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ILLUMINOS One child held onto my left pinky finger everywhere we went. Never any other finger and never the right pinky but only the left pinky and never my whole hand. My finger misses her hand this morning. It has been many years since she held my finger. To this day sometimes in the morning when I dress I stare at my left pinky and suddenly I am in the playground, or on the beach, or in a thrumming crowd, and there is a person weighing forty pounds holding onto my left pinky so tightly that I am tacking slightly to port. I miss tacking slightly to port. Another child held onto my left trouser leg most of the time but he would, if he deemed it necessary, hold either of my hands, and one time both of my hands, when we were shuffling in the surf, and the water was up to my knees but up to his waist, and I walked along towing him like a small grinning chortling dinghy all the way from the sea cave where we thought there might be sea lions sleeping off a salmon bender to the tidepools where you could find starfish and crabs and anemones and mussels the size of your shoes. The third child held hands happily all the time, either hand, any hand, my hands, his mother’s hands, his brother’s hands, his sister’s hands, his friends, aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and teachers, dogs and trees, neighbors and bushes, he would hold hands with any living creature whatsoever, without the slightest trepidation or self-consciousness, and to this day I admire that boy’s open genuine eager unadorned verve. He once held hands with his best friend during an entire soccer game when they were five years old, the two of them running in tandem, or one starting in one direction unbeknownst to the other and down they both went giggling in the sprawl of the grass. It seems to me that angels and bodhisattvas are everywhere available for consultation if only we can see them clear; they are unadorned, and joyous, and patient, and radiant, and luminous, and not disguised or hidden or filtered in any way whatsoever, so that if you see them clearly, which happens occasionally even to the most blinkered and frightened of us, you realize immediately who they are, beings of great and humble illumination dressed in the skins of new and dewy beings, and you realize, with a catch in your throat, that they are your teachers, and they are agents of an unimaginable love, and they are your cousins and companions in awe, and they are miracles and prayers and songs of inexplicable beauty whom no one can explain and no one own or claim or trammel, and that simply to perceive them is to be blessed beyond the reach of language, and that to be the one appointed to tow them along a beach, or a crowd, or home through the brilliant morning from the muddy hilarious peewee soccer game, is to be graced beyond measure or understanding; which is what I was, and I am, and I will be, until the day I die, and change form from this one to another, in ways miraculous and mysterious, never to be plumbed by the mind or measures of man. Brian Doyle is the editor of this magazine, and the author most recently of an essay collection called So Very Much the Best of Us (ACTA Publications).
F E A T U R E S THE COOL WOMEN ISSUE 14 / Being On Fire, by Cornel West A passionate scholar rose to speak of Dorothy Day one night in New York City, in the very building where she tried to minister to the Christ in every poor broken soul, and out poured... this.
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16 / The Syrian Woman, by Ian Frazier Compelled by fierce love, uplifted by faith, gifted by God with brilliant words, a desperate woman long ago spoke back to Jesus, and changed everything. 22 / A Professor of Empathy, by Karen Eifler In which a noted University professor of education realizes that she is, well, not. page 16
24 / Entanglement, by Sarah Weiger, photographs by Richard Barnes A University literature professor on beauty and death and love and ignorance and responsibility and reverence and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 26 / I Am One of the Last Five People Who Believe in Government, by Marc Covert ’93 A girl from California who helped elect the mayor of a huge city, and now helps run that city, and believes with all her heart that local government is crucial and extraordinary. 28 / Their New Lives, by Brian Doyle A girl from Ohio who “sees buildings in black and white and wants to color them in,” and has a ferocious bear-trap memory, and...
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32 / Four Cool Women, by Adam Guggenheim Nurse, student body vice president, startling young alumna, able professor: a quartet of remarkable female souls.
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3 / The University’s president and one very cautious infant 5 / Amy and Jim and ethics and fifteen million dollars 7 / The best professor in the state of Oregon: Laura McLary 9 / The best geoscience teacher in America: Coach Bob Butler 10 / Mikayla Posey ’15 and discovering her African ancestors 11 / Tennis’s Aaron Gross on the late wild Reid De Laubenfels ’15
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12 / Sports, starring, at last!, a terrific start by the Pilot volleyballers 13 / University news and notes and feats and fetes 48 / The wonderful uncategorizable polymath John Beckman ’42
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THE UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND MAGAZINE Winter 2015: Vol. 34, No. 4 President: Rev. Mark Poorman, C.S.C. Founding Editor: John Soisson Editor: Brian Doyle Blunt Funny Deft Designers: Joseph Erceg ’55 & Chris Johnson Mooing Assistant Editors: Marc Covert ’93 & Amy Shelly ’95 Fitfully Contributing Editors: Louis Masson, Terry Favero, Anna Lageson-Kerns
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Cover: Talavera Virgin of Enlightenment by Sandra Silberzweig, of Toronto, Canada.
Portland is published quarterly by the University of Portland. Copyright ©2015 by the University of Portland. All rights reserved. Editorial offices are located in Waldschmidt Hall, 5000 N. Willamette Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97203-5798. Telephone (503) 943-8225, fax (503) 943-7178, e-mail address: bdoyle@up.edu, Web site: http://www.up.edu/portland. Third-class postage paid at Portland, OR 97203. Canada Post International Publications Mail Product — Sales Agreement No. 40037899. Canadian Mail Distribution Information — Express Messenger International: PO Box 25058, London, Ontario, Canada N6C 6A8. Printed in the USA. Opinions expressed in Portland are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University administration. Postmaster: Send address changes to Portland, The University of Portland Magazine, 5000 N. Willamette Boulevard, Portland, OR 97203-5798.
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The wintriest books we have ever read: Peter Høeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow, Allen Say’s Tree of Cranes, and Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams. Barry, who received an honorary doctorate on The Bluff in 1994, traveled for five years as a field biologist in the Arctic. He gets, says Robert Macfarlane, “the importance of fact as a carrier of wonder... the crystallography of frazil ice, or the thermodynamics of polar-bear hair. ...Science, for Lopez, finesses the real into a greater marvelousness...” “In a winter-hammered landscape,” wrote Lopez, “the light creates a feeling of compassion... it is possible to imagine a stifling ignorance falling away from us....” Amen to that.
Arts & Letters
The Schoenfeldt Series hosts novelist Laila Lalami (The Moor’s Account) on February 15. Her great novel is the Campus Reads selection this year, following Alice McDermott’s Charming Billy. ¶ On the boards this winter in Mago Hunt Theater: Elmer Rice’s 1923 tech-phobic comedy The Adding Machine (February 24-28) and the Bard’s Julius Caesar (April 8-15). ¶ In concert this winter, usually in BC Aud: the University’s Wind Symphony, Orchestra, University Singers, Women’s Chorale, Chamber Ensembles, Chapel Choir (awesome), and Jazz Band. The annual hilarious
The University
Speaking in the Chiles Center on March 16: New York Times columnist David Brooks, author most recently of The Road to Character. Tickets are $20 and $25, and are available from ticketmaster.com or 503.943.7525. ¶ Receiving the University’s Christus Magister Medal for extraordinary service to the University’s mission: Allen and Kathie Lund. Receiving honorary doctorates: the cheerful business ace Tim Boyle of Oregon’s Columbia Sportswear, engineer Eleanor Baum (the first female engineering dean in America), legendary Immaculata College women’s basketball coach Cathy Rush (who won three national titles), retiring University of Puget Sound president Ron Thomas (a surfer and a Springsteen nut, by the way), deft businessmen Steve Shephard ’58 (who, bless him, created the Shephard Freshman Center on The Bluff), and the wonderful polymath priest and scholar Father Bob Pelton, C.S.C., of Notre Dame. This year’s speakers, as the University splits its Commencement into two parts for the first time:
Fedele Bauccio ’64, founder and boss of the food company Bon Appetit, and Tim Boyle.
The Students
Baseball opens in February with a new coach, Geoff Loomis ’94, who has the highest batting average ever on The Bluff, .372. May be transfer his hitaciousness to his students’ bats. ¶ The University graduates 93% of its student-athletes; the national average is 86%. There are 231 varsity athletes this year, of whom 36 are engineers, 15 nurses, and 9 future teachers. On average they devote a whopping 50 hours a week to their sport, what with practice, weights, travel, meetings, and games; on average they also earned a 3.2 g.p.a., which seems admirable to us. ¶ Deceased in November: sophomore Conner Hall, by his own hand. Christie Hall’s chapel was packed for his memorial Mass. University president Father Mark Poorman is doubling efforts to battle suicide among students; “there is always, always hope,” as Conner’s dad Eric said, shaking, at the Mass. ¶ Commencement this year will split into morning and afternoon events on May 8, so that graduates can get more tickets for their loved ones; details to come.
The Faculty
Retiring in May: “Coach Bob” Butler, the best geoscience professor in America, after 12 years on The Bluff (see page 9); the brilliant business professor Howard Feldman, after 25 years; the theologian Father Tom Hosinski, C.S.C., after 38 years; and the honest genuine cheerful unflappable former business dean Jim
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Seal, after a whopping 39 years. Prayers. ¶ Among free talks this semester hosted by the Garaventa Center for American Catholic Life: the editor of this magazine (January 19); psychologist Marianne Lloyd, on memory and humor (February 9), Florida’s death-row chaplain Dale Recinella, on the Bible and the death penalty (March 14), and Notre Dame physicist Mitchell Wayne on Einstein (March 21). Info for all: Sarah Nuxoll, nuxoll@up.edu, 503.943.7702. ¶ February 25: the third annual Kate Regan Short Film Fest, showing digital films by faculty, staff, and students. The event is named for the generous ebullient Spanish professor who died suddenly in 2014 when her huge heart gave out.
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January 6: Epiphany, when the Magi suddenly showed up for dinner with the Star Child. ¶ January 12, 2010: the Haiti earthquake, in which Molly Hightower ’09 was killed; the University honors her to this day with a scholarship that brings a Haitian student to The Bluff. ¶ January 25: the Church celebrates the Conversion of Saint Paul from violent oppressor to the greatest public relations man in history. ¶ March 1: Saint David’s Day in Wales, that tough tiny nation’s patron saint. ¶ March 5, 1943: 50 University of Portland students in the Army enlisted reserves were called to active duty against Germany and Japan. ¶ For more of this pleasurably personable campus and world history, see literature professor Father David Sherrer’s great up.edu/ almanac.
