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DAWN AND MARY Early one morning several teachers and staffers at a grade school are in a meeting. The meeting goes for about five minutes when the teachers and the staffers hear a chilling sound in the hallway. We heard pop pop pop, said one of the staffers later. Most of the teachers and the staffers dove under the table. That is the reasonable thing to do and that is what they were trained to do and that is what they did. But two of the staffers jumped, or leapt, or lunged out of their chairs, and ran toward the bullets. Jumped or leapt or lunged — which word you use depends on which news account of that morning you read. But the words all point in the same direction — toward the bullets. One of the staffers was the principal. Her name was Dawn. She had two daughters. Her husband had proposed to her five times before she said yes and finally she said yes and they had been married for ten years. They had a cabin on a lake. She liked to get down on her knees to work with the littlest kids in her school. The other staffer was named Mary. She had two daughters. She was a crazy football fan. She had been married for thirty years. They had a cabin on a lake. She loved to go to the theater. She was going to retire in one year. She liked to get down on her knees to work in her garden. The principal told the teachers and the staffers to lock the door behind her and the other staffer and the teachers and the staffers did that. Then Dawn and Mary ran out into the hall. You and I have been in that hallway. You and I spent years in that hallway. It’s friendly and echoing and when someone opens the doors at the end of the hallway a wind comes and flutters through all the kids’ paintings and posters on the tile walls. The two women jumped, or leapt, or lunged, toward the bullets. Every fiber in their bodies, bodies descended from millions of years of bodies leaping away from danger, must have wanted to dive under the table. That’s what you are supposed to do. That’s what you are trained to do. That’s how you live another day. That’s how you stay alive to paint with the littlest kids and work in the garden and hug your daughters and drive off laughing to your cabin on the lake. But they leapt for the door, and the principal said lock the door after us, and they lunged right at the boy with the rifle. The next time someone says the word hero to you, you say this: There once were two women. One was named Dawn and the other was named Mary. They both had two daughters. They both loved to kneel down to care for small holy beings. They leapt out of their chairs and they ran right at the boy with the rifle, and if we ever forget their names, if we ever forget the wind in that hallway, if we ever forget what they did, if we ever forget how there is something in us beyond sense and reason that snarls at death and runs roaring at it to defend children, if we ever forget that all children are our children, then we are fools who allowed memory to be murdered too, and what good are we then? What good are we then? n Brian Doyle is the editor of this magazine and the author most recently of a collection of essays, The Thorny Grace of It (Loyola Press).
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F E A T U R E S 14 / Don’t Kill Us, by Brian Doyle The astonishing story of famed swimmer and Down syndrome activist Karen Gaffney, to whom the University presented an honorary doctorate this past May. 18 / Vier Legenden, photographs by Jeff Kennel As the University celebrates the golden anniversary of its oldest and largest study-abroad program, we sing a quartet of legendary teachers.
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22 / Honesty Spoken Here, by Dave Kenagy Inside the Infusion Room with nurse Laura Doyle Gillette ’83. 26 / What You Most Have to Offer is Who You Are, by Michael Andrews The University’s arts & sciences dean gives the first fascinating talk about ethics ever. page 18
30 / I Don’t Want to Leave This Earth, by Chris Dombrowski Sometimes we forget that the greatest holiest wildest coolest miracles of all are our kids; and that all kids are our kids. 32 / Praying the Psalms, by Isaac Anderson “Systematically, sporadically, earnestly, distractedly, half-heartedly, intently, intensely...” 34 / This World, by Ana Callan Love and grief and hope and love: a note.
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4 / The University’s wild Crab Lab 5 / John Anthony Soisson on The Bluff, 1982-2013 page 26
6 / The tart, thoughtful, and wry U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas... 7 / ...and his good friend Dakota Garza ’15 8 / Writing a life: an essay by literature professor Louis Masson 9 / The wildy imaginative engineering professor Tim Doughty 10 / Sarah Griffin ’13, coach of the Sunset High Apollo basketball team 11 / Walking the long road to Spain’s Santiago de Compostela
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12 / Sports, starring two national top ten teams 13 / University news: Father Bill Beauchamp is stepping down?! 48 / Letter from New Zealand
page 32 THE UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND MAGAZINE
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Cover by Oregon photographer Fritz Leitke, fritzphoto.com.
Winter 2013: Vol. 32, No. 4 President: Rev. E. William Beauchamp, C.S.C. Founding Editor: John Soisson Editor: Brian Doyle Tart Brilliant Disgruntled Designers: Matt Erceg & Joseph Erceg ’55 Mooing Assistant Editors: Marc Covert ’93 & Amy Shelly Harrington ’95 Fitfully Contributing Editors: Louis Masson, Sue Säfve, Terry Favero, Mary Beebe Portland is published quarterly by the University of Portland. Copyright ©2013 by the University of Portland. All rights reserved. Editorial offices are located in Waldschmidt Hall, 5000 N. Willamette Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97203-5798. Telephone (503) 943-7202, fax (503) 943-7178, e-mail address: bdoyle@up.edu, Web site: http://www.up.edu/portland. Third-class postage paid at Portland, OR 97203. Canada Post International Publications Mail Product — Sales Agreement No. 40037899. Canadian Mail Distribution Information—Express Messenger International: PO Box 25058, London, Ontario, Canada N6C 6A8. Printed in the USA. Opinions expressed in Portland are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University administration. Postmaster: Send address changes to Portland, The University of Portland Magazine, 5000 N. Willamette Boulevard, Portland, OR 97203-5798.
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Father Bill steps down!
Late in September, on the feast day of the most humble saint of all, Saint Vincent de Paul, Father Bill Beauchamp sent an electric note to the campus community, gently telling everyone that he would cease to be president in the spring, after ten years as the calm, wry, brilliant mayor of The Bluff. Even the announcement was quintessential Father Bill — quiet, firm, dignified. Certainly there will be hoopla, and well there should be: on his watch, applications to the University quadrupled, we raised more money for scholarships and structures than we had raised in the previous history of the University, we became the nation’s leading producer of student Fulbright grants, we were annually honored as the best student service university in America, etc etc etc. But maybe his greatest feat was a certain subtle calm tone. Something changed here, under Father Bill; we grew up, in some crucial way. Now we expect to shoot the moon. We don’t compare ourselves to any other college any more. We are us, and proud of it, and we are sure that we can be the most creative innovative unusual university there ever was, if we dream and work as hard as we possibly can, if we bring the mind and the heart and the soul together in some wild energetic way no one else ever tried, quite. That’s his deepest legacy, we think, and that is a stunning and wonderful thing to say. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, Bill Beauchamp. Thank you. Portland 2
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THE SEASON Like Brooms of Steel / The Snow and Wind / Had swept the Winter Street — The House was hooked / The Sun sent out / Faint Deputies of Heat, as the late great Emily Dickinson wrote. Riveting woman; hardly ever left her room in snowy Massachusetts, but what a soaring soul. ¶ A wintry chill blanketed campus when news spread that campus ministry director Father Gary Chamberland, C.S.C., was headed back east to care for his parents in Massachusetts; Gary’s eight years of work on The Bluff also included chaplaincy in Corrado, Kenna, and Shipstad halls and a year running the Garaventa Center for Catholic Life. His successor is Father Mark DeMott, C.S.C., hall director at Shipstad.
THE UNIVERSITY The big news this winter is the beginning of the end of Father Bill Beauchamp’s presidency after ten years; his last day will be May 9, the day on which the Rise Campaign concludes with a roaring party in the Chiles Center, music by the terrific Portland band Pink Martini. See page 2. ¶ The University’s new vice president for University relations (marketing, fundraising, events, and alumni relations): Laurie Kelley, our energetic chief marketing officer for the last six years. Jim Lyons, for 15 years our admirable admissions dean and then Campaign plotter, defected to Santa Clara in October. Totally elevated admissions and fundraising, though; thank you, James. ¶ The University’s annual alumni awards will be chosen this
ARTS & LETTERS January 29, in BC Aud, free and open to all: the new film Walking the Camino, about the thousands of people who walk from Portugal and France to coastal Spain, on pilgrimage to the town where Saint James is buried at sea. ¶ February 6, also in BC Aud, also free: the renowned filmmaker Father David Guffey, C.S.C., director of Hollywood’s Family Theater productions, in a talk about his work and spirituality on film. ¶ February 27, in BC 163: Father James Heft from the University of Southern California, talking about Catholic education. ¶ The former Poet Laureate of these United States will be reading from her work in BC Aud February 13 at 7 pm, free as can be: the estimable Louise Gluck, whose father invented the Xacto knife! Information: John Orr, 503.943.7286.
THE SCHOOLS The Shiley School of Engineering will open Oregon’s first biomedical engineering master’s program next year, hiring a new professor to run it and admitting its first students. Forbes magazine ranks the discipline the most valuable major of all, with a starting salary of $54,000 and tremendous projected job growth. The program is apt here; the Donald Shiley ’51 was a biomedical engineer of the first order, who invented the Bjork-Shiley heart valve. ¶ The Pamplin School of Business will host five talks on leadership this winter, all in Bauccio Commons on Wednesdays at 7 pm: Columbia Sportswear CEO
Tim Boyle (Feb. 22), VTM Group chairman Rich Baek ’93 (Feb. 29), FLIR Systems’ Bill Sundermeier (March 7), Garaventa Enterprises vice chaiman Sil Garaventa ’71 (March 21), and LaCrosse Footwear CEO Joe Schneider (March 28). LaCrosse, we note, owns Danner Boots, which was founded in 1932 in Wisconsin by Charles Danner, father-in-law of Pilot track star Bob Miller ’41.
ing on the river campus below the bluff will be, suitably, a boathouse for the Pilot rowing team. ¶ Among the quieter cool things on campus this winter: the women’s ultimate frisbee club, French conversational tables in Bauccio Commons, the Fiction Writers Club, the Latin dance club, the Robotics Club, the anime club, movies every weekend in BC Aud, and the already legendary Bluffoons improv comedy troupe, led by Ryan Belisle ’14, one of the first recipients of the new Humor Scholarships.
THE FACULTY Away to Christchurch, New Zealand, this summer, where he will be a guest of the University of Canterbury into December on an Erskine Fellowship: computer science professor Andrew Nuxholl. The Erskine grants are named for John Angus Erskine, a brilliant Scottish engineer and physicist who was twice chess champion of his beloved adopted New Zealand. ¶ Also headed to New Zealand for seabird research (again): biologist Katie O’Reilly. ¶ Hosting the fourth World Conference on Science and Soccer, being held in America for the first time: biologist Terry Favero (who also trains the Pilot women’s soccer team) and the University, from June 5 to 7, 2014. Training and testing, match analysis, sport psychology, talent identification, youth development, injury prevention, biomechanics, and more.
STUDENT LIFE The near future for student life, according to University officers meeting with student government in November: the new rec center starts building in May, next to Tyson Hall; a new president to succeed Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., will be chosen this spring; there’s talk of two new dorms; Shipstad and Villa Maria will be renovated this summer; and it looks like the first build-
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FROM THE PAST Born in Berkshire, England, on March 20, 1918: the late Margaret Turner, better known as the great gentle witty jazz pianist and radio star Marian McPartland. She joined a vaudeville piano act at age 19 and never looked back. She was also a lovely writer: see her book All in Good Time. ¶ January in history: Saint André Bessette dies on Epiphany in 1937, in his beloved Montreal, where he served for many years as testy doorkeeper of the College de Notre Dame on Mount Royal. “The miracle worker of Montreal,” a Holy Cross brother who appealed to Saint Joseph to help the afflicted, was canonized in 2010, the first C.S.C. to be sainted (so far). ¶ January 12, 2010: the Haiti earthquake, which killed, among many thousands of people, the effervescent Molly Hightower ’09, whose friends created a scholarship for a Haitian student at the University in her honor; Jean François Seide ’16 is an economics major today. ¶ Born in San Francisco in 1876: John Griffith Chaney, better known as the great American writer Jack London. ¶ Also born in January: Martin L. King and Wolfgang A. Mozart. Excellent month.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MILAN ERCEG
winter and presented March 25 at the State of the University lunch at the MAC club in Portland. Want to nominate a glory? Call the alumni office at 503.943.7328.
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The cheerful Tai White-Toney ’14 at Oregon’s Tillamook Bay, wearing a young Dungeness crab (Oregon’s state crustacean). Biology professor Tara Maginnis and her students in her Murdock Foundation-funded Crab Lab study appendage loss and regeneration (about half of all crabs will lose and regenerate legs during their lifetime, as do insects, spiders, fish, amphibians, and snails) among other evolutionary ethology matters, both at the beach and in Swindells Hall, where Crab Lab tanks also house anemones, algae, snails, chitons, fish, starfish, and sea urchins. “One of the best things about Crab Lab is that students are really able to take charge of their projects,” says Maginnis. “They get to ask the questions, devise hypotheses and predictions, troubleshoot experiment design, fail, succeed, play, struggle, have little victories. I doubt any of them will go on to be crab experts in their futures, but it doesn't matter; the skills they learn are skills they can take with them to any career. They also get a lot of experience doing their own data analysis, scientific writing, and giving presentations at conferences.” Maginnis’ Murdock grants will eventually lapse, but you could make a gift to the Crab Lab — sure you can. Call Diane Dickey at 503.943.8130, dickey@up.edu.
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JOHN SOISSON He arrived on The Bluff in 1982 as a part-time staff photographer, and his first duties for the University were taking photographs of new employees, groups of people at seminars and symposia, beaming alumni at Reunion, etc. Having also been a reporter in his previous lives, on The Rock Springs Daily Rocket Miner and The Naugatuck Daily News, and being a generally bookish man interested in education (he had run a bookstore called The Book Shop in Sheridan, Wyoming, for five years, and taught in Connecticut and East Africa) he also began to write small articles and news bits for the University’s various publications, among them an amateurish tabloid called Portland Magazine. By 1986, John, a remarkably orderly man (he had served as a platoon leader and company commander in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star), had been named editor of University publications, had created the University’s first office of print communications, had reinvented Portland Magazine in its current form, had established the University’s first unified graphic identity system, and had begun to win the hundreds of awards the University’s publications would earn from international trade associations. In 1987 his herculean efforts were honored with the University’s annual Rev. Charles Miltner, C.S.C. Award, presented to the employee of the year. In 1988 he was profiled in The Catholic Sentinel and lauded for the astonishing changes he had wrought on The Bluff. In 1990, following the death of then-public relations director Paul Melhuish, John was appointed his successor. In 1992 he persuaded the University to bring responsibility for most public communication, printed and otherwise, to the public relations office, which expanded exponentially in order to bring quality, consistency, and efficiency to University publications, periodicals, advertisements, media relations, news releases, public signage, product licensing, the web, and use of the crest, logo, and seal. Honors continued to course through The Bluff for this work: The University’s publications program was adjudged the best in the nation that year, for example, and Portland Magazine has been judged one of the ten best uni-
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versity magazines in America every year since. From 1997 through 2013 John then quietly helped steer the University through not one but two fundraising campaigns — the first two serious, organized, meticulously planned, and professionally executed such projects in University history, which together will have raised some $300 million when the second of them, the Rise Campaign, concludes in May of 2014. The effect of these campaigns is almost incalculable in buildings, scholarships, programs, new riverfront land, projects, endowment funds, and stunning leaps in ambition, national reputation, and communal and corporate confidence. The lion’s share of the credit for these campaigns (and the Rise Campaign will be the most successful such effort of any private university in Northwest history, a remarkable thing to say) properly goes to presidents and campaign managers; but the calm quarterback of both of them was John Soisson, in his tiny monastic office slathered with charts and graphs and calendars and notes. In 2011, during a Mass in Christie Hall’s lovely little chapel, John received the Holy Cross order’s annual Spirit of Holy Cross Award, and I have often thought since that this was the apex of his career on The Bluff, and of his life as a Catholic man; for to John the Holy Cross order is no mere religious clan and tribe, not merely a particularly honest and blunt flavor of the Catholic charism, but a star to steer by, to be
saved by, to quite literally live by. He believes, with all his heart, that Blessed Basil Moreau, founder of the order, is a saint, and showers grace on the earth he once inhabited, brilliant and troubled himself; so that when we paused, during that Mass, to give John the order’s highest honor, he wept from his very bones, nor was he alone on the sea of tears. On Monday, October 1, 2013, John retired, after 31 years serving the University of Portland with all his energy and creativity. In quintessential Soissonesque fashion he did so without fanfare, slipping away without comment or hullabaloo, and his tiny office, a day after he left, is empty, all his charts and graphs vanished, and nothing left on the walls but a photograph of his beloved Oregon. I stood in his office this morning and thought of him with respect and admiration. Like the University he loves so, he is brilliant, difficult, talented, infuriating, visionary, and inimitable. His hand has shaped the University in ways that will be felt for a century; his absolute integrity will be remembered longer, I hope. For the honest and artless manner in which he poured himself into the University, he should be thanked in a public forum; and so in the magazine that he created himself, and speaking for the many students, alumni, professors, parents, staffers, regents, and friends of the University who will never have the chance to say so themselves, I thank John Anthony Soisson, who changed the University of Portland forever. — Editor
John Soisson and the late great Father Chet Prusynski, C.S.C., circa 2009
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IT IS VERY HUMBLING United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas visited campus in September as a guest of the Garaventa Center for American Catholic Life, and he was tart, funny, blunt, and eloquent. Excerpts from his public chat with politics professors Bill Curtis and Gary Malecha, and five University students. Thomas: Some years ago, Father Bill Beauchamp did a favor for me, to help someone whom I care deeply about, and I promised him that one day I would come to the University of Portland. This probably caused him more trouble than he wanted. But I have a special place in my heart for people who keep their word, and he kept his word. Q: Justice Thomas, how did you make your way from the Catholic seminary to Holy Cross College? Thomas: Trailways bus….Well, really, by the grace of God. 1968 was not a good summer. Dr. King was assassinated in the spring, and that was the end of my vocation. I was nineteen. Later that summer, Robert Kennedy was assassinated. I vividly remember my reaction to that. I had no plan, then. By grace the wonderful priests of Holy Cross accepted me. Q: When you made it to the Supreme Court, was there something that surprised you? Thomas: My first impression was what a lot of work, and what have I gotten myserlf into, and be careful what you wish for… but, seriously, I was surprised by how warm a place it was. Justice Marshall was so warm to me, and Chief Justice Brennan, Justice Powell, Justice Byron White. I was used to a rough-and-tumble Washington, and I had just come from a confirmation hearing that was not pleasant, and so this was quite a change. It was almost like seminary; a contemplative environment without a lot of background noise. You can actually think and talk about things. You can actually reason and analyze problems. Q: Influences on your intellectual development? Thomas: Ayn Rand, in high school, and then Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison. Thomas Aquinas. Tom Sowell, who began as a Marxist and became more of a free-market economist. Paul Johnson. Shelby Foote.
