University of Portland Magazine Summer 2020

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Summer 2020


FEATURES

16 The Dream Is Intact by Jessica Murphy Moo Fedele Bauccio ’64, ’66 MBA wanted to start a revolution in the food industry—and he is staying the course.

24 Math at Home

2 ON THE BLUFF 4 The World We Live In 6 En Route 8 The Experts 9 Campus Briefs 11 Dream Teams 12 Sports 14 Second Look

40 CLASS NOTES 44 In Memoriam 49 For the Love of It

by Stephanie Anne Salomone Homeschooling didn’t go as well as this award-winning math professor might have hoped.

26 WHEN NURSES SPEAK, WE LISTEN

27 On Ethical Leadership by Jennifer Graves ’87, ’92 MSN

What if you have to make a difficult decision about who might get resources and who might get equipment and who might not?

Summer 2020 Vol. 38, No. 3 President Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C. Editor Jessica Murphy Moo Designer Darsey Landoe Associate Editor Marcus Covert ’93, ’97 Contributors Danielle Centoni, Roya GhorbaniElizeh ’11, Anna Lageson-Kerns ’83, ’14, Hannah Pick, Celeste Robertson, Amy Shelly ’95, ’01

28 A Reminder by Sallie Tisdale ’83

A nurse makes home visits during the pandemic. What does she see? Body, mind, emotion, spirit, dream.

Cover Darsey Landoe

32 Why Bother with Wilderness? by Nina Ramsey Because we are but a small speck in a much greater whole.

36 Paying Attention to My Neighbors by D.L. Mayfield

This is what it means to pray these days.

Portland is published three times a year by University of Portland. Copyright © 2020 by the University of Portland. All rights reserved. Editorial Offices Waldschmidt Hall, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203-5798 Email jmurphymoo@up.edu Online up.edu/portlandmagazine Printed on 10% recycled and FSC-certified paper in Portland, OR. Third-class postage paid at Portland, OR 97203. Canada Post International Publications Mail Product—Sales Agreement No. 40037899. Canadian Mail Distribution Information—Express Messenger International: PO Box 25058, London, Ontario, Canada N6C 6A8. Opinions expressed in Portland are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University administration. Postmaster: Send address changes to Portland Magazine, University of Portland, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203-5798.


EDITOR’S LETTER

N E W DAY REGULAR WALKS WITH my four-year-old are among the silver linings. He is observant. He names things as we pass: ladybug-rock, puddle, dragonfly, bee in the sky, the-samebush-as-the-bush-in-Cooper’s-yard. Something about this practice is keeping my feet on the ground, even if my adult version looks a little different because it involves what I see in the news: nurse-in-a-mask, grocery-store-worker-in-a-mask, parent adjusting to a new juggling act, sick person being sick alone, person grieving through a screen, the violent deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd. There is heaviness here. There is uncertainty here. There is fear-for-the-safety-of-my-Black-husband here. There is work to do, work I need to do for racial justice. Before too long, time carries me forward to another day, and it’s time for another walk, another breath. My son sees: car, plastic flamingo, those-people-I-think-they-might-befollowing-us, toilet… The toilet gives him pause. “Why is there a toilet outside?” And I have to say I don’t know. Some questions are unanswerable. We walk a block. “I have to go to the bathroom,” he says. I know the question coming next. You know the question coming next. “Can I go to the bathroom in that toilet?” “No,” I say. And I smile, which feels like a miracle. Smiles can still happen during a global pandemic, during national upheaval. “Why?” he asks. This time I have an answer, but I also know it won’t be a satisfying one. It’s as unsatisfying as my answers to the questions: “When can I go back to school?” or “When can we visit our grandparents?” or “When will the virus go away?” Or the more serious and unsatisfying answers to the questions that will come about racism in America. Race is something we talk about easily and often in our home, but racism as a subject, while essential, is hard. We try, and we will keep trying. I am writing this essay to you in May, and you will receive the issue in late June. Where will we be in June? I have no idea. We can’t see into the future on a good day and certainly not now. I hope and pray you are OK. I hope you are holding tight to whatever practice is helping you through: your faith, your family, your community, your routines, your bee-in-the-sky field notes, the sun setting over the horizon, the sun rising over the horizon, the actions you pair with your words, the one step then the next, the new day…

Jessica Murphy Moo, Editor

SUMMER 2020

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When Clinical Rotations Were Cut Short, the School of Nursing Found a Solution IN MID-MARCH, just as students were returning from spring break, the global pandemic brought all of our best-laid plans to a screeching halt. At UP students scrambled to relocate, while faculty scrambled to move classes online. Going online presented some unique challenges for the School of Nursing. About 50 senior nursing students were forced to leave their off-campus clinical rotations before they had a chance to earn all of the hours required to receive their degrees. Moving classroom instruction online is one thing, but what about the experience of shadowing other nurses on the job? That can’t be replicated online, can it? Turns out UP’s School of Nursing found a way. “We wanted to take the opportunity to provide something that was really relevant, that matched current circumstances, and [would] push the students even more,” says Michelle Collazo, manager of content at UP’s School of Nursing Simulated Health Center. The team quickly arrived at telehealth medicine visits, which were gaining popularity even before the crisis made in-person doctor visits problematic. By replicating the experience of assessing a patient’s needs over a video call, the students would earn the hours they needed while gaining up-to-the-minute skills that will be in high demand when they graduate. “It turned into this cool opportunity to offer the students a different kind

of simulation,” says Stephanie Meyer, operations manager for the Simulated Health Center. Just like the in-person hospital room simulations the students participate in on campus, the telehealth simulations start with scripts—very detailed scripts—that cover a variety of situations a nurse might encounter today, from someone experiencing COVID-19 symptoms who also struggles with anxiety, to someone needing mental health assistance and a permanent place to live. Instead of computer-generated avatars, mannequins, or even freelance contractors, the School of Nursing employs six actors on staff to portray a wide variety of standardized patients. Although the actors are free to improvise, “we run actual rehearsals,” says Collazo. “Things come up, things to clarify, and we work really hard at that. Doing it online was no exception.” The students were paired up to triage each patient actor during the video calls, one asking detailed questions, gently pushing to get as much clarity as possible, the other recording the answers that they’d use to create an assessment and care recommendation to present to a nurse practitioner. Since they were dealing with real people in real time, anything could happen on these calls, from technical difficulties to bad jokes. “They had to really engage,” says Collazo. “Even though it’s a script, you still have to use clinical judgment for

when to dig deeper. That’s what I hoped to see, and that’s what I did see.” Some of the students found the new simulations to have added value. “Being pulled from my clinical rotation was a bummer for sure,” says senior Jessica Lemon, “but this telehealth sim was so beneficial because it’s so relevant. We’re moving this direction for primary care in the US. And this was the best simulation I’ve had in my entire career at UP.” Fellow senior Kiana Lyons agrees. “Getting to experience what telehealth is like was one of the highlights of my simulation experience. The staff really encouraged us to use our skills and think outside the box. And I get to take these tools moving forward if I work in a clinic.” —Danielle Centoni

FOR MORE NURSING STORIES See our “When Nurses Speak, We Listen” section on page 26.

< Even while stuck at home, UP nursing students were able to gain valuable experience working with patient actors, thanks to the nursing program’s quick pivot to telehealth simulations. Opposite page, clockwise from top left: Sarah Lewis, Kathy Truong, Michelle Collazo (instructor), Alysa Leonard, Mark Eaton (actor), Sophia Marckwordt, David Castillo, Amy Driesler (actor). This page: Shannon McVicar.

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ON THE BLUFF THE WORLD WE LIVE IN

NANCY COPIC

At the entrance to CNN’s New York headquarters, from left to right: William Seekamp, Carlos Fuentes, Clare Duffy ’17, Gabi DiPaulo, Havi Stewart, Molly Lowney, and Fiona O’Brien. Duffy, who writes for CNN Business, was managing editor of The Beacon from 2015 to 2017.

Beacon Reporters Past and Present on the Ground in New York City ON MARCH 11, ESPN NBA reporter Malika Andrews ’17 landed in New York after a long flight from Los Angeles. Although she’d been scheduled to cover a game in Milwaukee, ESPN was pulling reporters back home. She did not yet know that the NBA would suspend its season due to concerns about COVID-19, or that she would be reporting on it that night. In a cab from JFK Airport, Andrews’ phone started to explode with messages. After a quick call from a producer, she dropped her luggage off at her apartment and walked six blocks to a satellite studio. While fielding calls from coaches and players, Andrews went live with SportsCenter’s Scott Van Pelt to report the news. She didn’t leave the studio until 1 a.m. The day after the NBA announcement, Andrews was able to share her experience in-person with six staff members from The Beacon, University of Portland’s award-winning student newspaper. They were in New York for a national conference of student journalists. “It was a cool moment in history to be talking to The Beacon students,” Andrews says. “There aren’t that many events in the world where all sections of the news—from sports to news to science to cartoons—are all covering the same thing.”

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Every year, The Beacon sends student journalists to the annual College Media Association conference in New York City. The six students, along with Nancy Copic, assistant director of student media, were preparing for full days of conference sessions, sightseeing, and meetings with Beacon alumnae (Malika Andrews is a Beacon alum). Just as the students were packing their bags to head to New York, news of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States was starting. “We knew we were going to have to take precautions and practice social distancing, but we didn’t know it was going to get as crazy as it did,” Carlos Fuentes ’22 says. Armed with hand sanitizer and temperature thermometers, The Beacon team traveled to New York City for the conference. As they departed PDX, neither Oregon nor New York had declared stay-at-home orders; the message was still to go about “business as usual.” “I was very aware of the developing situation, and before the trip, I was wondering whether we should go,” Copic says. “I was on a conference call with the chief medical officer for the Oregon Health Authority, who said that shutting down events would be a last resort. I talked to the students ahead of time, and we made the decision to go.”


MOLLY LOWNEY

ESPN NBA reporter Malika Andrews ’17 speaking to Beacon staffers attending the College Media Association conference in New York City in March. Andrews was the 2015–16 sports editor of The Beacon and 2016–17 editor-in-chief.

After touching down in New York City, the students attended the conference sessions and met with other student journalists from around the country. “The conference sessions were super informative and made me excited to get back in the newsroom,” Fuentes says. “I hope to pursue journalism after graduation, so attending the conference was a great way to make connections outside of the UP community.” Although the concerns about COVID-19 were growing, the students were eager to meet with three Beacon alumnae, who all lived in New York City. Along with meeting Andrews, the students were also able to meet with CNN’s Clare Duffy ’17 and Grist’s Rachel Ramirez ’18. “I was star-struck meeting with The Beacon alumni,” Gabi DiPaulo ’21 says. “I loved hearing them talk about their newsroom experiences and how the skills they learned at The Beacon have translated into the real world.” Ramirez, an environmental justice reporter for the news outlet Grist, met with the students at the conference hotel. In another serendipitous moment for The Beacon students, they met with Ramirez the day her story, “How a Chinese immigrant neighborhood is struggling amid coronavirusrelated xenophobia,” was published on Vox. “The students wanted to know how I pitched that story to Vox and what my reporting process was like,” Ramirez says. “They also had a lot of questions about my current position at Grist and my beat of environmental justice and climate change.” The Beacon alumni offer an invaluable network for students and graduating seniors. Copic, former news reporter and KGW-TV anchor, has been The Beacon advisor for 11 years, and she loves bringing together former and current Beacon staff members. “It’s so wonderful to have the students meet with The Beacon alumni because we are all really like a family,” Copic says. “It’s gratifying for me as The Beacon advisor to see these students who come in with no journalism background, to see them now flourishing in a difficult profession.” Beacon alums also value the experience they gained as student journalists.

“I wouldn’t have a job without The Beacon. I knew I liked to write, talk, read, and hear what other people had to say. Before starting at The Beacon, I never thought those interests could be combined into a career,” Andrews says. “I like to say that I majored in The Beacon.” Ramirez adds, “My time at The Beacon was the foundation for me becoming the journalist I am today. Without The Beacon, I wouldn’t have been able make the connections and have the mentors I have today.” Even with the excitement of meeting the three alumnae, many of the conference sessions were being cancelled because of the rapidly changing understanding of COVID-19 and New York’s place as the epicenter of the crisis in the US. The Beacon reporters saw these changes happening in real time during their four-day visit. “Everything changed so much in New York while we were there. The experience of being in Times Square on our first day, where there was a ton of people, to seeing it empty during the last day was crazy. It felt like the start of a movie,” says DiPaulo. As the coverage about the outbreak unfolded, the students would also realize the severity of the situation back home in Portland. “We learned about UP moving to online education while we were listening to the keynote speaker,” Fuentes says. “It was a big source of stress for all of us and was something we weren’t expecting at all.” Thankfully, The Beacon staff made it back home to The Bluff and were all healthy, after self-quarantining for two weeks. With the knowledge, tips, and inspiration from their trip, the students went back to work doing what they do best—they continued to report on campus news from upbeacon.com. “From following the pandemic coverage, I got to see journalism work and adapt to what was currently going on,” DiPaulo says. “Back at The Beacon, we worked day and night to get the important stories out to the students.” —Roya Ghorbani-Elizeh ’11 is a former Beacon reporter.

