars on dirt tracks on Friday and Saturdaynights.” She might, italics might, take one more job running a big company, if the right one appears. Her children are out and about — Tommy (who pitched for the Pilots) with Safeway, Kristina (who also earned a degree on The Bluff ) teaching third grade at the family parish school, and Tony playing pro baseball in the New York Yankees’ system (where he was the Carolina League’s batting champ in 2014). She’s building a new house. She’s figuring out the next steps. But she was on campus last May, not only as a University regent (since 2008), but to receive an honorary doctorate, and to give a terrific Commencement speech to the Class of 2015. She was nervous before the speech. She had never given one like this. But she wrote her own — I am a hard worker — and she delivered it with eloquence and passion and tears, and when she finished there was a thunderous roar, and she got a standing ovation from the students and their families, five thousand people standing and applauding the girl from Iowa who never got to go to college. But that girl now has a doctorate, and from the way she clutched that document to her heart as she resumed her seat on stage, it may never leave her hand ever again. “The girl who wanted to be a doctor,” reads her official citation, “the woman who was forced to watch as her father and her husband died from cancer, used every bit of her relentless energy and creativity not only in her profession, not only in her whirlwind of volunteer efforts, not only as a beloved wife and mother, but to better the lives of countless thousands of people. That is holy and remarkable work, and that is a prime reason the University today confers the degree Doctor of Public Service, honoris causa, on Larree Renda, of Hillsborough, California.” Amen to that. Brian Doyle is the editor of this magazine, and the author most recently of the novel Martin Marten.
MISSING Fear and love and terror and love: a note.
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had just settled in to work when the phone rang; it was my wife Karina, in a tizzy. The two youngest boys were missing. She’d been in the bathroom only a few minutes, and when she came out, the back door was ajar, Marcos and James nowhere to be found. Understanding my role in situations such as this, and having lost and found children numerous times before, I spoke calmly, reassuring Karina that the boys were certainly nearby, maybe in the head-high weeds in the empty lot just across the backyard, maybe in the garage, maybe at the neighbors’, had she checked the playroom upstairs? Yes, of course she had. She wanted me home right away. I wanted to avoid driving halfway there only to get the relieved phone call. I wanted peace and systematic thinking, a plan, but I also wanted not to get worked up, to solve the problem by paying it no heed. The statistics on such disappearances were overwhelmingly in our favor. Most kids were found after a few minutes, innocently playing, unaware that they were causing their parents consternation. Marcos and James, just three and almost two, were overwhelmingly more likely to have wandered off than to have been taken, more likely to be safely ensconced than in any sort of danger. The fact that I was making up these statistics based on guesses and wishes did not dissuade me from believing them. I offered to call friends and neighbors to enlist their help, which I did, then I went back to work. When Karina called again a few minutes later, I expected good news, but she was growing more distraught. I explained that the neighbors were already searching, which she knew, and suggested that she stay close to home, so the boys would find her there when they returned. She had
called the police and she wanted me home now. I was not worried, I told myself as I waited at a stoplight. They’d show up and we’d release our tension with a good laugh. I’d not even allow myself to get cross about all the undone work left waiting for me. At each highway mile marker my thigh felt a phantom buzz from my cell phone, but Karina never called. When I hit the exit for home, I called her, half-expecting that in her jubilation she’d forgotten to notify me. But there was still no sign of them. The police were there. The neighborhood was filled with neighbors. The elementary school had been alerted. It had now been forty-five minutes. I strained to guess where they might have gone, to get inside their heads or to hear the whisperings of the Spirit, to be guided to my sons. I drove as slowly as I dared, scanning the tall grass and trees along the roadside. Nothing. There was a time, only a few years ago, when I thought four children was plenty. Karina and I had matched our parents’ output, had reached a reasonable return on our marital investment. Our car, a minivan, allowed us to travel together to Yellowstone or to the grocery store. Our house was comfortable, with the three girls sharing a large bedroom and their older brother across the hall in his own. But the births of Marcos and James were the most irreversible of irreversible processes. Though they’ve existed for only a fraction of my life, they’ve so inserted themselves into my consciousness that they seem to have existed always; their lives are so entangled with my own that I feel as if without them I am not. After I’d been home for over an hour, comforting Karina, talking with police and friends and school aides, Portland 30
running and driving everywhere within a half-mile radius, checking and rechecking the drainage ditches the nearby farm the empty lot the house under construction the cars along the street the elementary school hallways the city ball fields the church parking lot the entrance to the mink farm the highway crossing the length of road as far as I could imagine they might have walked, praying frantically against the encroaching dread with each creeping minute with no news, I returned home broken. With my mind racing with a thousand scenarios, I trudged across the yard to the back deck, where Karina was weeping and two officers were explaining that they’d called police from nearby towns; firemen were parading their trucks noisily through the streets in hopes of calling the boys’ attention. They were s erious now, somber, willing to discuss the possibilities we’d dared not voice. They would set up a base at our home, resystematize their search, go door to door and enter the homes they could. The Amber alert was active. It was now nearing two o’clock. The boys had been missing for two hours. I have traveled for conferences and for work, have visited family, have stayed home teaching while Karina took the kids to Uruguay for a month before I joined them there. I have spent weeks without seeing my children, days without speaking to them. I have learned, on the phone, of their injuries and emergency room visits, the discovery that the littlest has a peanut allergy. But in those lacunae I have always felt peace, have never suffered from the slightest suggestion that they were unsafe. Yet that day, across the protracted expanse of just two hours, I entered a place in my mind I had never visited, nor imagined was there. As I stepped up onto the deck, slumping
GETTY IMAGES
by Patrick Madden
likely. Meanwhile, they were doing everything — My lethargic stare narrowed and locked on the slightest blur of movement across our backyard the next backyard the street the driveway across the street. “Who is that kid!?” I yelled. My body sprang off the deck and began sprinting. “Who is that kid!?” With each shout, I expelled all the air from my lungs; with each stride, the form came closer into focus. It was Marcos. When he saw me, his eyes went wide and he sat down on the driveway. Our friend Anita, who’d been walking along the sidewalk, got there with me and scooped him up while I ran past, bounded up the front stairs, and barged into the neighbors’ house. James was standing surprised in the front entryway, his mouth ringed by a chocolate goatee. I sobbed as I gathered him up and ran back outside,
where his mother and the officers and a small group of neighbors were smiling and sighing, perhaps crying as well. The ensuing hours involved lots of research and explaining. Marcos and James, unable to communicate any answers, were no help. The police entered the home, found no one there, determined that the boys had let themselves in and had plundered the bananas and Halloween candy. They’d been watching cartoons. They’d broken a vase. In all, their crimes were misdemeanors, easily remedied. We called our friends to call off the search, and the word spread quickly that everyone could go home and return to their usual level of vigilance. Several gathered instead in our yard, to offer what compassion they could. The threat was over and our minds could settle on the real results, not the excruciating possibilities that had haunted
PHOTO: THIBAUD MORITZ / STRINGER
my shoulders, breathing slowly, holding my gaze fixed on the middle distance between our house and the street behind, I was bereft. I had abandoned hope. As I listened to the officers’ tentative plans, I no longer believed that Marcos and James were nearby just playing; I’d personally checked all the places they might have been hurt or worse, and so had a hundred other people. The only option left was that they had been taken. I asked, “Are there any traffic cameras close to here? At the light at the crossroads? At the school?” My mind conjured a grainy black and white still image of a dark sedan. The camera angle was just low enough to allow a glimpse of a small boy (I thought) in the passenger seat under the hovering dark figure of an adult. The police officers weren’t sure, but they would find out. It was un-
us for the past pair of hours. Karina’s friends, especially, hugged her and shared their own lost-child stories, all agreeing that none had suffered as long or as dreadfully. I called my neighbor Lonnie, whom I barely knew, to tell him that my sons had ransacked his home. He laughed a little, told me not to sweat it. I promised to replace the vase and the candy. He said, go ahead if you want, but get the vase from the dollar store. Later, he pieced together that one of his kids had left for school by the front door, leaving it unlocked, while everyone else went out the garage. Later, Karina and I mused on the improbability that the boys had gone so far so quickly to a house they’d never visited on just the day that the front door was unlocked and the cupboards were stocked with enough candy to keep them occupied for a long while. Later, another neighbor explained that he’d been checking
all the basement back doors on the street, but hadn’t thought to do more than ring doorbells at the front. Our friends in our front yard made what small talk you’d expect, verbal sighs of relief and offers to help in any way at all. Karina expressed her thanks. People nodded. They commented on how God had watched over the boys. But I, with my young sons returned, could still not quite leave the dark place my thoughts had settled, could not heave off the feeling of despair that had overcome me. Then and for the next several days, I was on edge, jittery. I had no appetite. My head ached. I thought, as I do too often, of the parents whose children weren’t protected, who really were lost forever. Even recently, even nearby: a toddler stolen and raped and killed by her neighbor; an adolescent refugee persuaded and raped and killed by her neighbor; a teenager who didn’t come home from school one afternoon, whose mother reported her missing to unbelieving police who refused to investigate, citing statistics that most young adults that age were not abductees but runaways. But she had been abducted, by a jealous rival and the boy they both liked, then beaten with a baseball bat and left dead in the desert. Not thirty miles away, a few years ago, fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart was taken from her home in the middle of the night, then held captive for nine months by a mad preacher rapist until an America’s Most Wanted episode led to a lead and she was recovered. Thus she was one of the “lucky few” who ever get home again. After the first fortyeight hours, the statistics say, the probability of finding a kidnapped child reduces to near zero. The next day, after classes, I showed up a few minutes late to a faculty seminar. David Allred was explaining the principles of quantum entanglement, the double-slit experiment, and the indeterminacy of photons. I listened intently, fascinated, to his description of single quanta beamed through one or another slit and the resultant disappearance/omnipresence of the photon from/on both paths until it strikes a target in an interference pattern, having acted as a wave, interfering with itself. Until the energy resolves at the absorptive screen, it cannot be said to exist in either space definitively, or it “samples reality” along both paths, and not simply because our senses and in-
struments are too crude to find it. To put it another way, a particle exists in a range of possible locations until it is observed, and the observation fixes it in a particular place. Stranger yet, a photon or an electron can be split in two, with one part carried far away, and any observation or action on one half results in an immediate and predictable effect on the other. In this way, either information travels faster than the speed of light or the very notion of location in space loses meaning. The nature of the quantum universe is this very simultaneity and nonentity, untraceable and unknowable, affected by our observations and fundamentally beyond our ken, yes, but also fundamentally unknowable in moments of irresolution or inattention. With all we have learned, we have finally arrived at Sophocles: we confront our unbreachable ignorance. This, I sensed vaguely, was a metaphor, a gift, an unsought connection sent to nudge me: Every where and nowhere/indeterminacy/ separation/reunion. Before my sons had appeared in one particular place I had felt viscerally that they were everywhere and nowhere. In a way, the time of their disappearance and the fact that I could not observe them produced in my mind a superposition of possible locations, until by observing them, I fixed them in only one place, one of the only acceptable places they might have been. More and more I am coming to believe, and to be comfortable with, the notion that everything is probabilities, only probabilities. But this did not occur to me, nor did it comfort me, when I could not locate my sons. A couple of weeks later, I was shuff ling down Concourse C in the Salt Lake City airport when I saw the stately blonde figure of Elizabeth Smart, now grown, recently returned from a mission to France. She was walking toward me, sharply dressed in pressed gray skirt and red blouse under a wool overcoat. Nobody bothered her, though a few heads, like mine, quickly turned in her direction as she glided past. I was leaving my family for a few days. She was coming home. Patrick Madden is a professor of literature at Brigham Young University, and the author of the essay collection Quotidiana. This essay is drawn from his new collection, Sublime Physick, from the University of Nebraska Press.