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Q: I tell my students that we live in a constitutional liberal democracy and that there is a tension between latter two terms. Democracy implying majority rule, and liberalism implying individual rights that can’t be violated even by majority vote. How do you negotiate that tension at the Court? Thomas: I think our Constitution is an effort to balance that, and we’re all still trying to balance that. Many of our 5/4 opinions are us trying to sort out that balance. The individual against the state, the national government versus the state government… Q: What role would you say that the Declaration of Independence should play when you go about interpreting the Constitution? Thomas: I don’t often use it. I think the Declaration is a backdrop, as a precursor to the Constitution, but the actual operative document is the Constitution and its amendments. Q: If the founding fathers were to come back today, what would they say of our government? Thomas: I think most of what they would say would be bleeped out. I don’t think they would recognize it. Many of the fears of the anti-federalists have come to pass. I also think the founders would be stunned at how prosperous America became. Q: Talk about the pressure of your job? Thomas: It has an amazing way of humbling you. When you sit there, you realize just how small you are in the universe. When you’re sitting in your office alone, trying to make a decision, having worked through all the briefs, and talked with your law clerks — well, as Chief Justice Rehnquist said, you must vote. You don’t get to hem and haw and talk it to death. You must decide. It is very humbling. Look at us: we all have gray and thinning hair. Q: Do you think society is getting more complex? Thomas: I don’t know. I don’t have any evidence to base that on. It’s certainly an information age, but I don’t know if we have more information; we have a lot of things masquerading as information. I’m sure after the telephone was invented, people thought things were getting complicated. I think that we absorb change and we deal with change, and I think we have been quite sufficiently capable of dealing with it over the last 230 years, and I think we will continue to be capable. Q: What do you enjoy most about being on the court? Portland 6
Thomas: I like being with young people. That’s the best part. I like my law clerks. They keep me connected and give me opportunities to talk about things anew and afresh. I take law clerks from non-Ivy League schools, not because I have anything against the Ivies, but because our court is heavily Ivy, and that doesn’t reflect the country. Why aren’t there clerks and judges from the University of Portland? Idaho? Montana? This is a big country so I like my clerks to be from a lot of different places and backgrounds. Q: Advice for students preparing to enter into the job field? Thomas: Don’t get caught up in the glitter. Work for a person of character. A good person can make even a bad job good. A bad person can make a good job miserable. And if you’re doing a job, do it well and don’t complain. You sour your own attitude when you do a job with a sour attitude, and you sour people around you. Q: What are your thoughts on the election of judges? Thomas: I don’t have infinite wisdom on that sort of thing. But you should understand if you don’t have an independent and effective judiciary, you are going to have all sorts of problems in your legal system. You need judges to resolve disputes and interpret your laws. The elective system has problems and the appointive system has problems. My biggest problem has been with interest groups who swarm any of these processes. Study the nomination of Bob Bork, which I think was a travesty. I know Bob Bork. You don’t have to agree with him, but he was absolutely one of the most capable judges in this country. To say that he wasn’t qualified was nonsense. You should be concerned about interest groups swarming processes because your ability to have a civil society will depend in large part on whether or not you have a capable and independent judiciary. Q: Sir, you seem very hopeful, especially with students. Thomas: What is the choice? We ingest cynicism, negativism, and hate all day. Don’t you think it is worth saying to young people to ingest positive things? I try not to poison young people, not to feed them contaminated ideas or attitudes. I don’t have a right to spread that to kids. Q: Which president would you most like to meet? Thomas: Lincoln. I’m very fond of Lincoln.
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One tall reason U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas visited The Bluff this fall: his friend Dakota Garza ’16, whom he met when she earned a Horatio Alger Association scholarship for college. Thomas, impressed with Garza’s refusal to let a hardscrabble youth keep her from her nursing degree, called University president Father Bill Beauchamp to work out ways to help Garza, and promised to visit The Bluff in gratitude. For some of his remarks while here, see page 6. To join Justice Thomas in making education possible for brilliant cash-strapped kids, call Diane Dickey at 503.943.8130, dickey@up.edu. No scholarship donors, no Dakotas, and what a shame that would be. Winter 2013 7
PHOTO BY JEFF KENNEL
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WRITING A LIFE From her portrait, our Irish grandmother looked down on her six remaining grandsons, five of them now grandfathers. We had become the patriarchs of three branches of the family tree. Five of us were now retired or semi-retired: a potter, a policeman, an investment banker, a realtor, and two college professors. The potter, the eldest among us and the only one who knew our grandmother, was regaling us with stories about her last years, and her already unflattering portrait seemed to acquire an even deeper and more severe frown. We had gathered as a group for the first time in forty years in a restored farmhouse in the rolling hills of western Massachusetts where we spent a couple days swapping tales and reliving the various summers we spent together when shipped by our parents to this or that uncle and aunt. A year before, the seventh cousin died, so even if we did not speak of it, the gathering had special poignancy: our voices might be mingling for the last time. So we pooled our memories to fill in the family history, and I suspect that each of us had to adjust our recollections with our cousins’, and that each of us traveled in memory as far back as we could. No memories for me of grandparents, but I could see and hear and smell and almost feel being held by my parents and favorite aunt. In the presence of my living past, I reread those early and nearly forgotten chapters in my life with attention and pleasure. After that reunion and retreat into the past, two rather different thoughts intrigued me. The first had to do with my grandsons who are now eight and three; the second had to do with one of the books that most of the adolescents of my generation regarded as required reading: Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451. First the novel: I do not remember it as an admirably written novel, but I was fascinated at the time by the idea that in a future where books would be universally destroyed by an oppressive government a small band of resistors would save the written word by each memorizing a book. In effect, they became Anna Karenina or Hamlet or David Copperfield. At the time, I wondered what book I would have become;
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later, especially when I taught literature and wanted my students to see how books and book-writing mirror and intertwine with interior lives, I spun, as they say now, the idea of becoming someone else’s book into becoming our own book. If we are our memories — and I believe we are — then we compose and arrange them as we grow into our life story. I would tell my students that they knew more about literature than they realized, because they were always writing and editing the book of their life in their minds, and in that process they might resemble novelists more than historians or biographers. At their age, I certainly had a growing sense of creating my life story, and as its author I looked ahead to what my life might become as well as back on what had been. It was a composition of past memories, dreams, and hopes, and of fantasies of the future. For my grandsons, all of this lies ahead. Unfortunately they live too far away, in Kuala Lumpur, and spend time with us only during the summer and on Skype, where my daughter prompts them to tell grandma and grandpa what they have been up to. She also has to interpret for us the enthusiastic but cryptic monologues that Harry shares with us. We catch the words yellow, toy, and Lamborghini but not the binding story, for like all of us he is just emerging from a child’s bubble of the present into telling time and what did or may happen in time. The book of his life is almost blank, but already he has begun to gather and marry images and words. Perhaps some incident with a vivid detail that sticks in memory like a burr on a pant leg has become the first paragraph of his book. Think of how difficult it is to remember when we began to remember.
Yet my eight-year-old grandson Jack has begun his life book in earnest, and when he spends time with us and I am writing him into my life story, I wonder how he will render me in his. Will it be a memory of agrampa, as he first called me, riding him on my shoulder so he could pick pears from our backyard tree, or will it be stern, grumpy grampa who caught him in some mischief? There is always the temptation to write yourself into others’ memories, to edit their story: “This, boys, is how I would like to be remembered.” Yet we never know what burr of experience will lodge in another’s recollections. I like to think that someday my grandsons and hopefully their cousins might sit around a table when they have retired, recreating the character that I will have become in their stories. But that day is one they cannot imagine; they are just drafting the first chapters of their life books. God willing, years of experience and countless empty pages await them. All is ahead of them and most is now behind me. I prefer not to think I am composing the last chapter in the book of memory, but I am close enough to understand an older person’s desire to put things in order. One of those things is my life, as I have composed and imagined it. It is a time to shape up the rough draft of my days and do some serious editing. Perhaps as one ages the volume actually becomes a bit thinner. So I cut and prune, and then add again; and wake each morning grateful for the promise of another blank page. Louis Masson taught literature on The Bluff from 1970 to 2011; his most recent book of essays is Across the Quad, from Corby Books.
Two Poems Beauty
Jazz Concert
A maple tree, Moss, a wren I had not Met before, Six uprooted ferns Waiting at the cabin door; One need not be blind To fail to see.
Be with the beat beat yes yes With the drum and horn talk we Make move the moment which Where is. The throb and wail laughs its now. The know We don’t have matters not one bit. It can’t be always but always it’s now.
From a new book of poems by Sister John Maureen Backenstos ’69, edited by Sister Marilyn Nunemaker; both of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. Portland 8
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“Engineering is a service industry for humanity,” says engineering professor Tim Doughty, here photographed for the University’s amazingly thorough Annual Scholarly Review report. “I see everything I teach and research through that lens...” His research is wide-ranging: “health-monitoring of machines,” trying to sense imminent and incipient failure; equipment and machines to help people with Parkinson’s disease; working with the School of Nursing to get more nurses involved in mechanical engineering and assistive technology for their patients; and, of course, teaching and helping his students invent devices that open doors for wheelchairs, shuffle and deal cards for avid but arthritic card-players, and more. To see the whole sweeping startling Report, see issuu.com/universityofportland/docs/2013facultyprofile. Winter 2013 9
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CALL ME COACH: SARAH GRIFFIN ’13 I’m as big a basketball dork as it gets, she says, happily. I wear this crazy messy bun on top of my head when I play. People ask me Why not a pony tail? Because your hair whips you in the eyes, that’s why. I know it’s not the best look, but I never really cared about that. I cared about soccer. After I saw the Pilot women play against Notre Dame when I was a kid, that was my team. I wore a Pilot soccer shirt ’til it fell apart. But then my friends started played basketball so I decided to try. I was terrible. I couldn’t dribble or make a shot. I focused on it because I didn’t like being that bad at something. I prepared hard until I got pretty good. I was offered a scholarship at the University of Portland and I took it in a heartbeat. I grew up here. I was able to check off everything on my college list. Close to home, Catholic, competitive. I was chomping at the bit for conditioning. No one gets excited about conditioning, but I was. I was loving my freshman year and then I suffered a back injury. It was pretty rough but I figured I had to learn to live with it. I put a big old grin on my face and didn’t tell the truth because I really really wanted to believe it was okay. I already had injuries, head shoulders knees and toes. I got irritable and rude. It kind of freaked me out. This one doctor said I shouldn’t play but I thought I’ll show you. As an athlete you think you’re invincible. I figured all I had to do was rehab rehab rehab. We had practice at six in the morning so I would swim before practice, and then go to the gym to watch practice, go to class, go to therapy, do homework, go back for more rehab. Unfortunately there wasn’t much progress. My leg was kind of dead. I laughed and acted like I was just clumsy. Then I took a pretty massive spill. After that I moved back home with my parents. They noticed I couldn’t sit down for meals or bend over to tie my shoes. My mom dragged me to an MRI. I was such a pill. There was a message from the doctor that said we
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needed to talk about surgery. My disk was on the verge of rupturing. It was such a mental battle for me to understand that Division 1 basketball was not good for me. I finally had to tell myself I wasn’t allowed to touch the ball. It was like a bad breakup. I was kind of okay with it by the time I had surgery. At least it was refreshing to find out what was going on. I knew I couldn’t be in any more pain. I came out of surgery in the post-op room and I burst out bawling; I hadn’t felt my right toes in so long and now I could feel my right toes again. I told my coaches to give away my scholarship. I couldn’t contribute on the floor. They told me no, you earned it. I started doing social media for the team. I needed a new goal to get me excited so I did half triathalon. That day was the first time I’d ever swum in open water. I came in last in my age group. There were only three of us so I told people I finished third. I started doing other things to contribute to the team. I thought I would do broadcasting, and I worked with a media crew at a tournament. But then I would lie awake at night and have a tough time justifying how
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broadcasting helps people. My mom said it’s okay for you to do something fun for a while. But I was like it doesn’t … help people. Then I heard about the varsity coaching job at Sunset High School—the Apollos. I went to an interview with a board, and I realized Holy cow, I really have to fight for this thing. After that I was sure this is the reason God gave me passion for basketball and helping people. That night I sent a thank-you to the athletic director and told him Today’s greatest coaches had an opportunity at a young age. Another way to say Pick me! And they did, and ever since then I’ve been going one thousand miles an hour. My learning curve is this steep. I decided to have one-on-one parent/player meetings. I didn’t want to stand up in front of a group and have them just see a 22-year-old. I was hoping my maturity would shine through. I ended up with 16 meetings in two days. I’m happy I did it because I could remember all the players’ names at the first practice this week. Now I’m thinking How do I dress? What do they call me? So far everyone is calling me Coach. Coach works for me… Hob Osterlund
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On campus in Bauccio Commons January 29, free to all courtesy of the University’s Garaventa Center for Catholic Intellectual Life and American Culture: Lydia Smith’s 2013 film Walking the Camino, about some of the many thousands of people who walk from Portugal and France hundreds of miles all the way to the Spanish coast at Santiago de Compestela, where legend says the apostle Saint James is buried at sea. Information: Jamie Powell, 503.943.7702, powell@up.edu. Winter 2013 11
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O N S P O R T S Women’s Soccer The Pilots, #5 in the nation and cruising along on a nine-game winning streak at 12-1 in late October, led the West Coast Conference in offense (goals and assists) and defense (goals against, and shutouts). Gresham native Micaela Capelle led the Pilots with 8 goals and 20 points. ¶ Nine alumnae played pro this summer for the National Women’s Soccer League: Christine Sinclair, Danielle Foxhoven, and Angie Woznuk Kerr with the league champion Portland Thorns; Megan Rapinoe, Stephanie Lopez Cox, Keelin Winters, and Elli Reed with the Seattle Reign; and Sophie Schmidt and Kendall Johnson on Sky Blue FC in New Jersey. Thorns captain Sinclair, of course, scored in the title match, against Abby Wambach’s team. Cross Country The men, led by AllAmerican Scott Fauble, were also in the national top ten, at #7, and aiming for the NCAA national championship meet in November; the women, ranked 8th in the West, were led this fall by sophomore Laura Hottenrott, who won BYU’s Autumn Classic in Provo, Utah (18:06 for 5K). ¶ Redshirt freshman Danny Martinez finished ninth at the 2013 World Mountain Running Championships in Poland; he was second among Team USA’s juniors in the race, clocking 40:42 for 9K. Men’s Soccer The Pilots, 8-6 at presstime and fresh from a 4-1 thumping of Santa Clara, were led by freshman Eddie Sanchez, from Canby High in Oregon: he led the nation in points per game (2.08) and led the WCC with 11 goals, including a
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hat trick against the Broncos. Sanchez says he’s wanted to play for the Pilots since he was six years old. Are we Soccer Inc. or what? Volleyball Tough season for the women, who were 0-18 at presstime; but senior Autumn Wedan, with 4.49 kills per game, was among the nation’s best attackers. Wedan will finish her career on The Bluff among the Pilots’ best ever in kills and points per game. Men’s Basketball A veteran front line for the Pilots (a rare and lovely phrase on The Bluff) of Thomas van der Mars at center, all-WCC Ryan Nicholas at power forward, and small forward Kevin Bailey will be joined by Bryce Pressley and probably catquick freshman Alex Wintering at the point (as David Carr recovers from a knee injury), with an experienced bench led by center Riley Barker and guards Korey Thieleke and Tanner Riley; the usual tough schedule looms (Michigan State and Bradley on the road, for example, and then the bruising WCC), but hopes are high for Eric Reveno’s men to return to their 20win seasons of three years ago. Women’s Basketball Eleven letterwinners return for the Pilots, led by veteran guards Kari Luttinen (12 points per game), Jasmine Wooton (10 ppg), and Alexis Byrd, who last year stole the ball eight times in one game against St. Mary’s. Senior forward Amy Pupa is back on the boards (8 rebounds a game). Among the new guards: Alaska player of the year Hannah Matson and Stefania Sideri from Athens, who won two European championships with the Greek national team. Baseball The big news for the Pilots is a total renovation of Joe Etzel Field
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(helped by a Campaign gift of $150,000 from Tom and Mary Herche, of Seattle, whose son Charlie ’09 played ball for the Pilots). Plans include fake turf, stadium lights, and new grandstands (partly roofed, to the delight of moist fans). ¶ The men, led by allWCC junior infielder Cody Lenahan (.337) and sophomore pitcher Billy Sahlinger (2.87 league e.r.a.), open play in February at UCLA; they’ll welcome Oregon State (and coach Pat Casey UP Class of 1980) on April 1, and the Oregon Ducks on April 11 and May 7; they’ll also play the Beavers at Volcanoes Stadium in Salem, where the San Francisco Giants’ minor-league team plays. Rowing The women opened their season racing in the 20th annual Row for the Cure (raising money to fight breast cancer) on the Willamette River near the Hawthorne Bridge, and then raced six boats on American Lake in Washington. They’ll be up and down the west coast all year, finishing with the WCC regatta in Sacramento in May. Tennis The men, led by four all-WCC seniors — Alex Ferrero, Ratan Gill, Justin Guay and Michel Hu Kwo — have high expectations, wee in Georgia, Oklahoma, and California this fall, as they prepared to open the spring season in January; among the home matches in the L-P Center is Oregon on March 9, followed by the WCC schedule. ¶ The women also have high hopes this year; all-WCC sophomore Maja Mladenovic will be joined by Women’s Tennis Associationranked Lucia Butkovska (from Bratislava, Slovakia) and Jelena Lazarevic (Lazarevac, Serbia) for a formidable and polyconsonantal club.
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O N B R I E F LY Father Bill Beauchamp steps down!!! ...as of May 9, he announced, characteristically without fanfare, in September. In his ten years as the 19th president, the University has savored record applications, enrollment, fundraising, and national awards as the best in America for entrepreneurship, student service, and soccer (the 2005 NCAA title), among many other achievements. Father Bill will return to Notre Dame to serve the Congregation of Holy Cross; and very many University of Portland people will miss his wry, dry, calm, witty, intelligent steering of the ship. His successor will be chosen by the Board of Regents this spring, and will probably assume office this summer. Top Ten in the West The University was ranked eighth of 119 ‘regional universities’ in the West, by U.S. News & World Report this fall—the 19th consecutive year we were ranked among the best ten for excellent education at reasonable cost. U.S. News also ranked the University’s Shiley School of Engineering 33rd in the nation, its highest ranking ever. The Class of 2017, which takes its first college final examinations this month, is 830 freshmen strong, with an average 3.6 high school g.p.a. and
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1187 SAT score. Half the freshmen are from Oregon and Washington, 10% from outside the West. This is the first class to enjoy four years of the new Clark Library, we note with interest; and they’ll have two years of the gleaming new Rec Center (see below). The Rise Campaign is up to $164 million raised to date, of the record $175 million sought by its conclusion on May 9. Among recent gifts: $2.2 million for an engineering professorship devoted to undergraduate teaching, from the late engineer Vincent Aquino ’57, who named it for his parents who never got to go to college but insisted that their kids would— three of them to the U of P, one to Marylhurst. ¶ And $100,000 from Debra and John Burns to start the Dolores Casciato Lomax Scholarship in Education, named for Debra’s late mom, a legendary cook and Saint Philip Neri Parish stalwart who studied at the U of P before marrying her beloved Gary when he came back from the war. ¶ And $150,000 from Allen and Kathie Lund to buy a rare copy of the first handwritten illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine abbey in five centuries: the Saint John’s Bible, now resplendently on view in Clark Library (see page 33). ¶ And $200,000 from Pei Ling Tan ’80 of Singapore, who with his wife founded the
Sekolah Tiara Bangas school in Cibubur, just outside Jakarta, Indonesia. Founded a school! Lovely words, those words. The Stupid Government Shutdown did indeed affect the University, closing off scholarship payments and training and transportation for Air Force and Army cadets. “A logistical nightmare,” said Army cadet Blaine Bradburn ’14, bluntly. Student Feats The fall student dance this year: a silent disco at the Portland Timbers stadium downtown, for which students were issued headphones and jigged in silence. It was hilarious. ¶ Students were delighted this fall when the University’s regents calmly voted to add the words sexual orientation to the things we will not bear discrimination against; the students had been admirably exercised last year over the right of all people to love as they choose, and the University, after first peering carefully through legal thickets, agreed. ¶ The Beacon student newspaper was named a finalist for the national Pacemaker Award, from the Associated College Press; among the other finalists were newspapers from MIT and Johns Hopkins. Judges for the award are staffers of The Miami Herald. ¶ One of three finalists for the top Air Force cadet in America: new nurse and Lieutenant Sarah Bogert ’13, chosen from 1,300 candidates.