ART BY MARY MILLER DOYLE
The Season
June Gilbert & Sullivan show is Ruddigore. ¶ Among cool music events: a free showing of Buster Keaton’s great silent film The General, with a live soundtrack (January 23). ¶ Among evening litry events this semester: fictionist Don Waters (February 24), poet Sister Eva Hooker, C.S.C. (April 4), and poet Jae Choi (April 6), all hosted by the English department, all in the bookstore. Info on all the above: the charming Kelly Brown, brownke@up.edu.
The players in this poignant and funny scene, caught by the fine Oregon photographer Bob Kerns: University president Father Mark Poorman, C.SC.; freshly retired nursing dean Joanne Warner; and Joanne’s startled grandson — apprehensive, cautious, anticipatory, puzzled, curious, wondering who exactly is he about to be launched at. A priceless look, is it not? “Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray,” reports Matthew in his gospel, “and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Of such is the kingdom of heaven! — let that be our pennant for the day, brothers and sisters. Winter 2015 3
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Twenty years ago, when the University built Franz Hall, the wise Dan Danielson, of Soderstrom Architects, hired the local sculptor Donovan Peterson to create the iconic Christ the Teacher and His Companions statues between Franz and Hunt Theater, to silently sing the University’s dedication to faith and teaching. Peterson, also wise, left an empty seat among the statues, for passersby to sit and join the seminar; he also left a bronze child as a magnet for kids, who would happily find one of their own at the (whopping large) feet of the Lord of the Starfields. We see this scene every blessed day, with an endless giggling parade of small holy beings. Portland 4
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B L U F F Pledged to the University this fall, as the lead gift for a glorious new academic center: a startling $15 million from regent Amy Dundon-Berchtold and her husband Jim Berchtold ‘63. The gift further fuels their eponymous Institute for Moral Formation and Applied Ethics, and jump-starts University president Father Mark Poorman’s vow to boost faculty and classroom space. The gift sure is “transformational,” as Father Mark said, choosing the right word — classrooms on The Bluff are in use from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. For more on the remarkable Amy D-B and her riveting story, see page 28 of this issue.
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MY LORD OF Lance Larsen is the poet laureate of Utah and a calm wry gentleman who teaches at Brigham Young University. My lord of March in Madrid and a desultory stroll through Paseo Park. My lord of buying sweet yams from a vendor and devouring them in their skins, even the burned parts. My lord of green grass springy so I throw myself down. My lord of my daughter reading Jules Verne beside me. My lord of a single feather on the grass, which I send aloft, a numinous novel
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of the air. My lord of Picasso’s Guernica in the Reina Sophia Museum four blocks from here. My lord of the wall opposite the painting turning blue every six months, a mystery like statues weeping. My lord of the mystery solved: visitors sliding their jeans against the wall to get a wider perspective on fire raining down on hoofed animals and the peasants who feed them. My lord of three million glorious bodies in this city, but all I need is my beloved’s. Until she arrives, my lord of impatient waiting, and after, my lord of hugging her like a lost lover, just a few layers of decorum between her electric skin and mine. My lord of a bike thrown down in sand like a gored horse, of
cigarette smoke rising ragged and holy. My lord of who feeds these feral cats slinking and where do all the feathers of the world end up? My lord of my achy left leg growing achier on account of my daughter leaning. My lord of fourteen years ago she didn’t exist on this planet, neither 20,000 leagues below or above. My lord of right now and not yesterday and maybe not tomorrow — therefore let her lean. My lord of sun and desire, of green and again green, of feathers I can’t see floating like petitions borne by the breeze. My lord of here I am, where, where are you? My lord of thank you. My lord of my endless Lord.
The Spanish artist Salvador Dali’s “Sacrament of the Last Supper,” from the University’s Clark Library art collection. Dali, a native of Catalonia, studied in Madrid, and for all his fame as a surrealist, he was a terrific artist of haunted reality, as here. This lithograph, a gift from a donor in 1987, hangs in a study room upstairs. Does the University welcome gifts of all kinds and shapes and sorts and styles? Heavens yes. Call Kara McManus, 503.943.7460, mcmanusk@up.edu. Portland 6
ADAM GUGGENHEIM
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The Best Professor in Oregon in 2015 (what a phrase!), according to the international Council for the Advancement and Support of Education: the University’s Laura McLary, professor of all things German. Laurie’s honor is the remarkable fifth such for the University in 20 years. In her 16 years on The Bluff, McLary built a vibrant German Studies major, created a terrific mentor program that has sent dozens of students to Austria and Germany on post-grad Fulbright grants, and widened courses to include all sorts of literature and arts and history as well as the muscular German language itself.
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The assignment in Fine Arts 418, digital photography, taught by LeAnne Hitchcock: retouch one of your family’s photographs, and in so doing drive the tendrils of time away from the lovely threads of story in your clan. This resurrection of a creased bruised bent dim photo leapt out at us: Ashlei Poziembo’s grandparents. Wow. Do we welcome generous gifts for creative teaching and learning like this? Sure we do. Call Kara MacManus, 503.943.7460, macmanusk@up.edu. Portland 8
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We do not sing this man enough. Students love him. He’s blunt and curious and energetic and everyone on campus calls him Coach Bob because, well, he looks and sounds exactly like your high school coach in any sport. He is formally known as Robert Butler, geophysics professor, specialist in natural hazards, particularly earthquakes. He is, believe us, an expert on earthquakes. He’s already been honored as the best college science teacher in Oregon, but he was also recently honored by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, which means we could say he’s the best geoscience teacher in America, which we just did. Congratulations, Coach.
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TO SEARCH, TO SHARE… Mikayla Posey’s maternal greatgreat--grandfather was a farmer near Stuttgart, Germany, before emigrating to the United States. Documents and records have helped her white mother’s father trace his family back many generations. On her AfricanAmerican father’s side, however, what family history does exist is mostly storytelling. But all the stories end at the hard historic wall of slavery. Her paternal grandmother Jessie traced her family back to her grandmother, who was born eight years after slaves were freed, and she pieced together information about her husband John “Bob” Posey, Mikayla’s grandfather, and his life on his parents’ sharecropper farm in Cuba, Alabama. But when the family tried to find actual records — nothing. “Records for blacks were not given the highest priority,” says Makayla ’15 dryly. “One of the tragedies of slavery is the theft of your name.” Last year, Mikayla and her brother Jesse pooled their resources to give their father, also Bob Posey, an unusual combined birthday and Father’s Day present. They signed him up to participate in the Genographic Project, a ten-year-old effort led by National Geographic to use DNA to trace human origins and patterns of migration. More than 700,000 people have participated. Bob Posey got a kit with a cotton swab for extracting some DNA from his cheek, packed it in a tube, and sent it in for analysis. And waited. In the meantime, Mikayla had signed-up for a two-week trip to Tanzania last spring for an interdisciplinary course in biology and communications called “Ecology, Evolution, and Culture of East Africa,” led by biology professor Tara Maginnis and communication studies professor Vail Fletcher. She had spent an aca-
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demic year studying in Salzburg, Austria, one of the highlights of her career on The Bluff; she was hoping for a similar experience in Tanzania. Once the results from Bob Posey’s DNA test were available, the family waited until they were all together in Oregon to look them up. A few keystrokes later, they had a pre-slavery past, a link to ancestors who lived free — and a tribal name. The results showed the family most likely descended from two “reference populations,” the first sub-Saharan African, the second the Luhya people of Kenya. Bob Posey’s DNA showed a lineage that was 80 percent sub-
Saharan African, 7 percent Northern European, 6 percent South African, 4 percent Mediterranean, and 2 percent Southwest Asian. So Mikayla’s trip to Tanzania, Kenya’s neighbor to the south, took on an entirely new meaning. In Tanzania, the 13 students and 2 faculty members spent time in four national parks or nature reserves, studying the diverse animal populations, habitats, and ecosystems as well as local culture and the influences of globalization and tourism. The students, notes Mikayla, were profoundly moved; none more so than she was. She took every opportunity to ask about the Luhya people, “and almost everyone Portland 10
I talked to knew of the tribe,” she says. “There are also Luhya people in Tanzania, near Lake Victoria.” From her journal: Last night before we left the Serengeti, Martin [the camp cook] finally told me about the Luhya tribe. He told me they originally lived in square huts built with sticks and then packed with mud. The roof was either banana leaves or grass. Animals (sheep, goats, ducks) were kept in the kitchen and the food kept on a high shelf. Also guests stayed in the kitchen. Beds are sticks, banana leaves, then animal skin. The Luhya people were known as “peacid” farmers which meant they farmed only for what they needed to eat — not to sell. They also had a few customs that stood out...” — in the old days, polygamy, and older unmarried women marrying women, for example. Growing up in mostly white Arizona, Mikayla always felt “other,” she says — but at the University, where she was active in the Black Student Union, Black Lives Matter, and the German Culture Club, she found that her background “gave me a way I could communicate with others,” a steady conversational opening. And she says it was fascinating to hear her classmates on the trip, all white, talk about being the other themselves for the first time. Mikayla came home to news that she had been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship; she is now teaching English in Germany, and exploring her maternal ancestry. After that? Travel to Kenya with her family, she says, to meet the Luhya people. Her ultimate goal: working with cultural exchange programs for high school students. “It’s so powerful,” she says, “to expand your world view, to explore, to search, to share...” Or as the fine Oregon writer Barry Lopez has said, the best way to begin to know yourself is to get out of town and start looking. — Guy Maynard
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HIS IRRATIONAL CONFIDENCE Reid deLaubenfels ’15, captain of the men’s tennis team, died in a fall this summer; his coach, Aaron Gross, poured his heart out a few days later. Reid would give everything of himself every single time he played. He was completely invested in the outcome of the match to the point where he would play through sickness and exhaustion and pain and use them as tests. I’m sure he got under the skin of his opponents. He carried himself as if he was Roger Federer on the court. “Irrational confidence” — I told him that phrase sometimes described him, and he loved that. I wanted to know how he competed so fiercely and yet didn’t seem to have his self-esteem wrapped up in whether he won or lost. His answer was that his mom and dad supported him in everything that he did and always just encouraged him to do his best. They didn’t dictate his tennis career or treat him differently when he won or lost. He was unconditionally loved by his mom and dad every single day of his life. Reid wanted deeply to be team captain last year. I was nervous about this because seven of our ten guys were freshmen, and if we ever needed a strong captain, this was the year. But from the first day they arrived on campus, Reid was with them. He helped them settle into their dorms, get their books, find their way around campus, made sure they had people to hang out with on the weekends. I was particularly concerned with the doubles play of the new guys. It is usually a very steep learning curve with the young players when it comes to doubles. So I put nearly every one of our new players with Reid at some point. He made every partner he had feel like he was the best player on the court and that is exactly what those young guys needed. I came to believe this special quality that Reid had was going to make him an incredible success in life. He had a way of elevating everyone around him, and that’s what great leaders
do. No matter what the odds stacked against him or the team, he always had that irrational confidence that he could get it done. I started asking myself if he had irrational confidence or the rest of the world had irrational doubt? Senior year in college is a tricky year to navigate for an athlete. Players want to finish up strong, but also have one eye on the future. The attention to the little details of the sport can get lost when worrying about future jobs or grad school tests. Reid faced a bit of that — it was like he had a huge deck of cards in his hand, a pile of possibilities, and he just had to pick the most amazing one, because he was going to be successful at whatever he did. But he did it — he had a great year, and he did an excellent job supporting the “freshies,” as he called them. And they loved him and his infectious competitive toughness. Winter 2015 11
In the two years that Reid was at Portland, after transferring from Fresno State, he had 13 teammates, which is a lot for a college tennis team. But if you ever wanted a large number of people to be touched by one special person, that person was Reid. And I know his effect went far beyond the tennis teams. But I also know that every one of his teammates and coaches are better for knowing Reid. I am a better coach and a better father because of him, and I am only one of many people who will carry his spirit with me the rest of my days, and try to instill his spirit in the young people I am charged with helping to develop into strong, independent, and confident men. I will remind myself on a daily basis to try for his irrational confidence. There won’t be a day that goes by that I won’t remind a student or myself of what this extraordinary young man taught me. Not a day. Not one.