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ON THE BLUFF EN ROUTE

El Momento On the occasion of what would have been her commencement, this first-generation college graduate reaches out to the woman who inspired her.

TE SY PH OTOS CO UR

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OF AI LYN LO PE

Z MON AR REZ

Cuando tenías mi edad, llegaste a este país para seguir un sueño. Trabajaste duro para poder tener un techo, comprar tu propio carro y tener un trabajo estable. Lejos quedó atrás tu sueño de seguir tu educación académica. Después, yo llegué a tu mundo, y este cambió completamente. Pusiste las piezas en movimiento para que tu hija pudiera lograr sus sueños, y obtuviera ese sueño americano del cual tanto habías oído y anhelado. Así, tu sueño se hizo el mío. Y, mami, ¿qué crees?, ¡lo logré! Juntas hicimos lo necesario para que fuera a la Universidad de Portland por cuatro años. Siempre supimos que todo lo que íbamos a necesitar para poder obtener este título, lo teníamos dentro de nosotras. Cuando los boletos para la ceremonia de gradación estuvieron disponibles, me desperté temprano para poder agarra los mejores asientos, ¡y los conseguí! Ibas a estar bien cerca del escenario. Por primera vez, ibas a ver a toda mi clase junta, a mis compañeros y a mis amigos. Te habría sorprendido esta ceremonia. Habrías escuchado los increíbles discursos, y cuando fuera el turno para que mi fila subiera al escenario, ¡me habrías visto preparándome y echándole porras a mis compañeros porque ellos también lo lograron! Finalmente, sería mi turno, tu pequeña niña, caminando por el escenario. En ese momento, puedo claramente imaginarte sonriendo y tratando de grabar cada detalle con lo mejor de tus habilidades. Quizás, por un segundo, pensarías en cómo sería todo si tú fueras esa niña, pero después no importaría porque estarías feliz—estás feliz—de que una de las dos lo hizo. Entregándome mi diploma, estaría el doctor Herbert Medina, el decano del Colegio de Artes y Ciencias, una de las personas que más me ha apoyado. Lo admiro mucho alguna vez, él estuvo en mi lugar, en un momento similar. Sin duda, le daría un abrazo grande. Después, yo bajaría del escenario con mi diploma en la mano, te miraría a los ojos, casi llorando, y te diría: ¡Mira lo que hicimos! Ese instante ahí, es el momento que estuve esperando todos estos años, que ambas estábamos esperando. En estos cuatro años, hice siempre todo para que te sintieras orgullosa de mí, para que tu trabajo y dedicación valieran la pena. Logré muchos de mis sueños durante este tiempo: fui líder en mi dormitorio, fundé y fui la presidenta del Club de Mujeres de Color, y fui embajadora estudiantil para la oficina de admisiones. En el Día de los Fundadores me iban a dar un premio, y me gradué con honores. Todo esto, y todo lo que vendrá después, es para ti, mamá. Nunca me rajé, y nunca lo haré. Este no va a ser el último momento de nuestra vida académica, vamos a seguir, te prometo. No lo podría hacer sin ti, mami. Es gracias a tu apoyo incondicional y a tus enseñanzas que hoy el mundo pude ver a una universitaria de primera generación, a una hija de inmigrantes y a una mujer de color lograrlo. ¡Mil gracias, te amo!


EN H EI M ADAM GU GG

When you came into this country at my age to follow your dream, you worked so hard to put a roof over your head, buy your own car, and have a stable job; higher education seemed like a long-lost dream. Then I came into the picture and your whole world changed. You set the pieces in motion so that your daughter could obtain her dreams, to obtain that American Dream you’d heard so much about. Your dream became mine. Guess what, Mom, I did it; ¡lo logre! You and I have done what was necessary to get me through four years here at the University of Portland. We knew we had it in each other to obtain this degree. When tickets for commencement became available, I woke up early to get the best seats for you, and I did! You would have been really close to the stage. For the first time you would see my whole class, my classmates, and my friends. You would have been amazed by this ceremony and the incredible speeches. Once it was time for my row to be up, you would see me preparing myself to walk the stage and see me cheering for my friends, because they did it too! Then it would be time for me, your little girl, to cross that stage. At that moment I imagine you smiling and recording it with your phone to the best of your abilities, maybe thinking about what could have been if that had been you, but absolutely glad that finally one of us made it. Handing me my diploma would be Dr. Herbert Medina, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, one of the people I admire and count as one of my big supporters. He was once me at that moment. I would have for sure given him a big hug. I would walk off the stage with my diploma in hand to look in your eyes, probably holding back tears, and say, “¡Mira lo que hicimos! Look what we did!” That moment right there would have been that memory I had been waiting for, that we had been waiting for, for so long. I did as much as I could to make you proud, to make this all seem worth your hard work and dedication to me. I accomplished many dreams throughout my four years: I was a leader in my dorm; I was co-founder and co-president of the Women of Color Club; I became student ambassador for the Office of Admissions; I would have been given awards on Founders’ Day; and lastly I graduated with honors. All of this and what comes after was for you, Mom. Nunca me raje y no voy a comenzar; I never gave up and I won’t now. This will not be the last memory of our higher education route; we are going to keep going, I promise. I could not have done it without you, Mom. Without your unconditional support and teachings, the world could have not seen what this first-generation, daughter of immigrants, woman of color college student could do. ¡Mil gracias! Thank you so much, Mami,

Ailyn Lopez Monarrez

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ON THE BLUFF THE EXPERTS

THOMAS G. GREENE, EdD Provost

Congratulations on your retirement, Dr. Greene, and thank you UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND’S PROVOST, Thomas G. Greene, Before becoming a full-time member of the UP commuEdD, is retiring this month after serving the University for nity in 2004, Greene enjoyed a long and distinguished career more than 35 years, first as an adjunct and most recently as in public education. Among many other posts, he served as chief academic officer. Not only has his leadership increased a K-12 educator; principal of East Orient School in Gresham; overall enrollment, retention, and graduation rates, but he has superintendent of the Orient School District; and assistant also worked tirelessly to strengthen student support and superintendent of the Gresham-Barlow and Beaverton invigorate the academic fabric of life on The Bluff. School Districts. While at University of Portland, he held leadFrom very early on, there really was no other career choice ership positions as associate dean of the School of Education for him; he always knew he would be an educator. “I have (2004–2007), associate provost and dean of the Graduate always been happily on the path,” he says. And he credits his School (2007–2012), interim dean of the School of Education Aunt Audrey, whom he describes as “a gregarious, filled-with- (2009–2010), and interim provost (2012–2013) before being adventure teacher,” with igniting his love of learning. Greene named the University provost in 2013. may also be the first provost in the history of provosts to have Even as his leadership responsibilities increased, he never taught kindergarten through doctoral students—including strayed from what got him into the education field in the first outdoor school for middle-schoolers and driver’s ed. place. A brilliant, devoted teacher, he has continued to teach An Oregon native, his formative years and his first 18 years a course each semester, keeping his connection to students. as an educator were spent in North Clackamas, where he Stephanie Scroggins ’13, a former student and current learned about the benefits of 360-degree support for students fourth-grade teacher at Glenfair Elementary, took as many and where he first saw the transformative nature of relation- classes with Greene as she could and feels grateful for the ships on a young person’s education. His decision to come to pivotal instruction he offered when she was a student teacher. University of Portland was a natural extension of Greene’s “I would go to him for support,” she says. “He would always teaching philosophy—that education and formation involve bring in real-life examples and be able to relate to us, rather the whole person. than saying, ‘This is what the book says.’ He has genuine care Greene found a spiritual home with the Congregation of Holy for students he has had in class. He really gets to know his Cross. He was recently awarded a Spirit of Holy Cross Award, students. He knew me personally.” given by the Congregation to lay people who have been partners So let us say this, Tom Greene: With great regard for your in service to the world. This year the University awarded him its warm, dapper, dignified persona, manifested in absolute loyalty highest honor, the Christus Magister Medal, in the name of Christ and fealty to the University’s mission; with gratitude for your the Teacher, presented annually to men and women who have, vision and lasting impact on thousands of students past, present, in far-reaching ways, incarnated the University’s dedication to and future; and with respect and affection for your undying love for our community, the University of Portland thanks you. superb teaching, active faith, and selfless service.

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ON THE BLUFF CAMPUS BRIEFS

Since 2017, this Fund has helped students stay enrolled while experiencing hardships such as parental unemployment, family medical illnesses, loss of a family member, and even natural disasters. Today, the Fund is a key part of the University’s response to COVID-19— helping students like Ezekiel with travel back to their homes, access to needed academic technology, and, in some cases, support for their families facing new economic hardship. We need to continue to build this Fund to provide vital support for tuition assistance and meet unanticipated needs of students and their families. giving.up.edu/hope

UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND celebrated its Commencement in a virtual ceremony on Sunday, May 3, honoring 1,071 graduates. University President Rev. Mark L. Poorman, CSC, conferred bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees, and his remarks stressed the virtues of persistence, wisdom, faith, generosity, and joy, specifically, “the joy that comes from the rock-solid commitment that we do not journey alone,” he said. Honorary doctorate recipients were Nancy K. Bryant; Cheryle A. Kennedy; Marilynne S. Robinson, PhD; and Rev. H. Richard Rutherford, CSC, PhD. University provost Thomas G. Greene, EdD, received the Christus Magister Medal. An in-person Commencement ceremony for the Class of 2020 will be held on campus at a future date.

LISA KHULMAN, WINDOWS ON LIFE PHOTOGRAPHY

When Ezekiel, a junior computer science major and AFROTC cadet, learned that campus was closing for most UP students in March, he was faced with the challenge of returning home to Saipan, more than 5,500 miles away. Thanks to Presidential Hope Fund donors, the University was able to get Ezekiel the ticket he needed to get home to his family.

First Virtual Commencement in UP’s History

UP Women in Business FOR MANY, the Women in Business Showcase, sponsored by the Pamplin School of Business and held at the Portland Art Museum on March 11, 2020, was the last big event on the calendar before the University put social distancing restrictions in place. The discussion involved inspiring (and frank) words from women who have worked hard for their success while balancing family, shifting workplace priorities, and finding their voice in the C-suite. Panelists included UP alumnae Janet Campbell ’98, vice present and chief of staff at Cambia Health Solutions (left), and Lena Wittler ’03, CEO of Clark Public Utilities (right), and Anne Weaver of Elephants Delicatessen (middle). Katherine Phillips Durham ’88, a recent inductee into the Pamplin School of Business Hall of Fame, moderated the discussion.

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ON THE BLUFF CAMPUS BRIEFS

Dean Robin Anderson Retires ROBIN ANDERSON, DEAN of the Robert B. Pamplin School of Business, came to University of Portland to start new things, and start things he did. He built the successful Entrepreneur Scholars Program from the ground up; he founded the Franz Center for Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation; and he established the annual $100K Challenge (now Pilots Venture Competition). He was also instrumental in starting the annual Women in Business Showcase event in Portland, featuring C-level executives and their career paths. Anderson’s talents as an entrepreneurship evangelist led him to develop entrepreneurship centers in Albania, the Ukraine, and Tajikistan, and to create educational non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in more than 20 countries and 400 universities globally. Dean since 2006, Anderson strengthened ties with alumni and industry partners around the world and expanded academic offerings through the creation of new disciplines, specializations, and certificate programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He also made sure the Entrepreneur Scholars came from every academic discipline. Thank you, Dean Anderson, for inspiring so many new ideas and careers from your Pamplin School of Business corner of The Bluff.

Shiley Showcase The Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering went all-hands-on-deck to make sure their 144 senior engineering students had the opportunity to complete and present their year-long capstone projects. The digital Shiley Showcase, held on April 24, was a rousing success. (It was so well-attended that they may offer a livecast option next year as well.) Student teams presented a range of projects, including irrigation design for a school in Malawi, a wetlands treatment system with Port of Portland, games developed for blind users, and an accessible vehicle for kids in partnership with Go Baby Go. They may have made it look easy, but we know better. Shiley Strong indeed!

Welcome, Dean Brian Fabien DR. BRIAN FABIEN technically begins as the new dean of the Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering on July 1, though he was already “here” for the successful digital 2020 Shiley Showcase. Fabien joins UP from the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was most recently associate dean of academic affairs for the College of Engineering and professor of mechanical engineering. He holds a PhD, master of philosophy, and master of science degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University in New York; and a bachelor of engineering with honors degree from the City College of New York. Prior to his arrival in the University of Washington system in 1993, Fabien held professorships at the University of the West Indies and Ohio University. A corporate career in engineering preceded academia, highlighted by his role as the lead mechanical engineer overseeing the guidance sensors for the famed Hubble Space Telescope.