The Mathematics of Beauty Mechanical engineering professor Heather Dillon is absorbed by thermodynamics, energy efficiency, and renewable energy systems, all of which she teaches and studies assiduously, but she is also a gifted photographer and artist.
Photography by Heather Dillon
“What does mathematics tell us about the beautiful symmetry of an orange? Somehow this photo turned into a geometry proof about the angles of an orange.”
“I took this photograph in a greenhouse, where I met a botanist who told me all about how Fibonacci spirals occur frequently in plants. The conversation inspired a series of photographs about math in natural systems.”
“Another photo about Fibonacci spirals, this time with cactus plants.”
“A photo developed in collaboration with my fellow engineer Danny Bolleddula — it’s a 2.5 mm water droplet impacting a hydrophobic surface. The droplet bounces before it settles. This image was part of a research project to better understand how spray droplets impact surfaces. Ah, the beauty of science!”
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2016 Alumni Award Recipients
At the annual State of UP luncheon in Portland on March 1, 2016, the University of Portland community honored the following alumni for their commitment to the university’s mission: Distinguished Alumni Award: Joe Hollman ’64. After Joe served in the Army as a platoon leader during the Vietnam War, he returned home and began a small, eponymous construction business, which grew into what is now the world’s largest manufacturer of racquetball courts and wood lockers. Joe patented a new way to build the courts (now the industry standard), developed computer-controlled machines to build lockers, and recently started a new company to develop keyless mechanical locks which could revolutionize the industry. Joe helped fund a Class of 1964 endowed scholarship, hosts class events, has twice made generous gifts to renovate the locker rooms of the Chiles Center, and supports three orphanages for abandoned children in Thailand. Rev. Thomas C. Oddo, C.S.C., Outstanding Service Award: Julie Johnson ’86. Julie Hannon Johnson, now principal of Holy Cross Catholic School in North Portland, earned a law degree from Santa Clara and for nine years worked as a public defender for indigent people, “serving the most vulnerable among us,” as she says. She then earned a master’s degree in teaching from the University of Portland and taught in St. Helens, Ore. for another nine years before becoming principal at Holy Cross, where she balanced the budget, oversees soaring enrollment, concentrates on finding financial aid for a very economically diverse school, and welcomes the University’s Freshman Plunge every year, as well as tutors for her students from Villa Maria.
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Contemporary Alumni Award: Shane Deckert ’07. After earning his civil engineering degree and becoming a commissioned U.S. Air Force Lieutenant, Shane was immediately deployed to Iraq as one of America’s youngest commanders; there he earned the Defense Meritorious Service Medal for engineering expertise and leadership. In 2012 he transferred to the U.S. Public Health Service, serving in disaster relief after Hurricane Sandy, with the National Institutes of Health (for which he led the construction of various laboratories), and leading the design, construction, and operation of an Ebola treatment unit in Liberia.
Los Angeles Chapter Leadership: Kamauri Yeh ’11, chapter president; Margaret ReillyBates ’92; Luke Kautzer ’07; Anna (Gullickson) Doerner ’09; Suzie Nguyen ’11. Hawaii Chapter Leadership: Kimo Yamaguchi ’88, chapter president; Elle Uchida, ’12; Evan Castro, ’14. On February 11, dozens of alumni across the country showed their support for the Pilots men’s basketball team at watch parties in Hawaii, Seattle, the Bay Area, Boise, Denver, and Washington D.C. for the big Gonzaga game. Thanks to all who joined us! Look out for our two newest regional alumni chapters, Washington, D.C. and Guam, coming soon!
Life After UP: Home Sweet Home Workshop, March 31
Graduates of the 90s Reunion, April 16
Life After UP is an educational series designed to help students and alumni thrive as they navigate the world outside The Bluff. The Home Sweet Home workshop is presented in partnership with local design firm Arciform and will focus on remodeling strategies for new homeowners. Free. RSVP at up.edu/alumni.
Dust off the flannels and your favorite Nirvana CDs — it’s time to relive the good old days with fellow graduates of the 1990s as you cruise down the Willamette River on a full-service yacht. The first of its kind at UP, this one-night reunion is being planned for ’90s grads, by ’90s grads. The $25 ticket price includes appetizers and two beverages. Please RSVP at up.edu/alumni.
UP Alumni Chapters
This winter, we celebrated the launch of three new alumni chapters: Denver, Los Angeles, and Hawaii. Congratulations to the following alumni on their appointment to our chapter leadership teams: Denver Chapter Leadership: David Thompson ’10, chapter president; Julie Lapeyre Jacobson ’90; Kevin Fay ’02; Colton Coughlin ’10 (NAB member); Jocelyn Thompson ’10.
Derby Day Garden Party, May 7
Join us for an afternoon of big hats, mint juleps, and Southern snacks at our Alumni Derby Day Garden Party on The Bluff. Vote for your favorite horse, play lawn games, or participate in a complimentary bourbon tasting as you catch up with fellow alumni at the social event of the spring. $25 per person or $15 for GOLDs (Graduates of the Last Decade). RSVP at up.edu/alumni.
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Reunion 2016, June 23-26
Join us on The Bluff this summer as we celebrate Pilots near and far. We’ll be honoring all classes ending in 1 and 6, including the Class of 1966 as they join the 50-Year Club. We’ll also celebrate our Spanish study abroad programs, Pilots baseball, the Chapel Choir, and Upsilon Omega Pi’s 65th anniversary. Registration opens in April at up.edu/ alumni.
UP Home Brewers Fest, July 23
Attention, home brewers! The Office of Alumni Relations is excited to announce the first University of Portland Home Brewers Fest. If you are interested in participating, please contact alumni relations at alumni@ up.edu. Other festival details will be announced in coming months.
Supper Under the Stars, August 13
Save the date for a delectable, Mediterranean-inspired dinner alfresco. Served on the Bluff and prepared by our Bon Appétit chefs, this multicourse meal will feature the bright and bold flavors of the Mediterranean paired with local wines. $45 per person or $25 for GOLDs. RSVP at up.edu/alumni.