S P O R T S Volleyball The Best Start in University History! for the Pilots, who reeled off a shocking ten wins in a row to open the season, and then upset a nationally ranked team for the first time ever when they swept #23 San Diego in November. The women were 15-12 and soaring at presstime. What a pleasure to see a volleyball crowd again. Baseball The new coach of the Pilots as they open their season in February: Geoff Loomis ’94, who still holds the record for career batting average on The Bluff: .372. Drafted by the Oakland Athletics during his Pilot years, Geoff played two years in the minors, coached the pro Aloha Knights and college boys at George Fox, taught business at David Douglas High, and has been head coach at Pacific Lutheran for 13 years (and two league titles). Welcome back, Geoffrey. Soccer Tough year for both the men and the women: the women finished 8-11, the men 3-12-3. Senior Noelle La Prevotte and juniors Ellie Boon and Allison Wetherington were named to the All-West Coast Conference team, and rookie Cecilia Pedersen was named to the WCC freshman all-stars. Five men were named to the league’s all-academic team (at least a 3.2, and serious minutes), led by center back Conor Johnston (3.45 in business) and senior Hugo Rhoads, honored for the third time.
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Tennis Star of the fall for the men was Cyprus native Michail Pervolarakis, who earned both the singles and doubles titles at the Bulldog Classic, and was 5-1 in singles and 4-1 in doubles for November. For the women, nationally ranked Lucia Butkovska and Maja Mladenovic are the leaders; Butkovska was 18-2 in singles last spring, and Mladenovic was 8-1in WCC matches. Rowing Highlight of the fall for the boatwomen: the Portland Fall Classic on the Willamette, which yielded this entertaining remark: ““The highlight of the day was the varsity eight race,” said Pilot coach Pasha Spencer. “Gonzaga was trying to pass on the outside and from the Ross Island Bridge to the Morrison Bridge it was a good push between the two boats.” Men’s Basketball Six newcomers and only two seniors makes for a young bunch; but the Pilots will be swift and they can shoot, led by allWCC point guard Alec Wintering and wing Bryce Pressley, who shot .411 from the three-point line last year. Among the new faces next year: Center Joseph Smoyer, from Portland’s Franklin High, where he is senior class president. The Pilots also will welcome guard Alec Monson, from Salt Lake City, as the all-Utah sharpshooter finishes his two-year Mormon mission. Women’s Basketball Three transfers and three freshmen for the Pilots, who return guards Hannah Mattson and Kaylie Van Loo and posts Ashley
Gray and Sara Zaragoza for coach Cheryl Sorenson’s second season. Among new faces for the women next year: guard Kate Andersen from Portland’s Jesuit High, and forward Keala Quinlan from Hawaii, who played for Portland’s Roosevelt High to close her prep career. Cross Country The Pilot men were second (to BYU) and the women fifth in a rainy WCC championship meet; Nick Hauger (25:18 for 8K) led the men and Lauren LaRocco (21:19 for 6K) led the women. LaRocco then ran 21:07 in mud as the women finished ninth in the west at the NCAA regional meet; the men also finished ninth in the west, and so did not make the national meet to defend their national bronze medal. A whopping 14 runners, male and female, were named to the WCC all-academic team, led by Tori Zellerhof with a 3.85 in mechanical engineering (!). Beach Volleyball officially became a varsity sport in August, with the first two-on-two matches slated for this spring. Indoor vball coach Brent Crouch will also coach his players as the outdoor team. Fifty American colleges field sand volleyball teams, among them six WCC schools (Pepperdine, LMU, Pacific, Saint Mary’s, San Francisco, and Santa Clara). Practices will be held at the University’s two campus courts, and athletic director Scott Leykam dreams of a permanent campus venue for competition.
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primates. Sullivan, in her fifth year copies per week, but the paper’s webon The Bluff, also works with the site drew 215,000 views in the past Oregon National Primate Research year. As advisor Nancy Copic noted, Center in Hillsboro. ¶ Sociology pro- generations of staffers will mourn Seventh in the West The annual fessor Martin Monto and co-author the intense exhausting hilarious U.S. News & World Report national Anna Carey ’15 won the best article all-nighters spent making the paper rankings had the University in the for Thursday issue; but now students top ten among the 118 West regional of the year award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality will be better prepared for digital universities for the 21st year; more for their study of the actual facts journalism, marketing, and this importantly we were ranked 12th in electric century. the West for best value, a crucial mea- of ‘hook-up’ culture, which are not quite what pop media would have The New Beauchamp Center and suring stick, we think. ¶ The Shiley you believe. ¶ Fellow sociology pro- the Totally Renovated Pilot House School of Engineering was ranked 46th nationally among its peers, and fessor Alice Gates earned the national opened for use this fall, and both the University was also ranked 7th in Marie Weil Award for her long study were instantly crammed to the gills of immigrant workers in Michigan, dis- with students. The Beau, we notice, the West for its services to veterans, tilled into an article in The Journal also now regularly hosts National which made us proud. Basketball Association teams pracThe Freshman Class final numbers: of Community Practice. The Beacon student newspaper — ticing before playing the Portland 945 students, from a record 11,200 Trailblazers; the first two pro teams applications; they averaged 1200 on ranked among the best in America reveling at the new gyms were the their SATs and 3.66 grade-point-wise. last year — will go paperless as of The majority (76%) were from out of April, after 80 years of print publica- Memphis Grizzlies and the Detroit tion. The staff this year issues 1,750 Pistons. state (mostly Washington and California, with 8% from Hawaii), and a whopping record 36% were minority On campus March 16, as a guest of University president Father Mark Poorman, students, a remarkable number. C.S.C., and the University’s blossoming Dundon-Berchtold Institute: New York The Oregon Professor of the Year, Times columnist David Brooks, author most recently of The Road to Character. according to the international Council Tickets and information: 503.943.7525. for the Advancement and Support of Education: Professor of Everything German Laura McLary. Her award is the University’s remarkable fifth CASE professor of the year honor, after biology’s Terry Favero and Becky Houck, education’s Karen Eifler, and the late great Spanish professor Kate Regan, who was the national professor of the year in 2000. The Oregon Engineering Professor of the Year, says the American Society of Civil Engineers, is the University’s Mark Kennedy, honored especially for his dedication to the profession and its role as public service. Kennedy’s particular passion: access to and delivery of clean water, the pressing issue of this century, we think. Your Federal Government launched a website called College Scorecard this fall, which does not rank schools, but does calculate average earnings after graduation: University of Portland students averaged $52,000 in annual salary after leaving The Bluff. Our students also averaged $25,000 in debt on graduation – which is the primary reason we ask so assiduously for gifts from donors. More Faculty Feats Biologist Elinor Sullivan earned one of the rarest and whoppingest grants in American science: a $3.7 million “RO1” grant from the National Institutes of Health for her work studying maternal diet on offspring health in non-human
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Winter 2015 13
Being On Fire by Cornel West
A passionate scholar rose to speak of Dorothy Day one night in New York City, in the very building where she tried to minister to the Christ in every poor broken soul, and out poured this.
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he was born November 8, 1897, in Brooklyn, New York, the greatest borough in the world. Brooklyn is America, a gutbucket Americana. Brooklyn is where Dorothy Day comes from; and then from California. She was in Oakland when an earthquake shook the state for two minutes and twenty seconds. It was one of the pivotal moments of her life — early on she had intimate relations with the catastrophic. She saw social catastrophe, political catastrophe, ecological catastrophe. She saw, as the great Abraham Heschel said, that indifference to evil is more evil than evil itself. It becomes a way of life, a hardening of the heart and a coarsening of the conscience, a chilling of the soul; turning one’s back to the vulnerable, turning one’s back to the despised and the weak. Indifference is one trait that makes the angels weep, as William James said. How do you shift from that chillness and numbness to being on fire? She understood, as did Martin King, as did John Coltrane, that it is about a Love Supreme. She understood that this love is not abstract, is not ephemeral, it is not fleeting. It is rooted and grounded in the catastrophic. She understood that there is no such thing as “the masses”; they are people, they are the temples of the Holy Spirit, they are made in the image and likeness of God, which means each and every one of them, like you and like me, is unique, irreducible, irreproducible. There is no one like us and never will there be any other one like us. That is not “masses,” which is homogenous and monolithic, which allows you to be detached, to view them as objects of manipulation. She was genuine; she was the real thing; what you saw was what you got. She was able to bring together head and heart and soul and body and allow her whole being and her whole voice to be heard. She believed in relentless self-criticism, self-scrutiny, self-interrogation. She was haunted by God, as Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote.