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ON THE BLUFF DREAM TEAMS

First Pitch Fontaine and Dr. Chi met regularly with the student team to go over iterations of their design, ensuring all components were compatible and capable of performing the required tasks. “It’s been fantastic working with the University of Portland students. They are so inspiring and really push and elevate the designs,” Dr. Chi says. “We are all learning together on how to bridge patient clinical care and engineering.” A self-described inventor and “tinkerer,” Fontaine has always enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together. He now finds himself doing just this on a big and important scale. In the future, Fontaine plans to continue tinkering and to one day start his own company. “I feel like I have a lot to give to the world in the bionics field.” —Roya Ghorbani-Elizeh ’11

ADAM GUGGENHEIM

ENGINEERING ALUM Evan Fontaine ’18, ’19 works in the prostheses lab at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) with a clear mission in mind: to make better prosthetics for growing and active children. Case in point: he and his team are working to set up a young patient to throw the first pitch at the National Softball Championship. Fontaine is both senior research assistant to OHSU trauma surgeon Dr. Albert Chi and mentor to four Donald P. Shiley School of Engineering seniors. “My projects and research are very important to me because we are aiming to bring bionics down to an approachable level, both in price and complication, so that the average person could use the device in their day-to-day lives,” Fontaine says. “Being able to give someone some of their dexterity back, or enable them with it for the first time, is really an amazing experience.” Fontaine is also currently working on a cable-driven hand system—a myoelectric prosthetic hand—that has six degrees of control, one for each finger and two for the thumb. This prosthetic, which uses nerve-reading circuitry, will have a variety of grip types and motions for the user. “I love that my job has a fantastic mix of theory and practice as well as the freedom that this design process gives me,” Fontaine says. “It’s very satisfying to work for a positive goal instead of a bottom line.” This past semester the four Shiley School of Engineering students worked in Dr. Chi’s lab for their senior capstone project. The team—Kristen LeBar ’20, Jacob Apenes ’20, Alexis Peltier ’20, and Claire McKinnon ’20—worked to develop and design a 3D-printed lower arm myoelectric prosthesis that will be given to a specific user at the end of the project. “This kind of project allows us to apply what we have learned in the classroom and to grow as engineers, team members, and people,” Peltier says. “It has given us a better idea of where our interests lie for a successful and meaningful engineering career.”

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PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE ETZEL FAMILY

ON THE BLUFF SPORTS

If You Build It…

The University’s new baseball stadium will need to wait until next season for its premiere, so we’re taking this opportunity to look back on the blood, sweat, and puddle suckers that got us here.

LOCATED JUST OUTSIDE Howard Hall and facing Willamette Boulevard, University of Portland’s original baseball diamond was at best an acceptable playing field with ramshackle bleachers and little else, but it served as home to Pilots baseball for nearly six decades, from 1903 to the late 1950s. Plans for construction of Shipstad Hall placed the new dorm squarely in left field, and UP athletic director Al Negratti had the team move to a new diamond facing an open field where the Chiles Center stands now. “It wasn’t much of a field,” Joe Etzel ’60 says now, “and the sun was always in everyone’s eyes. My first season coaching there in spring of 1966 we dropped a game to OSU because our center fielder lost a ball in the sun. I decided, ‘We’re not gonna lose another game to the sun,’ so we moved to where the field is now.” The immediate problem Etzel faced was that there was no baseball field to move to. With tacit approval, no budget, and his players—including Tom Campbell ’69, Mike Mako ’77, and future Pilots head coach Terry Pollreisz ’69—the creation of a new Pilots baseball field from scratch became Etzel’s 1966 summer project. “Bernie Harrington (’42) was on the athletic board, and I had coached his boys at Central Catholic,” Etzel recalls. “He was in the concrete business and donated his time to rough out the new field with a bulldozer. My players and I did the fine work with rakes and shovels and planted grass. We moved the bleachers and backstop from the old diamond and started from there.” Since the 1967 season, Pilots baseball has called that very same field home.

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Improvements came gradually as Joe scrimped and saved and cajoled donations of materials, equipment, expertise, and good old-fashioned elbow grease. The first dugouts weren’t actually dug out; that came later when Jeff Heller ’79 was roped in to bring his family construction business’s backhoe and dig out proper three-step dugouts. Etzel drove a (loaned) dump truck to Mehling gulch and got rid of the dirt. “We’d work in the evening before it got dark,” Joe says now. “No budget and we got our hands dirty, but that’s how we got things done!” Joe and his wife, Judy ’62, raised their family of four—Jim ’85, Kathy ’86, Susan ’90, and Tom ’96—on the Pilots field as well. Jim remembers digging sprinkler trenches by hand as a freshman in high school. “For ten consecutive summers I worked on that field,” he recalls fondly. “I still got calls from the physical plant when they couldn’t figure out where the pipes were! My brother, Tom, put in his high school and college summers too.” Depending on their ages the kids held a number of responsibilities during ball games. Toward the end of Joe’s 21-year coaching career, you’d find Jim at the mic in the announcer’s booth, Judy and Susan running concessions, Kathy in the ticket booth, and Tom serving as batboy. Tom went on to play for the Pilots too. The maintenance department built a metal scoreboard and pitched in to cut the outfield grass, but it was up to the baseball team to care for the infield until artificial turf was installed prior to the 2015 season. “That’s just the way baseball is, though,” according to Joe. “Other schools didn’t have to build


Top left to right: The first Pilots field in its present location; work begins on Pilot Stadium grandstands, 1987. Bottom left to right: Complimentary concrete pour, 1987; Joe Etzel and Terry Pollreisz unveil Pilot Stadium.

their own fields, but as far as dragging the infield, taking care of the mound and the plate, watering and mowing, it’s always fallen to coaches and players.” His son Jim points out, “UP players always went above and beyond when it came to maintaining that field. They took a lot of pride in the fact that it was known as the best collegiate baseball field in the northwest.” Portland weather being what it is, Joe Etzel’s most unrelenting nemesis was rain. Nothing aggravated him more than games called on account of rain, and as always he was forced to get creative when it came to getting rid of standing water on his field. “I invented this thing we called the ‘Pilots Puddle Sucker,’” he says, laughing even now. “I got Roy Lehman in maintenance to weld a shop-vac onto an old 55-gallon drum and attached it to a hand truck. We’d roll it up to a puddle, suck up the water with a hose, and move on to the next puddle. I should have patented that thing. It was famous!” The stadium that was recently demolished helped elevate the Pilots baseball program (that and the Pilots Puddle Sucker, of course). The 1,100-seat grandstand was built by Joe, his new head coach Terry Pollreisz, and Terry’s dad, of entirely donated materials save for the seats, and according to Joe and Jim, it was the first college baseball stadium with actual grandstands—not bleachers—in Oregon. Alumni and friends chipped in too—too many to name everyone, but Joe recalls Greg Dube ’88, Bryan Olden ’85, Glenn Hoffinger ’88, his son Jim, and many others swinging hammers during the off-season. “Once we built Pilot Stadium in 1987, it sparked

a number of different facilities being built around the region. And it was the pride of our players that kept the thing going all those years.” Jim still marvels at his dad’s prowess at securing donated building materials. “Ross Island Sand & Gravel donated a lot of concrete, thanks to my dad’s friendship with their dispatcher. At the end of the day, cement trucks always have leftovers, and they usually take it to a concrete dump. So they would drive to UP, and you might get a 10-by-10 patch or a 50-by-50 patch for free. My dad and Terry would drop everything and run over to do some concrete work.” Much of the wood was donated by Frank Lumber; Jim Frank ’71 played basketball and baseball for the Pilots. The Etzels are realistic about the need to replace the stadium they built but can’t help feeling nostalgic now that it’s gone. “It was starting to have dry rot and that sort of thing,” Joe explains. “It served its purpose. But yeah, it was emotional. A lot of good things happened there.” And what about the new stadium? “It was built thanks to donations, too,” Joe says. “We worked on it for a long time. Scott Leykam, the development crew, and many generous donors made it possible, since first making plans in 2012. My understanding is that the contractor will sign it over to UP on June 14, but then we’ll have to wait six or eight months for the next baseball season.” Joe allows himself a heavy sigh. “It’s just going to have to sit there all by itself.” —Marcus Covert ’93, ’97

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ADAM GUGGENHEIM

ON THE BLUFF SECOND LOOK


UP students pounding the earth at Horsethief Butte along the Columbia River during the first Environmental Justice Immersion, hosted by the Moreau Center for Service and Justice. In Portland, students learned from environmental activists and the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon. Beyond Portland, students traveled to Salem to speak with Sen. Lew Frederick about civil rights, to Mosier to speak with the mayor about her advocacy work after an oil spill, and to the Columbia River Gorge to learn from the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission and tribal members in Celilo Village.

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BART NAGEL PHOTOGRAPHY

THE DREAM IS INTACT


Every day—even now, especially now—Fedele Bauccio ’64, ’66 is feeding people who need healthy food. In March he partnered with World Central Kitchen to feed passengers and crew quarantined on the Grand Princess cruise ship. BY J E S S ICA M U R P H Y MO O

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F

EDELE BAUCCIO has spent most of the COVID-19 lockdown days on the phone in his home in San Francisco. There is nothing typical about this workday routine. Usually he is traveling around the country giving lectures on college campuses on sustainability, informing Congress about the effects of antibiotics on livestock, or checking on Bon Appétit Management Company’s more than 1,600 restaurant sites in museums, universities, and corporate campuses in 34 states. He was in New York opening 13 new sites at the Metropolitan Art Museum when the governor shut everything down. He’s been taking long walks every morning to get some fresh air—following safety guidelines, wearing a mask, he’s quick to note. He goes to the Presidio in San Francisco, which has lots of open space. Some days he walks across the Golden Gate Bridge. If he needs to go to the grocery store, he gets on his Vespa. In the evenings he gravitates toward the stove. He’s been cooking his mother’s tomato sauce, an act that somehow seems more prayer than preparation. He remembers watching her at work, remembers the smells of garlic, roasted peppers, onions, and oregano. In many ways, these fresh ingredients, and the family that would gather to eat together, are where his dreams for Bon Appétit really began. He also says that cooking this dish is therapeutic, and therapy is good for him right now because social distancing protocols are, as he says, “driving me crazy.” He doesn’t argue with the reasoning for the precautions. It’s just that he is not someone who sits still, and social distancing runs counter to his dream of building community, bringing people together, through food. Right now, with the stay-at-home mandates still in place, that dream can’t happen, and it’s been tough. The path forward for everyone—and particularly for the food industry—is unclear. The vast majority of his restaurants and campus kitchens are shut down. Very few students remain on college campuses, and they get their food to go. Bauccio is worried about his employees—as of March there were 25,000 of them, working in spaces as wide ranging as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Getty, Google, Universal Studios, Twitter, Nordstrom, Adobe, and all manner of universities from coast

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to coast, including University of Portland. And then there are all the farmers, all the farmworkers, all the truck drivers, who are part of his supply chain too, and all of the people who live nearby who are hungry. I admit I wondered if now might not be the right time to talk to Fedele Bauccio. He is carrying a big weight. When I mentioned these feelings of caution to Kirk Mustain, general manager of University of Portland’s Bon Appétit services who has worked for Bauccio for 29 years, he said, “Seeing how someone works in times of adversity…these are the times that really matter. Fedele, he believes in what he’s doing.” So I went ahead and made the call. And he picked up because picking up the phone is something Fedele Bauccio is known to do. After the news broke that the Grand Princess cruise ship was quarantined off the coast of California due to a COVID-19 outbreak onboard, he got a different kind of a call. It was José Andrés, celebrity chef/humanitarian and founder of World Central Kitchen, the disaster food relief NGO. “Can you get me a kitchen?” Andrés asked. Bon Appétit Management Company runs the Marketplace Café at University of San Francisco, whose students happened to be on spring break when the Grand Princess crisis occurred. That meant there was space in the kitchen to work. Bauccio confirmed that indeed he could get Andrés a kitchen, and the operation to feed the 3,500 passengers and crew began. Within 12 hours of that phone call, the kitchen and food production were up and running in the Marketplace Café at USF, with World Central Kitchen staff and a range of 12 to 30 Bon Appétit associates on site each day, creating and packaging daily meals for the individuals quarantined on the ship. The assembly line included staff and volunteers from around the Bay Area. The chefs were responsible for cooking and handling the food, but Bon Appétit team members from all departments, drivers to executives, took part in the packaging and delivery. It was all hands on deck. “Doing these kinds of things strengthens the culture of a company. We’re like a family at Bon Appétit,” Bauccio says. “That family comes together.” With a core shared belief that food can change the world, Bauccio and Andrés have been partners before, and they will—no doubt—find ways to work together again. Depending on the crisis and food relief needs, sometimes World Central Kitchen needs chefs. Sometimes they need contacts in a supply chain. Sometimes they need funding for operations or hardware such as water sanitation equipment. Because Bon Appétit’s founding dream—the company has a “dream” rather than a mission statement—aims to give back to the community through healthy, sustainable food, Bauccio says volunteers from the company always rise to the occasion when a crisis hits. “Our people step up,” Bauccio says. “It’s part of what we do. We bring people together, putting the right food into people’s bodies. I am really lucky.” In recent years, Bon Appétit chefs have helped with hurricane relief in Puerto Rico, floods in Nebraska, and fires in California.