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“I have a funny little Catholic priest who is a friend of mine, a great Dante scholar, and with a thirst for wandering in the wilderness... he has for years been anxious to have me go north through the middle of South America,” wrote Theodore Roosevelt in 1913, describing one of his most unusual companions — the famous author, scientist, passionate defender of evolution, head of the Holy Cross in America, and the University’s co-founder, Father John Zahm, C.S.C., here with Teddy on their great journey in 1913. It was Zahm who supplied Archbishop Alexander Christie’s new university with money, books, and, most crucially, Holy Cross priests and brothers. We honor him annually with the free Father Zahm Lecture, this year September 22, starring the polymath Sister Ilia Delio, OSF — like Zahm, a theologian, scientist, and passionate defender of evolution as God’s grace in action. Information: Sarah Nuxoll, 503.943.7702, nuxoll@up.edu. Spring 2016 37
C L A S S 50 Year Club
Marjorie (Gennette) Lyster ’42 passed away on January 26, 2016, at the age of 95. She met her husband, Harold Lyster ’35 CP, ’39, at UP and they were married in 1939. Hal died in 2004. Marge retired from a long career at Kaiser Permanente in 1983. Survivors include sons, Bill (Jere), John (Joellen), and Phil (Sue); and daughter, Monica. She loved her grandchildren, Molly (Bryan) and Sean; and great-grandchildren, Brayden, Beckam, Emery, and Jenna. “We will never forget her positive spirit and her favorite answer when asked how she was doing,” according to her family. “No matter how she felt, her answer was ‘fine and dandy!’” Our prayers and condolences to the family. Robert Anthony Spear ’44 CP ’50, died on December 14, 2015, just shy of his 90th birthday. He served on the U.S.S. Mississippi during World War II, and upon completion of his UP degree he traveled south to San Francisco, his home for the next 60 years. Despite his 30-year career with Chevron, he never owned a car. Robert was a devout and radical Catholic, holding Dorothy Day in high esteem and marching with his children against the Vietnam War and in support of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Workers Union. Survivors include his children, Sabrina, Vanessa, Melissa, Megan, and Adam; and nine grandchildren. His son Peter died in 1997. Our prayers and condolences to the family. John Lawrence O’Donnell ’47 CP, ’51 passed away on January 14, 2016, at his home, surrounded by family. In 1951, he joined the U.S. Army, servi g three years in the 11th Airborne Division as a paratrooper. John began his career as an educator and coach in Drain in 1956, followed by moves to Jefferson in 1958, Colton in 1960, and finally moving to Portland in 1961. He taught history and coached at Madison High School for many years, and retired from Portland Public Schools in 1986. John is survived by his wife of 61 years, Virginia; son and daughters, Daniel (Nancy), Debra (Bruce), Kelly, Molly (David) and Margaret (Babak); grandchildren, Shannon (Travis), Casey, Sean (Stephanie), Tonya (Shawn), Ellis, Zachary, Halsey, Abigail, Lucy, Olive and Suki; and great-grandchildren, Hudson and Edison. In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations be made to the St. Vincent de
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Paul Society to provide food and shelter for those in need. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Angelo Paul Della ’50, ’65 passed away on October 25, 2015, at Ray Hickey Hospice House in Vancouver, Wash., his wife at his side. Angelo served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and attended UP after the war, attaining his degrees in education. He was
N O T E S in her Tualatin home, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s, at the age of 82. She met her future husband, Lane, at the Alameda Naval Air Station. They were married in May of 1954 and moved to Portland, where they raised their four children. She was the ideal mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Survivors include Lane; children, Scott (Becky), Kelly, Kathi (Fred)
Behold Angelo Paul Della ’50, ’65, one of millions of American lads who served their country at a tender age in World War II and came back heroes. He passed away on October 25, 2015, at Ray Hickey Hospice House in Vancouver, Wash., his wife Marie at his side. Prayers. a high school teacher for 34 years, retiring in 1989 from the Vancouver School District. Angelo is survived by his wife, Marie, of 55 years; his sons, Paul ’84, David, and Philip; daughter, Theresa McDougal; and four grandchildren, Morgan, Maddy, Victoria and Sophia. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Kathleen Robertson, wife of Lane Robertson ’50, passed away on November 12, 2015,
Mueller and Janet; grandchildren, Sara (Jeremy), Brian (Shannon), Michael (Jennifer), Stephen, Katie, Christian, Kathleen, Lane, Mark and Meghan; and great-grandchildren, Avery, Elliot, and Mackenzie. In lieu of flowers, the family requests a donation to the Alzheimer’s Association. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Gildo John Martini ’51 died on December 19, 2015, from
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complications of a stroke after six years of kidney dialysis. He was hired after graduation by Pacific Scientific, which eventually led him to start his own company, Enviro-Pak, a division of Tech Mark, in 1972, eventually becoming one of the premier manufacturers of food processing ovens for the meat, poultry, and seafood industries. Survivors include his wife of 64 years, Jean; daughters, Terri Calcagno and Kathy Martini; sons, Mike (Sherri), Steve, Pete (Susan) and Patrick; 16 grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Joan D. Raglione ’52 passed away on December 14, 2015. She worked as an R.N. at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in acute surgical care areas, as well post-surgical care. Joan was married to Dr. Ugo William Raglione ’50 on August 29, 1953, and together they raised a loving family. Survivors include Ugo; their children, James Michael, John Peter, William Joseph, Ann Marie, Thomas Vincent, and Mary Joan. Son Joseph Matthew preceded her in death. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Social Services at St. Marys Cathedral or St. Francis Dining Hall. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Charles Hubert Kies ’53 died on January 3, 2016, at the age of 90. He loved to hunt, fish, and ski with his two sons, and also loved to sing in the shower and sip on an occasional Manhattan, although not at the same time. He was proud of serving his country in World War II. He is survived by his wife, Mary; sons, Nick (Delyn) Kies and Phil (Terri) Kies; and daughters, Caprice (Jim) Russel and Nano McCluskey. He was the proud grandfather of five grandchildren and a growing number of great-grandchildren. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Kurt Paul Kuhn ’54 passed away on December 27, 2015, surrounded by family members. In 1961, Kurt married the love of his life, Kitty Campbell. After 40 years as a lumber broker, Kurt and Kitty retired to Gearhart, Ore. Kurt will be remembered fondly for his kindness and integrity. Survivors include Kitty, his wife of 54 years; daughter, Kathy (Mark) Watkins; son, Tom (Nancy) Kuhn; and grandchildren, Tim and Katherine Shea, and Michael, Teddy, and Gracie Kuhn. In lieu of flowers, please donate to
C L A S S woundedwarriorproject.org. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Paul Rooney ’55 CP passed away on December 2, 2011, after an eight-year battle with cancer. After graduating from Columbia Prep, Paul went to Santa Clara University, graduating in 1959. He had a 30- year career with the Santa Clara County Probation Dept., spending many years working with child abuse victims. Survivors include his wife of 49 years, Molly; son, Sean (Denise) Rooney; daughters, Sheila (Stuart) Murray, and Katie Valenzuela; granddaughters, Kaitlin Rooney and Julia and Liza Murray; and brothers, William F. Rooney Jr. and David Rooney. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Henry M. Woods ’55 died on December 10, 2015 in Dallas, Oregon, at the age of 88. After serving in the U.S. Army, he moved to Portland and earned bachelor’s degrees in sociology and political science from UP, then a master’s in education from PSU in 1962. During his long career, Henry worked in many branches of social services, including the Port-land Development Commission, VISTA, the Valley Migrant League, the Oregon State Board of Health, and the city of Salem. Henry had a humble heart for service and justice, contributing to his community in many ways, including extensive volunteer work with the Blanchet House, Habitat for Humanity, Marion-Polk Food Share, Marion-Polk Legal Aid, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and the Oregon Governor’s Citizen’s Representative Office. Survivors include his devoted wife, Renate Janicki Woods; daughter, Monica Woods; his daughter and son-in-law, Rachel and Rick Stucky; his son and daughter-in-law, Joseph Woods and Shelly Blyth; his stepson Michael Janicki; five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren; his sisters Liz Huggett and Bernie Karnes (Gordon) and brother Leonard Woods; and many beloved family and friends. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Robert E. Glennen, Jr. ’55, ’57 died on December 1, 2015, in Las Vegas, Nev., at the age of 82, due to complications from a fall. He was renowned as an outstanding athlete, scholar, and loving father and grandfather. He served as president of Emporia State University for 13 years, from 1984-1997; president of Western New Mexico University from 1980-84; and
as acting president, vice president, and dean at University of Nevada, Las Vegas after beginning his administrative career as an associate dean at the University of Notre Dame. He was inducted to the University of Portland Athletic Hall of Fame for his outstanding contributions to intercollegiate athletics as a student-athlete, coach, and administrator. As a student at UP, Glennen was
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N O T E S 2016. In the summer of 1947, before entering eighth grade, Don was adamant about buying a car, but instead bought a three-wheeled Cushman ice cream cart. He drove it home and announced to his mother, “I’m in the ice cream business!” By the time he graduated from college, Don owned three ice cream carts, two popcorn wagons, and was making $245 a month, which was not bad