She was profoundly subversive. She fell in love with poor people and with working people, then with Jesus, trying to find the Christ hidden in each and every person, especially the least of these, especially the poor and the marginal. What was the first line of her powerful statement in the 1968 April issue of The Catholic Worker, when Martin King was shot down like a dog in Memphis, Tennessee? That Martin Luther King died daily, as St. Paul said; that he learned how to die in order to learn how to live well. You learn to die by killing prejudice, killing pre-judgment, killing presuppositions that get in the way of the love overflow. Any time you give up a set of assumptions or presuppositions, that is a form of death, and there is no rebirth without death. I tell my students in every class I teach, you come in this class to learn how to die, and they kind of look around, “Am I in the right place? I thought I’d just read some texts, get a diploma, get a job.” No, no, no, no. You are here to learn how to die because we want to get you some critical self-examination. Let’s see what history has deposited in us; let’s come to terms with our prejudices; let’s come to terms with our dogmatic sensibility; let’s come to terms with the insecurity, the fear, the greed, the envy, the jealousy that is shot through every human soul no matter what color, culture, civilization, or sexual orientation. In the short time you are here, see how far you can go. And in the end, in the language of Samuel Beckett, try again, fail again, fail better. And when you reach your death, the question will be, how good was your failure? She understood rightly that love is a form of death. If you are death-denying you are never able to cultivate your capacity to love. And this is the problem with the market culture — a culture of such superficial spectacle that you do not get down to the deep stuff of love. Winter 2015 15
We are told, over and over again, life is about market calculation, it’s about status, it’s about power, wealth, visibility. No! No! No! It’s about integrity. It’s about honesty. It’s about decency, about a quest for virtue. Think about W.E.B. Dubois’ question, How does integrity face oppression? Then look at Dorothy’s life. See how honesty faces deception, lies, mendacity especially from the powers that be. Look at her life. How does decency respond to insult? She was a woman of what in the black Baptist tradition we call “thick faith.” She had an incarnational conception of human existence. We Protestants are too individualistic. I think we need to learn from Catholics — always centered on community. When Dorothy talks about the long loneliness, when she talks about wrestling in darkness like Jacob, she knows that the only thing that can break that is a love that overflows into community. The Eucharist is transubstantiation in that it reflects the degree to which a miracle can take place, a mystery can be enacted, in which our egos and our narcissism can be connected to something positive, the beloved community, the kingdom of God, that can lure us out of our fallenness into something that constitutes a force for good — as long as we are courageous enough to choose to stay on that tightrope and fall on our faces over and over again. Her question is: Can we be holy fools against worldly foolishness tied indifference and callousness? To be a holy fool is to be on fire with a love, a commitment to justice. When there are enough holy fools on fire, that fire spreads, becomes contagious, and shatters sleepwalking, wakes people up, lets them straighten their backs and stand up for justice. Like she did. Like she did. Cornel West teaches at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, among many other endeavors. Our thanks to Joanne Kennedy at The Catholic Worker newspaper letting us excerpt Brother Cornel at full roar.
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SYRIAN WOMAN Compelled by fierce love, uplifted by faith, gifted by God with witty, brilliant words, a desperate woman long ago spoke back to Jesus, and changed everything.
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he Books of Matthew and Mark begin the New Testament with a grainy immediacy. Their recounting of Christ’s life and ministry, written toward the end of the first century, are like the words of eyewitnesses who have not yet completely processed what they’ve seen. If these two gospels were regular news reports, they’d be the kind that appear among a newspaper’s back pages, in a lower corner, remembered only later, when their scoop has completely taken over page one. Most of what is in Matthew is also in Mark. A brief incident — that is, two versions of the same event — appears in both, and nowhere else in the Bible. Commentators refer to it as the story of the Canaanite woman (Matthew) or the story of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark). In both versions the essential details are the same. The story takes up eight verses in the first gospel and six verses in the second, and passes by without further notice. Syrophoenicia was a section of Syria that had been known as Phoenicia, the name Greeks gave to Canaan. Phoenicians were more commonly called Canaanites; as wide-ranging traders, they brought their culture to most of the early Mediterranean world. The Syrophoenician Woman would have been Greek-speaking. Most importantly for the meaning of the story, the Syrophoenician Woman (as I’ll call her, for simplicity, and because I like how the word “Syrophoenician” sounds) was not a Jew. The short
interaction between this Gentile woman and Jesus at the beginning of the gospels is a signpost that shows where the entire New Testament is going. Here is the story in Matthew (15.21-28): “And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying after us.” He said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And he answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly. And here is Mark (7.24-30): “And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house, and would not have any one know it; yet he could not be hid. But imediately a woman, whose little daughter was possessed by an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the Portland 16
PAINTING BY ANDREA DEL SANTO / ART RESOURCES, NY
by Ian Frazier
PAINTING BY ANTONELLO DE MESSINA / c NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON / ART RESOURCES, NY
demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, “Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And he said to her, “For this saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” And she went home, and found the child lying in bed, and the demon gone. I grew up in a small Ohio town where there were almost no Jews. It had a tradition of Protestant devoutness that was now fading (local stores had begun to be open on Sundays), but we still did study the Bible. Because of that, partly, I felt a familiarity when I left Ohio and moved to New York and became a writer and finally did meet a lot of Jews. They seemed to talk more and faster and more wittily than most of the people I grew up with — not to say that I hadn’t known a lot of funny people in Ohio, but our humor had a different style. To my ear, New Yorkers in general talked sort of like Jesus’ disciples. They disputed, answered back, asked difficult questions, had a certain tone (I’m avoiding the word “attitude”). An example: in Mark there’s a moment when Jesus is walking in a crowd and a woman who wants to be healed touches his robe without his seeing her. He feels the healing power leap to her, and he asks his disciples, “Who touched my garments?” With some exasperation, they reply, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” This exchange, minus its miraculous elements, could have been re-set on a New York City street with no updating required. In those years, hanging out with fast and funny people was the greatest sport I could imagine. The thrill of coming up with the comment that got the biggest laugh, as happened even to me every once in a while, kept me sped-up and eager for more. People topping each other, and then some brilliant person from out of left field topping everybody, made a kind of mythology out of what could also be construed as just sitting around and talking. For a few years in my early twenties, you could say that was the basic thing I did with my life. What I love about the Syrophoenician woman is that she tops Jesus. Nowhere else in the Bible does anyone come close to matching her amazing accomplishment. She tops him, and Jesus knows she has topped
him, and he acknowledges the fact: “For this saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” “For this saying…” If I was hanging out with someone who got off a deathlessly good remark, I sometimes went back later and tried to reconstruct how it had happened. In the passages from Matthew and Mark, I regard the Syrophoenician woman in the same way: how did she do it? She is crying, desperate, almost beyond shame. The annoyance, perhaps even contempt, with which the disciples have treated her can be inferred. Jesus puts her off, important-man style: in Matthew he says, essentially, she’s not his department, and in Mark he says he has to take care of his own first. She persists; she is at his feet. Then he
I think every word in the Bible was meant to be pushed against so that we can see how it pushes back. tosses off a comment that not many parents could bear. Never again, not even when he is prophesying damnation to the Pharisees, will he be so cold and hard. That he compares the woman to a dog is bad enough. Saying that her sick daughter’s life is of no more consequence than a dog’s — that her daughter is not a child as the sons and daughters of the house of Israel are children — tears the last strand of human connection. So how does the Syrophoenician woman respond to this crushing dismissal? She is at a point where despair and faith and hope and fear are interpenetrating each other and swapping back and forth at cosmic speeds — if you’ve ever feared for a sick child you may recognize this moment — and the energy driving the reaction, her love for her child, creates a glorious flash. The woman is inspired. Jesus often speaks in parables that even the disciples need to have explained; at once this suffering mother understands his metaphoric speech, accepts it, and takes a role in the metaphor. She says (in effect), OK, yes, I am a Gentile and a dog. But we dogs are in your family: as I am here at your feet in my helpWinter 2015 19
less pleading, we dogs are under your dinner table. Can’t we poor dogs eat your children’s crumbs? Throughout his ministry Jesus is in motion. He is gathering disciples, traveling, crossing from one side of the Sea of Galilee to the other, preaching, healing, confronting religious authorities, confounding the Pharisees when they challenge him. He corrects people who speak to him — “Why do you call me ‘good’?” he says to the man who addresses him as “Good Rabbi” — and he knows what others are going to say before they say it. The encounter with the Syrophoenician woman is one of the few times in Jesus’ ministry when he comes to a complete stop. What she says takes him by surprise. He hears it and he observes her for the first time as an actual woman and not as a faceless member of a tribe to whom (as he supposes) he has not been sent. For that instant, the course of his ministry has left his hands. In my youth the visual images we had of Jesus combined the qualities of the generic Hollywood leading man. Our 1950s Jesus had blond hair, blue eyes, a ginger-colored beard, and a strong Canadian-Mountie-type jaw. Later I would learn about the art museums’ Jesus, with his haggard, suffering face and upturned eyes (we Protestants had no crucifixes of our own). Whatever Jesus actually looked like, trying to adjust him to any physical image is misleading, because he was both God and man. The concept of this is so powerful, yet so challenging to hold in the mind, that whole huge heresies have thrown in the towel and simply picked one side or the other. I try to think of Jesus as being a sort of oscillation between the two. A similar idea in physics is the uncertainty principle, which says you cannot know the position and the speed of a particle at the same time. Jesus was God and man oscillating back and forth — either and both, both or either, simultaneously. Usually Jesus’ oscillation hummed back and forth so fast as to seem at rest, but sometimes one aspect or the other unbalanced it and briefly won out. Just before he meets the Syrophoenician woman, the oscillation has seized up. At that moment, Jesus is just a man. He is tired, he wants to get away and rest, and he identifies by his human membership in the tribe of Israel. What the Syrophoenician woman says to him breaks his freeze-up and restores
PAINTING BY EUGENE DELACROIX / V&A IMAGES, LONDON / ART RESOURCES, NY