BART NAGEL PHOTOGRAPHY

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All told, the Bon Appétit-World Central Kitchen partnership made about 50,000 meals for passengers and crew of the Grand Princess cruise ship. They initially thought they’d need to bring the food over by helicopter, but the ship eventually docked in Oakland, and they were able to truck the food over and use a forklift to get the meals onboard. The meals included the fresh ingredients Bon Appétit has built its reputation on. On the menu were salads, jambalaya, and soy-glazed salmon. “You wouldn’t believe the notes I got from people saying, ‘This is the best food we got,’” Bauccio says.

Many, many organizations have been calling him for help— the needs are great—but if he can’t guarantee the safety of his workers, he has to say no. Safety continues to be a top priority. “The issue for me is protocol. I want to be sure our people are safe and come back with no harm.” And these safety concerns extend to farm workers too. Bauccio has made it his life’s work to study and know Bon Appétit’s supply chain and improve it, whether that is through sustainable fisheries, advocating for farmworkers’ rights or animal welfare, or making connections between our food system and climate change. As he has gathered evidence, he has come to the conclusion that the model of agriculture that we use in this country is “broken,” and then he has set about looking for ways within his sphere of influence to make change.

All told, the Bon Appétit-World Central Kitchen partnership made about 50,000 meals for passengers and crew of the Grand Princess cruise ship. They initially thought they’d need to bring the food over by helicopter, but the ship eventually docked in Oakland, and they were able to truck the food over and use a forklift to get the meals onboard. Though he is eager to help, Bauccio remains very cautious about safety protocols, sanitation, and protecting his workers. “I was scared to death,” he says of the potential proximity of his workers to those affected by COVID-19. “I worked to make sure our own people would be safe.” He was quick to make clear that none of his workers stepped foot on the ship. As the effects of the virus on our society have unfolded, Bauccio has continued to explore options for using Bon Appétitrun kitchens to make food for people who need it. University kitchens have become what he calls community kitchens. At the University of Chicago, the output is up to 225,000 meals per week going to homeless shelters and food-insecure communities. At Transylvania University in Lexington, KY, they are feeding homeless men who are taking residence in the dorms. And there are all manner of stories about his staff trying to bring good food and comfort to the few students remaining on college campuses. When a company’s culture gives autonomy and creative license to chefs over their own menus, you get examples like the following: at Washington & Jefferson University, most of the remaining students are international students, so the chefs asked these students to tell them what their comfort foods were back home so they could try to recreate those meals for them. At University of Portland, the Bon Appétit chefs created 140 study snack-packs for students the weekend before finals. How beautiful, simple, and not-so-simple are gestures like these? When I spoke to Bauccio, he was waiting on the city of San Francisco to give him the green light to feed houseless individuals taking shelter in local hotels. He gets frustrated with delays. He is ready to donate food—his generosity is a fact. He wants to get his people to work, and he wants to feed people who are hungry.

An example: In 2009, Bauccio was at Washington University in St. Louis giving a lecture on sustainability. One of the students raised her hand and offered a challenge. “Mr. Bauccio,” she asked, “do you know what’s going on in Immokalee, Florida, with the tomatoes?” “I said, ‘No, I don’t know,’” Bauccio says, “‘but I’d like to know more. Come see me after this.’” She told him there was slavery happening on farms there and that he shouldn’t be buying tomatoes from them. We have all seen people in power receive challenging information. Let’s imagine, for one blessed moment, what the world might be like if all leaders responded in the following way. He listened to this student. Then he bought a plane ticket to Florida. He also brought with him a Washington Post reporter and a Bon Appétit chef who spoke the Central Mexican language that most of the workers spoke. (“I did my research,” Bauccio says.) He wanted to see what was happening with his own eyes. “They told me to get there at five in the morning,” he says.“It’s dark. I go to the center of this town, and all these Mexicans are getting on a bus. I follow them in a car, and they drive for about an hour and they go into the fields. I’m watching what’s going on, they’re not working, they’re just waiting for the sun to get up and the frost to get off the field. They’re not getting paid during this time. Finally, at 10 o’clock, it’s so damn hot, you need water. I’m looking around: there’s no bathrooms, there’s no water, there’s nothing. I snuck into the fields with the reporter. We actually got some pictures and stuff, and I saw young children.” Then, with the help of his chef-interpreter, he met with some of the workers and started asking questions. He asked about conditions, and he asked about what workers needed. He also saw where some workers were being locked up. “It was slavery,” he says.

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In partnership with The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an “I said, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’” Fedele said. organization fighting for humane farm labor standards in “You’ll figure it out. It’ll be fine,” said Fr. Waldschmidt. Florida, he drew up a code of conduct and told the landowners Turns out Fr. Waldschmidt was right. Fedele ran the food of the four tomato farms in question that he wouldn’t buy their program while he was still a student. There were 800 students tomatoes until there were changes. At the time Bon Appétit total at that time. He figured out how to get them breakfast wasn’t as big as it is today. “They laughed at me,” he says. For six and lunch, and then the whole student body had a sit-down to eight months they didn’t serve any tomatoes, an act that was dinner together. applauded by students. Eventually, he got Chipotle and Whole Then he worked in the industry for about 20 years before Foods to join him, and changes came. The change wasn’t perfect, starting a company of his own based on his dream of nutrition, but it was a start, and he now has third-party auditors moni- quality ingredients, and sustainable practices. “People thought toring how farms are performing and treating their workers. I was crazy,” he says. “They’d say, ‘This is not what this industry is about. You’re never going to make any money.’ It wasn’t about Bon Appétit is now big enough to influence change on its money for me. It was about how do we do something uniquely own. Because his restaurants span the US, Bauccio knows different to change an industry to help change the world?” the big picture of agriculture in this country. Talking to him is not only an education on the movement of produce—did you know that all tomatoes east of the Mississippi are grown in Florida, picked green, and treated in Texas before distribution?—but also about the ways in which certain practices are wreaking havoc on the environment and oceans. Bauccio believes that part of the answer is in local, sustainable practices. Bon Appétit requires all his Helping to change the world is a big dream. And given the chefs to source 20 percent of food from a radius less than present circumstances, a lot of that dream is hanging in an 150 miles. Bauccio also believes that another part of the uncomfortable balance. answer is systemic. With the need for social distancing, the pandemic has hit From 2006 to 2008, he served on the Pew Commission on the food services industry hard. (If you haven’t read the New Industrial Farm Animal Production. He fully absorbed the York Times piece about Prune restaurant in New York City, you impact of animal waste on waterways and the environment; should have a look at how the individual restaurant-owner is he saw chickens in battery cages and sows in places where they being impacted at this time.) Bauccio believes he can weather couldn’t move, practices he says are “disgusting” and that he this storm, but the way forward is still unclear. no longer supports. He won a James Beard Foundation And in the meantime he has had to make some difficult Leadership Award for his efforts to encourage socially respon- decisions, including furloughs and salary cuts to the top tier. sible food practices, and the company has also been recognized It has been painful to furlough so many of his employees— by The Humane Society of the United States, Seafood Choices more than 16,000 people—though he has maintained their Alliance, and Food Alliance, among others. health benefits and intentionally used the furlough option Another partial answer to making change, in Bauccio’s view, so that workers would be able to get unemployment immeis the role of young people. He listens to them. diately. The intention is to hire them back once we can begin Remember that young college student who raised her hand to return to normal. and called him out about the Florida tomato workers? Well, Though, as he says, “What will be the new normal?” she went to work for him in the Bon Appétit fellowship proRight now he is waiting for the phone call from the San gram, where fellows tour and audit farms to make sure the Francisco mayor, and he’s waiting for social distancing restricfarmers are making good on their promises. tions to slowly lift. He’s not sure how it will work. How long “Students really get it,” he says. “They understand the whole before people can eat together again? And what steps will come world of sustainability and the environment and where we are first? When will people even feel comfortable heading back to today and how we need to make sure we do the right things museums? When will universities and corporate campuses for future generations. They get it a hell of a lot more than we reopen, and even then, what is the safest way to feed people? do. I really believe the next generation is going to help us This is not a profile with a tidy closing. As we go to press, change the world in the right ways. At least that’s my dream.” Fedele Bauccio is still worried. He is still on the phone. He is still Given these views, it makes sense that he is so involved with going for walks to get some fresh air and calm his nerves. He is universities and that a university is where he got his start. still heading to the kitchen in need of that holy therapy. He His origin story has been written in these pages before, but is still trying to get his people back to work, and he is still trying it’s worth retelling. Fedele Bauccio got his start in the dining to find ways to feed the hungry. The truth is he doesn’t know hall here at University of Portland. “I didn’t have any money the future any better than any of us knows it. What he does know to get through college, so I started washing dishes,” he says. is that he will emerge with his company’s dream intact. Then he became a manager. Eventually, Fr. Waldschmidt, who was president of UP during Fedele’s junior year, handed young JESSICA MURPHY MOO is the editor of this magazine. Fedele the keys to the kitchen.

“Students really get it. I really believe the next generation is going to help us change the world in the right ways. At least that’s my dream.”

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BAMCO

Fedele Bauccio (left) with some of the Bon AppĂŠtit volunteers from Chase Center, the Presidio, and elsewhere, along with World Central Kitchen leadership.

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Math at Home for Grandpa Gabe

BY ST E P H A N I E A N N E SA LOMON E I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y J O N AT H A N H I L L

MY KIDS LIKE to tell me that I’m a doctor, but not a useful perception data on my side. I am a mentor to other faculty doctor, and that’s true. When the flight attendant asks, “Is there members. I may not have Mr. Universe-level awards, but I’m a doctor on the plane?” they don’t mean a PhD, and they cer- no slouch, either. Milo flounces. I stare back and raise one tainly don’t mean someone who is especially helpful only in a eyebrow, and he makes a grunting noise that all parents of mathematical emergency. The COVID-19 crisis, though, could preteens recognize as, “Fine. I’ll do what you say, but I still think be the time that we P(hD)arents shine in the eyes of our chil- you are totally unreasonable.” His angst and insult are not dren. We know things about things, we teach, and we have skills worth it, but I’d like to take the moment to teach him about that, while not sexy enough to make exciting career-day talks proportional response. I don’t. He solves the problem on his (research, reading graphs in scientific journal articles, data own. It turns out the denominator was 15, not 8. analysis), might come in handy when it comes to Common Core. Except…not. Because unless I can make every math example II. Jude, who is nine and has, for nine years, alternated unpreinto a fart joke, my boys aren’t interested in being taught by me. dictably between who we call “Agreeable Jude” and “Contrary Jude,” has taken to writing IMPOSSIBLE next to the math I. Milo is working on proportional reasoning. Ratios. He’s problems he can’t solve immediately. “You know, some problems getting more and more wound up because I’m asking him to just take more steps,” I tell him, and he rolls his eyes and emphatreread the word problem. He is bright and just needs to slow ically pushes his breath out his nose. Apparently he’s Contrary down. “JUST BECAUSE YOUR DIPLOMA WAS SIGNED BY Jude right now. I try again, “If you ask me what mathematics is, THE TERMINATOR DOESN’T MEAN YOU KNOW ANYTHING I would say mathematics is breaking up a big problem into small ABOUT TEACHING MATH!” my sixth grader bellows, and he’s problems, and then solving those. Maybe we can do that?” right, in part. The then-gubernator of California did sign my “Fine, Mama, but could you at least make it interesting doctoral mathematics diploma. Milo is also right that my this time?” mastery of a subject does not guarantee that I would be a Jude loves baseball so much that, before the season starts, strong teacher of that subject. But I have 23 years of student he can name every Pilot player by number, position, and

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walk-on music, so I say, “One inning is one-ninth of a baseball game so what fraction is three innings?” “It depends. This is a nonsense question. What if the game has extra innings like that time the Pilots played Gonzaga for seventeen innings and you made us go home?”

really important. Why should someone just believe you? Why should someone believe me?” He blinked. “You don’t understand, MAMA. And you DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT.” Normally I would be able to brush off that slight and let my inside voice handle it, because Theodore is six and I am…rational, but not today. Not in what is supposed to be my moment to shine. “Pal,” I say in a way that makes me seem calm even though I’m really about to lose it, “I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I’ve won teaching awards at every institution I’ve taught at. And from the Oregon Academy of Science. And, you know, my students like me, and I really do know a lot of math, and if you’d just stop yelling at me, I’m pretty sure I can help you with this.” He put down the pencil. He looked over at me. He smiled. I smiled. He was listening to me. I was getting through. I was teaching him. He looked me right in the eye. He took a breath. “You said, ‘toot.’”