Sanitary Service in 1961. Following the death of his wife Alice in 1993, Ron married Margaret Ann “Marge” Purpura on September 28, 1995, in San Francisco, Calif. A life-long Catholic, Ron often attended church services at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Portland. He was predeceased by his first wife, Alice Piro ‘56, and his younger daughter, Ann Marie Payne. Survivors include his wife Marge; his older brother, Frank J. Amato ’61; his daughter, Susan Lombardi; his son, Ronald, Jr.; his stepdaughter, Nancy Hammett; and son-in-law, Doug Hammett. He is also survived by seven grandchildren and eleven greatgrandchildren. The family requests that any remembrances or donations be made in Ron’s name to the University of Portland. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Norma Baughman, wife of Gaylord Baughman ’58, passed away on November 8, 2015. She is survived by the love of her life, her husband of 64 years, Gaylord; and children and their spouses, Beth and Bill Murphy of Vancouver, Jenny and Bob Schiller of Gresham, and Chris Baughman and partner, Desilee We forget that wars are fought by boys, sentenced to Champagne of Oregon City. She adored her grandchildren, savagery by old men. There must be a better way. Our Amy Chairsell and husband thanks to Neal Hook ’49 (at left here with his fellow Tyler, Joe Schiller, and Mackenzie Baughman. Our prayers WWII soldiers on New Guinea) for his courage. and condolences to the family. Frank B. Schmitz ’58 passed a four-year starter in baseball in those days. His “real” job away on December 2, 2015, at and captain as a senior. After after graduation was with age 80. A Portland native, one year as an assistant coach, Northwest Natural Gas as dir- Frank graduated from Central Glennen was named head ector of promotions. Don was Catholic High School, the Unibaseball coach of the Pilots at an amazing man who knew versity of Portland, the Univerage 23. While completing his how to show others a good time sity of Pittsburgh (M.B.A.), and master’s degree in adminiswhile having fun in the proSanta Clara University (J.D.). tration, he guided the Pilots cess. Survivors include his wife He was a builder in the Portto two NCAA playoff appearof 59 years, Anna Marie; son, land area. Survivors include ances and two NAIA District Don “D.G.” III (Tracy); daugh- his wife, Grace; sister, Celia championships. He is survived ters, Cathy, Tracy and Mary Schmitz; daughters, Molly (Nate by his wife of almost 58 years, Beth; sister, Terry (Jeff); bro- Lesiuk) and Angela (John Mary; children, Maureen Glen- ther, Fred (Kathi); grandkids, Carter); grandchildren, Louise nen, Robert E. Glennen, III, Alex, Hailly, Adam, Taylor and Joe Carter; cousins in GerMary Colleen Glennen Betts and Marcia (Josh); pretend many; and many nieces and (M. Dean), William Glennen, grandkids, Nikki, Graham, nephews. Remembrances (Christiana), Barry Glennen and Alisa; and great-grandkids, may be made to Legacy Good (Debbie), Katie Glennen, MolAraiya and Darrien. His oldSamaritan Medical Center, ly Glennen Singleton (Joseph) est son, Mark Joseph, prede- Kern Critical Care Unit, and and Kerry Glennen Williams ceased him. In lieu of flowers, the Society of St. Vincent de (Jason); and ten grandchildren. contributions are welcome in Paul. Our prayers and condoOur prayers and condolences the name of Don and Anna lences to the family. to the family. Marie Graham Scholarship James Marick ’59 passed away Joseph M. Courtney ’56 passed fund at Central Catholic High on November 20, 2015, suraway on December 14, 2015, School. Our prayers and conrounded by his family, three in Vancouver, Wash. He was a dolences to the family. weeks shy of his 78th birthday, beloved teacher at Roosevelt Ronald Amato ’56 passed after a courageous journey High School. He is survived away on October 19, 2015, with Alzheimer’s disease. He by his wife, Olive Marie Court- in Portland, Ore. He was 81 married Judy Ann Powell in ney; daughter, Cynthia Olsen; years old. A Portland native, The Dalles, Ore., in 1962. He son, Jeffrey Courtney; seven Ron graduated from Central started his career working at grandchildren; and nine great- Catholic High School in 1952. Boeing before moving to Gengrandchildren. Our prayers After high school, he enlisted eral Dynamics, Kaiser Alumiand condolences to the family. in the Army National Guard, num, and Oregon Steel Mills, Donald Edwin Graham Jr. ’56 attaining the rank of Special- where he remained until retirepassed away on January 17, ist 5. He founded Ron Amato ment. After retirement, Jim Spring 2016 39
C L A S S devoted his time to advocate for people with disabilities with the ARC of Southwest Washington, the state and national ARC, and PHAME Academy. Jim was active in his Catholic faith as a member of the Knights of Columbus and Eucharistic minister. Survivors include his wife of 53 years, Judy; children, Joan (Dave), John ’87 (Tami), Jill ’89 (Tony), Jason, Joel ’02 (Kristen) and Joshua (Dawn); grandchildren, John Paul, Jordan, Brandon, Kelsie, Nico and Lorenzo; and great-grandchildren, Willson, Henry, and Joseph. He was kind and humble, and was always willing to offer help. Remembrances may be made to the ARC of Southwest Washington, PHAME, or Voices Unlimited. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Col. John C. “Jack” Hill ’59 died on December 28, 2015. Jack was born and grew up in Lake Oswego, Ore., and was a longtime resident of Tacoma, Wash., and Hailey, Idaho. He graduated from Central Catholic High School, University of Portland, and University of Oregon Medical School. See “Jack (John C.) Hill Remembered” on Facebook for more details on his life and passing. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Eugene “Gene” Wizer ’60 passed away on December 14, 2015. A longtime iconic Lake Oswego businessman, Gene was born into the grocery business, working alongside his father, Jim, at Wizers Fine Foods. He was not only a devoted husband, father, grandfather, and friend, but also a man of great faith and devotion to his community. He was a member of the University of Portland Board of Regents since 1996, and in 2008, the University bestowed on him an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree, in recognition of his business acumen as well as his lifelong devotion to Catholic education and community service. Survivors include his loving wife of 47 years, Janet; daughters, Sara Lamon, Suzanne Wizer, and Kim Wizer; and grandchildren, Madeline, Olivia, and Alex. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in memory of Gene Wizer to St. Vincent de Paul, Our Lady of the Lake, or the University of Portland. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Shirley Wizer ’64 passed away on Friday, February 5, 2016, in Portland, Ore. Shirley received her bachelor’s degree from Marylhurst University and later was awarded a master’s degree from the University of Portland. She was the sister of University of
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Portland regent Gene Wizer ’56 CP ’60, who died on December 15, 2015. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the Oregon Symphony (921 SW Washington St. 200 Portland OR 97205), or to the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist (c/o Mother Marsha Ternes FSE P.O. Box 23 Bridal Veil OR 97010). Our prayers and condolences to the family. Ronald Schwerzler ’64 passed away on November 20, 2015. He attended Central Catholic High School, the University of Portland, and OHSU, completing his M.D. in 1968. In 1966,
N O T E S supports, has been selfless and remarkable. But we especially celebrate a man who has kept the University’s mission in his heart for his entire life. ‘To know, to love, and to serve,’ as he says himself — the essence of the University’s work, and the compass point, we hope, of every student and alumnus.” Katherine Kay Hooper ’64 passed away on January 1, 2016, in Oregon City, Ore. She attended first grade in Lewiston, Idaho, at St. Stanislaus School until mid-year, when both of her parents died unexpectedly, hours apart, of pneumonia.
In September fifteen members of the Salzburg 1967-68 group met for a mini-reunion in Salzburg, Austria. From left, lower row: Patricia Stupfel Zepp ’70, Kathy Kistner Moran ’70, Mary Kearney ’70, Judy Schilling ’70, Jacki Morton Cottrell ’69, and Laurie Ryan ’70. Back row, l-r: Bill MacDonald ’79, Bill Zepp ’69, Ben Miltner ’69, Barbara Harrington ’70, Judy Balzer Bell ’70, John McManamin ’70, Jim Connelly ’79, and Barbara Whidden Carey ’69. he married Linda Ford Schwerzler. Survivors include his wife; daughters, Angie Navarro (Jesús), Julie and Nancy Vezinet (Cedric); son, Geoff (Kate); and seven grandchildren. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Winning the 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award: Joe Hollman, who was honored at this year’s State of UP event on March 1. Joe’s citation reads: “When we honor this year’s Distinguished Alumnus, we salute a man who served his country with honor in the Vietnam War, whose creativity and inventiveness changed the nature of the industry to which he has devoted his career, and whose generosity to the University of Portland, and to the three orphanages he
She and her three brothers then went to live in Grangeville, Idaho, with their maternal grandparents, who became their guardians. She spent 20 years teaching throughout Idaho and then 20 years in Portland Public Schools, retiring in 1986. She is survived by her brother Richard. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Donald Miller ’65 passed away on December 11, 2015, in his West Portland home, with immediate family members present. Don was a member of the University of Portland Pilots baseball team and was captain his senior year. He was also a founding member of Sigma Tau Omega fraternity. He began his career in the grocery industry as a
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checker at Kienow’s in Southeast Portland. After stints at Mayflower Dairy, United Grocers, and Gregg Foods, Don moved into the food brokerage business with Kelly-Clarke, Inc. Following a stint at Acosta Food Brokers, Don finished his career at Damon Worldwide, focusing on the private label division of Fred Meyer. Don was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2003, which was the major contributor to his early passing. Survivors include his wife of 50 years, Elaine Miller ’67; his two sons Ric and Rodd ’89; his daughter in-law Kristen; and his grandchildren Peyton, Spencer, and Morgan. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the University of Portland Athletic Fund. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Charles “Chic” Colburn ’66 passed away on November 3, 2015, at the age of 71. Chic had his first drum lessons between his fifth and sixth grade years and didn’t put down his sticks for the next 55 years. He played with the Portland Youth Philharmonic Junior Symphony, All-Northwest Orchestra, and the band and orchestra at Jefferson High School, where he graduated in 1962. He studied music at the University of Portland and played show tunes at the Portland Civic Theater, including musicals “Bells Are Ringing” and “The Boyfriend.” He was a music teacher for many years, played Portland nightclubs, and was on the road with the Oregon Symphony, the Providence Band, and the Woody Hite Big Band. Survivors include his children, Steven Colburn and Emily Colburn Baginski (Micah); grandchildren, Isabella, Noah, Kai, and Judah Baginski; and sister, Roberta Colburn Kalibak (Bill). In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Oregon Symphony, where Chic bestowed his lifelong collection of drums and percussion instruments. Our prayers and condolences to the family. We heard recently from Tom Eder ’66, who writes: “This note is to inform the University that Donald J. Miller ’65 passed away in December. He was a four-year letterman in baseball and a founding member of Sigma Tau Omega fraternity. Don leaves a wife, Elaine Devlin Miller ’67, two sons, and three grandchildren.” Thank you for letting us know, Tom, and our prayers and condolences to Donald’s family and friends.
C L A S S ’67 Sad News
Kathryn Brown passed away on January 5, 2016, with family at her bedside. She worked for 21 years at the Portland Fire Bureau, concluding as a financial analyst. Kathryn and her husband, Ron, were fortunate to travel to France for their honeymoon. They also traveled to New Orleans several times, where her maternal ancestors lived from 1750 or so until the present day. Kathryn is survived by her husband, Ron; brother, Daniel Painter; children, Lynn Tracey Harper and her husband, Will, Daniel Steinberg and his wife, Kate; son-in-law, Duane Hiersche; and grandchildren, Katria Hiersche, James Hiersche, and Lucy Steinberg. In remembrance, please donate to the Oregon Food Bank, a charity Kathryn and Ron supported.
prayer, bosnas, cultural experiences, the Mozart Geburtshaus, hikes up the Mönchsberg, prayer, language-learning, walks to Schloss Leopoldkron, stations of the cross on Kapuzinerberg, art history, leberkäse at Augustiner, prayer, philosophical discussions, prayer, Stiegls, self-discovery, prayer, a night atop the Untersberg, Midnight Mass at the Dom, reading in Mirabell Garden, and more prayer for a student who might not otherwise have the experience.” Thanks so much, Bob and Kay. We had to google “bosnas,” and they look delicious.