Inside the new Rec Center, which will begin to be built in May: three glorious new gleaming basketball courts, none of which have Howard Hall’s legendary dead spots. Can you make a gift to help build this soaring thing? Or name a backboard for a poor-shooting friend? Sure. Call Colin McGinty, 503.943.8005. And thanks.
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DON’T KILL US T
he smiling world-famous athlete who swam across Lake Tahoe, Lake Champlain, Donner Lake, San Francisco Bay, Boston Harbor, Hawaii’s Alalakeiki Channel, and a good deal of the English Channel, is tiny. She is the size of a towering hobbit. She is the tiniest smiling world-famous athlete you ever saw. She is also perhaps the most courteous and polite worldfamous athlete ever. This may be because she does not like to talk about being a world-famous athlete as much as she likes to talk about two other things: water, “which is my home,” and the courage of people with Down syndrome, “which is my life.” Here, listen for yourself: “I first heard the words Down syndrome from my mom when I was six years old,” says Karen Gaffney, of Portland, Oregon. “It means it takes longer for me to learn things. I learn differently. I talk differently. I walk differently. I look differently. But I am like anyone else. Treat me the same. Judge me the same. That’s all I am saying to people when I talk about Down syndrome. Just that. Judge me the same as you would judge anyone else. As you would judge yourself, or your own child.” She started swimming when she was four years old, in a pool in the back yard, “to waterproof her,” says her dad, Jim. “I’m free in the water,” says Karen Gaffney, who has walked with a limp all her life because of a displaced hip on which she has had five surgeries, so far. “My hip doesn’t hurt in the water. I can just go and go and go. I’m confident in the water. I love it. It feeds me. Although sometimes in a long swim it does seem like I have been in the water for a hundred years and I think am I ever going to stop? Sometimes I dream about being in the water, yes. Sometimes when I am in the water I think I am dreaming, yes.
The astonishing story of famed swimmer and Down syndrome activist Karen Gaffney, to whom the University presented an honorary doctorate this past May. By Brian Doyle Sometimes I am not quite totally sure if I am swimming or dreaming about swimming, yes.” Down syndrome is caused by an extra chromosome. No one knows how or why the body makes an extra chromosome but it used to happen naturally in about one of every seven hundred babies born in America every year. Now it happens in about one of every two thousand babies born in America because more and more babies diagnosed in utero with Down syndrome are terminated. Terminated is another word for killed. About nine of every ten children diagnosed with Down syndrome in utero in America and Europe are killed before they take their first breath in this world. The most popular form of termination is pharmaceutical, in which drugs are injected into the uterus. The drugs have prickly names like mifepristone and misoprostol and gemeprost and methotrexate. Other forms of termination entail the use of suction pumps. Children who are allowed to be born with Down syndrome often have small chins, poor muscle tone, flat noses, brief necks, and short fingers. Generally they are much shorter than people without Down syndrome. Winter 2013 15
Often they are obese or tend that way. Often they have hearing or vision problems. Often their brains do not develop as quickly or thoroughly as the brains of people without Down syndrome. For this reason many children with Down syndrome are institutionalized. Institutionalized is another word for imprisoned in buildings from which they never emerge. Institutionalization is fading away in North America but it is doing just fine in eastern Europe. Karen Gaffney has a small chin, a flattish nose, a brief neck, and short fingers. She does not have poor muscle tone, though, nor is she obese, because she swims two miles a day, usually, in the pool at the Multnomah Athletic Club, to which she has a lifetime membership, because the people who run the MAC are happy to be associated with world-famous athletes, of which they have seen many; and also they are hugely impressed with Karen Gaffney, who may limp from her hip problem and wear spectacles and not be very tall or powerfully muscled and only be able to use one leg to kick with when she swims because of her hip, but who has swum across vast bodies of water in the dark in frigid temperatures with not much more equipment than her trusty wet suit and not much more help than her dad following her in a motorboat with snacks and water. She has swum nine miles across Lake Tahoe. She was one of six relay swimmers across the twenty miles of Channel between England and France. She swam the three-mile length of Donner Lake in California a dozen times. She swam five miles in Hawaii from the island of Molokini to the island of Maui. She can swim all day without getting tired, says her dad. She swam five miles across Boston Harbor. She has swum from the island of Alcatraz in California
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to the city of San Francisco sixteen times, in conditions even fish find uncomfortable. She twice swam eight miles across Lake Champlain in Vermont. She has won two gold medals at the Oregon Special Olympics. She has been inducted into the Catholic Youth Organization Hall of Fame. She is the subject of two documentary films, so far, about her athletic feats. She was a finalist for the World Open Water Swimmer of the Year award last year. She was nominated for the Bill Hayward Award as the finest amateur athlete in the state of Oregon. But all this does not account Karen Gaffney. It is why she is famous but not what she is about. She is intent on something else altogether, and swimming is only a means to it, a road, a path, a tool, an instrument, a flag to wave to draw attention to something else much bigger. Karen Gaffney did homework two hours a day to be able to graduate from Saint Pius grade school. She worked more than four hours a day to be able to graduate from Saint Mary’s Aca-
demy. It is safe to say that she worked harder than any other student in her graduating class. She graduated with a 3.0 grade-point average. She was in the Science Club. She worked two afternoons a week as a teacher’s aide at Cathedral School. She earned two varsity letters in swimming. She started the Karen Gaffney Foundation to advocate and work for the full inclusion of men and women and children with Down syndrome in every aspect of life from education to sports to the arts to politics. Let us parse that last sentence; she started a national foundation while she was in high school. She went on to college. It is not every day that Down syndrome and college student are in the same sentence. She graduated from Portland Community College with a 3.4 grade-point average, and an Associate of Science degree, and a Teacher’s Aide Certificate permitting her, essentially, to be a professional educator anywhere in the State of Oregon. Let us parse this last sentence; a young woman with Down syndrome, a Portland 16
young woman not at all unlike many people who are placed in institutions from which they never escape, a young woman who much of the uninformed world would expect to be nonverbal, inarticulate, uneducable, unemployable, and in a way a waste of space on this bruised and blessed earth, graduated from community college with a B+ and a certificate allowing her to be a professional educator. “She broke all the stereotypes,” says her dad, in his brusque efficient friendly way, although he veers closer to tears than he would admit when he gets going about how much he admires his daughter’s grace and endurance and defiance. “She broke them all. She proved the usual expectations and assumptions with Down syndrome to be cruel and ridiculous. She’s supposed to be slow and obese, but she’s a world-famous swimmer. She’s supposed to be stupid and simpleminded and uneducable and she earned a college degree. She’s supposed to be a drain on society and she started a foundation when she was in high school. She’s supposed to thrash and
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fumble for words but she’s given speeches all around the world. She’s spoken to men and women and children and politicians and parents and donors and students in Belize and Canada and England and France and Ireland and Malaysia and Singapore and Trinidad and Tobago. She goes on and on and on and on. You can’t tell Karen what she can’t do. She just focuses on the task in front of her and she does it.” But here, listen for yourself. “I want to deliver hope and inspiration,” says Karen Gaffney. “I want to change kids’ lives. That’s what I want. We have incredible potential. I want it to dawn on every child with Down syndrome that they can dream big and work hard and live amazing lives and I want it to dawn on every person who does not have Down syndrome that we can all be friends. Be our friend, that’s all I am asking of you. We’re more like you than we are different. We don’t want to be different. Most people don’t know anything at all about Down syndrome and what they think they know is silly. Treat us like you would treat your own child. If your daughter was born with a condition of any sort wouldn’t you do everything you could as a parent to help your child live a healthy and vibrant life? Wouldn’t you? Sure you would. That’s all I am saying. Treat us like you would treat your own children. We are your children. “I did the best I could. I always worked as hard as I could. I just wanted to show people we are who we are. It’s wrong to put us away and shunt us aside. It’s wrong. I want to be an example of why that’s wrong. I am not the most gifted and talented person in the world. But I proved experts wrong. I was given the chance to do the best I could do. My mom and my dad and my brother and my teachers and my colleagues and companions gave me a chance to soar. That’s all I am asking. Give us a chance. Treat us like you would treat your own child.” She pauses for a moment, and a woman standing patiently outside the glass wall of the room waiting for just such a break gently opens the glass door and stick her head in and says I am sorry to interrupt but I just wanted to say I really admire your work and courage, Karen, and Karen Gaffney smiles and says thanks and the woman backs out smiling. In the hour that I sit chatting with Karen Gaffney in that glass room in the University’s Waldschmidt Hall, seven more people popped their heads in to say something exactly like that and another
dozen people walking by recognized her as they passed and made gestures of admiration or encouragement. I started keeping count of this in the first few minutes we sat there, but after a while I lost count. Near the end of the hour I asked her what she would say to the readers of this magazine if she could speak directly to them, and she said, “Don’t kill us. Let us be born. Let us lead the lives only we can lead. I’ve led a life no one else could lead. Let us do what we can do. So many of us are not allowed to be born. Is that the right thing to do? Are we sure about that? How much of those decisions are about money? About the cost of our health care and insurance and education? Could it be that money infects so much in our culture? If I could speak directly to the readers I would just
Let us be born. Let us lead the lives only we can lead. Let us do what we can do. So many of us are not allowed to be born. Is that the right thing to do? Are we sure about that? say, Think about your children, and how you would do anything in the world for them, anything, and you would never let anyone tell them what they couldn’t do, isn’t that right? And then remember that all children are your children, aren’t they? That’s what I would say.” Two weeks later Karen Gaffney stood up from her chair on the stage of the University’s Chiles Center, during the University’s 110th Commencement Exercises, and she walked to the front of the stage, limping a little, and University provost Tom Greene, standing tall and formal and glowing in his cool academic robes, said this, ringingly, to the graduating Class of 2013 and to their thousands of parents and grandparents and brothers and sisters and cousins and lovers: “The world knows and esteems Winter 2013 17
Karen Gaffney the famous swimmer, conqueror of water and weather; and along with people around the world we salute the courage and willpower of a young woman who refused to be told what she could not do, in every arena from the classroom to the English Channel. “But today we celebrate and sing Karen Gaffney’s even greater accomplishment. No one in our time has been as eloquent and articulate, in word and deed, about what men and women and children with Down syndrome can do. No one has shown so bravely and inarguably that our cultural bias about Down syndrome is wrong and unjust. No one is such a genuine and humble example of the horror of snuffing out lives for ostensibly merciful purposes. “With deep admiration for her flinty willpower, with reverence for her adamant courage, and with immense respect for the way she has insisted on the holiness and limitless possibility of every life from the breath of the Creator, the University of Portland humbly presents a doctorate of humane letters, honoris causa, on Karen Gaffney, of Portland, Oregon.” And then the University’s nineteenth president, Father Bill Beauchamp, C.S.C., draped a gleaming white doctoral hood over tiny smiling Karen Gaffney, who in that moment became the first person with Down syndrome ever to be presented an honorary doctorate by a university, and there was a swelling roar of applause that built and rose to a crescendo you could have heard on Mars. I have been in a packed Chiles Center many times in my twenty years at the University of Portland, and I have heard many a tide of applause, not only for athletic feats and delicious victories but for such brave and creative souls as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, of Tibet, and the flinty scientist Jane Goodall, of England, and the laughing boddhisatva Desmond Tutu, of the Transvaal, but I do not think I ever heard quite a roar like I heard that moment. There was something more than just applause in it — something of deep admiration and affection and respect; and maybe something like awe. It was a most remarkable sound, for a most remarkable woman. That she is now an alumna of the University, it seems to me, honors and elevates us. n Brian Doyle is the editor of this magazine. The Thorny Grace of It, a new collection of his essays (many of which appeared in these pages), was published in October by Loyola Press.
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The Salzburg Program at Fifty The University celebrates its oldest and largest study-abroad program this academic year, and will close the anniversary at reunion 2014 in June with much attention paid to the creative effort that the late Bishop Paul Waldschmidt, C.S.C., started himself in 1964 (famously carrying home Austrian oak acorns in his pockets to plant on campus). Of course the essence of the Salzburg Program, the heart and soul of its sweet energy, are the teachers and staffers; with this issue we bring you some, with more to come in our next issues.
Gundi Walterskirchen, professor of music and literature since 1975
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Josef Feldner, professor of German since 1996
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Maria Strobl, legendary housekeeper since 1970
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Eva Brandauer, German professor since 1996
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HONESTY SPOKEN HERE Inside the Infusion Room with nurse Laura Doyle Gillette ’83. By Dave Kenagy
Four years later my infusions began taking longer than the nurse treatment room could manage. Next stop: The Infusion Room. Laura’s domain. I’m an Infusion Room regular for six years now. It’s like a local coffee shop, only with needles, tubes, and dangling fluid bags. People who need infusion meds pumped into their bloodstreams gather here. Some have nerve diseases, others arthritis, others cancer. Folks in this room understand affliction. We have three infusion stations in our windowless grotto. Stations One and Two are cushy blue recliners, for infusions lasting only an hour or two. Station Three is a bed against the back wall. It is for the longer-term visitor. That’s where I go. An infusion pump the size of a pumpkin looms over each station, clamped hard to a shiny metal rollerpole. Fluid bags and plastic tubes decorate four hangers branching out from the top. In six hours the suspended liquids there end up inside me. I sleep most of the day, drifting in and out of a fuzzy stupor. Around
me, other patients’ needs are met. We hold in common the space; the time; the hope of another day. Sick people don’t fuss with wimpy words. Truth trumps trivia. When folks come to the infusion room after days of vomiting and diarrhea they don’t say vomit. They don’t bother with diarrhea either. They use other words. Honesty is spoken here. Inserting the IV needle begins with gentle warming, cleaning, vein-searching, and reassuring words. Like a crossing guard, these words lead safely to school. “It’s really hard to drink anything when it keeps coming back up, isn’t it? Which tastes better, juice or water? Do you think you could hold down just a sip of either one? If you could hold down a little bit, you wouldn’t have to come in here for hydration.” (This is the infusion room’s blue light special: A chance to feel better without the needle.) “If you just find a pitcher of water or juice… whichever you like best… and a very small cup, you can keep that cup full and near you all day. Then, every time you think of it, take a tiny sip from the little cup and refill it. Just keep sipping from that cup. It works.” And it does. And He took the cup and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying drink ye all of it, which I do. Vicodin and its drowsy cousins slow everything down. Everything. “At this stage in your healing it’s really important to stay regular.” “What?” Laura explains the medical miracle of stool softeners. She goes with you to the pharmacy so you buy the right one. She calls your ride to take you home. Nursing means caring enough to talk toilet. It means Love your neighbor as yourself. It means Perfect love casts out fear. That’s what it means. We don’t say that enough. Laura talks you through your hair falling out. She talks you through the month when you look like a molting bird and feel like one, no feathers, grounded, vulnerable, not yourself. And who’s going to tell you the grungy details like when your hair first starts falling out you’ll notice more hair in your brush, or it won’t come out all at once, or you will find clumps in your fingers when you run your hands over your head? Who covers all that? Who Winter 2013 23
can you trust? Depends on your nurse. If we measured tears like rain, we’d double the season’s average when hair loss begins. But that’s when Laura teaches best. “Oh, that’s one gorgeous hat. Did you get it at the goofy shop we talked about on the phone? Have you tried those big patterned scarves? The best wig shop is by the old movie theater. Here, I’ll draw you a map.” But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things. Scarcely detectable sobbing drifts out of Station One. Bad enough when a wife of fifty years stands near, unable to help her husband breathe. But when a mother stands over her inconsolable child… My God my God why… the youngster’s sob isn’t anything you’d recognize. Everything hurts too much to let out a good cry’s flood. The small awful sound I hear is what seeps out instead. It’s usually safe behind my curtain in Station Three. But the sound of a child so weakened by disease that even sobbing is hard? That invades the heart. Like Marines take a beach. No matter my defenses, it gets through. The flimsy curtain’s charade is over. We all know what’s happening. I’m useless, empty. Inside myself, just this: Lord, have mercy, Christ have mercy... And what now, what does nurse Laura do? Silence. Presence. A cool wash cloth. Repositioning. Standing. Watching. Repeat. That’s it. Nursing, caring, is all by wordless movement. An odd dance to the cadence of muffled sighs. Some call this the Ministry of Presence. That gets pretty close. There are no instructions left to give the child or mom or dad. No more calls. No pharmacy runs. The nursing plan is Being There. It tells the parents and most of all, the dying, that Nurse Laura knows you are there and she knows you are hurting and she knows you are important. Loved. Cared for. And she knows what’s happening. She has earned the right to hold your hand. To be with you. That counts. I am with you always, even to the end... n David Kenagy is a dean emeritus at Willamette University’s College of Law in Salem, where he was also executive director of the Oregon Law Commission, the state’s law reform entity.
PHOTOGRAPH BY HENRY KING / PHOTONICA, GETTY IMAGES
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t’s a busy place, the treatment room where I get my weekly infusions. To keep things moving, a simple protocol follows the third unsuccessful attempt to start my IV: “Get Laura.” The year: 2003, not long after I started infusions to keep upright and functional. Enter Laura: a crisp white shirt with name tag, tidy IV travel kit, big smile. Next: confident arm positioning, disinfection, poke, click, tape, done. Another flawless IV start. Exit Laura. “Who is that?” I asked my relieved and grateful attending nurse. “Oh, she’s our go-to IV starter. She works the hard ones.” No professional envy. No sense of competition, merely happy for the help. Help that expected nothing in return. “What does Laura do when she’s not starting hard IVs?” “Laura mostly treats our cancer patients. She follows them in our clinic’s oncology department. She keeps ports open, schedules care, coordinates with the treating oncologists and gives IV hydration. And all the other things that come up during chemo. She’s terrific.” All the other things: that’s Laura.