I I I. I’m at the kitchen table, because we don’t have a home office, grading proofs while my first grader, Theo, is melting down next to me because he thinks having to explain his answer to an addition problem is stupid because he knows his answer is right so why does he have to explain it. He is speaking at TOP VOLUME because we’ve been in the house together for going on four weeks, and my kids seem to think that the lack of being around others has rendered every member of our family temporarily hard of hearing. “Well, actually,” I say, and then I laugh because when I get “well, actuallied,” I immediately tune out. So I start again, with a little enthusiasm, “Communication about why in mathematics is the best part! You get to be creative, and maybe draw a picture, or write a story, or connect it to something in the STEPHANIE ANNE SALOMONE is chair of the University of real world.” He looks at me blankly so I keep going because I’m Portland Mathematics Department and winner of the 2019 sure I’m getting through to him. “It’s great to know math facts, Outstanding Educator/Higher Education Award from the but being able to explain why your conjectures are correct is Oregon Academy of Science.

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Wise Words from Three I L L U S T R AT I O N S A N D L E T T E R I N G B Y M I A N O LT I N G

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On Ethical Leadership In April, Jennifer Graves ’87, ’92 MSN, the regional nursing executive of Kaiser Permanente Washington, was asked to staff a new COVID-19 assessment and recovery facility with aroundthe-clock coverage for those in the King County, WA, area experiencing homelessness. She didn’t hesitate. In mere weeks she had the staff and processes in place. A creative thinker, a listener, a leader, a proud mom, and a lover of the game of basketball, Graves believes her University of Portland education prepared her for the challenge of the moment.

FOR MANY YEARS I wasn’t able to articulate the value of a liberal arts education. But right now, particularly for nursing and particularly around COVID-19, I think about the value of the liberal arts education, about how I had courses in philosophy and ethics, how I feel very grounded in ethical decision-making. We’ve had conversations about: What if we actually have to go into crisis standards of care like other places have had to? What if we have to make difficult decisions about who might get resources and who might get equipment and who might not?

I look at my classes about religion and faith and how that has really informed me as a nurse and helped me be much more attentive to all aspects of a person versus just the biological, the physical pieces. I’m much more effectively able to address people’s spiritual health and people’s mental health. In the School of Nursing in particular, I valued the focus on both clinical excellence and also looking at teaching nurses to be leaders. Nurses are leaders. They’re leaders today in health care, but I see them as a much more integral and key piece of the effective health care systems of the future. More than 30 years ago, having classes on leadership and the basics of business, along with the humanities, was not the norm, but that was an expectation of University of Portland, and I look back on the curriculum, and I think it definitely prepared me well both for the clinical aspects of my career and also the leadership aspects. My professors were career shapers. —Jennifer Graves

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A N URSE MAKES HOME VISITS DURI NG TH E PAN DEMIC. WHAT DOES SH E SEE? BODY, MI N D, EMOTION, SPI RIT, DREAM.

BY SA L L I E T I S DA L E

SHE IS OVER NINETY , hard of hearing, easily confused. And here we come, hidden behind masks, shields, and gloves. She smiles sweetly, whispering, “You are all so kind to me.” She strokes my arm, reaches up to the doctor for a hug. He deflects her, gently. “You are so kind,” she says again. “So kind.”

big day center that no one can use now. I’m in charge of supplies, and I spend time every shift counting gowns, goggles, and disinfectant wipes.

Many of our appointments are virtual now. The vaunted promise of telehealth doesn’t account for cognitive decline, poor My life hasn’t changed all that much in the last few months. I vision, the tremors of Parkinson’s disease, or a caregiver who work as a writer and part-time as an RN in palliative care. I stay doesn’t speak English. It doesn’t account for a thousand other home and write, and it’s my pleasure, not a hardship. I go to realities, but we try. We still must see several people a day, what work and listen to lungs and bowels and worries. I’ve been a we call “eyes-on” visits. Eyes on, hands on, because some things nurse for more than thirty years, and I’ve been in nursing must be done this way. The visits are slow and cumbersome homes, a college infirmary, a bare-bones clinic in Uganda. I’ve and—why don’t more people mention this?—really irritating. worked with developmentally disabled adults and stem-cell The doctor hates the face shield. We all hate the face shields. transplant patients on an oncology unit. Now I work with “Might as well be in a scuba suit,” he complains. “I can’t see fragile, chronically ill people. The old woman lives with her anything, and how can they see me?” I give him a red child’s family still, and we will do what we can to keep her comfortable cowboy hat to wear on top and remind him to pull up his mask. and in her home for the rest of her life. When I taught first-year nursing students, I would ask them I hear more worries now. The stakes for medically compli- to give me a short definition of what a nurse does. Most of their cated patients are always high; they are higher now. We are answers were lists of tasks: start IVs, give medications. What doing everything possible to avoid sending our clients to the I wanted to hear, what I eventually would say, is that a nurse hospital. We sit six feet apart for the morning meeting, in the sees the whole person. Every member of the team does,

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of course, but not to the extent the nurse does. We see the whole in each part; our job is explicitly to care for every part of a person at once: body, mind, emotion, spirit, dream.

conspiracies and falsehoods. I’m scared sometimes, but I’ve been scared before—a needle stick during the AIDS crisis, a patient with drug-resistant tuberculosis coughing during my exam. I’ve been scared before, and I will be scared again, but I have a job and it is meaningful and I get to touch people sometimes. My feet stay on the ground.

My clients are more scared now. They are missing all kinds of important care like dental visits and hearing aid repair; they are lonely and bored, and some of them are really scared. We’re beginning to see mental health effects from this fear and There are more surges ahead. Waves to come, already building. loneliness, more complaints of nausea, insomnia, aches and Sooner or later, all of us will be exposed, and someday there pains and racing hearts. Part of seeing the whole is remem- will be a vaccine. Which comes first is anyone’s guess. We are bering how much our minds and bodies interact. The old members of a species encountering a novel pathogen, and that woman stroked us, I think, in self-defense. She smiled and has inevitable consequences. The world is a whole thing. We called us kind to mollify these big strange people with no faces. are small parts in a matrix we can’t begin to measure. Small, incredibly precious parts. But biology does not fret about How does a nurse do her job? The nurse adapts. I read about individuals, no matter how precious. I made a copy of my my sisters and brothers on the COVID-19 wards, and I ache advanced directive and emergency contacts and carry it with with empathy, for what I can only imagine their days are like. me now wherever I go. I think of them and feel useless, guilty. They are working so much harder than I am, at such risk. Many have been censured There will be an after. Another world, another time. I want to by management and abandoned by our leaders, and they keep see this whole Earth. However you conceive of that which is going back. So I joined the antibody research project. (Here’s larger than yourself, look for that now. I am writing this in the a surprise: I enjoy getting my blood drawn now, because the spring. Lakes of cherry blossom spill across the sidewalk like phlebotomist touches me.) I fill out a skills inventory, in case pink rain. The dogwood trees are filled with white petals. they need to draft more of us into those units. Respect, my Daffodils and lettuce, robins and lilac, calling to each other. peers, respect. What the Earth transmits to me now is a reminder: I am a part of all that has been. I am part of all the possibility of life ahead. I’m used to gowns and gloves, to the faint sensation of the invisible that reminds us of contamination. It’s a deep body memory, this donning and doffing, what you can touch, what SALLIE TISDALE ’83 is the author of nine books, most recently you can’t. I have to make a home visit to a patient with a fever. Advice for Future Corpses. Her essays have appeared many That means full protective equipment. The policy—today’s times in this magazine. policy, new policies all the time—dictates that I can’t bring equipment into the house. But the in-home caregiver doesn’t have a blood pressure cuff, so what do I do? There’s no body memory for this process. After the visit, I step out the door and slowly take off my equipment in a precise order and put it in a garbage bag the caregiver holds, just inside the door, the space between us our agreement. Nurses adapt. I find ways. Yet I am the least anxious among my friends. I get to go to work, a privilege we rarely appreciate. I get to talk to rational people and read the newest epidemiology research. That means I can parse my way through the barrage of news, ignore the

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BY N I NA R A M S EY

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BECAUSE WILDERNESS CAN BE a balm for the pain in every human heart.

Because we can quiet our minds and our voices and listen to the sounds of the trees, the rivers, the wind, the rain. Because my father and his father hunted mallards, and we wept as we watched drops of water bead up and run off the iridescent blue and black feathers of a dead drake. As my father, as his father before him, tried to demonstrate his own awe of the wild, by cutting through and slicing apart and examining the wonder of layers of duck down, all we could think about was death. Because John Muir said, “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness,” and what can that possibly mean? Did all life begin in the universe? In stardust and intergalactic duff? Were we born in the death of a sun? Because we don’t yet know what it might mean if there were no longer any wild places left on our aching, polluted planet Earth. Because standing in the tree well of a giant sequoia or at the base of a two-thousandfoot granite wall, glittered with feldspar and quartz, reminds us we are but a small speck in a much greater whole. Because humanity needs to hand over its hubris. Because the only way into the wilderness web of life is to inhabit the wild. Kick over leaf litter to find the brilliant society of sowbugs, snow fleas, earwigs, centipedes, leopard slugs, soapberry bugs, and panda snails. Find a trail of porcupine quills leading to a porcupine skull and know there has been a fisher about—a rare, threefoot-long member of the weasel family and killer of porcupines. Climb a snowfield to find the horns, hooves, and clods of fur—all that is left of a bighorn sheep— surrounded by bear tracks. How else are we to realize that we are one of many forms of earthly life and nowhere near the top of the food chain? Because at one o’clock in the morning, we hear barred owls and wonder at their linguistics—the inflections, the syntax, the short-short-short, the long, and the gobbling vocalizations. Their warning calls and their morning songs. Because we, as well, are capable of warning calls and morning songs. Because in the wilderness, we can get wild ourselves. Skinny-dip. Climb into the Douglas fir’s sticky-with-pitch branches (pitch that is a medicinal balm for skin irritations). Butt-glissade down a snowfield. Howl at the moon. Klack back to common ravens. How can we tell how feral, how wild, how uncivilized we are if not in the wilderness?

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Because we can clean our teeth with a twig and wipe our bottoms with a leaf. Because peeing on a boulder in a subalpine meadow makes a good salt lick for deer, mountain goats, and bighorn sheep. But peeing in the dirt in a subalpine meadow can bring ruin to feathery mosses, yellow buttercups, purple lupine, white avalanche lilies, and orange columbine as the ungulates will tear them apart to dig up all trace of you. Because young wild animals, like human children, play. Marmot pups wrestle. Yearling deer leap and buck. Bear cubs chase each other up trees. Young goats head butt, bleating; they run up a snowfield and leap down that snowfield. Because where else can we experience the fear reactions that are hard-wired into our primitive lizard brains? A crashing in the bush and our hearts stop—a grizzly bear? A cougar? A long thick stick in the dirt seen out of the corner of our eyes and our blood freezes—an adder? A rattlesnake? Because mother love exists across species. A pronghorn antelope doe cries over her dead fawn and refuses to leave it. An elk cow chases down a coyote getting too close to her calf. That mother elk’s deadly hooves could have crushed that coyote’s skull. Did the coyote need that elk calf to feed her hungry, growing pups? Because we consider coyotes and listen to their howls in the dawn, which reminds us of their wolf cousins, which reminds us of our dogs, as all descended from wolves; which reminds us to wonder what would have become of our primitive human societies had we not been helped by the generosity of the wolves, who remembered humans were a reliable source of food, and so gave themselves over to domestication. How would we have survived? Because the conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote, “Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of the wolf.” Because 64 million years ago, dolphins evolved from the sea to the land, where they lived as creatures similar to wolves but with hooves, before returning to the sea and evolving back into dolphins but with gigantic brains. What did they learn as landdwellers that drove them back to the sea? Because it is an atrocity to domesticate a dolphin and name it “Flipper.” Because we must resist our compulsion to humanize wild animals and claim dominion over the wild. Resist digging canals and damming rivers. Resist carving our initials into the bark of a hemlock tree. Resist blasting into Earth’s crust to extract silver, copper, iridium, gold. Resist giving names to the Rufus and Anna hummingbirds that frequent our feeders—Rusty, Greenie, Brownie, Jade; Buzzbomb, Peabody, Scarface, Bill.