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N O T E S including 53 years in Portland. She was married for 68 years to Frank Foran, who passed away in 2014. Survivors include her children, Diana, Douglas, and Mary (her eldest son, Richard, died in 2013); grandchildren, Vanessa, Marcos (wife, Eva), Caren and Paula; great-grandson, Jaime; and a number of family members in Canada. “She had a beautiful singing voice, played piano, painted portraits, knitted sweaters, wrote reams of poetry, had an endless vocabulary, loved all flora and fauna, and was a devout Catholic,”
’68 Prayers, Please
Ronald Milstein passed away peacefully on November 13, 2015, at home in Portland. A longtime civic leader, entrepreneur, and environmental and community advocate, Ron is survived by his wife of 30 years, Monica Monaghan-Milstein; daughter, Melissa, son-in-law and two granddaughters (Miami); daughter, Michelle (Portland); and countless loving family and friends who will greatly miss his kindness, generosity, and his glass-halffull worldview. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations may be made to: Ron Milstein Teaching Garden Fund, c/o OnPoint Community Credit Union, Attn: Robert M.,1720 N.E. Ninth Ave., Former United States Ambassador to Kuwait Jim Portland, OR 97212-0528. Our Larocco ’70 finishing the Camino de Santiago, the Way prayers and condolences to the family. of Saint James, the ancient holy pilgrimage through
’69 Helping His “Angels”
Susan Boitano, widow of John Thomas Nelson, has made a gift of $100,000 to establish the John Thomas Nelson Endowed Scholarship, which will benefit undergraduate students in the School of Nursing. John, who passed away at age 67 in 2014, battled cancer for many years and called the nurses who cared for him “my angels.” John was a Vietnam veteran and worked as an account executive for most of his career. We are grateful to Susan and John for supporting the missions of the School of Nursing and UP. A note from Bob and Kay Pendleton, with their gift to the Salzburg Scholarship: “Please use this donation toward a year in Salzburg for a student without the funds for deepening friendships, serious study,
Spain, recently; he left a pebble from the University’s campus at the terminus, the Cruz de Ferro, and prayed for us all here — past, present, and future. Thank you, James. ’72 Wedding Bells
A happy announcement from Patsy Gix Hunt: “Married in Portland on July 11, 2015: Shannon Hunt ’07 and Joshua Polk, a Portland State graduate. They now live in Prairieville, La. Maid of Honor was Courtney Hunt ’14.” Thanks for the note, Patsy, and congratulations to the newlyweds! Patricia Foran, mother of Diana Foran ’72, passed away on October 29, 2015, at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center, surrounded by family. She was 90 years old. Patricia, originally from Vancouver, B.C., had lived in the U.S. since 1946,
according to her obituary. “She will be deeply missed by her family and friends.” Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’79 Bill K. Gets His Due
Former Pilots baseball and basketball player Bill Krueger has been chosen for induction into the West Coast Conference (WCC) Hall of Honor. He and one representative from each other WCC member school were honored in Las Vegas as part of the WCC men’s and women’s basketball tournaments at the Orleans Hotel. Bill was recruited to play base-
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ball at UP, but he was awarded a basketball scholarship and went on to be a two-letter standout. Primarily a first baseman, Krueger ranks seventh all-time at UP with 869 career putouts; he also pitched for UP and played with the 1980 squad that won a program record 36 games. In baseball he boasts a career batting average of .286, while on the basketball court he averaged 5.3 points and 1.8 rebounds per game in 105 career appearances. Bill played in the big leagues from 1983 to 1995, and pitched for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Seattle Mariners (twice), Minnesota Twins, Montreal Expos, Detroit Tigers, and San Diego Padres. He is now the senior baseball analyst for Root Sports Northwest, covering the Seattle Mariners, and he works extensively with college athletics. Add to all of that the fact that Bill is still remembered on The Bluff as a man of great sportsmanship and upstanding character, and you get an honor much deserved and too long in coming. Congratulations Bill! Mary Beth “Missy” Ryan passed away at home in Greensboro, N.C., on September 22, 2015. After graduating from the College of Mount St. Vincent in Riverdale, N.Y., Mary Beth spent a year abroad at University of Oxford, England, followed by two years in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, serving in St. Mary’s, Alaska as a school librarian. After her time in the JVC, she found her way to nursing school and graduated as an RN from the University of Portland. Upon graduation, she drove up the Alaska Highway with two other nurses to work in Fairbanks for three years. Moving to Greensboro in the mid-1990s, she continued practicing both traditional and alternative therapies in the best tradition of the nursing profession, relieving the suffering of her patients. Survivors include her companion of six years, Hap Kimmel of Greensboro; brother John and wife Mary, brother Bob and wife Christine; six nieces and nephews, ten great-nieces and nephews, and extended family. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to North Carolina Satsang Society (1912 Eastchester Dr., High Point, NC 27262) or a hospice of choice. Our prayers and condolences to the family. David James Kammeyer died on December 30, 2015. He is survived by his ex-wife of 34 years, Rachel; son, Simon; companion, Arlene Lincoln; and five brothers. He worked
C L A S S as a mechanical engineer for 28 years. David enjoyed the outdoors, photography, and was active with wheelchair rugby. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’80 We Knew He’d Go Far
Philip Akers has been named the new vice chancellor for advancement and external relations at the University of Washington Bothell. He began his new position on February 1. He will be responsible for leading the overall direction for advancement, alumni, communications, and external relations programs. Phil has more than 25 years of experience in higher education advancement, most recently as senior director of leadership gifts and college programs at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Previously, he served as vice president for university relations at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore., from 2007-2011. He has also been vice president at Lewis & Clark College and regional director of development for Washington State University Spokane.
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away on December 28, 2015, at her home. She and her husband Paul enjoyed a loving and happy marriage for 47 years, until Paul’s death in 1992. Their greatest joy was raising their six children. She was an exceptionally kind and sincere person, who embraced life’s joys with gratitude and life’s sorrows with grace. She will be dearly missed. She is survived
N O T E S UP address on March 1. Her citation reads: “To go from attorney to public defender to teacher to energetic principal of a grade school! That would be cause enough for an award — but the University presents its annual award for creative service to an alumna who has bent both of her careers to bettering the lives of the least among us, as Christ the Teacher
’87 Remembering Joseph
Joseph Kniser died on November 30, 2015. He was a teacher and coach at Sandy High School for 28 years, completing a master’s of education from the University of Portland. Joe was an active person who enjoyed sports, camping, and especially fishing. Joe is survived by his wife, Dorothy; sons, Kelly, Matt, Tim (Beckie), and Casey (Anne Marie); brother, John; sister, Mary Kloepfer (Jay); and grandchildren, Lucy, Tommy, Elizabeth and Andrew. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’83 A Career Well Spent
Congratulations to R. Lee Fitzsimmons, who has been an RN in a half dozen fields over her long career and is finishing up in May as a public health nurse for the County of Santa Cruz, Calif.
’90 A Man Of Service
’84 Upsilon In The House
Matt Waite likes to keep tabs on his Upsilon Omega Pi fraternity brothers, and what better way than to ply them with cold beer and Pilots basketball? He writes: “Members of Upsilon Omega Pi gathered at the Victory Bell outside the Chiles Center after the Pilot men’s basketball team won in a thrilling game over BYU.” Upsilon, which was founded in 1951, served as caretakers of the Victory Bell and would gather after each Pilot athletic victory and ring bell for all to hear, whether from its original home outside the Pilot House, or from more mobile platforms, or its present location. Members of the proud gaggle included Stuart Van Riette, Albert Cook ’95, Quentin Smith ’81, Matt Waite ’84, Paul Penziol ’85, Scott Ford ’83, Jim Ford ’60, and AJ Gomez ’82. And of course, all members of Upsilon are invited back to campus during Reunion on June 25 to celebrate the spirit fraternity’s 65th anniversary.
’85 Prayers, Please
Carol Luckeroth, mother of Lisa Luckeroth Rank, passed
Hey, Class of ’86 members: if you haven’t been back to campus in a while you should make plans to come to Reunion this summer, June 23-26. You’ll be amazed at how much has changed, but it’s still the same old UP at heart. We’ll be honoring all classes ending in 1 and 6, including the Class of 1966 as they join the 50-Year Club. We’ll also celebrate our Spanish study abroad programs, Pilots baseball, the Chapel Choir, and Upsilon Omega Pi’s 65th anniversary. Registration opens in April at up.edu/alumni. We look forward to seeing you back on The Bluff.
If there is a happier man than Gary Kaiel (father of Anni Kaiel Betzler ’98, husband of Meridee Kaiel, grandpa to Annie’s boy Ryland, delighting Gary here), well, we can’t imagine it, not from looking at this picture of pure grandpappy bliss. The little guy must already know a lot about sports— Gary is a legendary local boys’ and girls’ basketball coach, and knows all there is to know about that game and most other sports. by her children, Joe (Patti), Robert (Lois), Lori, Denise (Kathy), Diane, and Lisa Rank (Joe); four grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’86 Nice Work, Julie!