him to his true nature. He gets her deeper message as fast as she picked up his metaphor. In many encounters, Jesus tells people what God the Father wants them to understand. Here, for the only time in the Bible, God is addressing the Son through another human being. The question of whom Jesus was sent to gets clearer as the New Testament goes along. In his commission to his disciples early in Matthew, he tells them they are to minister to the Jews, not the Gentiles. What the encounter with the Syrophoenician woman demonstrates is that he won’t be able
to do the former while leaving out the latter. In Mark the forget-theGentiles rule is repeated, but by the Book of Luke it is loosening. In Luke, we are given the Good Samaritan, the parable that ends all such distinctions forever. He tells that parable in order to answer a question. A man asks what one should do to lead a good life, and Jesus says that the essence of the law is to love your God with all your strength and all your heart and all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Following up, the man asks, “But who then is my neighbor?” After telling of the robbed and beaten Portland 20
traveler by the side of the road who is helped not by his fellow Jews who come upon him but by a passing Samaritan, Jesus answers the man’s question with a question: “Which one of these was his neighbor?” To the answer, “The one who showed him kindness,” Jesus does not simply say, “Correct.” What he says instead is far more subtle and demanding: “Go thou and do likewise.” The neighbor is indeed the one who shows kindness to the helpless man, but the real point is that the neighbor is you. And therefore you are neighbor to everybody: “Go thou and do likewise.” It figures that the characters in
this parable are travelers and the setting is the road, because the larger plot of the New Testament is the bringing of the gospel to the Gentiles. By the fifth book, the Acts of the Apostles, with its stories of the many journeys of Paul, the New Testament has become a travel narrative. To get a sense of Paul’s letters, which follow Acts, you need an atlas to keep all the destinations straight. From the perspective of faith, the Christian Bible exists to solve a practical problem: There is one God, the God of Israel; how, then, to bring the one true God to the rest of the world? The life of Jesus effects that almost
unimaginable, gigantically worldchanging crossover. By refusing to be excluded from Jesus’ mission, and by inserting herself imaginatively in his parable, the Syrophoenician woman opens his mission out. If Jesus is the one true, living God, then he must be God for everybody. At the jump of the spark from the Syrophoenician woman to Jesus and from him instantly back to her, the New Testament’s motion has begun. “For this saying...” A few years ago I went to a display of the Dead Sea Scrolls at an exhibition hall in Times Square. Because of the amber low-impact light I had to lean in very close to see. The carefulness of the scrolls’ lettering, the obvious fluency of the writing motion, the simple, practiced regularity of each stroke, like perfect stitching — all contributed to an almost mystical beauty. My admiration of these objects caused me to wonder why Jesus had been so down on the scribes. His preaching against hypocritical Pharisees I could understand, but why did he throw the scribes in with them? “Woe to thee, scribes and Pharisees!” What did the scribes ever do, besides have good handwriting? Wall labels said that the scrolls date to the second century before Christ, that they are among the most important artifacts of ancient civilization, and that the Jews were and are known as the People of the Book. One label noted that not only did Israel revere the holy scriptures, its people were, in a sense, the scriptures’ product; the people produced the scriptures, but the scriptures also sustained the people, directed them, molded them, carried them into their future. These artifacts, like all of the Jewish Bible, were a multi-millennial survival — in a sense, a living thing. Throughout Jesus’ teachings he commented on scripture and on the laws set down in it. He knew its every word; quotations from it amplified and reverberated in everything he said. As the aliveness of scripture bumped up against him, he bumped back. The laws against Sabbath-breaking, for example, often came up when people criticized him. Among his answers was the hard-toargue-with observation, “God made the Sabbath for man, not man for the Sabbath.” His ministry consisted of healing and other miracles, but mostly it occurred in words. Miracles existed within a framework of space and time: you had to be there. Winter 2015 21
But his words, like the Jews’ holy scriptures, endured. Jesus’ abrupt return to himself when he hears the Syrophoenician woman’s faithpowered improvisation shows how he lived in words. At that moment it’s almost as if the hood is lifted from the word-engine that drives him. When he replies, “For this saying” he is acknowledging the literary and conceptual way in which his work on earth will be accomplished. Compelled by fierce love, uplifted by faith, gifted by God with witty, brilliant words, the Syrophoenician woman enters, in an instant, into scripture. Faith is an oscillation between certainty and doubt, just as Jesus is an oscillation between God and man. Doubt gives faith its tenor, its resistance, its meter. When you need faith the most is exactly at the point when it seems to be the most unwarranted. As I read the Bible my faith sometimes goes far over into the doubt side of the scale. Some of the gospel miracles, certain “hard teachings” about marriage and adultery, the pronouncements of Paul about how slaves should obey their masters, and a number of other passages slide me toward doubt. Yet somehow the doubt never completely takes over. I think every word in the Bible was meant to be pushed against so that we can see how it pushes back. The Syrophoenician woman, who approaches Jesus in suffering and fear, interacts with him at first against his will. By her pushing, she comes maybe as close to comprehending God as a human being can get. For me, the oscillation between faith and doubt surges strongly toward faith when I consider the Syrophoenician woman. I believe an actual woman who once lived on the earth said what she is reported to have said, I believe an actual man answered her as Matthew and Mark say Jesus answered her, and I believe that actual, living man was God. Ian Frazier, the University’s Schoenfeldt series Visiting Writer in 2001, is the author of many books, notably the classic Great Plains and the epic Travels in Siberia. His essay here is drawn from The Good Book: Writers Reflect on Favorite Bible Passages (Simon and Schuster), edited by Andrew Blauner. Pico Iyer’s fine essay on the Song of Songs in our Autumn 2015 issue was also drawn from The Good Book, which we forgot to mention last issue, because we are burros and dolts. Apologies.
Empathy: A Note by Karen Eifler
What is it like to stagger uphill all day long as a learner and still have nothing to show for it? Better learn that, if you want to be a teacher.
STUDY OF A WOMAN’S HEAD / ART RESOURCES, NY
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was on a windswept hill in Granada, Spain when I figured out what I really teach. I was a week into a sabbatical that was supposed to be about learning enough Spanish to help my own Education students be effective teachers for the fastest growing language group in the state. I’d arrived able to count to ten and name all the colors in a box of crayons the size family restaurants give away: fourteen words. I also arrived brimming with confidence about mastering Spanish, and why wouldn’t I, with a lifetime GPA of 3.97, several diplomas on the wall back home, and genuine zeal for the project fueling me? So what if my placement test channeled me into the sub-slag of Level 1-A, for rock-bottom newcomers? I was there to learn, and so far, I was the kind of student teachers yearn for: all homework completed, meaningful eye contact made with both teachers in the two intensive courses I was taking each day, hand up to volunteer anytime it looked like participation was called for. I was even venturing out to a café each morning on my way to class, to order an espresso for myself (in Spanish, it’s called espresso), to build my fluency with practical applications of my new tongue. There I was in an orange grove at the Alhambra, a royal complex that is among humanity’s grandest accomplishments: lush gardens that bloom thanks to an ingenious medievalplumbing system that defies the high desert. Mosaics that that confound and dazzle the eyes. A palpable history of victories and travesties and complexities. I reach for a thesaurus even to describe it in my first language, it’s so gobsmackingly resplendent. All this pulses through my mind when the teacher guiding our field trip asks what I think of this
jewel in her nation’s crown. I yearn to communicate the awe, wonder, and gratitude I am feeling, and what comes out — offered here in translation — is Me think Alhambra much big and much pretty. I was horrified at the inadequacy of my words, never mind their assault on rudimentary grammar. I am a teacher of teachers; I make my living through words. I was exerting maximum effort, I’d eaten a full breakfast, I’d had two loving parents as a child — all the conditions dictated by conventional wisdom, politicians and op-ed writers were in place for me to achieve basic verbal proficiency. And yet I sounded like a cavewoman when I was trying to express myself in this new language. That’s when it hit me that my sabbatical project wasn’t about learning Spanish at all. I was there to experience what it’s like to stagger uphill all day long as a learner and still have nothing to show for it, which is what an awful lot of kids in our schools today do, the same schools for which I prepare young teachers to teach. My Neanderthal utterance was mortifying to me because it was such an anomaly in my regular existence. It would soon pass, when I poured out my articulate thoughts in emails home to family and friends. I could feel competent again within an hour. But that’s not how struggling learners experience the world of school, and even the most resilient child, I was stunned to realize in a graced flash of insight, has nothing like my reservoir of past successes to clamber for as a lifeline when they are drowning in unfamiliar squiggles and commands that seem to make sense to all the other kids in the room. I teach courses in educational psychology, assessment and classroom management. I can explain Vygotsky’s pivotal notion of the Zone of Proximal Development seventeen different ways as necessary, but it occurred to me in the aftermath of that moment in the Alhambra that what I really teach, when I’m really teaching well, is empathy. I teach teachers, professionals who must be committed to the flourishing of every soul who walks through their door. The starting point, whether they wind up teaching kindergarteners or AP Physics students, is empathy. Winter 2015 23
A student doesn’t answer a question when it’s posed. Did he not understand the question because the concept is unclear, or because the language is still new? Did she not hear me because of an auditory problem? Has he eaten in the last twentyfour hours? Does a speech impediment make her public responses a minor hell? Is his mind wandering to where he will be sleeping that night because the voucher for the family shelter expired? Is she worried she’ll be branded a nerd for answering? In educational psychology, we are drilled to allow at least 4 seconds of wait-time after every question. This allows learners’ brains to process the question, retrieve a solution from long-term memory, recall the protocols of any given classroom culture for speaking aloud — do we raise hands or just call out? Do we answer in complete sentences or bullet points? — a lot of cognitive work. But the 4-second rule assumes everything else working: that the student isn’t squirming with anxiety about mere decoding of the words pouring out of the teacher, or embarrassed to be showing academic interest or prowess, or scandalized by the realization that every other hand is up and why, why, why do I not get this stuff? Empathy nudges me to sidle inside another’s mind and heart and see what it’s like in there, even to glimpse what I look and sound like from within that other world. Empathy turns a teacher’s “how are you doing today?” into a genuine moment of human-tohuman connection. Empathy seared into me the awareness that a clumsy, stumbling response can mask lava flows of perception and grateful appreciation — and knowing there was nothing I could do to remove the mask made the feeling of inadequacy exponentially worse. Every knowing begins with a notknowing, and what I really teach teachers — gently, I hope — is to start their careful preparations by remembering what that feels like. Karen Eifler is a professor of education on The Bluff, and co-director of the University’s Garaventa Center for American Catholic life. She is the author of A Month of Mondays, essays about teaching (ACTA Publications).