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The Winter Wet What does the Pacific Northwest coast look like in winter? Pretty much like this lovely painting by the Oregon artist Michael Schlicting. For more of his work see michaelschlicting.com.
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WHAT YOU MOST HAVE TO OFFER IS WHO YOU ARE In which the new occupant of the University’s Chair in Ethics gives the first non-boring speech about ethics in the history of the universe. By Michael Andrews
et me begin with a very personal tangent, in honor of the benefactors who established the McNerney-Hanson Endowed Chair in Ethics in celebration of their mothers. I lost my own mother to brain cancer 17 years ago, and my father to pancreatic cancer in 2006. I cannot fully express my gratitude to them for who they were and what they gave me: the gift of life itself, a keen sense of integrity, and a deeply felt compassion for those who suffer, mentally and physically, especially the poor and the forgotten of the earth. I like to think of my mom and dad as being here today and sharing this time with us, being part of our prayer, our work, our joy, our ongoing commitment to give comfort to those in need, to seek righteousness, to walk humbly with our God. The inspiration for my talk today comes from a single sentence in Pope Paul VI’s social encyclical, Populorum Progressio. In it, Pope Paul wrote that we are in search of “a new humanism...which will enable human beings to find themselves again.” What I’m not going to do today is define ethics or humanism or justice in a neatly wrapped academic package [applause]. Rather I hope to shake up some of our pre-conceived notions and assumptions about ethics. I want to ask three questions: What does ethics ask of us? What does justice seek? How might the University’s chair in ethics serve the kind of faith and justice mission for which we yearn as brothers and sisters in this Holy Cross institution? “Why should I?” This was the question my six-year old daughter planted on me one afternoon, after I explained to her that she needed to tell me the truth about a situation that had apparently transpired at school with one of her classmates that day. Her question brought a cold sweat to my forehead. I suddenly found myself spinning back to my senior college ethics course, and there is my ethics professor, staring down at me from her podium: “So, Mr. Andrews, why ought one to be moral?” Twenty years later, the question still haunts me. Of course, I can quote away from The Official List of Approved Authors and Texts: Aristotle, Mill, Kant, Bentham, Nietzsche, Augustine, St. Thomas...de-ontology, virtue ethics, contract ethics, praxis ethics, discourse ethics, utilitarianism, social justice, distributive justice, an ethics of care, natural law theory...The list of witnesses for Clear and Distinct Ideas is endless. But my daughter wasn’t asking me to provide theory. She was asking a question much more proPortland 26
found: What’s so good about being good? If we hold that the dignity of the human being is neither homo economicus, he or she whose primary purpose is to buy and sell; nor homo governatus, he or she whose rights are legitimated, established, and protected by the changing whims of the State; but rather homo Christus, he or she who is created imago Dei, in the “image of God,” then we are talking about the deepest aspects of human life when we talk about ethics. The word “ethics” in fact refers etymologically to the Greek word “ethos,” meaning “character,” though in the sense of “customs” or “customary behavior,” including, for example, rules governing communal life, dress codes, and cultic rituals. (The Romans, too, similarly spoke of “mores” in terms of customs, hence, the word “morality.”) Starting with Heraclitus, however, we have the first instance in which character — ethos — becomes associated with the “divine spark.” Henceforward, ethics gets defined as that which separates human beings from all other forms of animal life. The groundwork for Aristotle was thus laid by the pre-Socratic philosophers, such that the search for wisdom — what the Greeks call sophia — requires much more than merely understanding a theoretical abstraction. Ethics, or good character, concerns the coming-to-understanding of prudence, through habit and action, in a life of virtue. What do I mean by referring to a life of virtue? Here’s an example. Edith Stein was born in 1891 to a large Jewish family in Breslau, in modern-day Poland. The young Edith declared herself an atheist — to the absolute horror of her devoutly Jewish mother — at the age of 15 and subsequently left home to study phenomenology under Edmund Husserl, then teaching at the University of Gottingen, in northern Germany. Edith Stein proved a formidable student, even for Husserl, and completed her doctoral dissertation on the thematic of empathy under his direction. This was followed by a series of penetrating analyses on the nature of the state, culture, and social constitution theory. In 1921 she underwent a conversion and was baptized; she entered the Carmelite Order in 1933 and remained in cloister, first in Germany, and later, following the tragic events of Kristallnacht, in Holland, where she sought refuge at a Carmelite convent in Echt. There she continued to pray and write until the Gestapo forcibly removed her from her Carmelite community and
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Empathy, according to Stein, is not about losing myself in the other, but rather finding my authentic self in and through my encounter with a living community. Neither the community nor the individual is “itself” apart from the other. For Edith Stein, empathy entails solidarity. Solidarity requires that I offer hospitality not only to those within my closed circle of sameness. Ethics requires that I extend my concern to unknown others who lay outside my reach, outside my inner circle of time and place, outside the horizon of my normal concerns and family obligations. Such infinite concern, I argue, is what ethics ask of us. Ethics posits an
infinite concern, a command that comes from outside every circle of vested self-interest. For Edith Stein, empathy places infinite responsibility on my shoulders and bids that I respond to an other’s needs far beyond anything I can reasonably imagine. Ethics points me beyond myself and demands that I respond with infinite concern and infinite respect to the one who disturbs and confounds me. Empathy implies a far richer sense of solidarity than any human community can reasonably hope or imagine. We look to ethics, then, to give us an informed sense of the world, a developed sense of empathy, and a sensitivity to human pain and social injustice. Like Edith Stein, what we
want is to be able to grapple intelligently with the complexities of the modern world, to be confident enough to reject easy answers and to be able to speak effectively with our lives. Nothing less will do. This is what Pope Paul VI called for in his 1968 papal encyclical Populorum Progressio, on the Development of Peoples: “We seek,” he wrote, “a new humanism...which will enable human beings to find themselves again.” This new humanism must be deeply sensitive to the savage exploitation and misery that have come to characterize our new millennium. What does ethics ask of us? In a nutshell: ethics asks us to do the Impossible. Portland 28
To love one’s enemies as oneself, to forgive seventy times seven the person who has wronged you, to care for the orphan and the widow, to give my shirt also when a stranger asks for my coat — this is an impossible ethics. This kind of ethics violates my integrity, my self-interest...even my constitutional rights. Further, this kind of ethics does not ask, it demands: feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned, comfort the sick, bury the dead, clothe the naked, respect the immigrant, love your enemy, pray for your persecutor. Who can bear such ethics, such commands? Who could offer such hospitality to a stranger? Who, indeed, would dare to “see in all the image of God imprinted within,” as Father Basil Moreau, founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, wrote in his 1854 treatise, On Christian Education? No one can reasonably be expected to dare such things; but true ethics, genuine ethics, demands just this. We are required to do the impossible by living what we say we believe. What might such an ethics look like for us, teachers and parents, alumni and students? At the very least, it would challenge us to ask new questions in new ways. “How should humans dwell?” is an ethical question that cuts to the heart of an engineer’s vocation. “How shall limited medical resources be shared amongst the world’s most poor and vulnerable?” is an ethical question that needs to be raised by nurses and doctors who work in hospitals and public health clinics and serve on medical boards and government agencies. “Why are so few people so wealthy and so many others struggling to obtain even the basic necessities of life?” is an ethical question that every business major, entrepreneur, and economist needs to ask in light of the Church’s social teachings. And more: Under what circumstances can modern technological warfare be justified? How do we fix a broken educational system that leaves one in five American children trapped in a spiral of poverty and despair? What are the ethical implications of what science tells us about the origin of life, whether in the womb or in the stars? Should human beings, especially the poor and marginalized, have access to basic needs in health care? By what justification dare I define another human being who bleeds as I
THE PRINTING INDUSTRY, PAINTING BY HERMAN HENRY WESSEL / SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM, WASHINGTON, D.C. /ART RESOURCE, NY
sent her by train to Auschwitz, where she died in a gas chamber, along with her sister Rosa, on August 9, 1942. Her philosophical and theological works were all but forgotten, until a certain Polish cardinal was elected pope in 1978. He also had studied phenomenology, with two of Stein’s mentors, and was quite aware of the complexity and immensity of her thought. Against all odds, Edith Stein was canonized a Catholic saint in 1999. I mention Stein here, not only because I think she is worth knowing and learning about, but also because I think she offers a model of how ethics and empathy can lead to the kind of “new humanism” called for by Pope Paul. For Edith Stein, the human person never exists as an isolated object, a thing, an entity, an agent intellect or rational animal. The human person is inherently, innately social. What does this mean in ethical terms? It means that to be human is always and everywhere to exist in community. Contrary to Rene Descartes, Edith Stein believed that an individuated, alienated self is merely fictitious. Before the “I” exists, there is always, already, a life-world community of persons. The individuated self is born into a lifeworld, a world of culture, language, meaning, and relationality. Hence, the modern notion of an alienated, individuated Ego cut off from other egos is purely fictive, a mere construct of social engineering. [Shout from audience: postmodernism is a joke!] Consider the political and religious implications of what Edith Stein is describing: the individual ego — the individual who makes all decisions by himself or herself, who is utterly independent and radically free — is a fiction. There is no such being.
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bleed and who hopes and dreams for his children’s welfare the same way I hope and dream for mine; by what justification dare I define this other human being as alien, foreign, illegal? Nearly 45 years after his death, Senator Robert Kennedy’s query still haunts us, both personally and collectively. To what extent am I responsible for helping maintain a mad economy in which the gross national product of our country counts napalm and smart bombs and nuclear warheads and television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children — yet does not allow for the health of our children, or the beauty of their voices, or poetry, or our national wit and compassion? A concern for justice lies at the heart of ethics and at the core of our mission as a Catholic and Holy Cross institution. It remains an essential element in the search for the kind of “new humanism” for which Pope Paul VI called. To do less means to be less than we are, to fail to see what Basil Moreau clearly saw and bids us to see as well, namely, “in all the image of God imprinted within.” There is much talk today about “academic excellence” and “service for justice.” Who could argue with such grand, noble sentiments? Strangely enough, however, these words often ring hollow. “Educating the whole person” and “educating for justice” have become standard script on just about every academic undergraduate campus in North America. Yet I wonder what I would say if one of my students asked me whether I had adequately educated her for justice? I would have to answer, in all sincerity and humility, “well, sort of. Ummm... probably not.” Certainly I think all of us on this campus can agree that educating for justice has become and should remain an essential, required component of ethical formation, of teaching and learning. There are amazing service programs and volunteer opportunities for faculty, students, and alumni, on and off campus, and goodness knows how important these service programs are. How many lives, individually and collectively, do our students and alumni, faculty and staff touch each day? Many thousands. How many hours of community service do University students and alumni and faculty and staff offer to people in genuine need, people who are hungry, and homeless, or in need of medical care or legal advice, people who are poor, sick, dying, mentally ill? Many thousands.
And yet, in this very assurance of our success lies a grave danger that threatens to undermine all that we do, all that we are. The question I wish to pose is uncomfortable; some may regard it as treasonous, frivolous, misguided. Nevertheless, I believe the question must be raised: Is the doing of justice enough? That is to say, does a Catholic university get off the hook by graduating seniors with big hearts but who do not have the intellectual tools and moral capacity to challenge the very structures and institutions, both in the church and in society, by which many injustices flourish?
How do we fix a broken educational system that leaves one in five American children trapped in a spiral of poverty and despair? By what justification dare we define another other human being as alien, foreign, illegal? Why do we produce napalm and warheads but let children starve? Let me be even more blunt. Surely the quest for “justice” is not unique or distinctive to Catholic higher education? Do not Jewish and Islamic scholars, too, speak in terms of justice? And Marxist-Hegelians, as they shrewdly teach economic theory to a world reeling from capitalist excess? What about the Hebrew prophets? Tibetan monks? Lakota Sioux elders? Or the self-proclaimed “secular pragmatists” who speak on behalf of the post-liberal left in American politics? While we celebrate the aspirations of an Arab Spring, we nevertheless recoil when violence in our own cities erupts that is exploited by similar social, political, and economic injustices. You see my point: When everyone is practicing justice, is it any wonder why the call for “education for justice” is often Winter 2013 29
met by with a quiet yawn, a wink of the eye, a principled affirmation, and a check mark on our next outside assessment review? Listen: our heartfelt concern about “justice” will fall far short of its goal unless the teaching and learning of ethics requires helping young people discover that what they most have to offer is who they are, rather than merely what they do. Ethics in its humanist and Christian context is not about answering the question, “Which ethical decision is correct?” It is, rather, asking which choice helps me become the kind of person I hope to be, the kind of person God desires me to be? This is why the ethical question cannot be limited to, “Who am I?” but must include “Whose am I? To whom do I belong?” “What do I love?” How you answer those questions determines everything. The question I want to pose today is not merely, What is ethics? It is, rather, How might we imagine our future? What might our world look like if we allow ethics to set our hearts and minds on fire? Why not imagine ethics as a horizon of discourse that points always beyond itself to the kind of justice that is always yet-to-come? Such an open and welcome and inclusive community of the future! Such an ethics of possibility, of hope! Such an ethics of promise, rife with possibility, this future of the Impossible, where the first shall be last and the hungry shall have their fill! To my mind, such an ethics is not about following mere rules and abstract theories. It is about finding in this particular moment the fullness of time, about preparing for a future that — in all honesty — we know not what it will bring. If Christianity has anything to say about ethics, it is that the search for ethics can never be separate from concrete, human suffering and the longing for wholeness that we all seek. Otherwise, we run the all-too-easy risk of becoming mere academics, mere administrators, mere theorists, rather than being educators. Even worse, we run the risk of turning our students into mindless and soulless automotons whose only goal is to get the “right” answer, no matter what the cost. “To see in all the image of God imprinted within…” Dare we even try? Do we really have the courage for that? n Michael Andrews is the dean of Arts & Sciences, and the second occupant of the University’s McNerney-Hanson Chair in Ethics; this essay is drawn from his talk at his installation.
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Sometimes we forget that the greatest holiest wildest coolest miracle of all are our kids; and that all kids are our kids. By Chris Dombrowski
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idge of cloud on the sky with a long crazed grain of sunset running through it, wind gusts buffeting the car so violently that our two-year-old son Luca asks, “What’s that?” What’s what? “Outside.” The wind’s outside, Mary says, the clouds are outside too. “Nice to meet you, wind,” says Luca. “Nice to meet you, clouds.”
I had lain down in a thick mat of snow and was thinking that the big leafless beech tree above me looked strangely like a leaf, its trunk a stem, its branches nodes...when the boy plopped down beside me with his red nose and cheeks, silent except for his breath labored from sledding. We lie there until the sky clears, and the woods turn a bit blue. Then, stirring, he asks: “Do leaves dream, too?” Over a frozen lake in February, the sun setting: “It burns me,” he says. Wind on the lake ghosting up fine grains of snow, the entire timbered island elided. “What are you doing?” he asks. I’m reading a poem. “What’s a poem?” A poem is a machine made of words, I say, cribbing from Williams Carlos Williams. “No, it’s a tractor,” he says. At the creekmouth in spring, feeding the minnows with crushed crackers, the wide school veering and taking the crumbs, the water flashing faintly. We catch a couple of small bass, a sunfish, a rock bass, placing them each in a big white bucket. “That guy’s name is Johnson,” the boy says, pointing to the largest fish, “Big Johnson.” They arrive home from the checkup at the nurse-midwife’s, the boy and his mother. How was it? “I got a Spiderman sticker.” That’s good. What else? “And some animal crackers.” That sounds like a good deal. “And Nancy let me push the button so I could hear the baby’s heart beating.” My memory conjures up that wild interstellar rhythm. That must have Winter 2013 31
been pretty cool? “Yeah. It breaks my heart every time.” His third Mother’s Day dinner, leafsteeped light pouring through the west window, the boy growing angry when I tell him his mom gets to blow out the candle. “I don’t want it to be Mother’s Day any more. I don’t want it to be Mother’s Day ever again!” To which I say as gently as possible: Buddy, you’re here because of your mother. You wouldn’t be here on earth having fun with your friends and being so happy if your mother hadn’t brought you here. Instantly a look of utter fear smears across his face, and he begins to sob. Bud, what is it, what’s wrong? Through sniffles, his chest cavity heaving up and down, he articulates what we’ve all thought at least once no matter how forlorn or woebegone our lives have been: “I don’t want to leave this earth.” When the first copy of my first book comes we sit down on the couch to open the envelope and to make a small toast of celebration, but the boy races off to his room to play. Soon Mary and I have gushed sufficiently over the book, clinked our glasses numerous of times, and I take the book to his room. He has the humidifier cranked up so high emits a dense mist, and wears swimming goggles that perspire in the fog which he raises into his hair with a sigh: “Okay. Let me see this boring book.” Snowed tonight, tiny flakes that in the porch light looked charged with electricity. We walk inside each carrying a sleeping child. When I place the boy gently in his bed, he sits up and says, “Story.” Then falls instantly back to sleep. In this way, with these bolts, I have stitched a quilt. Cover me with it when I am most cold. n Chris Dombrowski, for many years a river guide in Montana, is the author of four books of poems, among them Earth Again and By Cold Water.