This year’s Rev. Thomas C. Oddo, C.S.C., Outstanding Service Award went to Julie (Hannon) Johnson, who was honored at the 2016 State of
very bluntly instructs us to do. ‘The mission of the University is the mission of my life,’ she says — ‘to be instruments of Christ’s hope in a world too often shivering in darkness... to make a powerful difference in the lives of children.’ With the sure knowledge that our beloved Father Tom Oddo would be very proud indeed, we present the 2016 Oddo Award to Julie Hannon Johnson.”
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Pope Francis appointed Rev. Vincent Kirabo, a professor at St. Mary’s Major Seminary in Ggaba, as the new Bishop of Hoima, Uganda, on Nov. 30, 2015. Bishop-elect Kirabo earned a master’s in education degree at the University of Portland in 1990. Vincent Kirabo was born in Kyanaisoke, Uganda in 1955 and began philosophical studies at the Uganda Martyrs’ National Major Seminary Aloculum in Gulu. After completing theological studies at St. Mary’s National Seminar, he was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Hoima in 1979. The bishopelect has served as a teacher and rector at St. John Bosco Minor Seminary, Hoima; director of the Diocesan Commission for Vocations; vicar at Muhorro Parish; pastor at a number of western Uganda parishes; and more. In addition to his University of Portland degree, he holds a licentiate in biblical theology from the Urban University in Rome (2007). He replaces the late Bishop Deogratias Muganwa Byabazaire, who died in February 2014. Margaret Palmquist Cady has been appointed to a team of instructors for a new national
C L A S S public safety center created by Congress to help protect college students from sexual assault. The National Center for Campus Public Safety (NCCPS) is tasked to roll out a program aimed at educating campus officials across the country in trauma-informed sexual assault investigations and adjudications. The NCCPS was charged in April 2014 by the White House to help develop a coordinated federal response to campus rape and sexual assault. This followed a deepening concern across the country about some colleges’ handling of sexual assault allegations and about the treatment of victims. Ms. Cady is assistant dean of students at University of Puget Sound.
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leading independent birth cen- to recruit teachers for grades ter in the region, get in touch!” 1-12 every year. Teachers are required to have valid teaching ’01 Reaching Out Made credentials from any state in Easy: UP Switchboard the US or Canada and be a naA fine thing, this UP Switch- tive English speaker. Interested board, brought about through candidates can contact me at bithe efforts of alumni director lingual@ms.nnkieh.tnc.edu.tw.” Craig Swinyard ’98 and his See for yourself at up.switchtalented alumni relations staff. boardhq.com. What simpler way to reach out Speaking of alumni offering to fellow UP alumni in real a helping hand: Holly Speigel
’92 A Sad Time
Prayers, please, for Sarah Geers on the death of her father, Edward Geers, on December 15, 2015. Edward was a nurse anesthetist for 30 years in Florence, Ore. Survivors include his brothers, Bill (Maryanne) and Joe (Eileen); sister-in-law, Elizabeth Geers; his children, Sarah (Michael ’89) Havlik, David, Michelle, and Christopher; former wife, Kyle King; beloved grandchildren, Anika and Kevin Havlik; and nieces and nephews. In lieu of flowers, consider doing a corporal work of mercy. Ed, a lifelong Catholic, would love to have you do something for others. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’00 A Lifelong Goal Achieved
Carissa St. Onge Carneiro writes: “My lifelong goal of becoming a nurse-midwife has come true. After 15 years of assisting other midwives as a nurse, raising three children, and supporting my love, Augusto Carneiro ’01 and our Nossa Familia Coffee adventures, I have finally completed my master’s in nursing and am a certified nurse-midwife! The incredible history and training at Frontier Nursing University provided flexible distance learning conducive to family life. I was honored to receive the Kitty Earnst Leadership Award, which propels me into my next goals! I have joined an amazing midwifery practice specializing in out-of-hospital birth and full-cycle women’s health care, A Gentle Beginning. We have beautiful plans to build an accredited birth center in the next couple of years. If you are interested in knowing more about this and possibly participating (time or talent or token) to what will be the
The wry witty tireless Kamauri Yeh ’11, who until recently was account manager for Twitter Entertainment, where she worked with movie studios in Los Angeles. She still helps choose and advise students who run the Pilot basketball media channels, as she did; “It’s amazing to give back to the community that gave me so much.” She’s now digital director for Nike West. Lucky Nike. time? For example, this note from MBA graduate Chao Wen Chen: “I returned to Taiwan after graduation and worked in a public school beginning in 2004. I am now the director of a small international school affiliated with a public school owned by the central government, located in the Southern Taiwan Science Park. I need
writes, via Switchboard: “I’m a NYC-based alumna who produces independent films and online videos. I’d be happy to offer any feedback or advice on developing your script (plays or screenplays) or even on the rough cut of a completed project. My husband and I would also be happy to put you up on our sofa bed if you’re checking
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out schools or job opportunities in New York (as long as you like cats!).”
’02 Kendra’s Update
News of recent volunteer efforts by Kendra Goffredo 02, via the alumni office’s amazing UP Switchboard: “Hello! I’ve just returned from volunteering with the refugees/asylum-seekers crossing the Aegean Sea to land on European Union soil in Lesvos, Greece. If you are contemplating heading that way to volunteer, I am happy to share my experience with you and connect you to people on the island. Most of the organizations ask for a one-month minimum commitment. E-mail me at kendra. goffredo@gmail.” Thanks so much, Kendra. This message dates from January 11 but no doubt there is still a great need for help in that battered region. Beverly Ann (Sundeleaf) Mackenzie passed away on January 27, 2016. From 1966 to 1969 she was employed as a psychiatric social worker at Delaunay Institute for Mental Health. It was there she met the love of her life, Daniel V. Voiss, who was director of the clinic. They were married on August 30, 1970, and worked together for 27 years until Dan’s death in 1997. She served on the State Board of Clinical Social Workers from 1982 to 1984. Her later years were spent living on acreage with her beloved giant schnauzer, Devo. She had great love for her family and her work, and devoted her life to caring for others. Survivors include her sister, Karin (Wright) and brother-in-law, Bill Wright; daughters, Laurinda Mackenzie and Hilary Sundeleaf Mackenzie; five grandchildren; and two great-grandsons. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’03 Here To Help
Our hugely successful UP Switchboard is a great place to offer and request help from fellow UP alumni, brought about through the efforts of alumni director Craig Swinyard ’98 and his talented alumni relations staff. Sue Unger, for one: “I am the director of social ministries at St Francis Church in Portland, Ore. I saw your post about Spring Break (“Help students make the most of their Spring Break, March 7-11— post your offer to connect today!”) and would like to offer our community as a learning experience for working with a non-profit dedicated to serving the homeless.
C L A S S I would welcome help during your spring break to talk about working with the poor in our community. We are a direct services community that welcomes all people. Our mission is to serve meals in dignity and peace.” Donald D. Chase, husband of Charlene Chase ’03, died on January 1, 2016, in Canby, Ore., in the loving care of family and friends. After completing graduate school, Donald served as an optometrist in the U.S. Air Force from 1971 to 1974 in San Antonio, Texas; in September of 1974, he opened his private optometry practice in Canby. Donald was a quiet, intelligent, independent soul with deep faith who often preferred the solace of the wilderness to the chaos of busy life. He was a husband, dad, doctor, singer, photographer, grandpa, birdwatcher, and landscaper, but most of all he will be missed. Survivors include his wife of 47 years, Charlene; son, Matthew Chase (Rebecca); grandchildren, Spencer and Makayla; daughter, Allyson Rhodes (Shawn); grandchildren, Kody, Baylee and Zack; mother, Maxine Knox; and sister, Janis Miller (Bob). Our prayers and condolences to the family.
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and undergraduate courses at Marylhurst University, Clackamas Community College, University of Phoenix, and Portland State University. He hopes to hold more specialized networking events to fit the needs of different business models around his community. His new position was effective February 1.
’05 A Momentous Fellow
Eduardo Moreno was named as a 2015 Momentum Fellow by Philanthropy Northwest. Eduardo joined the Northwest Health Foundation in 2012
N O T E S ’06 Katie’s Ready To Help
Katie Smith knows a good way to reach out to UP alumni: the UP Switchboard, brought about through the efforts of the alumni relations office. She writes: “Hello! My name is Katie Smith and I am the director of operations for the Saint John Institute. I would love to help University of Portland students with networking and career advice. I have worked in industry, higher education, and for the Catholic Church. Currently I reside in Atlanta, Ga., but I will be moving to Denver, Colorado
’08 Fr. Art, Ace Reporter Jeanie Toscano has been accepted by the Office of Graduate Study In the School of Humanities at University of California, Irvine. Great news, Jeanie! Fr. Art Wheeler couldn’t wait to tell everyone.
’04 A Fulbright Scholar
Walt Dawson, director of research and analytics at the Oregon Health Care Association, has been awarded a 201516 Fulbright Scholarship to teach and conduct research in Canada. Dawson will serve as the Visiting Research Chair in Public Policy and Governance at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. During his Fulbright, Dawson will complete a research-based comparison of the U.S. and Canada’s long-term care system and investigate how Canadian public policies and culture impact its system of caring for aging adults. In addition to research, Walt will give guest lectures on Oregon’s long-term care system and his national work on health and aging policy in the United States. He also serves as a part-time lecturer in the Portland State University School of Community Health Institute on Aging. Dawson is one of more than 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad through the Fulbright Scholar Program in 2015-2016. Thomas Frank has become president of the Chamber of Commerce for West Linn, Ore. Currently CFO at Frank Development Company, Frank is also a city counselor for West Linn, and teaches graduate
directed the construction of an entire military camp, earned a medal from the Department of Defense, helped in disaster relief after Hurricane Sandy, built laboratories for the National Institutes of Health, and designed and built an Ebola treatment unit in Liberia. ‘My work is to serve my fellow human beings,’ he says. ‘The University’s mission has resonated for me long after I graduated, and I hope it always will.’ With real awe at the energy and creativity of a remarkable young alumnus whom we very much hope will eventually run for President, we present the 2016 Contemporary Alumni Award to U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Shane Deckert, of the Class of 2007.” A happy announcement from Patsy Gix Hunt ’72: “Married in Portland on July 11, 2015: Shannon Hunt and Joshua Polk, a Portland State grad. They now live in Prairieville, La. Maid of Honor was Courtney Hunt ’14.” Thanks for the note, Patsy, and congratulations to the newlyweds!