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Because poet of the wild John Haines wrote, “I need to concede a considerable area to what I don’t know and can’t know, and perhaps don’t wish to know. Only to understand in a way I do not quite understand.” Because we all, at some time in our lives, feel like a voice in the wilderness. Because wilderness need not be branded as uncultivated, uninhabited, inhospitable, a banishment to a no man’s land out of which we must spend years wandering. If in wilderness we feel ourselves to be in the heart of the world, we might experience a deep sense of belonging. Because included in the lyrics of a hymn by Maltbie D. Babcock, which Lutheran children sing at Luther Land, a Bible camp in the woods, “This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears, all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.” Because in the silence of wilderness, the nocturnal hoofbeats of a mule deer sound like a procession of club-footed clowns. How can a creature so delicate be such a clodhopper? Because we can test our strength and our endurance. Slogging twenty miles in sixteen inches of wet spring snow. Breaking camp in five minutes when a storm approaches. Hiking twelve miles of a high elevation section of the Pacific Crest Trail while suffering from positional vertigo. Because in wilderness, we can closely observe the boom-and-bust nature of the predator-prey cycle. In the Cascade Mountains, pine martens will correct an overgrowth of golden-mantled ground squirrels. Without coyotes in our suburban neighborhoods, we suffer an overgrowth of rabbits and rats. Because we need to understand the endless, slow grind of geological time—fossils 240 million years old; igneous rocks forty millions years old; layers of geological time demarcated in sandstone canyons. Because wilderness will live on long after our species is extinct.

NINA RAMSEY is a psychiatric nurse practitioner and writer in Seattle, WA. Her work has appeared in the North Dakota Quarterly, Farralon Review, Signs of Life, and Portland.

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Paying Attention to My Neighbors TH IS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO PRAY TH ESE DAYS

B Y D . L . M AY F I E L D

A FEW DAYS AGO a neighbor gave my This morning I took the cherries and husband and son a brown paper bag full pitted them, one by one. I was listening of cherries. Her tree sits outside the to The Brothers Karamazov on audiosmall gates that surround her yard. As book. It’s a book about loving your family the school year neared its end, we would and loving your neighbor with all of your walk past—the mothers and the chil- crooked little heart. It might also be a dren—and look up at the branches heavy little bit about being angry at God and with bright orange and red cherries, not wondering at the mess of a world God left for us to muddle through. As I lisquite ripe enough yet. My husband happened to be walking tened, I mixed the cherries with sugar by at a lucky moment, and this neighbor, and lemon zest and topped them with a an older woman, offered my husband the lumpy, runny batter. I knew that later we bag. When he came home and gave it to would eat a dessert we did not dream of, me, I frowned. What about everybody one that we did not earn. else? Why should I accept a gift when I walk around my neighborhood and there are so many others in the neigh- take notes inside my head. The neighborhood who would love to feast? bors who live behind us seem to operate

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dysfunctional families in the United States, the faces of people who have visited, even for a brief while, the edges of the empire, where things are so obviously unwell. I have seen people look at me with something like desperation in their eyes. So much suffering. So many children discarded, used, and killed.

She is a miracle if I choose to see it. How could God allow this? I love these friends, just like I love Ivan. They ask the questions because they truly believe that if God exists, then God must be love. And if God is love, then God must also be a perpetual wound, a weeping mother, ever attendant at the funerals of those who die in disgrace and ignominy. If God is love, then God is obsessed with all of these sad stories too. I asked my neighbor if she liked cherry cobbler, and she said she did. We ate it together on my couch as our children ran and played. She said she liked that it wasn’t overly sweet, that there was a tartness to it. She got up to leave. She was going away to another state and didn’t know whether she would return. I said I would pray for her. I thought about the famous line from indigenous Australian writer and activist Lilla Watson, “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” I think about all the years of trying to save people, drowning in loneliness, disconnected from the love of God. Now, my eyes are trained toward growing in solidarity, in mutuality, in slowing down

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some sort of mechanic shop. There are so many balding, sweating, redshouldered men. There used to be an old yellow Labrador who wandered around, but I never see him anymore. I wonder if he died. There’s a black truck that has been parked there for ages, the faint scrawls of a Confederate flag visible on the rear window with soap or marker. Today there’s a new car in the yard, a white sedan with antennas sticking out of the top. In a previous life it had obviously been a police car. The front window has a bullet hole and attendant spider webs of cracks spinning outward. The back windshield has been shot to pieces, glass still scattered over the back seat. When I walked my kids past the house to the elementary school to get the free summer lunch there, they didn’t say anything about the car. Children always notice so little and yet so much. Another neighbor brought her kids over to play this afternoon. They woke my son up from his nap, and he was sweaty as he sat in my lap and started to get used to being awake. The kids ate watermelon outside until they were covered with sticky juice, and then the wasps started to chase them. My neighbor grew up in generational poverty in the United States, and she told me sad stories of her life. I let them flow over me like water, but some of it escapes into my blood. I know that at night I will turn over the stories I hear, over and over again. My neighbor is a better mother to her children than her mother was to her. She is a miracle if I choose to see it. In The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan (the smart one, who does not believe in God) tries to explain to his brother Alyosha (the good one, who longs to be a monk) that he cannot believe in God because the world is so full of suffering. He tells terrible story after terrible story. He is like me, someone who is forever collecting these snippets of suffering, trauma, and sadness. If you live in the right neighborhoods, if you read the right books, you will find more than you can bear. I imagine Ivan has that wounded look in his eye, that look I have seen in the faces of friends who were born in places like Syria or Somalia, friends who were born into poor and


enough to listen and sit with— to be a witness to the work of God in a very broken world feels miraculous. Walking around my neighborhood, committing to seeing all my neighbors in all of their complexities and chaos and minor miracles. Sticking around long enough to see the blossoms turn into cherries, to walk the sidewalks long enough to have a bag thrust in our hand, to be safe enough for stories to pour out on our couch, to be there still when people come back from travels if they ever do at all. This is what it means to pray these days: to watch the cherries slowly ripen and to listen to the stories of suffering big and small. To put down roots in order to see the seasons engage their miraculous rebirth continually, to lament that the world is not how it should be. The cherry cobbler was delicious, but it didn’t fix anything. Still, I savored it as best as I knew how. I’m learning to take the sweet moments as I get them, not knowing how long they’ll last. Taken from The Myth of the American Dream by D.L. MAYFIELD . Copyright © 2020 by Danielle Mayfield. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com

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ADAM GUGGENHEIM

Devotion At the start of her four years at University of Portland Diana Salgado Huicochea ’20 felt overwhelmed and alone. Though a cradle Catholic, Diana had never attended Mass celebrated in English, and, unable to respond to the prayers, she felt like an imposter. Yet she returned, took pictures of the missal, and after finishing homework, practiced responses aloud nightly until she memorized them. Attending daily Mass, joining campus ministry, and being open to God’s grace and love are what Diana believes give her courage to embrace new experiences, success in academics, and passion for service. As the 2020 recipient of the Thomas A. Gerhardt Award for Service and Leadership, Diana serves “not as a duty, but out of love for my community,” she explains. Among her positions of

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leadership, Diana was confirmation coordinator at her home parish, tutored at her former high school, and volunteered at Rose Haven shelter for women and children. At UP, her volunteer work included mentoring other first-generation (FGEN) students and attending the Civil Rights and Border Immersions with the Moreau Center for Service and Justice. Diana also acted as a student coordinator for the Moreau Center’s Rural and Urban Immersions and for UP’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion. This summer, Diana will enter the Echo graduate service program at University of Notre Dame, earning a master of arts in theology while serving in a parish or school in Lafayette, IN. Of her continued devotion to service, Diana says, “Seeing the impact that you can actually make, if it changes the life of one person, that’s more than enough.” —Anna Lageson-Kerns ’83, ’14


CLASS NOTES

60s 1964

Lane Powell attorney Bob Maloney ’64 has been appointed National Chair of Membership for the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), whose members are made up of chief justices of each state’s supreme court, general counsel from leading companies throughout the US, and prominent lawyers from major plaintiff and defense law firms throughout the country. The central resource for state court judges and court professionals provides nationally accumulated expertise, knowledge, and information to assist state courts in reaching better resolutions.

1967

Mick Johnson ’67 was featured in an article by the Bonneville Power Administration titled “The 50-Year Engineer” on February 21, 2020. It might be more accurate to say “The 53-Year Engineer” since Mick started his career at BPA right after leaving The Bluff in 1967. He shows no signs of stopping. “I like it, or I wouldn’t have stayed,” he says. “People ask me how I do it, how do I work at the same place for 50 years? It’s easy. You get up and go to work about

11,000 times.” He’s spent the bulk of his career working in labs “measuring things and breaking things,” as he says, and over those 50 years he’s gone from slide rules to punch card computers to today’s modern technology. Mick and his wife have three grown children, one of whom has worked 25 years at BPA. Mick sings baritone in his church choir and spent 35 years as a soccer referee. Congratulations, Mick, and good luck with the remainder of your career!

1969

David Allstot ’69, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Oregon State University, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the highest professional honor in the engineering field. David’s research has helped transform telecommunications, and he is the holder of ten patents. His long and illustrious career includes positions with Tektronix, MOSTEK, Texas Instruments, Carnegie Mellon University, Arizona State University, the University of Washington, and University of California Berkeley. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to “engineering research, practice or education” and to “the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology.”

SEND US YOUR NEWS Share the latest on your family, career, or accomplishments. Even a failure or two would be fine. We just want to be in touch. Send updates to mcovert@up.edu

For the Students

Those among you who have attended a Rock the Bluff concert, a mainstay event at UP since 2012, probably didn’t know you have Sean Ducey ’13, ’19 MBA to thank for the tradition. He was only a junior when he founded the annual concert and learned that event planning and behind-thescenes work was his calling. Of course, it was tough to accept that all the events this spring and summer couldn’t happen as planned. Sean is now associate director in the University’s Office of Events, a role he’s held for the past five years, and he helps to plan and execute events like Commencement, Orientation, Parents and Families Weekends, and Reunion. For Sean and his team, the pivot to an online Commencement involved a lot of detail work, and all of it was for the graduating seniors, which fits with Sean’s events philosophy: he puts relationships and logistics on an equal plane. “I do what I do so that students will have a great experience. An event might take hours upon hours [really months] to prepare, even if it’s really short,” he says. “There’s so much that goes into every event that people will never see—and honestly there’s no reason for them to see—because that’s what our job is.” As for the future, in-person Commencement? He’ll be working on that too, and for the same reasons. As a lifelong Boy Scout and Eagle Scout, Sean likes to be prepared. While he shies away from being called an earthquake preparedness expert, his comprehensive earthquake kit is packed and at the ready, and he gives informal and impromptu talks about creating an earthquake kit on a budget. —Amy Shelly ’95, ’01

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70s 1970

Thomas Ethen ’70 was featured in the Spokane Spokesman-Review in an article about his innovative techniques for inspecting commercial business roofs using thermal imaging. He does it using his FAA designation of “Remote Pilot in Command”—in other words, a drone pilot. According to the article, “As the sole proprietor and employee of Western Unmanned Aerial Systems, Thomas has spent the past four years working with commercial businesses, helping them to identify how best to treat leaking and damaged rooftops. He runs the home-based business in Nine Mile Falls, WA.” Quite a jump from his past careers in longhaul trucking, political lobbying for the automotive and food-processing industries, as well as commercial photography and business partnership in a custom cabinet shop in the Sacramento area.

1975

Cindy Kassab ’75 was featured in an article titled “Some Things You May Not Know About Your Driver on the 43 Taylors Ferry Bus Line” in the February 24, 2020 edition of the Portland Tribune. “Out of thousands, only 10 operators in TriMet’s 50-year history have ever been given the Gold Grand Master Award,” the article begins. “It’s a good bet that none of the other nine is anything like the latest recipient, Cindy Kassab.” To win the award, a TriMet driver needs a perfect

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driving record for 2,000 miles each year, and must meet a series of requirements from “excellent customer services” to “no warnings, reprimands or citations” to “following standard operating procedures” to “no preventable accidents.” Cindy aced them all. She is also a noted nature photographer and avid skier.

80s 1982

Gregory Malarkey ’82 has been promoted to president of Malarkey Roofing Products in Portland, OR. “I’m proud to assume this position within the company that my grandfather started in 1956, and humbled to lead an organization staffed with enthusiastic, dedicated, and talented individuals,” says the venerable Mr. Malarkey, who most recently served the company as senior vice president. An industry veteran, he has also held leadership roles within the Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers Association, the Asphalt Roofing Environmental Council, and Asphalt Institute. Greg lives in Beaverton with his wife, Mardee, and boisterous household.

00s 2000

Chris Lattner ’00 was named senior vice president of platform engineering at SiFive, a semiconductor company with 16 design centers worldwide.