BEETHOVEN, PAINTING BY FELICE CASORATI / MONDADORI PORTFOLIO / ELECTA / ART RESOURCE, NY / ©2013 ARTIST RIGHTS SOCIETY, NY
I DON’T WANT TO LEAVE THIS EARTH
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ON PRAYING THE PSALMS T
his morning, barefoot in the kitchen, I whisper Psalm Thirty. I will exalt you, O Lord, because you have lifted me up and have not let my enemies triumph over me...I cried out to you, and you restored me to health. Prayer is technology, writes the scholar Eugene Peterson. Prayers are tools. A mechanistic conception of a mystical thing, but I am too tired to think differently. With the Psalms I lever the day into place. Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me; O Lord, be my helper. Israel prayed the Psalms, their prophets and kings. Exiled in Babylon the people prayed Restore us, and in the wake of their homecoming, Bless the Lord. Six centuries before Jesus, fathers taught the words to their children, gathered in tents. John the Baptist, the early church mothers, the desert mystics and pillar saints — they knew these prayers by heart. Here, the ancients tell us, pray like this: each psalm in sequence or out of order; one per day for 150 days or all of them in a month; on the subway or the bus or waiting for the light to turn; in the bathroom; in a closet to war against distraction; pray evenings; pray during lunch; it doesn’t matter what you feel or if you comprehend every line or if the words correspond to your real time experience; keep moving your lips; whisper, chant, sing; if the word is Hallelujah, say Hallelujah; if fear, say fear; you are an amateur; obey the words on the page; no need to improvise; pray by yourself, and if you can, with other people; we prayed these prayers with other people; once a boy killed a giant with a stone and when he grew up he became a poet-king and he was famous like Elvis and people said David, he knows God, but if he knew anything he knew how to be honest, and many of these prayers were written by him; you are still learning to be honest with God and with yourself; does this offend you? Pray the Psalms anyway; recite them like a new language; you are learning a new language, one God and humans share. So I pray the Psalms. Why? Because I think God is not extinct, but only hidden. Concealed in the blur of daily life. Camouflaged, always, but on rare occasions identifiable. And if anyone knew God in ages past, it seems to me the psalmists did: knew God perIsaac Anderson is a writer in Columbus, Ohio. This excerpt is drawn from a longer essay called “Lord God Bird,” which first appeared in Image.
sonally, in ways I do not. Incline your ear to me, I say, standing in the kitchen, waiting for water to boil. The psalmists speak of pain, physical and otherwise, like we speak of weather. They are fluent in the language of discomfort. They are complainers, the psalmists. They are shrill people you admire for their intensity and avoid for the same reason. Only God could suffer all of them at once. Yet in their shrillness, their anger and despondency, they teach. Pray what you FEEL, they say, almost hysterically. You have PERMISSION. Calvin called the Psalms an anatomy of the soul presumably for this reason — their ability to cover the gamut of human emotion. So I pray, wondering how I will ever identify with a line like Indeed, for your sake we are killed all the day long. Wondering, that is, until I recall my mother’s breast cancer a few years back — when she opts for chemotherapy and I go to the clinic for her first day of treatment and she’s holding a giant syringe-like tube of neon red liquid against her side, a syrup that drains into her body with each press of a plunger, poisoning her by degrees. Indeed, we are killed — I had forgotten — all of us and all the day long, cancer or not. But for YOUR sake?! What do YOU, God, have to do with it? Spare me the rationalizations. I will never understand. And when I pray Do something! and What are you thinking?! remember, I was taught to pray this way. Psalm 65: O Hope of all the ends of the earth and of the seas that are far away. Psalm 69: I have grown weary with my crying; my throat is inflamed; my eyes have failed from looking for my God. Psalm 74: O God, why have you utterly cast us off? I have been skipping the Selahs, pauses built into the Psalms like musical rests. When I pray the Psalms, I often pray straight through, quickly, without pausing to reflect. This is not correct. If I want to learn from these people, I should pray by their rules. So today I go find another version of the Psalms, a translation based on the Masoretic Hebrew. Opening to Psalm 62, I pray until the Selah and close my eyes. Then I wait, listening, to the cars passing on the street, sparrows in the tree out back. I hear my own breathing. Portland 32
I get impatient. Who has time for this? After a while, I open my eyes and read the next line: Truly, wait quietly for God, O my soul. If God and people ever confer, it is on God’s terms. This is not news to me. God alone picks times and places, picks the people — a shepherd or social worker — and the medium — a pillar of fire or a traffic jam. What is news to me, what is always news because I always forget, is that I do not want to know God. Not really. Not the way I want my writing published. Not the way I want sex, or cigarettes. I do not want God, not viscerally, not even urgently, as God deserves to be wanted — not today, and sometimes not for months. I am learning to be honest. I do not want; I only want to want. Which is why I keep praying. When I was ten years old I had a pet finch. One day I was changing my finch’s water, a daily ritual. The cage was on the patio to give the bird fresh air, and when I opened the cage to replace the water trough, the bird flew through the gap between my hand and the door, flew straight and didn’t look back, flew past my mother’s bedroom window, past the wooden fort in our backyard, over the fence, between two houses, and away. Selah. I got the bird back. I can hardly believe it, but I did. After running inside to tell my mom it was gone, after crying and despairing and wishing I had been more careful, I went back outside and heard a finch call in the distance. I traced the sound, climbed fences, cut through back yards to the next block, and found my finch in a tree. I knew I could climb, if the bird would just stay put. I climbed quickly, praying under my breath that nothing would send the bird flying. The finch just watched as I inched my way out onto the tree limb, feigning nonchalance, and when I got close enough, I grabbed it as fast and gentle as I could. My hand wrapped around charcoal feathers. I climbed from the tree and leapt from the last branch to the ground. And I ran home ecstatic, jumping every few steps, stunned by my dumb luck. Selah. n Ten Commandments, by Thomas Ingmire, 2003, from the University’s copy of the exquisite The Saint John’s Bible, a Campaign gift to Clark Library from Allen and Kathie Lund.
©TEN COMMANDMENTS, THOMAS INGMIRE, 2003, THE SAINT JOHN’S BIBLE, SAINT JOHN’S UNIVERSITY, COLLEGEVILLE, MINNESOTA, USA. SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS ARE FROM THE NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION OF THE BIBLE, CATHOLIC EDITION, COPYRIGHT 1993, 1989 NATIONAL COUNCIL OF THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. USED BY PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. FOR MORE SEE SAINTJOHNSBIBLE.ORG.
by Isaac Anderson
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hirteen years ago, in my native Ireland, in the city of my birth, I was walking along the street when a speeding lumber truck lost its load. Huge logs cracked me over the head, and I went hurtling through the air and into oblivion. I remember a moment of skimming through the sky like a rag doll, freed of gravity, a body spun out of the orbit of earth. Suddenly I was floating, whatever that I was now — my self was not located in space but seemed to be everywhere — and it felt free and saturated in love. I could see the broken woman I had been on the sidewalk, blood spewing out of her head, and everyone racing in circles, crying, screaming, calling ambulances. But I had no concern for that body. In fact, I was puzzled that anyone at all was upset. From where I was, every single moment seemed imbued, permeated, overflowing with an indescribably joyful love. Nothing was out of place in any way. This scene, and every scene in the entire universe at that instant, was playing itself out in utter perfection. Why, o why, couldn’t they see that? I told this story recently to an attentive audience at Mary’s Woods retirement home in Oregon, just south of Portland. I told these men and women about the magnetic pull of love I had experienced, an exquisite tide sweeping me into the arms of God. I spoke of how excruciating it was for me to be informed, not in words but through a deep knowing, that my work on earth was not done. I spoke of how I had to come back again and learn to embrace the heartbreak of being in a shattered body, weighted down by gravity and duality. I tried to convey how it must have been for those loved ones of theirs who had passed on, how they perhaps could not resist the allure of God’s boundless love, an ecstasy far beyond human understanding. I told these men and women that they too were in for a treat — how death, as I had been shown thirteen years ago on a street in Dublin, is the most glorious, liberating, exquisite gift imaginable. I spoke of the poet Lisel Mueller, who only began writing poetry in her late 40s, following the death of her mother. She could not believe that the world would go on, that flowers would keep blooming on that momentous summer day:
So I placed my grief in the mouth of language the only place that would grieve with me... And I read them the great Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh, a poem written after the death of his beloved mother: I do not think of you lying in the wet clay Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see You walking down a lane among the poplars
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On your way to the station, or happily Going to second Mass on a summer SundayYou meet me and you say: ‘Don’t forget to see about the cattle —’ Among your earthiest words the angels stray... And when I looked up from the poem, I found a sea of faces softened by flowing tears. A charm of women and men who had lived long enough to lose much of what they loved. I saw the power of poetry to evoke deep emotion and long-held memories. It was a stunning sight, the room flooded with love, as if hearts had broken open and rivers of grief were flowing in divine harmony. Several people there told me later they knew why I had to come back to life: to share the deeper truth. And I, who had for many years after my accident wished to go back to that place of peace and profound love again, now felt awed and glad for my long and sometimes torturous journey back into this world. This world...with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, as the old poem goes, it is still a beautiful world. The bittersweetness of our humanity sometimes miraculously, gloriously, for an instant, merges with our divine nature, and the threads of our lives strand together into one seamless, gorgeous whole. When that happens, as it happened to me that day at Mary’s Woods, I find a quiet corner and weep tears of inarticulate joy and ancient grief and undying love. n Ana Callan, who taught literature on The Bluff in 1988 and has written of grace and water in these pages, is the author of many books of poems and prose, notably the novel Taf.
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Love and grief and harmony: A note. By Ana Callan
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ALUMNI AWARDS TO BE PRESENTED AT STATE OF UNIVERSITY LUNCHEON Seating is limited at our annual State of the University and Alumni Awards luncheon so mark your calendars for Tuesday, April 1, 2014 and plan to join us at noon at the Multnomah Athletic Club in downtown Portland. University president Rev. E. William Beauchamp, C.S.C., will deliver his final annual State of the University address as president and take full measure of one of the finest Catholic universities in the West. We will also honor the three 2014 Alumni Award winners and recognize the student recipient of this year's Gerhardt Award. Watch for your invitation in the mail this spring and plan to attend to honor your fellow alumni and hear the latest news about the University’s continued growth and many accomplishments. For more information contact alumni relations at 503-9437328, 888-UP-ALUMS, or alumni@up.edu.
SAVE THE DATE FOR REUNION 2014, JUNE 26-29 Save the date to join us next summer (June 26-29, 2014) as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Salzburg study abroad program. More than 2,000 alumni have lived and studied in the home of “The Sound of Music,” and we’re bringing the best of Salzburg to The Bluff as we welcome back our beloved Salzburgers. We’ll also celebrate “30 years of Manliness” with Villa Maria alumni, and cheer the Golden Anniversary of the Class of 1964, the Silver Anniversary of the Class of 1989, and induct another legendary group
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of Pilot athletes into the Athletics Hall of Fame. The always-popular Barbecue on the Bluff will feature a mind-boggling selection of cuisine thanks to the crack team of chefs led by the one and only Kirk Mustain, so be sure to come hungry. We invite all alumni, their families, and friends to join us for the fun. Circle the last weekend of June 2014 on your calendar, and plan to return to campus to catch up with classmates and faculty while you create some exciting new memories. See you at Reunion 2014! For more information contact alumni relations at 503-943-7328, 888-UP-ALUMS, or alumni@up.edu.
NAB POKER TOURNAMENT Come to The Bluff on Friday, January 17, 2014 and call our bluff at the National Alumni Board Poker Tournament. Proceeds from your $50 entry fee will help support the National Alumni Board Scholarship Fund, to be awarded to an outstanding senior student. A delicious pre-tournament buffet meal will be served at 6:45 p.m. The chips will hit the table at 7:30 p.m. in this no-limit Texas Hold-Em tournament. For more information contact alumni relations at 503-9437328, 888-UP-ALUMS, or alumni@up.edu.
SAN FRANCISCO NETWORKING EVENT The alumni office will offer a Bay Area networking event hosted by Greg Schopf ’71 at Nixon Peabody on Thursday, January 9, from 5-7 p.m., featuring Sam Holloway from the Pamplin School of Business Administration. Holloway will speak on local brewers and na-
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tional and international brewing trends. For more information contact alumni relations at 503-943-7328, 888-UPALUMS, or alumni@up.edu.
WATCH THE PILOTS AT THE WCC BASKETBALL TOURNEY IN VEGAS The West Coast Conference basketball tournament returns to Las Vegas beginning Thursday, March 6 and ending on Tuesday, March 11, 2014. There has never been a better excuse to get the band back totogether and head to Las Vegas than the 2014 WCC basketball tournament. The Office of Alumni Relations has structured an exciting weekend around the Pilot men’s and women’s games. Join us for a pregame tailgate party outside the Orleans Arena two hours prior to the start of the first Pilot men’s basketball game of the tournament. For more information contact alumni relations at 503-9437328, 888-UP-ALUMS, or alumni@up.edu.
2014 NATIONAL DAY OF SERVICE Mark your calendars for Saturday, April 26, 2014 for the annual National Day of Service. National Alumni Board representatives will host volunteer opportunities across the country. Come join your fellow alumni and put the University’s emphasis on service to others into action while getting to know fellow alumni living in your commnity. Please be sure to check our website at alumni.up.edu for updated information on your area’s plans for the National Day of Service, or contact alumni relations at 503-943-7328, 888-UP-ALUMS, or alumni@up.edu. We hope to see you there!
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CAREER SERVICES LAUNCHES PILOTS GUIDING PILOTS The University’s career services office has launched Pilots Guiding Pilots, an online tool that connects current students with UP graduates for career advice, networking, and support. They are seeking alumni who might be interested in providing career guidance through informational interviews and job shadows or providing internship or graduate and professional school advice. Questions can be directed to Amy Cavanaugh at cavanaug @up.edu or Amanda Wheaton at wheaton@up.edu. You can also get more information at http://tinyurl.com/kaw5xan, or by contacting alumni relations at 503-943-7328, 888-UPALUMS, or alumni@up.edu.
NEW PILOT EXPERIENCE CARD AVAILABLE NOW The Pilot Experience Card makes it easier to check out what the North Portland area has to offer by allowing for discounts of up to 20 percent at participating restaurants, stores, service providers, and more. Check out the list of participating vendors at the Pilot Experience page at http://upbd.biz/pilotexperience and start saving! The cards are free to all active University of Portland students and $10 for all UP alumni, faculty, and staff, with 50 percent of proceeds going to the University of Portland Alumni Association. You can purchase Pilot Experience cards at the UP alumni relations house at 6625 N. Portsmouth Ave. The program is provided by the University Park Business District, a coalition of business owners and neighborhood representatives who want to help connect UP to the surrounding neighborhood. For more information contact alumni relations at 503943-7328, 888-UP-ALUMS, or alumni@up.edu.
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THE SERVANT OF MEMORY I was skeptical of Arnold Bruhn ’63— specifically of his claims that his early memory procedure— EMP— could tell much about a person. Of course our early experiences shape us, but the idea that one can predict anti-social attitudes based solely on a person’s childhood memories seemed preposterous. As did the idea that Bruhn could reduce recidivism just by analyzing how a thug felt about his first school experience. Or, for that matter, that he could tell I have an intense need to be perfect, just by my memory of being a second grader. So, I filled out his 24-page questionnaire, and waited. Skeptically. Bruhn has dedicated his life’s work to understanding the meaning of memories. His theory is that when we understand why we remember what we remember, and reassemble the fragments of our memories, we can see the cause and effect that leads to why we have become “stuck” in our lives. Our memories are, after all, our world. He didn’t set out to examine early memories; his work began while studying game theory at Duke, when a professor assigned him a stack of papers and set him to the task of parsing page after page of numbers. As it turns out, Bruhn was separating early childhood memories. The numbers were internal/external locus of control scores, called Rotter scores, which indicate how much control a person thinks they have over the events that affect them. People with a high internal locus of control tend to think life events are a result of their own thoughts or actions. Those with a high external locus of control believe outside factors— God, environment, other people— control their decisions and life. Parsing those numbers, then analyzing the results, led Bruhn to a theory of personal responsibility grounded in early memories, which lead to a dissertation at Duke where he mapped out the meaning of personal responsibility
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on the basis of memories. He thought his dissertation would be the end of his theory, but by 1976 he was teaching psychology at George Washington University, and by the late 1980s Bruhn had developed the EMP as a way to map out meaning based on early memories. It’s a way, he says, for people to understand why they repeat behaviors, and to predict how they’ll react when placed in similar situations in the future. Therapists who use it are also able to identify anti-social behavior and even determine whether a violent or sexual predator who is being released from prison is likely to reoffend. Bruhn’s EMP asks that you describe a memory, then define the clearest part of it, the strongest feeling associated with that memory, and
Bruhn sighing over the 1962 Log. explain what you would change about the memory. Then you rate each memory on a one to seven scale, from very negative to very positive, as well as rate the clarity of the memory. It then goes on to ask you to identify and rate specific incidents: first school memory, first time you were punished, family memories, happy and traumatic memories, memories of parents using drugs or alcohol, incidents in which you felt ashamed, and memories of being attacked. A memory ranked as positive says a lot to the analyst. Bruhn cites a woman he worked with in a Maryland prison, who remembered pummeling a third-grade classmate with pleasure. To Bruhn, her memory— still a pleasant one—indicated danger; her pleasure in hurting others, in being Winter 2013 37
in control of violence, were red flags. “She knew such behaviors would get her into trouble; she just didn’t care about consequences,” he says. “You see similar patterns in child molesters— they know they shouldn’t do what they want to do but they do it anyway.” Bruhn’s procedure is used to this day around the country, including by Henry Richards, who worked with Bruhn at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C., where presidential threateners, including John Hinckley, are institutionalized and treated. Today Richards works primarily on civil commitment of sex offenders. While, legally, sexual predators who have served out their term can’t be further confined, in Washington state those still considered dangerous can be civilly committed by the state, rather than returned to society. Richards uses the EMP in his evaluations of such offenders. Specifically, he uses it to determine a person’s expectations, how they view other people, and how complete their ability is to empathize with, and perceive the world of, someone else. “What’s provided in the EMP are actually samples of a person’s behavior, but not random samples,” says Richards. “They are a blueprint for an individual’s experiences and tendencies.” When interviewed, a predator might have the “right” answer about how he would react in a given situation, but the memories they pull up suggest how they will actually act. The EMP isn’t just used for criminals. Bruhn finds it immensely beneficial to ordinary people, too. And my former skepticism vanishes when Bruhn returns my EMP, and I am astounded by his insights. My memories tell him that I struggle to process cause-and-effect, struggle to build a loving, trusting relationship, struggle to let myself be at risk; that I second-guess myself, and that if I’m asked to do something I must do it, no matter what. With just a few piercing questions, Arnold Bruhn has discovered a great deal about me. I’d be cynical about all this…but he’s right. Whew. Julie Case (juliehcase.com) is a writer in Seattle.