’10 They Get Big Too Fast Married in September: Fiona Thornhill ’13 and Michael Chhor ’12, witnessed by an incredible brigade of University alumni and Holy Cross priests; Fathers Charlie Gordon, Gerry Olinger, and Jim Lies were there, and the reception was held at the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center, designed by Fiona’s dad Tere Thornhill (who also designed the high school chapel where the wedding took place, wow). Our regards and prayers. as the executive support and board relations coordinator. As a health and education officer, Eduardo works with NWHF’s program and leadership teams to develop and implement the programmatic strategies for the foundation’s efforts to promote health through educational institutions. “I’m excited about meeting and building long-term relationships with school, community and funding partners across Oregon and southwest Washington,” he says. Congratulations, Eduardo, and keep us in the loop about your good works!
soon — the Institute I work for will be established in Denver in July. Looking forward to connecting!” See the wonders of UP Switchboard for yourself at up.switchboardhq.com.
’07 Shane’s The Real Deal
The 2016 Contemporary Alumni Award went to Shane Deckert, who was honored at the annual State of UP event on March 1. His citation read, in part: “Shane has been away from The Bluff for a mere eight years, but in that span he has been one of America’s youngest commanders in Iraq,
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Maryanne Kraeger writes: “At 12:23 in the afternoon on the eve of All Saints Day (Halloween), we met our son Edmund William Kraeger. Since my husband Adam is still in college we were planning on having kids after he graduated, but God had grander plans for us. Edmund was the best surprise I ever received. Thankfully he sleeps a lot like his Mommy and he loves to cuddle. We are loving the adventure of parenthood and look forward to watching our son grow up, which I can already tell you is going by too fast (he is 13 days old now)! Just wanted to share the wonderful news with our UP family.” Thanks for the great news, Maryanne, and congratulations! Katie Circello writes: “My husband Ryan and I (both class of 2010) welcomed our first child on June 18, 2015, at 11:33 a.m., in Phoenix, Arizona! His name is Parker Jackson Circello and he weighed in at eight pounds exactly. Parker’s curiosity, dimpled smile, and innocence
C L A S S have brought out the amazingness and joys of parenthood in both of us! We can’t wait to cheer on the Pilots, as Parker is already a sports fan.” Congratulations, Katie and Ryan, we’ll save Parker a seat in the Chiles Center and Merlo Field.
’11 Amber’s Update
We heard recently from Amber Garaventa, who writes: “I recently received my master’s in social work from Portland State University, and am now pursuing a career in social work with families involved in the child welfare system. Tim and I were married in May in downtown Portland.” Thanks for the news, Amber, and good luck to you and Tim! Alexis Jagelski writes: “Five of our UP friends climbed Kilimanjaro this summer while visiting our UP engineering buddy who was finishing his time with the Peace Corps [see pg. 45]. Also, UP graduates Fiona Thornhill ’13 and Michael Chhor ’12 wed in September and had a wild turnout of UP alumni and priests. I always enjoy reading the magazine and reminiscing of UP.”
medical school and has any questions they’d like to ask, I’d be happy to answer them! Feel free to ask about preparing for medical school, the application process, interviewing, choosing what school to go to, or any other questions you might have.” Thanks Kyle, that’s mighty generous, we’re sure you have a pretty full plate as it is. See more at up.switchboardhq.com.
’14 A Career For The Birds Oh, a wondrous thing is our UP Switchboard, just one of many new alumni benefits
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N O T E S ’15 A Score For Dana
On the evening of Saturday, January 23, over 400 students, faculty, and guests packed Buckley Auditorium for a special showing of Buster Keaton’s classic film, “The General.” The University Orchestra performed the score live; it was written by environmental studies major Dana CoppernollHouston as her senior capstone student research project, under the directorship of music professor David DeLyser. The performance was sponsored by the McNerney-Hanson Endowed Chair in Ethics. College
Student Doings, Deeds
’13 Policy Wonk
Bianca Singh finished graduate school in 2015 with a masters in policy analysis and is now working in a new policy position. Hannah Kinter worked in television news in Coos Bay, Ore., for a year and half, and started a new job at KVAL-TV in Eugene, according to her ever-observant UP media mentor, Nancy Copic. A note from Alisha Southwick, who writes: “Hello fellow UP graduates and RNs. After I finished my degree in 2013 I moved to Umatilla County to work for the Public Health. Being a public health nurse has been the most rewarding experience, one that I continue to enjoy every day! I love serving the community and working on upstream health initiatives. We are often hiring registered nurses at Umatilla County. If you are interested you can see job postings at http://www.co.umatilla.or.us/ hr/. I am happy to answer any questions and share more information.” Alisha’s update and offer can be found on the UP Switchboard at up.switchboardhq.com. Another note from UP Switchboard, this time from Kyle Hamm: “I’m currently in my third year of medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. If anyone is applying or considering applying to
non-profit journalism organization focusing on urban policy, based in Philadelphia, which suits Kelsey fine, since “I’m excited to be on the East Coast, and near-ish Kate Stringer ‘14, former Living editor for the Beacon, at least for a bit!” Five recent UP graduates have signed on for one-year service positions with Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) and JVC Northwest. Volunteers with JVC are Philip Ellefson, who will serve with the International Institute of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, Wisc.; and Corey Hubbard ’14, who joins Catholic Charities in Houston, Texas. JVC Northwest volunteers are Samantha Johnson, American Red Cross of Alaska, Anchorage, Alaska; Rumika Suzuki, St. Labre Indian School, Ashland, Mont.; and Margaret Hannon, Northwest Justice Project, Yakima, Wash. Volunteers with both organizations are charged with serving people who live on the margins of society, and have committed to living simply and working for social change in a reflective and spiritually supportive community.
Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro — “the shining mountain, the unclimbable one, the mountain of greatness” — in Tanzania this past summer: young alumni Chrissy May ’13, Alexis Jagelski ’11, Emma Healy ’12, Gabe Martin ’13, and Joel Nightingale ’13. Whoa. brought about through the efforts of alumni director Craig Swinyard ’98 and his talented alumni relations staff. It’s the place to offer what you have and find what you need. For instance, this note from Sarah Ramirez: “Hey Pilots! I graduated in May 2014 with a B.S. in biology and a neuroscience minor. After that I pursued a career in wildlife conservation and research, focusing mainly on bird species. Since graduating I’ve worked in wildlife rehabilitation, crow behavior studies, and endangered shorebird management I’m happy to offer advice to any fellow biology majors looking to get into the wildlife field!” Find out more and sign up for yourself at https://up.switchboardhq.com.
of Arts and Sciences dean Michael Andrews notes that, “The General explores ethical themes of war, love, death, honor, loss, and joy. Produced in 1926, critics have called it the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made. ‘The General’ illuminates deep, moral truths about the human condition.” Renowned film score expert Edmund Stone presented a pre-concert film and lecture. Former Beacon editor-inchief Kelsey Thomas has kept busy since graduating in December. She took a trip to Jordan, and landed a job as assistant editor at Next City (https://nextcity.org/) on December 1. Next City is a
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A group of students participating in the UP Border Immersion service project made over 1,000 tamales as a fundraiser for their trip, working with women of Holy Cross Parish who volunteered to teach them the art of tamale making. Students were able to practice their Spanish and meet women from the community who are immigrants themselves, learning about immigration issues from multiple perspectives. And man are those tamales good. They sold out in record time. Senior communication studies and Spanish double major Ezequiel Delgago-Cervantes had his essay, “6 Things I Learned At The University of Portland: The best lessons for life happen outside the classroom,” published in The List on February 8, 2016. “Going to college has been one incredible ride,” he writes. “I traveled to 13 countries, met many incredible people, and ultimately learned a lifetime’s worth of lessons about myself and the world. Here are 6 of the lessons I’ve picked up these last 4 years.” See his six lessons at http://tinyurl.com/gmyeloj. A team of University of Portland students finished second in the 2015 AICPA Accounting Competition, held recently in Durham, North Carolina. The UP students’ finish earned a $3,000 award for the University.
C L A S S In addition, the team received a $10,000 award to be shared among team members. All awards are funded by the AICPA Foundation. Isaac Mansuetti, Lance Chee and Connor Ward, all juniors, traveled with UP accounting professor Ellen Lippman, who served as faculty advisor. “UP has entered the competition twice,” said Lippman. “Last time we took first with a team of four seniors. This time we took second with a team of three juniors. I am especially proud of them, as they needed to learn so much they hadn’t yet had in our curriculum.” Fifty-seven student teams entered the competition and were whittled down to 15 semi-final teams. Those teams received an additional challenge and submitted a video plan, which was reviewed by a panel of judges and voted on by the public. The three teams with the best proposals and highest grades made it to the finals to present in person in Durham. They haven’t heard the last of the Pilots, that’s for sure.