Here for You

When 1st. Lt. Beth Biggs ’18 received her orders on March 29, she was ready. She was in the Army ROTC program during her time at UP and is now part of the Oregon Army National Guard 141st Brigade Support Battalion’s COVID-19 response team, distributing personal protective equipment (PPE) throughout Oregon. “I was one of the first 14 on this mission out of our hub in Wilsonville; now we have 175 soldiers on board,” she says. Through a partnership between the Oregon Military Department, multiple state agencies, and seven County Assistance Teams, Lt. Biggs provides face masks, face shields, hand sanitizer, and more to 36 counties, 11 tribal nations, and more than 800 assisted living facilities and hospitals in Oregon. When Governor Kate Brown ordered 140 ventilators shipped to New York’s overwhelmed hospitals, Lt. Biggs’s team packed them in boxes sealed with “Oregon is Here for You” stickers. “Watching those get loaded to head to the airport, knowing that they would all be used—that’s why I’m here.” Lt. Biggs has family in assisted living facilities, so this work is especially meaningful to her. “Knowing I’m not only impacting the community, but seeing the impact on my family as well, it’s why I’m in my uniform, it’s why I raised my hand for the National Guard,” she says. “We help at a community level, and we’re here for our state at any time, in any crisis.” —Karen Bridges


CLASS NOTES

“Lattner brings 15 years of leadership in software engineering and machine learning infrastructure, leading teams at Apple, Tesla, and most recently, Google,” according to an announcement by SiFive. Chris holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from University of Portland.

2002

Darin J. “DJ” Widmer ’02 has a new role as global sales director for ICD High Performance Coatings. This latest career move comes after a long series of executive business development roles at start-ups and growth-stage companies in multiple industries, ranging from medical devices and SaaS (Software as a Service) to sustainable products and services. ICD develops glass coatings and other materials for use in solar and automotive industries, with an eye toward sustainability and climate change solutions.

2005

Marshall University professor Stephen M. Underhill ’05 has published The Manufacture of Consent: J. Edgar Hoover and the Rhetorical Rise of the FBI with Michigan State University Press. Underhill examines how longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover incited the Red Scare to undermine presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, as well as Roosevelt’s New Deal program. Underhill was the lead reference person for declassified FBI and Department of Justice documents at the National

Archives at College Park, MD, from 2007 to 2012. He filed FOIA requests to declassify records from the FBI to document Hoover’s domestic propaganda campaigns in the mid-20th century, indicating that Hoover utilized the power of his position to steer US culture away from social democracy. The book also explores Hoover’s ties to fascist leaders of the time. Underhill is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Marshall, with an emphasis on rhetoric grounded in the interplay of history and politics.

2006

Jenni Kuker ’06 has joined the team at Canyonlands Healthcare, a nonprofit primary health care provider, in Globe, AZ. Jenni is certified in ostomy management from Emory University, in wound management from the University of Washington, and is a certified medical surgical nurse. She was also a public health volunteer for the United States Peace Corps in Zambia for two years.

2007

Trish Skogland ’07 has been appointed vice president of sales and supply for Crowley Fuels LLC, a petroleum transportation, distribution, and sales company serving more than 280 communities throughout the state of Alaska. She is responsible for the oversight of fuel sales and supply for customers across the entire state. Trish has spent the last 12 years in the oil and gas industry in Alaska and previously worked in the international trading industry.

10s 2010

Gabriel Twining ’10 has been promoted to the position of lead advisor and chief personnel officer at Financial Plan, Inc, a fee-only financial planning firm in Bellingham, WA. Before he joined Financial Plan in 2013, Twining worked in Tacoma as a process improvement consultant for CHI Franciscan Health.

2012

Natalie Schlappi ’12 was named Teacher of the Month (January 2020) by the Rotary Club of Renton, WA. Natalie works as an Integrated Kindergarten Teacher at Honey Dew Elementary School and has taught both integrated kindergarten and general education kindergarten in the Renton School District for seven years. Congratulations, Natalie!

2013

Biology graduate Claire Couch ’13 is one of 12 students from around the country to receive the Katherine S. McCarter Graduate Student Policy Award from the Ecological Society of America. The award provides graduate students the opportunity to receive policy and communication training in Washington, DC, before they meet lawmakers. Claire is a PhD candidate in integrative biology at Oregon State University. Her study systems include African buffalo, bighorn sheep, and elk, and her work includes a wide array of fieldwork, laboratory analysis, and bioinformatics. She recently founded the

Student Science Policy Club at OSU to help bring together young scientists who want to make a difference.

2019

We’re keeping our eye on Pilots cross country standout Nick Hauger ’19, who made his pro debut with a fifth-place finish in the 2020 USATF Cross Country Championships in San Diego in February. According to a press release, “Hauger, a twotime NCAA Division I All-American at Portland, signed professionally with Team Hoka One One in the summer and has been living in Flagstaff, Arizona, working at a burger joint and training with the Northern Arizona Elite team.” You’d better make sure you have a vegan patty set aside for Rob Conner, Nick. You never know when he’ll make a surprise visit. Dagan Kay ’19 hasn’t let much grass grow under his feet since graduating from UP’s Entrepreneur Scholars program. He’s taken his class venture, Produce Mate, and officially launched it on Kickstarter. “Produce Mate is a startup dedicated to helping reduce food waste and the massive impact it has on our planet (and our wallets!),” he writes. “We make an antimicrobial kitchen mat that helps extend the life of fruits and vegetables, saving the average family up to $300 worth of wasted produce every year!” Ameera Patel ’19 is working as an external auditor at Deloitte & Touche LLP and busily preparing for her CPA exam, according to the Pamplin School of Business’s Grad Gazette.

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CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

Our heartfelt prayers and condolences go out to the families of the following individuals. Requiescat in pace. William Rich Reed ’48 passed away on January 28, 2020, in Sisters, OR. He enlisted in the Army in 1943, switched to the Army Air Corps, and received orders to join US forces overseas just days before World War II ended. In 1946, he married his childhood sweetheart, Hannah Lou Freeman, and they had two sons, Bill and Mike. William founded the highly respected W.R. Reed & Company General Insurance. Hannah Lou predeceased William after 67 years of marriage; their son Bill passed away as well. Fred A. Allehoff ’49 died on October 29, 2019, in Redmond, OR. He was a member of the first graduating class of Portland’s Central Catholic High School. He served in World War II in the Army Air Corps. After graduation he began his career with the Bonneville Power Administration as a high voltage and design engineer. He retired as executive vice president of S&C Electric Company and promptly started his own company, Allehoff & Associates. Survivors include six children, nine grandchildren, and many great-grandchildren. Marvin J. Urman ’49 passed away on February 12, 2020. He was awarded an academic scholarship to University of Portland and graduated with honors in biology. After earning his MD degree in 1951, he met and married Lois Silverstein. He held many leadership roles as

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a medical staff leader in the Providence medical system and as president of the Multnomah County Medical Society. Marvin served as medical director of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon until his retirement in 1991. “He has always been known for his caring spirit, loving personality, quick wit, and good sense of humor,” according to his family. Survivors include Lois, their three children, and four grandchildren. David L. Cannard ’50 passed away on October 28, 2019. He joined the US Navy and trained as a radio technician, but WWII ended before he was deployed. He taught elementary school in Portland and married Virginia Kelly after meeting her as a fellow teacher at Laurelhurst School. They started a life insurance business in Vancouver, WA, and over the years David threw himself into community, civic, and business causes. “The next time you visit the Columbia River Gorge and take in its spectacular views, go for a hike, or stop for some freshly caught salmon, think of Dave Cannard for a moment,” his family advises. “He was one of the founders of Friends of the Columbia Gorge.” Survivors include his brother, two children, two grandsons, and a large extended family. Inez Luella Becic, beloved wife of John Becic ’52, passed away on November 26, 2019. She met John at the age of 16, and they

were married in 1954. She is survived by John and their four daughters, 13 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. John Arnold Clarke ’52 died in Beaverton, OR, on January 19, 2020. At UP he was an active member of the ski team. In 1954 he married Nancy Jane Barlow, and they raised a family of five children, resulting in 11 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. After retiring from Safeway, John sold real estate and managed rental properties. His wife, Nancy, and daughter Janice predeceased him. Barbara Ann (Gartrell) Quickstad ’52 passed away peacefully on February 22, 2020. She worked as a clinical supervisor and instructor at St. Vincent’s Hospital, where she met her future husband, Dr. Quentin Quickstad. Since 1961, Barbara was renowned as a “professional volunteer” for her work with local, state, and national medical auxiliaries, earning Honorary Life Memberships and other awards. She was a member for almost 60 years at First Presbyterian Church, where she served as an Elder for seven years. Barbara was preceded in death by Quentin in 2016 and is survived by one sister, four children, and one great-grandchild. Malachi “Mac” Kane Campbell ’57 passed away on February 11, 2020, at his home in Hermiston, OR, surrounded by family.

He grew up on a sheep and cattle ranch in Lonerock, OR, and spent his entire life working closely with livestock and the people who worked in the industry. He used his accounting degree from UP in his long career as a farm and ranch real estate broker. According to his family, “Mac was a natural cattleman who had a gentleness that animals responded to. He had a curious mind and was open to new ideas and had a strong faith, which he lived but never imposed on others. To sum it up, he was a good man.” Survivors include his wife, Veronica; six children; and one granddaughter. Please remember Richard Kaptur ’57 and his family in your prayers on the loss of his beloved wife, Geraldine Kaptur, on February 9, 2020. “Gerri, also known as ‘Non’ by her grandkids, was warm and loving and engaged everyone she came across with compassion. She was the ultimate wife, mother, grandmother, and friend,” according to her family. Survivors include Richard, their three children, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Gayle David Barrow ’61 died at his home in Federal Way, WA, on March 31, 2020. After earning his degree in engineering science, he started his career in aerospace with Boeing. “Mr. Barrow was a sci-fi fan, so working on space programs was right up his alley,” according to his family. His


career spanned 40 years and included the Lunar Orbiter (his favorite) from 1960 to 1969 and the International Space Station from 1994 to 2000. Survivors include his best friend and longtime companion, Mary Noia; his sisters Connie and Renee; and nine nieces and nephews. Donald “Don” Charles Fazzio ’62 passed away on January 14, 2020, in Vancouver, WA. He liked to joke that his psychology degree helped him in customer service during his long career in the fruit and produce business. Don sold his business and retired in 2005. “He was the ‘Don’ of his family, often providing advice and comfort to many, and was loved and cherished by all,” according to his loved ones. Survivors include his wife, Sally; four children; and three granddaughters. Beverly Jean Watts ’63 died on February 5, 2020. She married Pete and traveled the world, thanks to the military. They put all four kids through college, moved to Gearhart, OR, in retirement, “then lastly,” according to her family, “to Lake Oswego, where she received a call, a sort of offer she could not refuse. The assignment came with a huge signing bonus: a reunion with family and friends she has not seen in quite a while.” Survivors include three children and two grandchildren. Pete and their youngest, Dave, predeceased her. David Guasco ’66 passed away on April 16, 2020, after a long illness, in Vancouver, WA. He graduated from Central Catholic High School in 1962 and went on to UP. He served proudly in the US Air Force, retiring as a Major

after 21 years. After earning an MBA from University of Puget Sound, he taught mathematics at Central Catholic for 12 years. David and his wife, Marlene, later relocated to Sunriver, where he became an ordained acolyte in the Sunriver Catholic Church, joined the Knights of Columbus, and supported Habitat for Humanity. David is survived by his wife of 23 years, Marlene Amato Guasco; two sons from a previous marriage, Michael ’90 and Edward ’93; three children from Marlene’s previous marriage; and eight grandchildren. A celebration of life will be held at a later date. Francis “Frank” Harry Zeck Jr. ’66 passed away on August 27, 2019. He was part of a military family and had attended 17 schools before going to college. He was commissioned into the US Air Force in 1965 and served a tour of duty in the Vietnam War, receiving the Bronze Star. Frank practiced dentistry in Lisbon, ND, for 30 years. Frank is survived by his wife, Dian; their two sons, including Brian ’96; three grandchildren; and his brother, Don ’69. Donna Jane Kurilo ’70 died after a short and painful struggle with cancer on January 25, 2020, in Gresham, OR. A business major at UP, she returned to school and completed a BS in nursing in 1994. She retired from OHSU in 2014 as an ICU nurse educator. Donna was an active member of the Mazamas, the Persimmon Country Club, and the American Association of Critical Care Nurses. According to her family, “Donna’s energy, enthusiasm, and love for life CONTINUED ON PAGE 47

Brent Stevens McCarter

January 29, 1955–January 26, 2020

Brent Stevens McCarter ’78 passed away peacefully at his home on January 26, 2020, three days before his 65th birthday. Brent graduated from University of Portland in 1978 with a bachelor’s in communications and theater arts. In 1975, Brent’s friends and campus community were shocked to learn that he had suffered a spinal cord injury in an automobile accident. “Brent’s injury left him technically a quadriplegic,” according to his family. “However, he never let this define or limit him as he completed his education, had a successful career in counseling, and diligently worked out every week.” Brent returned to UP for graduate work and earned his master’s in counseling psychology. He spent nearly 30 years helping others in vocational rehabilitation, treatment of chronic pain, and drug and alcohol counseling. His passion for fitness and competition led him to participate in regional and national wheelchair racing and sled skiing events. Brent was a familiar sight around the University neighborhood, tooling about with his beloved dog Bo tucked in his lap, a frequent visitor to UP campus events, and a warm, gentle, cheerful man who always had time to chat and let you pet Bo. Survivors include his brother and sister, niece and nephews, and many friends.