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C L A S S Celebrating their 65th (!!!!!) wedding anniversary in August: Bill Mackin ’49, from St. Anthony, Iowa, and the willowy witty longtime Providence nurse Mary Mackin; among the many happy products of their love affair is another nurse, Mary Mackin Zipse ’12. Our sincere congrats, Mackin clan. FIFTY YEAR CLUB John A. Gloden ’40 passed away on August 18, 2013, in Milwaukie, Ore., just three days short of his 95th birthday. John played football at the University, and was a member of the Honor Society. After graduation as valedictorian of his class, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He served as a bombardier in the European Theater during World War II, completing 25 missions and earning the Distinguished Flying Cross. He returned to Portland after the war and worked in sales for the steel industry until his retirement in 1983. He is survived by his loving wife of 70 years, Patricia, and by his children, Gail Richardson ’66, Paul ’68, Fred, and Joan; and by six grandchildren. He was predeceased by his daughter Martha. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Jack Goetze ’47, a past president of the University of Portland Alumni Association who had a 50-year career in banking and finance, died July 27, 2013, in Portland. He was 87 years old. In the 1990s, he was president of the Oregon Independent College Foundation, which raises money for Oregon’s
private colleges. That position followed 50 years in banking, starting with the bank then known as the 1st National Bank of Portland in 1944, when he was still a college student, and ending at Citizen Savings and Loan in 1998. He served on boards of the Emanuel Hospital Foundation, Tucker-Maxon Oral School, the Portland Chamber of Commerce, the Portland Golf Club, and the Multnomah Athletic Club, and was a pastpresident of the University of Portland Alumni Association and a Rotary Club member. Survivors include his children, Webb, Vicki, Jason, Sandra, and Linda; a son, Bradley, and brother, Floyd, preceded him in death. Jack is also survived by brother, Earl; sisters, June and Janet; 11 grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren. Our prayers and condolences to the family. The calm gentle quiet witty devout Bill Crocker ’49 ’60 died on August 25, 2013, at age 90, and we will miss a wise generous humble man who loved
his family and his faith, which saw him though much. At age 19, fresh from Jefferson High,
N O T E S he was in the Army’s 41st Infantry Division, and served in Australia, Biak, New Guinea, and the Philippines. He was a high school English teacher (in Ridgefield, Wash.) and education supervisor, for a remarkable 27 years, at the Oregon State Penitentiary. A parishioner at Saint Vincent’s in Salem for more than half a century, he was, said his son John at his funeral, a fine teacher, a wise and humble man, a courageous man, an extraordinary man. Survivors include his wife, Elizabeth M. Crocker; and sons, William, John, and James; and daughters, Karla and Heidi; 13 grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; as well as numerous nephews and nieces and extended family.To his devoted wife Beth, to his sons, to the uncountable friends and those whose lives were elevated by his teaching and example, we bow in condolence; and to Bill we say welcome home to the Light. John A. Coyle ’50 passed away on July18, 2013. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and graduated from the University of Portland following his military service. John is survived by his beloved wife of 62 years, Jean; his children, Kevin Coyle (John), Karen Gates, Kim Orth (David), and Kelly Coyle; three grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter; and sister, Patricia Schwab. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Please remember Doug LaMear ’50 in your prayers after the loss of his wife, Patricia, on October 10, 2013. At the age of 14, she met Doug, the love of her life, while record shopping at Meier & Frank. They married in 1945, as soon as Doug returned from serving in World War II, and they raised Douglas Michael and Diane Shannon. One word to describe her: she had class. Patty is survived and terribly missed by her loving husband, Doug; son, Douglas; daughter, Diane; grandchildren, Michelle, Shannon, Colin, and Kera; and four beautiful great-grandchildren. A celebration of life will be held later this year for close friends and family. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Hubert Lawrence “Larry” Sparrow ’51 passed away on March 29, 2013, in Beaverton, Ore. He was 88 years of age.
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Born in Aberdovey, Wales, he immigrated to America with his family at the age of two. He served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, and loved to dance, tell jokes, and volunteer. Survivors include children David, Diane, John, and Celia; and four grandchildren. Our prayers and condolences to the family. John Franklin Roberts, Jr. ’51 passed away on September 19, 2013, in Sublimity, Ore. He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Shirley Helen Beal Roberts; daughters, Diane Roberts Wilson and Joenine Roberts; son; Christopher James Roberts; and six grandchildren. He was a World War II veteran and a devout Catholic who was always happiest singing in the church choir. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Ernest Hobensack ’52 passed away on October 26, 2012. He was 88. He served in the Army during World War II in Europe and was part of the DDay invasion. He worked as an Allstate insurance agent for more than 30 years. Survivors include his wife of 64 years, Shirley; three sons, Kent, Kevin, and Kelly; a daughter, Kathy; many grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. A daughter, Karen, died previously. Our prayers and condolences to the family. David M. Holmes ’52 passed away on October 17, 2013. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he worked as a chemist at the Hanford Works in Richland, Wash., for four years before pursuing a career in medicine. He attended University of Oregon Medical School (OHSU), becoming a physician in 1956. He practiced general medicine in Roseville, Calif., John Day, Silverton, and Molalla. He was a staff anesthesiologist at Legacy Meridian Park Hospital in Tualatin from the time the hospital opened its doors until 1993. He is survived by daughter, Patricia and her husband, Robert Langdon of Boise; and grandchildren, Shannon, Ariel, Evan Narasimhan and Lisa (Philip) Holzwarth. Our prayers and condolences to the family. We heard recently from Glenda McCall ’56, who writes:
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C L A S S “I am sad to report the death of one of my friends and classmate of 1956. Marybeth Madigan Segar of Crestwood, Ky., passed away on July 15, 2013, at Baptist Hospital Northeast. She worked as a nurse in Portland, Ore.; Honolulu, Hawaii; and was a staff nurse in the Peace Corps in Manila in the Philippines. Marybeth is survived by her loving husband, Robert Segar, daughters, Malia Payton, Michele Kitko, and Rachelle Segar, and grandsons Derek and Jake. Marybeth and Bob would have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on July 20, 2013. Expressions of sympathy may be made as a memorial donation to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, Oregon and Washington Chapter, 9320 SW Barbur, Blvd., Suite 140, Portland, Oregon 97219. I will be participating in a fundraiser called Light the Night Walk on October 19, 2013. I will miss my friend very much. Our class surely is dwindling... makes one think of how fragile life is.” Thank you for writing, Glenda, and our condolences to you and all of Marybeth’s family and friends. Bob ’55, ’57 and Mary O’Brien Glennen ’57 recently celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary. They were married on April 17, 1958. Bob, of course, served as Pilots baseball coach from 1957 to 1960 and took the team to two NCAA tournaments. He earned a doctorate at the University of Notre Dame and went on to a long academic career at Montana State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, DePaul and many more. He served as president of three state universities, the only UP graduate to do so. Mary’s nursing career included academic work at St. Joseph’s Hospital, University of Nevada at Las Vegas, and as the first director of the LPN program at Clark County Community College in Las Vegas. All of Bob and Mary’s children have college degrees and six have advanced degrees, for a grand total of 24 Glennen family college degrees. Bob and Mary now live in Las Vegas to be near their two eldest children. Roy Eugene Herman ’57 passed away on September 11, 2013, in Portland, Oregon. In 1958, Roy met and married Mary Hoffmeyer in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Two children were born to this union, Jennifer and Jeffrey. In 1968, Roy and his family returned to Marsing, where he was a partner and then sole owner of the Marsing Hard-
ware Store for 33 years to the day. He sold the 80-year old family hardware business in 2001 and retired to his farm. Survivors include his wife, Bonnie; daughter, Jennifer; son, Jeffrey; and six grandchildren. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Scott S. Hinsdale ’58 passed away on September 3, 2013. A fifth generation Oregonian, great-grandson of Harvey Scott (longtime editor of The Oregonian in the 1800s), and great-grandnephew of Abigail Scott Duniway (suffragette who led the campaign to secure the vote for women in Oregon), he received his engineering degree from the University of Portland after serving in the US Navy. Survivors include his wife of 31 years, Mary Vranizan Gorman; daughters, Elisa and Elizabeth; four grandchildren; and stepchildren, Mark Gorman and Allyn Cass and their families. He was thrilled to meet his first great-grandchild, Logan Evans, this past year, and to be able to attend Spencer’s wedding in July. In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to a favorite charity. Mary Alice Nagy ’59 passed away on March 15, 2013, in her home in The Dalles, Ore., surrounded by loved ones. In 1960, she enlisted in the United States Army as a first lieutenant and served for two years at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. Her 53-year nursing career included stints at St. Vincent Hospital in Portland, Mid-Columbia Medical Center, Flagstone Retirement Center, Evergreen The Dalles Health and Rehabilitation Center, and NORCOR. Survivors include her five children, Christine, Patrick, Kathleen, Michael, and Kevin; her longtime companion, Virgil; sister, Patricia; and eight grandchildren (Allison, Eric, Amanda, Kelsey, Kaitlyn, Brittany, Sasha, and Bianca). Our prayers and condolences to the family. Gregory Ferrell Scott ’61 of Vancouver, Wash., died on Wednesday, March 6, 2013. He owned Webb’s KE Karlson, and also served for many years as vice president of Hangar Orthopaedic Group. Survivors include his wife, Sue Scott of Vancouver; sons, Brad, Stefen, and Darrin; daughters, Traci, Lori, and Karen Scott; three sisters, 10 grandchildren; and one greatgrandchild. We learned of Gregory’s passing thanks to his friend and schoolmate Joe Smith ’62. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
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N O T E S Development office bon vivant Colin McGinty ’99 is always watching for alumni gatherings, so he sent us this photo and attached message: “We recently hosted a dinner for a group of former Pilot basketball teammates from 1966-67. They all came to the WCC tournament in Las Vegas this past spring and used it as their own little reunion. Some of these guys hadn’t seen each other since they graduated! Here we have, left to right: Terry Polreisz ’69, Don Lawson ’69, Jesse Perry ’68, Kathy ’68 and Bob ’68 Hachman, Bob Skarecki ’69, and Al Courter ’69.” Thanks Colin, it’s not every day we see a bunch of guys towering over Terry. Here’s the team back in the day:
James M. Apilado ’63 passed away on February 8, 2012. Jim was educated in Portland Catholic schools, including St. Mary’s Cathedral Grade School, Central Catholic High School, and the University of Portland. He was a fun and beloved teacher in his 30 year career with Portland Public Schools. He had sweethearts over the years, but he never married, and is survived by many loving friends. Our prayers and condolences.
’64 PRAYERS FOR SR. MARIE Sister Marie Grainer passed away on June 14, 2013. Her contact with the Benedictine Sisters during her grade school years inspired her to become a sister-teacher. She thought of joining the Benedictine community in St. Joseph, Minnesota, but when her classmate, Bertha Meissner (later Sister Agatha) moved to Oregon, she decided
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to join Queen of Angels Monstery in Mt. Angel in 1938. She made her profession on Feb. 10, 1941, and took the name Sister Edward Mary, in honor of Archbishop Edward D. Howard, but she later returned to her baptismal name and was known as Sister Marie. She is survived by her Benedictine Sisters and several nieces and nephews. Our prayers and condolences to the family and her religious community. We heard recently from John Linde, who writes: “Here’s some news for the next issue of Portland magazine. My Irvington Club men’s tennis
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C L A S S HE WOULDN’T TAKE THE MONEY Here’s a story you should hear. Liz Callison is telling it. It’s about her father, David Callison ’74, who died in 2001. It’s 1948 or so. David is walking the beat, new on the Portland police force, back from service as a Marine in the Second World War. His partner, an older man, tells him to go into a bar and pick up money from the bartender. Details are fuzzy. Payment for protection? To look away from what’s going on inside, the doings of small-time crooks, swindlers, corrupt pols? David is the rookie, the freshman, the tenderfoot. He understands hierarchy and obeying orders. The Marines taught him that much as he was trying not to get killed in the Marshall Islands. He has a wife and a baby at home with a second child on the way. He needs the job and getting in on some action probably wouldn’t hurt. But he says no. He tells his partner he won’t do it. There are many other stories about David Callison. He served 27 years as a policeman. He was president of the police union and led the signing of its first contract with the city, one that gave police a raise and paid overtime, family health benefits, and increased vacation time. He was the son of a union longshoreman who was shot at by police in 1934 during dock strikes in St. Johns. He was the Dad who read Beowulf to Liz when she was small. He regularly swam across the Willamette River as a child. He turned down a Stanford football scholarship to join the Marines. He returned to The Bluff to finish a literature degree started in the 1940s, before dropping out to focus on his job and the task of raising six kids. He never brought his gun home from work, wary of the braggadocio and false confidence that he thought came from having access to a weapon all the time. He was a tough, aggressive union negotiator who loved John Steinbeck and Walt Whitman. He taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in Yemen and Saudi Arabia and China after he retired. He was a riveting man. God rest his soul. —Geoff Koch
N O T E S team won the USTA League 8.0 Senior National Championship held over the weekend of April 20-21 in Surprise, Arizona. The team, representing the USTA Pacific Northwest section, beat an Oklahoma City team in the championship match 3-0. I suppose I should thank Father Neer for his work on behalf of the UP tennis team on which I played in 1959-61. I’ve continued to play ever since and finally after three trips to the nationals my team captured the title. It's been a long journey but worth all of the efforts of many great guys!” Thanks John, and congratulations on your team’s victory.
’66 OKAY, HERE GOES We got the Mother Of All Class Notes from Kathy (Lindsay) Fritz, who writes: “Here’s an update on our huge clan of U of P graduates. Rosemary Lindsay Boe ’55 and husband, Wally, celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary in September. They are expecting three more great grandchildren in February 2014. Of the other three, two are UP graduates. Garrett Queen married Casey Kennedy, his high school sweetheart, and they are expecting; and Kelly Boe Longoria and her husband, Brian Longoria, are expecting. Stephen Boe and Jeri Booth Boe are in Bend, Ore. Kelly is one of their three children. Denise Smith Boe and Ken Smith live in Prineville and have a physical therapy practice; they have three children and soon two grandchildren. Teresa Boe Patterson and Doug Patterson live in Santa Cruz, Calif. They have two children, both in high school. Mary Ann Boe Queen and Randy Queen live in Powell Butte, Ore., and have two sons, Garrett and Quenton. Mary Ann works part-time at the Prineville Hospital and Randy is a tire buyer for Les Schwab. Amy Boe Harmon lives in Beaverton. Her husband, John, passed away almost two years ago. She has two daughters and two grandchildren and works for Oracle. Mike Boe and Susie live in Orangeville, Calif., and have three junior high and high school age children. Mike is an electrical engineer. Richard Lindsay ’56 married Madelon Jacobs, also a UP graduate. She has passed away. Dick spends much of his time with his eight children and many grandchildren. His daughter, Kristin Lindsay Stollov, and her husband, Mike, have two children and live in Briar,
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Wash. Kristin works at Swedish Hospital and Mike works for the city of Seattle. Most of Dick’s other children and families live in the Bellingham area. Dick is a retired professor at Western Washington State University. Jim Lindsay and his wife, Joy, live in Sandy, Ore., where Jim has a marketing business. He has seven children, most in the Portland area. Then of course there’s me, Kathy Lindsay Fritz and my husband, Mike. I am the official keeper of the family tree and retired from almost 20 years as a purchasing administrator for Lattice Semiconductor Corp in Hillsboro. Mike teaches part-time at PCC and refuses to retire. We have one daughter, Nancy, who owns a landscape design business, Nancy Fritz Designs, in Seattle. Little brother Bob abandoned ship and went to U of O and married his high school sweetheart 46 years ago. So the total for the Lindsay Group: 46 grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and three more on the way. Isn’t life grand. We all hope some more of these great kids will go to UP. Our Dad, Harold, who attended the Bluff when it was Columbia U., would be so proud. Geez, I hope I didn’t leave anyone out. Cheers!”
’68 PRAYERS FOR ELENA Elena Maria Robbins passed away on July 3, 2013, from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Her father died when she was five years old; her mother later remarried, and so began a life of spending summers on the Jouglard family ranch in Soda Springs, Idaho, and winters at the family home in Rupert. She loved the ranch and the sheep ranching lifestyle. She worked for Intermountain Gas Company/MDU for 39 years, where she was greatly admired for her work ethic, knowledge, and skills, and she made many friends there. She was a kind and happy person with a great sense of humor, always sought to see the best in life and in others, and was proud of her Basque heritage. She was full of warmth and hospitality towards everyone she met. She is survived by her daughter, Elise Robbins of Boise, Idaho; her sister, Alicia Dredge; her nephew, Frank
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C L A S S Dredge; and many cousins here and abroad. She was a wonderful mother, sister, aunt and friend. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’69 BACK TO THE BAY David Allstot writes: “I thought I might send an update on what I’ve been up to; this might be of interest for the alumni news section. After spending 2012 as a visiting professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University, I have accepted a faculty position at the University of California, Berkeley. I’m also the executive director of the Berkeley Wireless Research Center. Vickie and I are both Berkeley graduates so we are thrilled to return to the Bay Area.”
’70 PRAYERS, PLEASE Howard F. Horner passed away on August 12, 2013, at the age of 94. A wonderful family man, he is survived by his wife of 71 years, Grace Lorene (Boyles) Horner; his brother, George Walter Horner; his three sons, James Frederick Horner, Robert Howard Horner, and Gregory Dean Horner; seven grandchildren; and four (almost five) greatgrandchildren. He was a teacher, principal, and, from 1968 until retirement in 1981, superintendent of the David Douglas School District. He served in the U.S. Army from 1941 to 1946. He received many academic and public service honors including in 1961 being named one of five Most Outstanding High School Principals in the nation and, in 2008, an Outstanding Alumnus from Pacific University. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’71 WELL DESERVED! Timothy M. Bergquist writes: “I received the 2013 President's Award for Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership at Northwest Christian University (NCU) on May 11, 2013. I serve as professor of quantitative analysis in the School of Business and Management at NCU in Eugene, Ore., and have been there since 1996. My wife and I live in Eugene.” Tim, we note, is the oldest son of longtime UP treasurer Roy Bergquist, and his mother, Margaret Connor
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Bergquist, is also a UP alumna, class of ’44.
’74 A TRIP DOWN NORTH CATHOLIC MEMORY LANE We’re still hearing from alumni who recognized our summer 2013 mystery photo person, including Mary Hollinshead: “I know exactly who the subject of your mystery photo is: she is Meridee Willis Kaiel. As a fellow alum of North Catholic High School (Class of 1970), I quickly recognized Meridee and remember her as one of North’s two representatives in the run-off for the Independent Schools’ Rose Festival Princess in 1968. (Meridee technically was not a Rose Festival princess. At the time, each of the independent high schools selected two representatives who then competed to become a Princess representing all of the independents combined. Meridee was not, unfortunately, selected. I should mention also that Meridee could not possibly have been a princess in the 1970s, since the fire that destroyed North Catholic occurred in the summer of 1970, about six weeks after Meridee’s younger sister, Kathy, and I graduated from North Catholic. Meridee graduated in 1968.) I seem to recall that Meridee has been married for many years to Gary Kaiel. Gary’s younger brother, Sam, was also one of my classmates at North Catholic. I have my 1968 Crest, North Catholic’s yearbook, open in front of me, and I am looking at the exact portrait that you printed. Thanks for the stroll down Memory Lane!” You bet Marie, and thanks for sharing.
’78 PRAYERS FOR JOAN Joan Cecelia Woolard passed away on December 11, 2012, of cancer at the age of 79. Survivors include children Cecelia Majovski and Steve Woolard; three grandchildren; and many good and dear friends. Her careers included teaching, banking, engineering, realty, and event organizing and promotions. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Jesse J. Gard, Jr. passed away on August 13, 2013, in Portland, Ore., at the age of 85. He married Ramona Malm on June 23, 1951, and they had
Here’s one for our Salzburg alumni: the one and only Frau Maria Strobl and her husband Mathias celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in August of this year. Over 30 years worth of UP Salzburg students have enjoyed meals prepared by the good Frau, and even now in semi-retirement she helps out at the Salzburg Center. Alles Gute zur goldenen Hochzeit, Frau Strobl! five children together: Kristen, Steven, David, Kathryn, and Kari. They had 13 grandchildren. He worked for Tektronix in Beaverton and Wilsonville, retiring after 35 years. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’79 A DAY OF TRAGEDY The University community was deeply saddened to learn of the death of John Percin Jr., son of John Percin, on June 30, 2013. He was one of 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots crew who perished that day when flames overran their position near Yarnell, Ariz. Our heartfelt prayers and condolences to the Percin family, as well as the families of all the young men taken so tragically that awful day.