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niversity literature professor Sarah Weiger is absorbed by how “plastic is the new grass for birds,” as she wrote recently. “Birds are the ultimate recyclers of grass; they weave their materials — grasses and twigs, mud, leaves, arthropod silk, fur and feathers — into astonishingly snug and beautiful residences. But increasingly they now use plastic, the stubborn persistence of which boggles the mind, which has entangled and choked new chicks, and which has none of the beneficial anti-parasitic and anti-bacterial properties of some organic nesting material. Plastic is also eaten by chicks, who starve to death because plastic cannot be easily expelled. It is our plastic, of course — and our stunning disregard for our creaturely neighbors and earthly companions… “In the words of Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which I teach on The Bluff every year: He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small, For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.’ And Coleridge a few years later, after witnessing the shooting of a hawk: ‘Poor hawk! Oh strange lust of murder in man! It is not cruelty; it is mere non-feeling from non-thinking.” I do not say simply that we should love all things, both great and small; I say that interspecies relationships are richer and more complex than we can ever fully appreciate. We are, like the plastic strands in these photographs, entangled. Will we protect our companions, or choke them?” Photographs by Richard Barnes; our sincere thanks to him for his gracious permission. For more of his remarkable work, see richardbarnes.net.
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I am one of the last five people who believe in government an Jose, California, is the tenthlargest city in America. It has a million residents. It sits in the very heart of the prosperous Silicon Valley, but, like any large city, it grapples with crime, income inequality, livability issues, and crippling budget shortfalls. Unlike any other city, though, it has an energetic young University of Portland alumna as, essentially, its agent and defender: Katie Scally, who went from vice president of the student body on The Bluff to running Sam Liccardo’s mayoral campaign, and now helping Liccardo run her native city. Today her title is, de jure, aide to the mayor; de facto, she is responsible for transportation, economic development, the budget, and arts and culture policy initiatives… as well as managing the mayor’s social media accounts, doing advance work when he attends community events, and advocating for her city in various political and commercial arenas. She ticked off the most recent projects she could remember: “... a lobbying trip to Sacramento to secure funding for streets, roads, and freeways... coordinating a regional minimum wage effort... a more livable and walkable downtown... just launched a manufacturing initiative called ‘Built In San Jose’ that could be interesting...” Katie is all too aware that talk of wonky policy initiatives can lull folks to sleep, but it’s the end result she tries to keep in mind. “We’re helping people with everyday life,” she says. “In the end government is about daily life. Where are the parks you visit with friends and family? What kind of condition are they in? Are they safe? Where are the grocery stores? What about bike lanes? How late are the libraries open? Can we help ordinary people take extraordinary action together?” Before Katie could work in the mayor’s office, though, she had to help her boss get the job. She interned for Liccardo when he was a San Jose councilman in 2008, and she was impressed with what she saw. “He’s a true public servant,” she says. “I’m working for the right guy. He’s devoted his life to working as a lawyer, as a district attorney, as a
city council member. He proposed a lot of innovative solutions to our budget deficits and crime.” Katie joined the Liccardo campaign as an outreach coordinator in March 2014; by July she was the campaign’s communications director, the boss of all messages. “They probably wouldn’t have needed me if it wasn’t for social media,” she says, with a smile. “It’s not enough now for a candidate to knock on doors and go to neighborhood association meetings and church festivals. People are talking about campaigns at all hours of the day and you need an online presence. I was able to convince Sam of that when I was an intern in 2008, and he got his first Facebook page. He then let me take the reins in his mayoral campaign and we worked very hard to personalize him — we wanted people to connect and engage with him. Our goal was to allow others to talk about him as opposed to us talking about him, and it worked.” During what ended up being a grueling campaign, Katie oversaw a small army of staffers, most of whom had barely entered their 20s, as they churned out social media posts, put together lawn signs, designed banners (in three languages: San Jose’s population is made up nearly evenly of Caucasians, Hispanics, and Vietnamese), and dealt with the inevitable daily crises of a modern political campaign. Liccardo won with a slim 51 percent of the vote (his opponent didn’t concede until a week after polls closed), and with all the subsequent need for reconciliation, the new mayor realized who he needed on his team: in February of 2015 Katie’s phone rang with a job offer, and she’s been working in City Hall ever since. When it came to college, Scally “wanted a place where I could be on my own but still be part of a community that works together for the betterment of others,” she says. “I just felt that UP was right for me.” She soon set about involving herself in campus politics; by her junior year she was representing her class in the student senate, and soon thereafter she was president of the student Portland 26
senate, where, among many other projects, she instituted the Molly Hightower service project, in honor and in memory of a University student killed in the Haiti earthquake while working at an orphanage. She also proposed that the classes of 2011, 2012, and 2013 allocate their campus improvement funds (about $20,000 paid annually by students for physical campus improvements) to the then-imaginary Beauchamp Recreation Center. Convincing the student body to forgo flat-screen TVs, new couches, or other doodads in order to contribute to a “new Howard Hall” they might never use was a hard sell, but in the end, Katie’s hope that current students would help future students prevailed. She left The Bluff in 2011 more certain than ever of her life’s path. “I always knew I wanted to be in public service,” she says. “Sometimes I think I’m one of the last five people who believe government can still do good things for the world. I love local government. I believe in its direct power and accessibility to people. You can make a difference in your own communities, to an extent you don’t see at the federal level.” She spent her post-graduate year working with children in Albuquerque through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, then interned with U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein before graduate work at the University of San Francisco. But, as she says, public service is where she wants to be, and no one who knows Katie would be surprised to see her go much higher and farther in her chosen work. Her quiet determination, her calm management of endless projects, her deft involvement in absolutely everything, has left a lasting impression on friends, classmates, and colleagues of all sorts. Nearly everyone you talk to about Katie, come to think of it, mentions her favorite phrase, her slogan, her banner, her mantra: “Let’s not just talk about this. Let’s do something!” Marc Covert ’93 is the assistant editor of this magazine and the editor of the entertaining webzine Smokebox (smokebox.net).
ORIGINAL PHOTO: LEAH FASTEN PHOTOGRAPHY
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by Marc Covert ’93
Their New Lives University regent Amy Dundon-Berchtold: a note. by Brian Doyle
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magine you are staring at an old photograph. Let’s say it was taken in 1950 or so. Black and white, and slightly blurry. Winter — you can see weary snow on the ground, and a rime of ice on the car. Probably the photograph was snapped hurriedly by a friend or a neighbor to mark the moment, but the moment was sliding away quick as water, and in the next moment the woman in the front seat and the little girl in the back seat are off, driving out of the frigid muddy farmland of rural Illinois straight west to beaming gleaming California, on vaunted legendary old Route 66. They are driving away from their old lives. They are driving away from a terrible husband and father. They are driving away from relatives and expectations and excuses and winters that go on forever. They drive away singing. They have a vision of California. And when they finally get to California they drive all the way to the end of Route 66, which finishes on the pier at Santa Monica, over the bucolic shining Pacific Ocean. The mother, smiling, leaves the car on the pier, and she and her daughter walk down to the beach, and they walk right into the ocean; a sort of baptism or cleansing, perhaps; a sort of salty sacrament to begin their new lives. The little girl is telling me this story many years later. She is saying with a smile that she has a place right by the Santa Monica Pier, and when she is there she feels at home, she feels like the circle of her life begins and ends just there, where land and sea and light mix and meet and glitter and murmur. From there she began school, proving to be a superb student. From there she entered and aced the University of Southern California, dis-
covering she had a photographic memory, and earning a degree in the wrong major (“Education? What was I doing in education when I knew I would never teach, not even for a day? I wanted to major in business, I was fascinated by business, and I got talked out of it, and that was foolish of me, I should have stuck to my guns, and I started sticking to my guns a lot more after that...”). She met and married her beloved husband Ed, a Marine Corps officer who became a school superintendent. She got a job selling houses, which she loved for the imaginativeness of seeing buildings and what they might become with work, but hated for the stunningly high commission taxes she had to pay and the fact that she worked for someone else. She didn’t want to work for anyone else. She thought she knew how to buy and sell lots and buildings and space very well for herself, so she went into business for herself, and she has never actually stopped being in business for herself, although now she seems to be giving away money as fast as she can make it. Her first sale was her own house. Her second sale was an apartment building. Her third sale was an industrial warehouse. Note the pattern; for Amy Dundon-Berchtold would spend the next forty years buying and selling scores of California properties of similar scale, buying them very carefully indeed and then going through every inch of the buildings herself, with a yellow legal pad, taking meticulous voluminous notes on what needed to be done to elevate the space. From the grounds to the windows and lintels and roof and closets and plumbing and wiring to taxes and depreciation rates and zoning codes and contracts and
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They have committed millions to the University to fund a project promoting and encouraging and studying and fomenting and articulating and growing and deepening ethics and character. tenant law and recruiting managers, Amy Dundon Berchtold knew every aspect of her work, and remembered it all too, with that ferocious memory; here is a woman who instantly remembers her very first bank loan ($38,985) and the square footage of the first warehouse she bought (7,800). “I see... space and possibility, that’s as close as I can get to explaining it,” she says. “I have a sort of pattern-recognition software in my head, so that when I see a building, I see more of what it could and should be than what it is. Does that make sense? I have some innate sense of how things should be and I instantly see discrepancies. This can be a pain when we are watching television and I complain about something off in the background of the scene, but it’s an asset when you are buying and selling buildings. I love what I do. I’ll never not do it. It’s not work to me at all. It’s a deep pleasure. I got my master’s degree to help me do it better. I see buildings in black and white and I fill in their colors, that’s probably a good way to explain it. I’d feel naked without properties in play. And it’s not the money — it’s the competition, the excitement of doing a thing well, the satisfaction of doing the thing I do well. Do you know the feeling of knowing what you are supposed to do with the tools and talents you have? Isn’t that a lovely feeling? So many people do well in life, earn money and status, without loving what they do, or even liking it. Not me. To me this is a thrilling game, in a sense. The money I earn is only chits by which to play the game. The money is society’s measurement of success, not mine. I like making money because it gives me more chits. But to just hold on to your money — what would be the point of that? Money is useful only in motion; it’s for allowing things to happen, making things happen. That’s the point.” Amy Dundon Berchtold had been happily married to Ed Dundon for
36 years when one night, at dinner at a lovely restaurant on the shore, he passed her the bread basket, and his hand didn’t work right. Then at dinner he slurred three words. Perhaps he spoke ten thousand words clear and clean that night, but she heard the three that he garbled, and she worried; and she was right, for the tumor in his brain killed him 15 months later. She had to read his death certificate on their anniversary. She was bereft. A thousand miles north a gracious gentle man she had never met was also bereft; his beloved wife Marg had just died of a cancer in her brain. They met eventually, the usual and normal and laughable stroke of coincidence. First it was all telephoning and typing and texting, and being amazed that the mysterious other knew sadness and endurance and faint hope. Then it was an actual no kidding First Date — at, to her eternal credit, his Mount Angel High School reunion. “You know how you are terrified, when you are about to meet someone for the first time, that you won’t connect, you won’t see into them, and they won’t see into you? I was terrified,” says Jim Berchtold, proudly of the University of Portland’s Class of 1963. “What if it was just nice and courteous and that was all it was? But it wasn’t. She wasn’t. We knew the minute she got off the plane. I was… I don’t have any words for what I was. Am.” “I finally had a blunt tart chat with God,” says Amy. “Ed was present. I know he was. I could feel him there. People are so afraid of things they can’t explain. And Ed was happy for me and Jim. I could feel that. There are a lot of things we cannot explain but they are completely and wholly and inarguably so.” They got married, of course they did. They hold hands when they walk, as I can attest. They split their time between Jim’s Portland and her Santa Monica. They grapple with aches and illness. They give away Portland 31
their money. They have committed millions of dollars to the University to fund a project promoting and encouraging and studying and fomenting and articulating and growing and deepening ethics and character. Their giving began when Amy sat with the University’s Holy Cross men and was entranced by their unadorned honesty and lack of ego. She buys and sells properties: she has 16 in hand at the moment, and when I ask her to look out the window in her downtown Portland apartment and name which building she would buy, she instantly delivers a startlingly thorough explanation of why she would buy Big Pink, the famous U.S. Bancorp Tower. I am afraid to ask her if she could quote me the square footage and the relevant tax and zoning codes and what horticultural miracles she would perform on its footing because I am already awed enough at the cheerful machine of her brain and too much awe is like too much coffee in that it makes you shaky. So I prepare to go. But she tells me one last thing, quietly, eloquently. “I felt like I had come home when my mother and I parked on the pier in Santa Monica. I still feel that way. And I feel that way with Jim. I’ve come home with him. We’ve come home together. We can write our last chapters together. Sometimes when we are in Santa Monica and I see the pier and the ocean I can hear my mother’s voice and feel the warmth of the day we arrived. A winter day, January 25, my mother’s birthday, I’ll never forget that — but for me it was the first day of spring. Do you know what I mean?” Yes, Amy Dundon Berchtold, I say. Yes. I know exactly what you mean. Brian Doyle is the editor of this magazine and the author most recently of Reading in Bed, a collection of essays about reading and writing (Corby Books).