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Steven Michaud, brother of retired UP biology professor Frances Makowski, passed away on January 10, 2016, at his home. Steven was born in Great Lakes, Ill., the seventh child of Eleanor and Emil Michaud. He was preceded in death by his sister, Monica Michaud; and parents. Survivors include his siblings, Ted Michaud, Karen Day, Paul Michaud, Sr. Mary Michaud S.H.C.J., Frances Makowski, Patricia Burkey, Therese Michaud, and Johanna Weber; aunt, Marian Letourneau; close friend, Elaine Bridges;
N O T E S Cross brother at the time he served at UP in the 1990s, and was in charge of recruiting high school students as prospective Pilots, mostly on the East coast, Alaska, and Hawaii. Richard later moved to San Francisco and worked at Golden Gate University, then finally with San Francisco State. After 25 years as a Holy Cross brother he resigned to become a civilian, but he still maintained his dedication to the Catholic faith. Our prayers and condolences to Richard’s family and many friends.
Got Stuff?
The University of Portland Museum welcomes donations of Columbia Prep and University of Portland memorabilia and photographs from alumni and friends. (We would especially love to hear from student publications photo editors from years past.) If you have items of interest about Columbia Prep and University of Portland academic, social, religious, and athletic history (examples could include but are not limited to: sports uniforms and equipment; overseas studies mementos; social, religious, and academic club/organization memorabilia; educational materials; publications such as yearbooks, sports programs, handbooks, etc.), contact Carolyn Piatz Connolly ’88 at the museum: museum@up.edu or piatz@up.edu; 503-943-8038; or University of Portland Museum MSC 015, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203.
Faculty, Staff, Friends
Meta B. Conkling, wife of retired UP faculty member Roger L. Conkling, passed away on December 20, 2015, with her husband, daughter, Beth Wilton, and granddaughter, Jessica, by her side. Meta and Roger were married April 4, 1941, just before the start of World War II, and were married for 74 years. Survivors include Roger; two daughters; and four grandchildren. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
The estimable University literature professor emeritus Louis Masson, at age 19, in a summer meet in Syracuse, New Yawk. Louis was a very fine runner before he became an even better writer; we recommend all three of his essay collections: Reflections, The Play of Light, and Across the Quad. and many cousins, nieces, and nephews. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Donning his traveling attire this summer: the University’s vice president for student affairs Rev. John Donato, C.S.C. Fr. Donato will lead the 12-day Oregon Catholic Press Holy Year of Mercy pilgrimage from June 3-14, 2016, visiting Rome, Assisi, Florence, Ravenna, and Como. Richard Fischenich passed away over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2015. He was a Holy
Former UP residence hall director Tommy Stoffel was featured in an article titled “School Officer draws on theological past” in the February 8, 2016 edition of the Catholic Sentinel. “Once he wore a white habit and was called Brother Aquinas Mary. Now he dons a blue uniform and a kevlar vest,” according to author Ed Langlois. “Portland police officer Tommy Stoffel, 37, also carries a sidearm, baton and taser. But this former Dominican friar employs philosophy, wit and charm far more often
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than his weapons.” See the article at http://tinyurl.com/ gqofhd6. Nursing professor Casey Shillam serves as a consultant and reviewer for “Competencies and Curricular Guidelines for Undergraduate Nursing Programs: Preparing Nurses to Care for the Seriously Ill and their Families,” an enhanced curriculum in palliative and end-of-life care for nursing schools. Recent grants from Cambia Health Foundation will expand the first wave of dissemination of the training curriculum throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Utah. School of Nursing professor Amber Vermeesch has been selected as one of eight participants from around the nation for the 2016 American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Faculty Policy Intensive program, to be held March 21-24, in Washington, D.C. She will also be recognized as an AACN Faculty Policy Fellow. The FPI program is designed for faculty of AACN member schools who are interested in pursuing a role in healthcare policy. Participants can enhance their knowledge of policy and advocacy through sessions that focus on the legislative process and the dynamic relationships between federal departments, agencies, collaborative partnerships, and individual advocates. Vermeesch joined the UP nursing faculty in August 2014, after working the previous seven years as a board certified family nurse practitioner providing primary care to underinsured, noninsured, and underserved patients. Pamplin School of Business professor Sam Holloway received the Ascendant Scholar Award from the Western Academy of Management in December 2015. The award is given to faculty members who have a maximum of 6-7 years’ of experience and are considered “ascendant” through an academic record that includes their areas of research, teaching, and service. Holloway is an associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the University. His research on business model innovations examines how strategy affects the design of organizational architectures and has been published in several management publications. Oh, and he’s a nationally-recognized expert on the craft brewing industry, a topic he pursues with evangelical zeal, bless him.
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Here’s a photo of the late great Jim Winters ’56 (no. 42) with his older brother Jackson ’51, from their days as scholarship players on the Pilot men’s basketball team in 1950-51. Jim, as noted in his 2005 obituary, “played on four UP NAIA national playoff teams. Between the years 1949 and 1952, he led the Pilots to three 20-win seasons before serving three years in the Korean war, during which time the Pilots suffered three consecutive losing seasons. He returned for his senior season in 1955-56 to lead the pilots to his 4th 20 win season and garnering all-American honorable mention honors along the way.” A great player and a great man, missed to this day and beyond. Deaths
Marjorie (Gennette) Lyster ’42, January 26, 2016. Robert Anthony Spear ’44 CP ’50, December 14, 2015. John Lawrence O’Donnell ’47 CP, ’51, January 14, 2016. Angelo Paul Della ’50, ’55, October 25, 2015. Kathleen Robertson, wife of Lane Robertson ’50, November 12, 2015, Tualatin, Ore. Gildo John Martini ’51, December 19, 2015. Joan D. Raglione ’52, December 14, 2015. Charles Hubert Kies ’53, January 3, 2016. Kurt Paul Kuhn ’54, December 27, 2015. Paul Rooney ’55 CP, December 2, 2011.
Henry M. Woods ’55, December 10, 2015, Dallas, Ore. Robert E. Glennen, Jr. ’55, ’57, December 1, 2015, Las Vegas, Nev. Joseph M. Courtney ’56, December 14, 2015, Vancouver, Wash. Donald Edwin Graham, Jr. ’56, January 17, 2016. Ronald Amato ’56, October 19, 2015, Portland, Ore. Norma Baughman, wife of Gaylord Baughman ’58, November 8, 2015. Frank B. Schmitz ’58, December 2, 2015. James Marick ’59, November 20, 2015. Col. John C. “Jack” Hill ’59, December 28, 2015. Eugene “Gene” Wizer ’60, December 14, 2015.
Shirley Wizer ’64, February 5, 2016, Portland, Ore. Ronald Schwertzler ’64, November 20, 2015. Katherine Kay Hooper ’64, January 1, 2016, Oregon City, Ore. Donald Miller ’65, December 11, 2015, Portland, Ore. Charles “Chic” Colburn ’66, November 3, 2015. Kathryn Brown ’67, January 5, 2016. Ronald Milstein ’68, November 13, 2015, Portland, Ore. Patricia Foran, mother of Diana Foran ’72, October 29, 2015. Kerry (Sutfin) Smith ’76, November 5, 2014. Mary Beth “Missy” Ryan ’79, September 22, 2015, Greensboro, N.C.
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David James Kammeyer ’79, December 30, 2015. Carol Luckeroth, mother of Lisa Luckeroth Rank ’85, December 28, 2015. Joseph Kniser ’87, November 30, 2015. Edward Geers, father of Sarah Geers ’92, December 15, 2015. Donald D. Chase, husband of Charlene Chase ’03, January 1, 2016, Canby, Ore. Meta B. Conkling, wife of retired professor Roger L. Conkling, December 20, 2015. Stephen Michaud, brother of retired professor Frances Makowski, January 10, 2016. Richard Fischenich, former admissions counselor, November 2015.
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The University’s physical plant employee of the year: the gentle friendly patient courteous Keltuma Salih, who has spent fifteen years on The Bluff cleaning the third, fourth, and fifth floors of Waldschmidt Hall, and never once a hard or selfish word, or anything other than a smile that could fuel eight stars. A Muslim woman of remarkable grace and courage: born in Eritrea, Africa, she and her family fled the roar of war, and spent ten years in a refugee camp in the Sudan. Lost her father in the terror and chaos. Met her husband in the refugee camp; the Red Cross helped them apply for refugee status, and America, true to its founding ideals, accepted them. She and her husband now have four children, and you never met a more selfless, honest, admirable soul in your life. The University is lucky to have such an exemplar of grace in its midst, such a teacher of the virtues we so wish to see in our students. Portland 48
There are so many factual things to say about regent Gene Wizer ’60, who died in December at age 77 — husband, dad, legendary grocer in Lake Oswego, community pillar, endless generosity, devout daily Mass man — but it’s the gentle selfless humble wry absolutely genuine Gene we will miss very much. The man who always thanked people who cleaned bathrooms, who cleaned the gutters of vacation cabins before he left, who cleaned up after the picnic, who snapped the folding chairs up after meetings, who quietly ran tabs for people who couldn’t pay for their food. He was the richest man in town because everyone respected and liked and admired his integrity and grace. Our prayers. There is, of course, a Wizer Scholarship on The Bluff. Call Kara McManus at 503.943.7460, mcmanusk@up.edu . Be generous. Gene was.
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A SPECTACULOUS SYCAMORE
THE KENNA TREE This tremendous sycamore tree (also called buttonwood) was probably planted in front of Kenna Hall when the hall was built in 1959 (and named for the cheerful mathematics professor and University president Father Doc Kenna, C.S.C.). The buttonwood is an ancient American tree; George Washington measured whoppers in his travels as a young surveyor, and the New York Stock Exchange began under a buttonwood on Wall Street in 1792. It is not native to Oregon, notes our quiet brilliant University arborist Jim Wells, but we have eight of them among the 3,000 or so trees on University properties. The painting here is by University art professor Father Mark Ghyselinck, C.S.C., who will have a show of his dappled work in BC Gallery in September.