’82 CARLENE’S UPDATE We heard from Dave Conway, husband of Carlene (Massin) Conway, who has retired from her 31-year career as a registered nurse, certified operating room nurse, and most recently surgical services director of
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Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau, Alaska. Dave and Carlene look forward to many years of hiking, traveling, and being overridden with grandkids. They have two children: daughters Kathryn Lynn Conway, who has completed six years in the Coast Guard and will be stationed with her husband in Ketchikan, Alaska; and April Conway, a junior at the University of Idaho Moscow, majoring in accounting. Our best to you both, Carlene and Dave, we’ll be happy to run all those grandchild announcements, just give us the word. Patti Jo (Neal) Gorman passed away on August 28, 2013, at her home in Woodburn, Ore. Patti earned a nursing degree on The Bluff but pursued several professions; she was happiest caring for her loved ones at home. Survivors include her husband, Mike Gorman ’80; son Chris; daughter Becky; and twin grandchildren on the way. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Laurie O’Reilly writes: “The
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C L A S S Among the 30 Reasons Why UP is the Coolest School Ever, at no. 24: “The tallest player ever drafted in the NBA — 7'8'' Yasutaka Okayama ’80 — was a Pilot.” If that name doesn’t ring a bell with our 1970s alumni, it’s because we all knew him affectionately as Jumbo, pictured here with legendary Pilots basketball coach Jack Avina. To get some idea of his size, just look at the enormous left hand resting on Jack’s shoulder. Jumbo is still active in coaching in his native Japan. We remember him as the epitome of the gentle giant, and wish him well. See more reasons why UP is the coolest on our Tumblr page at http://universityofportland.tumblr.com. autumn mystery faculty photo is of Dr. Herman Asarnow, who taught taught Shakespeare to us back in 1979.” Thanks for writing Laurie, and yes, that sounds like something Herman would do.
’83 JOHN TAKES A GUESS “The mystery picture in the autumn 2013 Class Notes was a picture of Dr. Herman Asarnow,” according to John VanderBurgh. “What great times I had in his class, and I learned a lot about how to improve a paper under his leadership and direction.” Yes, John, that’s Herman, and we’re certainly hearing from a lot of his former students, who echo your sentiments. Karen Basta Henrich writes: “I think the autumn 2013 mystery faculty member is Dr. Herman Asarnow. Have a great day!” Thanks for writing, Karen, that is indeed our dear Herman A. Not to be outdone, Joy M. Ruplinger writes: “The picture on page 42 of the recent Portland Magazine is of professor Asarnow.” Correct again! And this from Mike Roe: “How could I forget my English teacher Herman Asarno? My spelling may perhaps be incorrect, but I will always remember him fondly.” You were only off by one “w” Mike, and yes, Herman Asarnow was our autumn 2013 mystery faculty member. Thanks for guessing.
’86 A STEP UP FOR TIM Timothy Morgan will take over as CEO of AAA Oregon/Idaho auto club on January 1, 2014. He replaces John Porter, who has accepted a position with AAA Southern New England. Tim has been executive vice president of business operations at AAA Oregon/Idaho, which has some 750,000 members, for more than a decade. Congratulations, Tim!
’87 LOVE FINDS A WAY We heard recently from Jennifer (Gauvin) Yeager, who writes: “I married Tracy L. Yeager on June 8, 2013. The ceremony took place at his family home in White Salmon, Wash., with beautiful Mt. Adams as a backdrop. Tracy and I dated a couple times in high school and then life took us on separate paths. We reconnected via Facebook last fall. Even after 28 years of separation, our connection remained and we knew our love would provide happiness for the rest of our lives. We make our home in Stephenville, Texas. Tracy is a lumber associate at Home Depot; I am an assistant professor of nursing at Tarleton State University, and I am currently in the dissertation portion of my Ph.D. in nursing at The University of Texas at Tyler.” We got the following note from Bill Parietti in August. He writes: “On June 1 this year, at a charity golf tournament, I
N O T E S finished the scramble round but at the end my golf cart wouldn't work, so I hitched a ride with two of my great teammates. I proceeded to fall off the cart on the pavement and ended up with a serious head injury. My two friends literally saved my life, holding my head up, calling 911, and not panicking. Lifeflight was nearby, so they came quickly and took me to Emanuel Hospital. I was in the ICU for 14 days and the first 6 days I was in an induced coma. My wife Mary and so many friends came to the hospital and stayed so long it was truly unbelievable. I don’t remember a thing from June 1 to June 21. After 18 days at Emanuel, I was transferred to Good Samaritan’s Rehabilitation Institute for physical, speech, and occupational therapy. I was there for another two weeks and was discharged on July 2nd. So I have been home for just over a month now, and life is starting to get a little bit back to normal. I started taking phone calls from work in the past 10 days, and hopefully I can return there soon. I am coaching soccer for the 4th year in a row this week with my daughter Isabella’s team and I look forward to that. I can’t thank people enough for what they have given to us; meals were brought to our house for almost two months! My head is doing well, but my hearing in my right ear is about 20 to 40 percent of normal, and the right side of my face from the eye down doesn't move. Doctors have told me this will improve and eventually get back to normal but it could take a year or so. That is just fine with me, compared to what could have happened. That is about it for now, all the prayers I received from friends, family, coworkers, outside vendors and clubs, has been truly amazing. I have my name on Caring Bridge (http://www.caringbridge.org /visit/billparietti) and there are almost 2,500 entries, which just blows me away.” We certainly hope for a speedy and complete recovery, Bill, and send our prayers your way.
’88 A THRILL A MINUTE Christopher Van Tilburg has published a book, Adrenaline Junkie Bucket List: 100 Extreme Outdoor Adventures to Do Be-
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fore You Die, through St. Martin’s Press, July 23, 2013. Among the things you need to do before shuffling off this mortal coil: Climb up an icy waterfall in Ouray, Colorado; Dogsled the Iditarod from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska; Cycle the Tour de France; Surf the World’s Heaviest Wave in Teahupoo,Tahiti; Backcountry ski the Bottom of the World in Antarctica; holy moly, put on your crampons, time’s a-wasting. You can find out more at http://us.macmillan.com. More guesses for our summer 2013 mystery photo person, this time from Mary Ward: “Your mystery person is the wonderful and cheerful Meridee Kaiel. We first met Meridee and her husband Gary when they had their market on Lombard Street. Our son, Steve ’89 worked for them and they were wonderful to him.” Thanks Mary, yes, that’s Meridee, and the neighborhood misses Kaiel’s Sentry Market to this day. Abdulla Ahmed Aljalahma writes: “I have my own family business in marketing and sales for construction machinery and water pumps.” Mark Colbert writes: “Tammie, Nicholas, and I moved out to Sedona, Arizona, after I completed 24 years in the Air Force. I retired as a colonel and my last assignment was at U.S. Southern Command in Miami, Florida. My team and I won employees of the year (professional category) two years in a row, out of 35,000 federal employees in the South Florida region. Tammie is a hair stylist in Sedona, and Mark is a 7th grade math teacher (teaching intern to be exact), and is back at school to get his education classes completed while teaching five classes of math a day. By the way, Dr. Herman Asarnow is the mystery faculty member in the autumn 2013 magazine. I had the pleasure of being one of his students. He taught me a lot, and most of what he taught me is that I had a lot to learn about English literature! I enjoyed every class and wish I could sit in his class again.” Thanks for writing, Mark, and what’s stopping you? Just show up and take a seat in one of his classes and see what he says. We’ll wait.
’89 THE BBI FOR BFFS We heard from Kevin Cooper recently, who writes: “Just an FYI about the most enduring, remarkable friendships I have in my life. The 19th Annual BBI (Becker Brothers Invitational) was held last week at
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C L A S S the Los Angeles Country Club and hosted by me. Kevin Jones ’88 was the winner of this 54-hole event that started with 18 holes at Big Canyon Country Club in Newport Beach, Calif., hosted by UP friend Ash Narayan. In attendance: Pat Becker ’88, John Becker ’90, Kevin Cooper, Mike Kirby ’88, Eric Bauccio ’90, Adrian Vernon ’88, Kent Lewis ’88, Gary Trepte ’90, Brett Hokanen, Steve Uhrich, Gregory Muller ’90, and UP friends Andrew Kwong Leitch, James Ho Leitch, Eric Gowey, Chris Pennell, and Mark Loretta. We have gone to Black Butte, Bandon Dunes, Sunriver, and other courses over these past 19 years and you will not find a finer group of men faithfully committed to UP, and thankful that our time at UP has afforded us a lifetime of friendship, not a four-year friendship. By the way, Kevin Jones attempted to climb Mt. Everest last year and was airlifted off the mountain with blood clots. He won this year’s BBI with one hip replaced and the other hip replacement scheduled for October.” Thanks Kevin, sounds like this event is about much more than just golf.
’90 SUDIHUGENG’S UPDATE We heard from Sudihugeng Hardjojo through engineering professor Larry Simmons: “I’m now a student at University of British Columbia, taking the bachelor of computer science program, a second degree program. My wife, Li Kheng, just got accepted into Simon Fraser University (also in Vancouver), where she will be doing her master in education. My eldest son, Anson, is in the second year at University of North British Columbia, taking environmental engineering. My second son, Adrian, has just finished grade 11, and is taking a summer class in social study.” Thanks for writing, Sudihugeng, it sounds like you have a family of scholars. A note from Jack O’Brien: “That young chap pictured as your autumn 2013 mystery faculty member would be my friend and occasional lunch companion Herman Asarnow. I met Herman as a grad student in 1990, and spent a few weeks in London with him and a gaggle of great theater students. Herman and Susan’s two children graduated from Oregon Episcopal School where I taught for many years. And we try to enjoy lunch on campus together whenever we find the time.” Yes Jack, that’s Herman,
hopefully you’ll get to join him for lunch again soon.
’91 WELCOME BACK, DAWN! Dawn Tann writes: “Brian and I have relocated from Columbus, Ohio to Dayton, Nevada with our three kitty cats. Brian is a gifted and talented teacher in Yerington, Nevada, and I’m looking forward to working as a clinical social worker, having recently attained my LISW degree. We are looking forward to spending more time with our West Coast friends and family and enjoying the Lake Tahoe/Carson City/Reno area. Oh, and I’m already tired of the phrase ‘but it's a DRY heat.’ We're looking forward to receiving our next Portland Magazine!”
’93 OUR SYMPATHIES George Paul Starcher passed away on July 10, 2013, in Lubbock, Texas, at the age of 61. He is survived by his wife, Debbie Starcher; son, James Starcher; daughter, Janet StarcherHowell; and seven grandchildren. A tribute to George may be found at www.memorialdesigners.net, where you may leave memories and expressions of sympathy. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Elizabeth “Lizi” Zach writes: “About a year ago, I finally got around to putting together my writing website. My plan was to finally, at last, consolidate the best of my published work, specifically my travel writing, into a website. It would be partly for editors wishing to know more about me and my training, and partly for those interested in my writing and travels. I hired a web design team and we started brainstorming a bit. Then, as you all know, at the end of last year, I had misery raining down all around me, and the project had to be shelved. But I was determined to finally get the pages off of the drawing board by August 1, and I’ve beat my own deadline! Have a gander, and by all means, send me feedback. We’re live, but I can always tweak where necessary: http://www.elizabethzach.com/start.html. Best wishes from Berlin, and stay tuned....the site will be updated regularly.” Thanks Lizi, we’re glad you beat that deadline and we look forward to hearing about your travels. Tricia Cushman writes: “Your autumn issue mystery faculty
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N O T E S It was a tough day here on campus when we heard of the passing of Donald W. Dinsmore ’83, on September 17, 2013. He was 88 years old. Don served as curator of the University Museum from its inception in 1984 to 2007. He started his career on The Bluff while moonlighting as a custodian in 1972, working mostly in the old Science Hall (now Romanaggi Hall), where he cheerfully went about his duties while befriending all and sundry faculty and staff and students who labored there. He was an elementary school teacher and vice principal for many years, a profession he entered after coming home from combat service in World War II, where he saw action in the South Pacific as a landing boat pilot. He was also a die-hard Roosevelt Democrat and prolific cartoonist and caricaturist, and his thirst for knowledge and intellectual challenge was insatiable. The University museum came about as a mutual dream of Don and history professor Jim Covert, and started as a ragtag collection of artifacts piled on folding tables in a storeroom in Shipstad basement. Don spent countless hours collecting, cataloguing, storing, and displaying every item of historic significance to the University he could lay his hands on, and many of those items can be seen in the University museum to this day, still located in the basement of Shipstad across from the archives. Don is survived by his wife of 65 years, Marion; children, Michael, Patrick, Kevin, Paul, Rebecca, and Matthew ’89 Dinsmore; sister, Phyllis Devitt; 10 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. A memorial fund in Don’s name has been established to benefit the University museum; contact Diane Dickey at dickey@up.edu to contribute in lieu of flowers. A number of Don’s former students spoke at his funeral service, and all agreed that “Mr. Dinsmore” was the finest man they ever met. We who knew and loved him at UP couldn’t agree more. Our prayers and condolences.
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’99 A NOTE FROM RUSTY
We have here a photo of great grandpa Al Corrado ’55 holding a fourth generation member of the Corrado Pilots: James Corrado, born October 28, 2012, to Sam Corrado ’01 and Jenna Plank-Corrado ’01. Jenna and Sam were married in 2009 and James is the first new addition to the family. member is Herman Asarnow. I had him for literature during my freshman year way back in the autumn of 1989. He is unforgettable, as is Susan Baillet, his wife!” Thanks Tricia, we can’t argue with that.
’96 DOREEN LOVES HER JOB!!! We heard recently from the effervescent Doreen O’Skea, who writes: “Life is good. I LOVE what I do and where I am at (director of individual giving at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, in Ashland, Oregon). Work brings me joy, and my daughter Amelia (pictured) makes me giddy and giggly and grateful every day. There are some days when she tries my patience, but then she looks at me and I see that twinkle in her eye and I am over the moon again. She is almost past my shoulders in height now and still wants to be scooped up and held. Kind of funny. She is a voracious reader and is attempting to write several small novels at the same time. Hubby Sean ’95 is using his sabbatical to do design for Broadway Rose and Third Rail theaters again. He is working on a painting textbook and spent time in New York at the famed Cobalt studios this year.” Thanks Doreen, but we’re still not clear: do you love your job? Christopher Buzo sent us a quick note to let us know he’s moved: “I have moved! I am now living in Boise, Idaho.” Morayma Makay writes: “It was so fun to read the little blurb on this fall’s mystery
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faculty member! From the picture and the description I knew right away that it’s Dr. Herman Asarnow. He was one of my favorite professors on the Bluff. I was an English major and Dr. Asarnow was not only one of my professors, but also my advisor. I can easily say that anyone who was a student of his was nothing short of blessed to have such an enthusiastic and inspirational teacher. Dr. Asarnow (and Dr. Masson!) definitely helped shape me to be the writer that I am today! I live in Culver City, Calif., with my husband and two kids and am working as a freelance writer, with my main project being a memoir of my father’s life in Hungary. I also contribute content for online magazines on topics like holistic beauty products, fashion trends, and nutrition. My son, Maddox, is now 9 years old and my daughter, Tennyson, is 6 years old. Although we do miss Portland and our friends up there, we’re happy to be back in Los Angeles and close to our families.” Thanks Morayma, we’re sure Herman and Lou will be glad to hear they inspired you.
’97 FOREVER YOUNG Anthony “Toby” Kinney writes: “What a fantastic delight to turn to page 42 of the autumn Portland Magazine and see the forever youthful and exuberant Herman Asarnow! Are you sure the picture wasn’t taken in 2009? If the picture was not a giveaway, your precise description of Dr. Asarnow was spot on. Now, can you get a picture from 1979 of my former advisor, Susan Baillet?” Thanks for writing Toby, we didn’t fool many alumni this time, that’s for sure, and Herman has probably tipped off his wife, Susan, by now. She still looks the same too.
“Just a quick update from the Williford clan (Rusty Williford and Maria (Stein) Williford): I successfully defended my Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from Oregon State University in June, and the Air Force is now sending Maria and I (and the kiddos too) down to Air Force Global Strike Command at Barksdale AFB, Louisiana, where I’ll pin on lieutenant colonel insignia in October. We were fortunate enough to be able to spend three years in Oregon, and were able to see all the great additions to the Bluff and even talk with the AFROTC cadets on several occasions. I couldn’t have been more impressed with the students and cadets on each of our visits. We are proud to be Pilots!” Thanks Rusty, and we’re proud of you and all our other alumni in uniform. It’s always nice to hear from Jennifer Anthony Vasicek, who writes: “Hi! As I was looking through pictures the other day I realized I haven’t submitted a class note in a long time.
money for food and school supplies for children at Hope for Children Orphanage in Lemba Democratic Republic
of Congo. He and his wife Jacky Mwana-Nteba co-founded Salisa Bana in 2003. Due to current bad economic times, it has become harder and harder for them to continue to support the children by building a new dormitory, a school, and a health center, plus and continuing to provide food for them. Those who wish to help can find out more at openarms@oahh.org or by calling Deacon Jim Pittman at 503785-2415. Find out more about Salisa Bana at https://sites. google.com/site/salisabana/ home.
’01 A HARROWING TALE Our daughter Molly is turning one on September 26, and our son Desmond turned three on June 27. They’re almost exactly 2 years, 3 months apart. Joe is still working for Williams Controls in Tigard, and I’m still staying home with the kids. We moved in February, but we stayed in Tigard, and now we’re near Summerlake Park. The kids and I walk to the park almost every day.” Emmett Bowker writes: “Greetings from Colorado! I hope all is well on the Bluff. I just wanted to give a quick update. I have been teaching music for the last 14 years. I got married in March of 2005 to Alisha O’Dell of Gresham, Ore. We have two children, Ethan Alexander, born September 2007, and Ella Michelle, born May 2010. Say hello to Dr. Kleszynski for me (if he is still there).” Thanks for writing, Emmett, and yes, Ken is still on the music faculty in the performing and fine arts department, we’ll give him your regards.
’00 SHINING A LIGHT Vincent Womujuni serves as community organizer for Salisa Bana (“Light of Africa”), an organization which is raising
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We heard recently from Brian Baumann, who shared a gripping story about a medical scare he and his wife experienced with their son, Simon, on the day they brought him home from the maternity ward. “The pregnancy was normal and labor went very quickly,” he writes. “We took him home on the second day, to meet his three-year-old sister. Twenty minutes after arriving he fell asleep, so we laid him in the baby rocker. A couple minutes later the rocker began to vibrate on the hardwood floor. My newborn son was having a seizure! It was in that moment that my emotions shut down. I began operating like I was back in the military. We got the family loaded in the truck in two minutes flat and raced to the emergency room.” A harrowing trip to the emergency room and a Life Flight helicopter ride ensued, all leading to a hard-won sense of thanks, humility, and wonder at the fragility and resilience so many parents learn about the hard way. To see the essay, “Simon’s Story,” contact Brian at brian.e.baumann@gmail.com. Lief Coorlim made the society pages when he wed CNN anchor Isha Sesay on August 18, 2013, in Atlanta, Ga.