Four Cool Women S
ilvia Plascencia ’15: med school student, University of Chicago. Two majors while on The Bluff (biology and chemistry) and two minors (neuroscience and French, when did she sleep?). Did neuroscience research at Oregon Health Sciences U., met Nobel laureates, presented research at professional conferences, volunteered in the trauma unit at Legacy Emanuel Hospital. “My education was terrific in critical thinking and analysis... there’s a state-ofthe-art anatomy lab... I was challenged to reflect on ethical and moral values and controversial science issues... I feel so prepared for my medical career in medicine...” Ambition? “Probably family physician, but I am fascinated by neurology and pediatrics…”
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aria Echenique, professor of Spanish. Born in Bolivia, came to the U.S. as a teenager, “where I realized the power of language to open doors to cultures. Mastering a different language for me was as exhilarating as reading about a distant land or time. And now I teach Spanish language and Latin American cultures and literatures, especially writers whose voices have been ignored or silenced — women, working class, indigenous people — and genres like Testimonio, invented to denounce and resist oppression and dictatorships. I feel like I am an ambassador of Latin America to this side of the world...”
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ursing student Katie Knudson ’16. Tiny but fierce. Clackamas, Oregon, native. Eloquent and unflappable. Gave her first public speech about grappling with leukemia when she was eight years old, because she was afflicted at age six, and was an early child trial subject for the anti-cancer drug Gleevec, developed by Dr. Brain Druker (’13 hon.) Cancer-free today. Still giving stunning speeches for OHSU’s Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute, and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Probable career: pediatric nursing. Remember this kid. This kid moves mountains.
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race Holmes ’16. Student body vice president. Was homeless for a year as a senior in high school — family fractures. Made her even more intent on justice for young people, a huge segment of American society that a lot of lips flap about, but not so much gets done: There are two million homeless children in America, nearly half of the total number of Americans with no shelter tonight. Grace’s hero? Her mom, “who went from stay-at-home mother to one of the leading experts on juvenile justice in Omaha. I want to be like her and take my experiences and turn them into something positive for other people. There are things that are hard to talk about, but...”
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participating in the program, please contact Anna Mottice Horlacher at horlache@ up.edu or 503-943-8505.
Alumni Chapters Celebrate Launches
Alumni chapters in Seattle, the Bay Area, Chicago, and Portland celebrated successful launches this fall with kickoff socials in Seattle and the Bay Area in October, aservice night in Chicago in November, and a Pilots basketball pre-game party in Portland in December. Thank you to the following alumni for your time and dedication: Seattle Chapter: Julius Muwulya ’15, Kyle Corra ’03, Marianne Harris-McGah ’05, Jessica Gockel ’07, Danny Meier ’08. Bay Area Chapter: Katie Scally ’11, Stephanie Blumenson ’06, ’08, Tommy Renda ’09, ’13, Tarra McCurdy ’10, Ethan Niedermeyer ’10, Janine Largen ’13, Maya Nieto ’13. Chicago Chapter: Scott Smith ’00, Elisabeth Loren ’11. Portland Chapter: Caitlin MacMillen ‘08, ’12, DJ Widmer ’02, Jessica Whittaker ’05, Lucas Zettle ’10. Keep an eye out this spring for more information about our emerging alumni chapters in Los Angeles, Honolulu, Denver, and Washington, D.C.
WCC Basketball Championships In Las Vegas, March 3-8
Come enjoy a weekend in Vegas with your UP alumni family. The West Coast Conference basketball championships are scheduled for March 3-8 at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The University will host gatherings for alumni and Pilot fans prior to each game and is happy to provide suggestions for other fun Vegas activities throughout the extended weekend. Contact alumni@ up.edu for more information.
Alumni Family Day At Portland Children’s Museum
Alumni and their families are invited to gather together for two hours of fun and exploration at the Portland Children’s Museum starting at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, February 5. All children must be accompanied by an adult. For more information, go to up.edu/alumni.
Derby Day Garden Party, May 7 Have You Joined UP Switchboard?
Make the most of your UP network by signing up for UP Switchboard, an online community for UP alumni, students, staff, faculty, and parents where you can ask for what you need and offer what you have. Go to up.edu/ switchboard to create an account and start connecting.
Join us on Saturday, May 7 for an afternoon of big hats, mint juleps, and Southern snacks at the Alumni Derby Day Garden Party on The Bluff. Vote for your favorite horse, play lawn games, or participate in a complimentary bourbon tasting as you catch up with fellow alumni at the social event of the spring. There will be a special ticket price for GOLDs (Graduates of the Last Decade). More information is available at up.edu/ alumni.
Life After UP Series
In partnership with the Student Alumni Association, the Office of Alumni Relations is proud to announce Life After UP, a new educational series for students and GOLDs (Graduates of the Last Decade). Life After UP will cover a range of topics designed to help students and recent graduates thrive as they navigate the world outside The Bluff. Join us on Thursday, January 21 for a workshop focusing on budgeting and salary negotiation. For more information about this and other upcoming Life After UP workshops, visit up.edu/alumni.
Graduates Of The 90s Reunion, April 16
Dust off your flannel and your favorite Nirvana CD, it’s time to relive the good old days with fellow graduates of the 1990s as you cruise down the Willamette on The Portland Spirit. The first of its kind at UP, this one-night reunion is being planned for 90s graduates by 90s graduates. The reunion cruise is scheduled for Saturday, April 16. Find more information at up.edu/ alumni.
Coming Soon: New Alumni Benefits Program
Be on the lookout for more information about the new and improved UP Alumni and Friends Benefits Program. The Office of Alumni Relations is hard at work preparing a program that will meet the needs of University of Portland alumni locally and nationally. If you are a business owner who is interested in
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Food, Art, Culture Tour Of Italy, June 11-22
You’re invited to come explore the best food and art that Italy has to offer on a 12-day tour through Rome, Siena, and Florence. With UP professors Gary Malecha and Brad Franco as your guides, you will visit iconic destinations while also venturing off the beaten path during this one-of-akind travel experience for UP alumni and friends. Rev. Ed Obermiller, C.S.C., will serve as Chaplain for the trip. More detailed information is available at up.edu/ alumni.
Save the Date for Reunion 2016, June 23-26
Join us next summer on The Bluff from June 23-26 as we celebrate Pilots near and far. We’ll be honoring all classes ending in 1 & 6, including the Class of 1966 as they join the 50-Year Club. We’ll also celebrate the Granada study abroad program, Pilots baseball, the Chapel Choir, and spirit fraternity Upsilon Omega Pi’s 65th anniversary. Look for a more detailed schedule of Reunion weekend events starting in April at up.edu/alumni/reunion. If you’re a member of one of our honored classes or groups and would like to assist with Reunion planning, please contact Anna Mottice Horlacher at horlache@ up.edu or 503-943-8505.