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ADAM GUGGENHEIM

CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

In Remembrance of Amy Dundon-Berchtold July 7, 1946–March 16, 2020 The University of Portland community is still struggling with for 15,000-square-foot industrial spaces. As her business grew, the heartbreaking news of the death of regent and benefactor she realized that, in order to conduct business according to Amy King Dundon-Berchtold, who passed away on Monday, her own high ethical standards, she would have to work for March 16, 2020, from complications following a stroke. herself. Stunning success led her to become a dedicated philanA visionary industrial real estate investor, Amy, along with thropist, contributing not only to UP but also the Boys & Girls her beloved husband Jim Berchtold ’63, created the Club of Garden Grove, the University of Southern California University’s Dundon-Berchtold Institute for Moral Formation (her alma mater), the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund, and and Applied Ethics, which offers classes, public events, and many, many other worthy causes. student-faculty research support. Amy and Jim then provided Amy was elected to University of Portland’s Board of Regents the lead gift for the University’s first new academic building in 2013 and received an honorary doctorate from UP in 2019. in 25 years, Dundon-Berchtold Hall. Their generosity has We also remember Amy for her part in what is arguably one transformed the UP campus and enhanced the University’s of the most heartwarming love stories of all time. After losing ability to live out its mission, with classrooms, faculty offices, her husband Ed to brain cancer in 2008, Amy met Jim formal and informal gathering areas, and state-of-the-art Berchtold, who had recently lost his wife, Marg, to the same teaching resources. disease. Their shared tragedies soon led to a beautiful, loving Amy’s remarkable 40-year career buying, selling, and ren- marriage of nearly 10 years. To see Jim and Amy in each other’s ovating properties in California started with the sale of her presence was nothing short of a reaffirmation of the joys own house. At a time when she was one of few women—if not and heartbreaks and wonders to be found in a life fully lived. the only woman—in the industrial real estate field in Orange Please keep Jim and their families in your thoughts County, she managed properties and real estate transactions and prayers.

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spilled over into everything she did with family and friends.” Survivors include her husband, Maurice “Mo” Haagenson, and a sister and brother. In lieu of flowers, donations in her name may be made to the Fred and Agnes Kurilo Scholarship Fund at University of Portland. Anne Kathleen Sorley ’70 died on February 22, 2020, in Edmonds, WA. She taught nursing at University of Washington and worked for World Concern in Haiti, Central and South America, the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, and India. She also worked as a nurse midwife and conducted heart research at Seattle Veteran’s Hospital. Survivors include her longtime hiking partner, John Corder; three siblings; and many nieces and nephews. Ailish Clohessy-Brandon ’71 died on November 30, 2019, surrounded by family and friends. She married Charles “Duff” Brandon ’85 in 1973 at St. Cecilia’s Church. They were one day shy of celebrating their 46th wedding anniversary. Her teaching career included taking over her mother’s school, Clohessy Montessori Preschool and Kindergarten, for 10 years and working at Findley Elementary in the Beaverton School District. Survivors include Duff, their four daughters, and three granddaughters. Jacqueline “Jackie” M. Shank ’71 passed away on November 13, 2019. Jackie was active in Portland theater and married Stan Shank in 1952. She taught at Gregory Heights and Ainsworth schools and retired in Pacific City. She published one book, titled Once Upon a Time and All That.

Marjorie Coe Thompson ’73 passed away on January 24, 2020, at the age of 95. She married Warren Thompson in 1945, and they enjoyed 72 years together. Marjorie was a registered nurse and was very active with diabetic education programs. Survivors include one daughter, two granddaughters, and five great-grandchildren. Marilyn Lee Crabbs ’79, wife of the late beloved UP business professor Roger A. Crabbs, passed away on February 7, 2020, surrounded by loving family. Marilyn received an MA in European history on The Bluff, and many members of her family attended UP, four of whom competed on Pilot tennis teams—daughter Janet (Crabbs) Turner ’79 (now serving as financial aid director at UP), son-in-law Doug Menke ’80, granddaughter Kellee (Menke) Hernandez, and Kellee’s husband Ramiro Hernandez ’03. Also graduated from The Bluff were granddaughters Kim Turner ’15 and Kristen Turner ’17. Marilyn faithfully supported UP for many years, facilitating and attending the monthly retired faculty luncheons at Bauccio Commons until December 2019. Her smiling presence will be greatly missed. Alyce Kazuko Sato ’79, an influential and beloved nurse and Idaho State University faculty member, died on December 15, 2019, in Pocatello. Alyce first practiced as a licensed practical nurse and then went to Idaho State University for her BSN in 1969 and master’s in curriculum development in 1976, and then

a master’s degree in nursing at UP. She worked at hospitals in Pocatello and became the in-service education director at St. Anthony Hospital. That prompted Alyce’s interest in teaching, and she joined the nursing faculty at Idaho State University, where she taught for 28 years and retired as professor emeritus. In 2006 she was named an Idaho Nursing Legend and also received the Distinguished Career in Nursing recognition by the March of Dimes. We offer our prayers and condolences to Alyce’s family and our admiration and gratitude for her life of learning. David Lewis Nollette ’84 died on February 24, 2020. He was the first male student to attend Marylhurst before his days on The Bluff. He had a long career in facilities management for the Parkrose School District, Portland Public Schools, and Intel. After retiring, he wrote two books and loved restoring his 100-year-old houses. “He was a thoughtful family man, planner, and volunteered extensively in the community. Religion was monumental in David’s life,” according to his family. Survivors include his wife of 44 years, Felicia; their three children; and four grandchildren. K. Roya Behbehani ’85 passed away on April 22, 2020, after a courageous battle against brain cancer. She was born in Tehran, Iran, and came to America to attend Lewis & Clark College on a full scholarship, then earned her MBA at UP. She worked many years in banking while she completed her degree and was vice

president of advanced markets and development for Weststar Financials in Beaverton, OR. Roya is survived by her husband, Mohammad Hossein Avishan; two children; two grandchildren; five siblings; and her mother. Daniel Theodore Flores, beloved husband of Marlena Flores ’89, passed away on January 27, 2020, in Milwaukie, OR. Born to immigrants from Spain, he grew up in New York City and served his country in World War II and the Korean Conflict. “Dan’s loves were Marlena, reading, nature, music, baseball, Italian sausage, friends, family, and his home here in Milwaukie,” according to his family. Retired much-loved UP theology professor Mary Connelly LaBarre ’87 passed away on November 16, 2019, at Mary’s Woods at Marylhurst in Lake Oswego, OR, after a long illness. According to Mary’s family, “She died surrounded by love after facing a rare brain disease with courage and grace. Throughout her years she embraced life with joy and a beatific smile. It seemed sunshine walked beside her.” Mary met her husband, Jerry, in Washington, DC, on a blind date to a Georgetown Law School social. Following her dream to become a college professor, Mary earned her master’s degree from UP and her doctorate from Seattle University. Mary is survived by Jerry, their children, two grandchildren, and her two sisters and six brothers. In lieu of flowers the family suggests remembrances be made to St. Andrew Nativity School or The Alzheimer’s Association of Oregon.

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CLASS NOTES IN MEMORIAM

Bret D. Hokkanen ’90 died on January 13, 2020. He was an investment professional for 37 years, most recently as sales director for Hood River Capital Management. His love for the outdoors led him to serve on the board of directors of LEAP Wilderness Adventures and on committees for the Portland Golf Club and The Multnomah Athletic Club. Survivors include his beloved wife, Lin; two sons; father; and two siblings.

Jerry McElligott

March 20, 1931–March 16, 2020 Please keep Janet McElligott ’83 and her family in your prayers as they mourn the loss of her father, Lt. Colonel Lawrence J. “Jerry” McElligott ’53, who passed away March 16, 2020, in Miami, FL, at his home from natural causes. His wife, Maryan, whom he married in 1956, preceded him in death in 1993, and his second wife, Arlene, died in 2000. Jerry is survived by his eight children, 22 grandchildren, one great-granddaughter, and the everexpanding, multipronged UP McElligott legacy family. Growing up in Heppner, OR, and the McElligott stronghold of Ione, OR (there were so many McElligotts on the local school basketball team the announcers would often have to say, “And McElligott passes to McElligott...McElligott fakes and takes the shot...rebounded by McElligott...”), Jerry came to Portland and graduated from Central Catholic High School and UP. He then joined the US Air Force flight program, serving in Texas, Missouri, Newfoundland, New York, California, and many other locations. His work with the Air Force Science and Technology program and distinguished service during the Cuban Missile Crisis led to his selection as a candidate for the third astronaut class at NASA. A minor medical issue kept him from taking his slot on the Apollo 13 mission—a fact his children did not learn until recently, to their amazement. Jerry was not one to brag. He had two tours of duty in Vietnam and is honored on the United States Air and Space Museum’s Military Wall of Honor. Returning to his roots in Ione after retiring in 1973, Jerry quietly went about serving his community with the same dedication he always demonstrated for his country. Thank you so much, Colonel McElligott, and rest in peace.

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Vivian June Gowan ’91 passed away on January 19, 2020, in Tigard, OR. Her professional nursing career was focused on cardiac care. “Vivian spent her life as an example of breaking beyond boundaries and projecting her vision and passion to instill the same in others,” according to her family. Survivors include her husband of 36 years, Roland Garrison; one stepdaughter; two grandchildren; and a large extended family. FACULTY, STAFF, FRIENDS Former UP associate dean and history professor James Michael Boyle passed away on January 16, 2020, at the age of 94. A career military man, Jim enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was training to be a pilot when World War II ended. He met the love of his life, Sylvia Theresa DesMarais, and they had three children. Over the course of his Air Force career, Jim flew the F89 in Oxnard, CA, and the Super Constellation at McClellan Air Force Base. He then spent six years teaching at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, also completing his PhD in history at St. Louis

University. After the academy he flew C-131 cargo missions in Vietnam for one year and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. From 1969 to 1973, he was commander of the Air Force ROTC at University of Portland. When he retired from the Air Force, he served as associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1973 to 1981. Sylvia passed away in 2007; he also was preceded in death by son Jimmy and son-in-law Sam Quiring. “He loved his family, his God, and was a good-natured Irishman who loved to laugh,” according to his family. Survivors include his daughters, Mary Jankowski ’72 and Martha Quiring ’78; eight grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren. Those wishing to make a memorial donation may contribute to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul at St. Pius X Parish or to University of Portland. Rowena Bramlette ’88, former associate vice president for budgeting at UP, passed away after an extended battle with cancer on January 23, 2020. In a message to the campus community, University president Rev. Mark L. Poorman, CSC, wrote: “Rowena was a person of extraordinary warmth, kindness, and generosity of spirit. In the course of her work she had the opportunity to interact with every division and department across campus. She was a dear colleague and friend to so many at UP, and she will be deeply missed. Please join me in offering condolences to Rowena’s husband, Rod, and her family.”


FOR THE LOVE OF IT

Resilience Kenechi “Kene” Anigbogu ’18 was a member of the 100th group of American Peace Corps volunteers to serve in Morocco. His Peace Corps service was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. Kenechi (far left) at a life-skills training with youth from Guigou, Morocco.

AS THE WORLD goes through unprecedented times, we are all being pushed to develop resilience. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, I saw amazing examples of resilience every day, and what stood out to me was the resilience of young people. For a year and a half, I worked as a youth development specialist in the small city of Afourar. In the rural areas that I visited, it was not uncommon for me to see youth walking on the side of the road, walking for miles to get their education. In Afourar, I marveled at the determination of the girls that I worked with. Despite not having much support for their athletic interests, they continued to show up regularly. Members in the community noticed the consistent attendance, which led to designated girls’ time at the sports center and a new girls’ soccer team. The willpower that these children displayed each day inspired the resilience that I would later call upon during my service.

As an African American, I wasn’t what most Moroccans were expecting when they heard that an American would be coming to live in their community for a couple of years. So this led to some unwanted attention, harassment, and even just negative energy emitted in my direction. In my opinion, enough of this kind of attention is liable to wear anyone down, but when I thought about the youth traveling long distances to get to school every day, I knew that I could find the resilience within to block out some of the negativity and focus on having a positive, fruitful service. When I left for Morocco in September of 2018, there was no way that I could have expected a return to the US under these circumstances. Despite the tough times, I find that I can find inspiration in the resilience of others, like that of the Moroccan youth, or by simply reflecting on the blessings in life. —Kenechi Anigbogu

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5000 North Willamette Blvd. Portland, OR 97203-5798 Change Service Requested

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PA I D Portland, Oregon Permit No. 188

Among the many theatrical, literary, and musical event cancellations this spring was a delightful children’s fairy tale, The Dragon, by the Irish playwright Lady Augusta Gregory, a contemporary of W.B. Yeats, directed by Angela Van Epps ’20. According to prophecy, the Princess Nuala was to be eaten by a dragon on her 18th birthday, though naturally she has other plans.

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ANTHONY ARNISTA


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