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The wedding took place in front of close friends and family at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Leif is executive editor of the CNN Freedom Project, a campaign to help end child prostitution and forced labor in the United States and around the world. Our best wishes to Leif and Isha.
animated political discourse, and his dogs. He was gifted with a double lung transplant by a generous family in 2008, which allowed Mike to fulfill his wish to see his son graduate from high school and begin his own journey at Harvard. In addition to his devoted parents, wife, and son, survivors include brother, Bob (Sonia) of San Anselmo, Calif.; sisters, Julie (Mark) Wiesner of Vancouver and Megan (Courtland Geyer) Hassen of Salem; and his loving and supportive extended family. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the UCSF Heart and Lung Transplant Program,
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Attn: Valerie Wade — Family Fund, 500 Parnassus Ave. MUW-420, San Francisco, CA 94143 (checks payable to UC Regents Heart/Lung Transplant Family Fund), or in his honor, you can enjoy years of happiness by adopting a shelter dog. A celebration of his life will be held at his favorite beach at a later date. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Emilie Saks-Webb writes: “In March, Derek and I welcomed a baby girl into our family. Her name is Matilda Claire,
’02 PRAYERS FOR MICHAEL Michael Hassen passed away on October 17, 2013, surrounded by loving family, after a heroic 13-year battle with scleroderma. A standout swimmer, Mike competed from the age of nine through his college years. He taught in the Beaverton School District. Mike married Nancy Proutt, the love of his life, in 1992, and their son Alex is now a sophomore at Harvard University (see below). Michael loved sharing time at the beach with loved ones, his weekly card game with his best buddies,
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and she’s a charmer.” Congratulations, Emilie and Derek, you certainly know a charmer when you see one.
’04 HELLO, DR. EDWARDS Ardella Edwards was kind enough to send us a note: “I was so impressed with your master of arts in pastoral ministry program, I continued on to receive my doctor of ministry (D.Min) with emphasis on liturgy in 2013. The MAPM seed surely sprouted! Thanks for a great education, professors, and colleagues.” We’d like to thank you as well, Ardella, and offer our congratulations on earning your doctoral degree. Lilah Hegnauer has won the New Southern Voices Poetry Prize for her manuscript, Pantry, selected as the winner by D.A. Powell, 2012 winner of the National Book Circle Critics Award for poetry. Hegnauer is the author of Dark Under Kiganda Stars (Ausable Press, 2005). She teaches literature and creative writing at James Madison University and at the University of Virginia. Poems from Pantry have been published in many literary journals, including Beloit, Gastronomica, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest, and Quarterly West. Melissa Giglio Bowers writes: “I just thought I would drop a line. I’m doing great, obtained new employment as a mechanical designer with Henderson Engineers Inc., in their Phoenix branch office. I recently ended my tenure as
It should come as no surprise that we here at Portland Magazine cannot resist photos of kids—alumni kids, friends’ kids, faculty and staff kids, kids who climb on rocks...all fair game. We got this photo of adorable twins Grayson and Finley Wissbaum from proud grandma Nancy Wissbaum, mother of Matt Wissbaum ’04 and daughter of John Gega ’47, who are Gray and Fin’s dad and great-granddad, respectively. And let’s not forget to mention Matt’s lovely wife Terra. president of the Phoenix Chapter of the American Society of Plumbing Engineers. I was featured in Plumbing Engineer magazine back in March (see tinyurl.com/p5fq8lx). I was recently appointed the nominating committee chairperson for the West Region for the American Society of Plumbing Engineers, and am studying for the Mechanical PE exam in October.” Thanks Melissa, it sounds like you have no problem staying busy. We heard wonderful news from Hannah O’Brien, who writes: “Here is a photo of my little Nora Jane O’Brien, born March 1, 2013, at 7 lbs. 15 oz., and 21 inches long, as perfect as a little angel can be! She was baptized in August by Fr. John Donato at the Madeline parish in NE Portland. It was very special to have Fr. John there as he married us five years ago on campus.” Sarah Dempsey writes: “We moved onto a sailboat full time, at Shilshole Bay Marina
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in Seattle, Wash.”
’06 A REAL STUNNER Wonderful news from Eva (Wolff) Hortsch, who writes: “Gary Hortsch ’96 and I welcomed another baby last December! Coral Elizabeth was born exactly half-way between Christmas and the New Year, December 28, 2012. At six months she was already stunningly beautiful, at least in our eyes. See the photo, attached, for proof.” Oh my yes, Eva and Gary most definitely have beautiful babies. Chris Jacobson writes: “My wife and I welcomed our third baby boy, John Thomas Jacobson, back in April. He is a happy and healthy addition to our family. If that wasn’t enough, we also sold our house, and purchased and moved into another home, all in the span of two months. So yes, it’s been a crazy year. Though it’s been full of challenges, it’s also been rich with blessings.” Rich in congratulations, too, we hope, and sincerely add ours. Travis Vetters has landed his
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We heard recently from Katie (Hargett) Kelley ’08, who writes: “I’ve been promising a family photo for a while, this one seems to capture us best. James Kelly ’08 is now a substation design engineer for the Bonneville Power Administration (he’s awesome at it) and I am an at-home mom to our three boys, Harlan, Sawyer, and Bennett Kelly. Bennett was born April 17, 2013, and we are now a family of five! Hope you like the pic!” Yes, Katie, we certainly do. dream job at Nike, where he serves as equipment developer for Nike’s Athletic Services. “It’s kind of a hybrid role,” he explains in an article in The Sports Paper. “My job is to develop all the Nike fielding and batting gloves for Major League Baseball and the NCAA.” He played four years for the Pilots baseball team, and then was picked up by the Los Angles Dodgers as a free agent in 2006, playing for four years in the organization before injuries brought about an end to his baseball career. See more of his story at http://tinyurl. com/mhpe2jy. Shane Lei writes: “Anyone who has seen Herman Asar now on campus, especially if they’ve spent a few moments in his classroom, can easily identify him as the autumn 2013 mystery faculty member.” You’re right, Shane, it doesn’t look as though we fooled anyone. Thanks for your note.
’07 ARIEL’S UPDATE Ariel Woodruff writes: “This year I graduated from Vermont College of Fine Arts with an M.F.A. in writing for children and young adults; I’ve been selling articles to dog magazines, writing picture books and a young adult novel, and now I’m on the job hunt!” We certainly hope you
get the perfect job, Ariel, how about writing again to tell us how it turned out? Ryan Massoud writes: “I’m a third year medical student at Western University of Health Sciences at the Lebanon campus. I’m currently doing my clinical rotations here in Portland. The dean of the school is a UP alum as well! Her name is Paula Crone.” Thanks for writing Ryan, and yes, she is indeed, from the class of 1986. We heard recently from Megan Olmstead, who writes: “Greetings from Washington, D.C.! I recently graduated from Notre Dame Law School and (aside from the lack of good Northwestern coffee on the East Coast) I am pleased to have taken a position as a legal counsel for the U.S. House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. I remain a proud Pilot and I wanted to inquire about any opportunities that are available to become more involved in the alumni board and network—please let me know how to do so.” Megan, we point out, served as ASUP vice president in 2006-2007.
’08 MAKING THE SHORT LIST Congratulations to Mohammed Hassan Alwan, who was shortlisted for the 2013 International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his novel, The Beaver, in which a Saudi Arabian man in his
N O T E S forties retraces the story of his troubled family while fishing in the United States. Alwan was born in Riyadh and has an M.B.A. from the University of Portland. Read more at http://tinyurl.co m/mny9pwk. Karen Bortvedt has joined Maryknoll Lay Missioners, and is currently serving in Cambodia. All are invited to follow Karen’s service adventures at http://thelifeandloveofkaren.blogspot. com. Jeff Griffin writes: “Maybe you’d like to hear about a former Pilot whose entrepreneurial spirit has taken flight. I recently helped launch a new product for women, the Fullips Lip Enhancer, a new natural lip enhancement device that gives women bigger, fuller lips in a matter of seconds. Go to www.fullips.com for more information, and keep an eye out for this product in SkyMall as you fly the friendly skies!” Dani (Schwanz) Boespflug writes: “Andrew Boespflug and I were married on August 10, 2013, amongst family and friends in the mountains of our home state of Idaho! We met during our time on The Bluff.” Congratulations, Dani and Andrew, we love to hear about our campus couples. Alice Rossignol writes: “Your autumn mystery faculty member is the wonderful Dr. Herman Asarnow, of course!” Thanks Alice, you’re right on both counts.
“Will French ’06 and I were married on September 21, 2013, along the shore of Priest Lake, Idaho, with close family and friends in attendance. It
’09 WEDDING BELLS
’10 MORE WEDDING BELLS
Dane Conroy and Danielle Jolicoeur joined the ranks of the blissfully wedded on August 18, 2013, when they were married at St. Aloysius in Spokane, Washington. To see more on their happy day, go to http://www.danedani elle.ourwedding.com. Jenny Phillips (now French) has some great news to share:
Chris Maraist and Gina (Stack) Maraist got married at Jenkins Estate on June 22, 2013. Chris is an emergency room nurse at OHSU and Gina is an advancement associate at La Salle Catholic College Preparatory School. They enjoyed a beautiful honeymoon in Kauai after celebrating their wedding with close family and friends, including many former UP classmates. Kevin Lockwood writes: “I finished my master of science in biomedical engineering at the University of Calfornia Davis, and now work for Ortho Development in Salt Lake City, Utah.”
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was a day we will never forget and we truly thank UP for being the place we met seven years ago!” Congratulations, Jenny and Will, we love to hear about couples who meet here on The Bluff. Please keep Joanna Rae Farrell in your prayers following the death of her father, Dr. John T. Farrell, who passed away in a traffic accident on October 29, 2013, near his home outside of Montgomery, Ala. When he wasn’t flying, John was a student, teacher, and scholar of military history and Asian studies. John retired from the Air Force in 2004 in Little Rock, Ark. After retirement, he taught at New Mexico Military Institute and was an associate professor at Squadron Officers College at Maxwell Air Force Base at the time of his death. Survivors include his wife, Libay; daughter, Joanna, of Wetumpka; sisters, Joanne Farrell, Janet Farrell, and Patty Farrell; brothers, Bill Farrell and Tom Farrell; niece, Libby Watkins; and nephews, David Preston and Will Watkins. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
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C L A S S ’11 AND YET MORE WEDDING BELLS Nursing graduate Katie Yochim married Dylan Smith at Pomeroy Farm in Yacolt, Wash., on September 7, 2013, according to Fr. Art Wheeler, C.S.C. Erin Malmgren was Maid of Honor, and Roya Ghorbani-Elizeh was a bridesmaid. “Not a Catholic wedding,” Fr. Art notes, “so I went as a guest, not concelebrant.”
informational interviews (informal career conversation), job shadows or externships, internships, or graduate school advice. More information can be found at this link: http://tinyurl.com/krockoh.
FACULTY, STAFF, FRIENDS
Gabriel DellaVecchia writes: “After receiving my MAT in May, I have moved to Colorado to teach 3rd grade at Sabin World School in Denver.” Congratulations Gabriel, we know you’ll be an inspiration to your new students.
John L. Johnsen, who taught engineering on The Bluff from September 1985 to January 1998, passed away on July 3, 2013, surrounded by his loving family. By all accounts a fine professor and colleague, John had a distinguished military career, serving 20 years in the U.S. Army, retiring in 1976 as a lieutenant colonel. He married Mary Helene Pigott in 1956, and they had four sons. After his career at UP he moved to Downieville, Calif., here he pursued his passions for playing drums, hiking with his golden retrievers, reading history and philosophy, and writing limericks, some 250 at last count. Survivors include Mary and their sons, Jim, David, and Erik. Their son John died in 1984 in an accident at El Toro Naval Air Station while serving as a lance corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps. Our prayers and condolences to the family. We got a nice note from Nancy Wissbaum, who writes: “Okay, so I am baring my procrastination on reading my favorite magazine, but I just turned to page 58 and saw the beautiful eyes and impish smile of Meridee Kaiel, so I had no choice but to e-mail in my tardy excitement.” Nancy is, of course, referring to our summer 2013 mystery photo subject, and correctly at that. She is also the daughter of John Gega ’47 and mother of Matt Wissbaum ’04. Take a look back at page 45 if you’d like to see two of the cutest grandkids ever.
PILOTS GUIDING PILOTS
DEATHS
’12 HE WON! HE WON! Evan Gabriel entered one of his senior capstone essays to the The Rising Star Creative Writing Competition for literary nonfiction, ages 19-25, and he won! The anthology comes out in November 2013. See more at http://tinyurl.com/ m56hcjj. Danielle Bibbs writes: “This is a little late but in April, four UP alumni found each other while conducting Army training in California. All of us are
Army Reserve soldiers and are attached to the 396th Combat Support Hospital, but did not know we were all Pilots until we were introduced at training. The alumni are LTC Rodney Saunders ’92, CPT Margaret Coleman (Bueneman) ’98,1LT Ari Goldschmidt ’10, and 2LT Bibbs ’12 (me!). Go Army and Go Pilots!” Nina Baio writes: “I graduated in July, 2013, from the University of Maryland, Baltimore with my masters in social work (MSW). I have begun working for The Children’s Guild of Baltimore as a school therapist for elementary aged children.”
’13 TEACHING A MILE HIGH
The University’s career services office has launched a new networking program called Pilots Guiding Pilots. It’s an online tool to help connect students and alumni with fellow UP graduates for career guidance, networking, and support. Guidance may include
John A. Gloden ’40, August 18, 2013, Milwaukie, Ore. Jack Goetze ’47, July 27, 2013, Portland, Ore. Bill Crocker ’49, ’60, August 25, 2013. John A. Coyle ’50, July 18, 2013. Patricia LaMear, wife of Doug LaMear ’50, October 10, 2013.
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N O T E S William Tagmyer, a longtime University of Portland board member, passed away after a short battle with cancer on September 27, 2013. Even as he faced death, friends say he was unfailingly positive. Tagmyer approached his cancer treatment the same way he approached business, philanthropy, and volunteering: with a big smile. “I’m sure he had his down moments, but I never saw it,” said University of Portland president Rev. E. William Beauchamp. “He always seemed to be in a good mood.” Tagmyer served as a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve before settling into the steel business. He ran Northwest Pipe Company for nearly 30 years, becoming president and CEO in 1986, just after its financial crisis. Tagmyer pulled the company out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and by 1988, Northwest Pipe reported record earnings. Under his leadership, the company grew from $19 million to more than $500 million in revenues. In addition to the University's board, Tagmyer served on the boards of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, the Providence Heart and Vascular Institute, and the Easter Seals Society of Oregon. Survivors include his wife, Lucy; sons, Bill Jr. and Steve; daughters, Kris Tuor and Karey Gutierrez; brother, Bob; nine grandchildren; and multiple treasured nieces and nephews. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Hubert Lawrence “Larry” Sparrow ’51, March 29, 2013, Beaverton, Ore. John Franklin Roberts, Jr. ’51, September 19, 2013, Sublimity, Ore. Ernest Hobensack ’52, October 26, 2012. David M. Holmes ’52, October 17, 2013. Marybeth Madigan Segar ’56, July 15, 2013, Crestwood, Ky. Roy Eugene Herman ’57, September 11, 2013, Portland, Ore. Scott S. Hinsdale ’58, September 3, 2013. Mary Alice Nagy ’59, March 15, 2013, The Dalles, Ore. Gregory Ferrell Scott ’61, March 6, 2013, Vancouver, Wash. James M. Apilado ’63, February 8, 2012. Sister Marie Grainer ’64, June
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14, 2013. Elena Maria Robbins ’68, July 3, 2013. Howard F. Horner ’70, August 12, 2013. Joan Cecelia Woodard ’78, December 11, 2012. Jesse J. Gard, Jr. ’78, August 13, 2013, Portland, Ore. John Percin Jr., son of John Percin ’79, June 30, 2013, Yarnell, Ariz. Patti Jo (Neal) Gorman ’82, August 28, 2013, Woodburn, Ore. Donald W. Dinsmore ’83, September 17, 2013, Portland, Ore. George Paul Starcher ’93, July 10, 2013, Lubbock, Texas. Michael Hassen ’02, October 17, 2013. John L. Johnsen, July 3, 2013. William Tagmyer, September 27, 2013.
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Letters come in all forms, yes? Michael Pacholec ’12 was in New Zealand this past summer, visiting with University biology professor Katie O’Reilly as Katie did her ornithology research on a Fulbright grant, and he sent these photographs, among many others. The wooden sort-of-chapel, by the way, is Te Tiriti o Waitangi, a traditional Maori meeting house at Waitangi, where the modern nation of New Zealand was born. Portland 48
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Here’s a Campaign story. Once there were two kids in Iowa. The boy was from the tiny town of Saint Anthony and the girl was from the bustling city of Dubuque. The boy goes to France to fight against a murderous empire that would enslave the world. The girl becomes a nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Dubuque. The boy shatters his leg in battle and is shipped to the Veterans Affairs hospital in Dubuque, in awful pain; he’ll never walk easy again the rest of his life. One day the boy, recovering from surgery, meets the girl, the nurse. But she’s not his nurse, so he has to angle some way to meet her; next time he spots her he hustles over in his wheelchair to chat her up. Soon he sends her flowers, and soon after that they marry, in Dubuque, and then they drive their Oldsmobile from Iowa to Oregon, and Bill Mackin ’49 enrolls at the University of Portland, and May Annette Mackin becomes a renowned nurse at Providence, and one of their five children, Mary Magdalene Zipse ’79, also earns a nursing degree on The Bluff. So it is that two kids from Iowa found themselves, this past August, celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary, and still staring at each other in reverence and wonder at the adventure of their lives; and so it is that the University got a chance to educate a brave young businessman and a creative young nurse. The whole point of the Rise Campaign, the whole point of the University itself, is to give bright brave kids a chance to shape their gifts and bend the world to peace and mercy, as businessmen, nurses, teachers, scientists, engineers, artists, anything and everything. You can make a huge difference with a scholarship gift, big or small; why not aim it at the School of Nursing, so we can try to make more Mary Annettes and Mary Magdalenes? Call Diane Dickey at 503.943.8130, dickey@up.edu. And happy anniversary, you Iowa kids.
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CLOOOIIIVE
THE IRREPRESSIBLE WITTY BRILLIANT CLIVE CHARLES He died ten years ago, only 51 years old, but what a run — international soccer star in his native England and Wales and North America, where his Portland Timbers jersey, above, was retired; high school coach for three years at Reynolds High in Troutdale, Oregon; and then, shockingly, the new coach of the Pilots as of 1986. He turned out to be one of the best soccer coaches in American history, leading the Pilot men to the Final Four and the women to the 2002 national title; he also coached the U.S. U-23 national team, and American Olympic and World Cup teams. But on The Bluff it is as a wry and hilarious teacher that he is best remembered, with respect and love. Can you make Campaign gifts honoring his memory? Sure you can. Call Diane Dickey, 503.943.8130, dickey@up.edu.