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Two staunch and sturdy University legends here, about 1933: the beloved Father Maurice Rigley, C.S.C. (poet, Beacon advisor, literature professor, and tireless counselor and confessor to students, who would chat with him out behind Waldschmidt Hall, where he is remembered today with the lovely little grassy Rigley Field memorial), and ancient mossy sagging shaggy friendly Howard Hall, which finally, after nearly a century of service as the campus gym, has been succeeded by the new Beauchamp Center. Sometime soon Howard will finally be dismantled, and replaced with a gleaming new edifice; but it will never be forgotten, the creaky familiar thing. Thousands of students spent millions of hours in there, and never a dull one, either. Portland 38
C L A S S 50 Year Club
Tony Casciato ’41 died on September 7, 2015, of congestive heart failure. Tony was born on November 1, 1917, in Portland; his twin brother, Alfredo, died in infancy. He served in the armed forces during World War II, and married Dolores “Dede” Carlo in 1950. They had four children. He practiced law from 1951 to 1971, when he was appointed to the municipal bench (later the District/Circuit Court) for Multnomah County. He retired from the bench in 1993. He considered the law a noble profession and saw it as a tool for helping others. Sports, particularly baseball, were both a passion and a solace. Tony was preceded in death by his wife, Dede; and son, Peter. Survivors include his son, Tom; daughters, Mary Jo Binker and Nancy Casciato; daughters-in-law, Regina Casciato and Kathleen Hughes; sons-in-law, Roland Binker and Kenn Walton; six grandchildren; and many devoted relatives and friends. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the University of Portland. Our prayers and condolences to the family. John C. Beckman ’42, ’14 Hon., a life regent and longtime supporter of the University of Portland, died on October 19, 2015. He passed away not long after his beloved wife, Patricia, who died on April 4, 2015. Author, businessman, cattle breeder, devoted friend, entrepreneur, inventor, investor, mentor, philanthropist, philosopher, photographer, pianist, pilot, rancher, trustee and venture capitalist—not much escaped the interest and passion of John Beckman in his nearly 96 years on Earth. He attended Columbia Preparatory School, where he was valedictorian of the class of 1938, but was unable to complete his studies at UP because of limited financial resources. John was married to Elizabeth (Ibby) Hurlbut, and they were blessed with two daughters, Barbara and Wendy; Barbara preceded him in death. He is survived by his daughter Wendy, granddaughter Kayleigh Plank, and eight nieces and nephews. John’s sisters Mary Farrar and Judith Quinn also preceded him in death. Following a divorce from Ibby, John met the love of his life, Patricia Huckins Brill, whom he married on February 15, 1980. They were best friends, and enjoyed 35 years of happy marriage. John served as a UP regent for 24 years and became one of the
first to be appointed as Life Regent. In lieu of flowers, please consider honoring John and Patricia’s lives with remembrances to The Humor Project at the University of Portland, a scholarship fund created by John and Patricia “to foment and encourage and celebrate and spread gentle witty wry humor as a communal energy, as a weapon against arrogance and lies and greed, and as a defiant shout against the dark,” as John so brilliantly described. Peter Piluso ’42 died on October 7, 2015. Peter, an engineer, served in World War II in the U.S. Army Air Corps.
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N O T E S his motorized dugout canoe from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean and back again. He always claimed to have taken the smallest motor ship through the Panama Canal. He married Audry Louise Odegaard and they lived in the Seattle area while Jim worked at the Boeing Co. After retiring, they moved to Cathlamet and joined the Coast Guard Auxiliary and Wahkiakum Search and Rescue. Survivors include Audry; a daughter, Teresa Louise Bernards; three sons, Donald James, John Henry, and Paul Joseph Lynch; 20 grandchildren; six great-grandchildren; and several nieces
Receiving the federal judiciary’s highest honor, the Devitt Award, this fall, at the U.S. Supreme Court: the Hon. Edward Leavy ’50, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Ed, the first in his family to earn a college degree, has been every sort of judge in Oregon, and was most moved, he said, by the mountain of nomination and support letters that garnered him what is essentially the Nobel Prize for American jurists. Peter married Beatrice King in 1944, and they were married for 71 years. He worked for McCall Oil and Great Western Chemical. Peter was preceded in death by Beatrice. Survivors include his children, Nancy Hardies, Peter, and Scott; and four grandchildren. Peter was a member of St. Thomas More Catholic Church, and a 50-year member of the Multnomah Athletic Club where he played racquetball until age 91. Our prayers and condolences to the family. James N. Lynch ’45 passed away on October 4, 2014. Jim served in the Army Signal Corps during World War II. When he was 18, he navigated
and nephews. He was preceded in death by his daughter, Karen Marie Kness, and his grandson, Jeffery Kness. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Hugh McGinnis ’48 died on September 4, 2015, from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease. He was known and feared as “Mac” on Portland public tennis courts starting in his teen years, winning the Boys High School League Singles tennis title in the spring of 1940. He interrupted his UP education to serve as a naval aviator in World War II, finishing up in 1948. For years he worked in his aerial advertising business, Sky Hucksters,
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flying a Yellow Stearman biplane towing a 100-foot banner in the skies above Portland. Hugh was a cofounder of Blanchet House of Hospitality. Survivors include his wife of 64 years, Dorothy; sons Paul, Stephen, Michael, Mark; and daughter Julie, all of Portland; and 11 grandchildren and step-grandchildren. Hugh’s faith and family were the light of his life. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Blanchet House in Hugh’s memory. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Jean Van Hoomissen, beloved wife of Peter Van Hoomissen ’50, passed away on September 14, 2015, with her husband by her side. She is survived by Peter; daughter, Ann; son, Robert; grandchildren, Carly, Emily, Peter, and Jean; first great-grandchild, Alessandra, expected in November; sisters-in-law, Anne Louise Van Hoomissen, Patricia Charters, and Margaret Van Hoomissen; and many nieces and nephews. Memorials in Jean’s name may be sent to Blanchet House of Hospitality. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edward Leavy ’50 was presented with the 2015 Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award during a special ceremony in November at the U.S. Supreme Court. Considered to be the federal judiciary’s highest honor, the Devitt Award is presented by the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation. It honors an Article III judge who has achieved a distinguished career and made significant contributions to the administration of justice, the advancement of the rule of law, and the improvement of society as a whole. Recipients are chosen by a committee of federal judges, which this year was chaired by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The Devitt Award is named for the late Edward J. Devitt, longtime chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, and was established in 1982. Olive “Poody” (Riedel) Harder ’51 passed away on October 21, 2015. In her 85 years, Olive filled the world with love and laughter. During the pediatric portion of her nursing education, in the cafeteria of Providence Hospital, a young intern caught her attention. Later, the two were paired to rig-up traction for a patient and “the rest was history” as they say. Olive married John Harder, MD on October 27, 1951 in Portland.
C L A S S Olive and John lived in Portland, Anchorage, New Orleans, and Kennewick, Wash., for his orthopedic surgeon practice. John passed away in 2006. Survivors include her beloved brother and sister-in-law, Arthur A. and Janet Riedel Jr.; nephew, James Collin Riedel; niece, Christina (Riedel) Semered; children, John Arthur, James Lee, Jeffrey George, Hans “Hank” Joseph, and Gretchen Riedel; and 10 grandchildren. To make a donation in Olive’s memory, the family suggests the Robert J. Harder Memorial Art Scholarship at the University of Idaho, Moscow (uidaho.edu/giving); the Harriet Osborne Jeckell Scholarship at University of Portland (https://onlinegiving.up.edu); or local hospice services. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Leigh Bottaini, wife of Leo Bottaini ’52, passed away on September 5, 2015. Her early career was with the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C., New York, Florida, and California. While being a wife to a military and defense contractor husband, she was very active in raising their daughters, Mary Ann, Betsy, and Sarah; and sons, Michael and James. She was active with the Daughters of the British Empire (DBE) and was very involved with senior issues, meeting with members of Congress to educate them on senior causes. Survivors include her husband, Leo; daughters, Mary Ann Mason and Betsy Kercher; son, James Mason; stepdaughter, Ann Bottaini Holstrom ’82; grandsons, Cameron, Daniel and Andrew; granddaughters, Tanya, Melissa and Kaitlyn; step-grandchildren, Tyler, Andrew and Annika; sister, Janie Mirko; and brother, Robert Price. She was predeceased by her son, Michael; and daughter, Sarah. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Gibson “Hoot” Bassett ’52 passed away on May 11, 2014, at home in Gladstone, Ore. He is survived by his second wife, Marie Clark; son, Jerry; daughter-in-law, Brenda; and grandchildren, Grant and Allison. Our prayers and condolences. Mary Dobos, beloved wife of Kenneth Dobos ’53, died on October 13, 2015, surrounded by her loving family. “Pat was not only my best friend but also my wife, mother of our children, grandmother, and great-grandmother,” says Ken. She met Ken at a softball game, and they married in 1954. She loved the Lord and gave many years of service to her church and community. Sur-
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vivors also include daughters, Marydee, Michele, Monica, and Nicole; four grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and sister, Berta. In lieu of flowers, make donations to the Alzheimer’s Association. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Leonard Fortun ’53 passed away on August 6, 2015. He will be remembered as a great husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, and friend. He was preceded in death by his wife of 59 years, Anne Marie
N O T E S and grandfather. He worked for the Memorial Coliseum for 30-plus years, enjoyed traveling, gardening, and was a lifelong follower of Notre Dame football. Survivors include his wife, Patricia; sons, Patrick and Michael; daughters, Colleen and Cathleen; and his beloved grandchildren. The Murphy home on N. Washburn was always open to the many, many adults and kids who were lucky enough to call the Murphys and their
Janet Boe ’75 notified us of the passing of her father, John Rulifson ’53, on August 31, 2015. Here he is in his UP days, courtesy of his family. Please see John’s obituary under his class year. “Nancy” Inglesby Fortun; and oldest son, Steve Fortun. Survivors include his children, Kevin Fortun (Sandi), Mike Fortun (May), Linda Conklin (John) and Mary Shepard (Steve); grandchildren, Sean, Matthew (Jennilee), Cortney, Greg, Kayli, Shannon, Daniel, Haley, Carlos and Susy (Rob); twin brother, Ed Fortun; sisterin-law, Pat Mitchell; and many nieces and nephews who loved their Uncle Leonard. Our prayers and condolences to the family. James P. Murphy ’53 passed away on September 4, 2015, in Portland, Ore. He was a beloved husband, father,
children friends. Our prayers and condolences. We got a message from Donald Nelthropp ’54 recently. He writes: “From sales engineer at Willamette Iron and Steel I returned to my native home of St. Croix in the Virgin Islands to become a rum runner! We have supplied Oregon, through Hood River Distilleries, with all the Virgin Islands rum sold in the entire state for many years now. I am now retired and my son has taken over running the plant. Cruzan Rum is our brand and it is sold in the Northwest.” Thanks for writing, Donald, and we’ll think of you next
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time we’re sipping a nice tall Mojito. Joan Van Dyke, wife of Richard “Dick” Van Dyke ’55, passed away on July 23, 2015, after battling lung cancer. She attended the University of Portland School of Nursing, and in 1955 she married Dick and they started their family. She worked for years as a medical assistant and technician. Joan is survived by Dick, her husband of 60 years; four sons; seven grandchildren; and four greatgrandchildren. Our prayers and condolences to the family. John Rulifson ’53 passed away on August 31, 2015, at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., from complications of leukemia and bladder cancer. He married Nancy Agnes Brown on July 11, 1953. He was drafted into the U.S. Army and spent his time in the Counter Intelligence Corps, both in the U.S. and in Japan. On his return to civilian life he taught at Everett Community College and served as chairman of the social science division. On earning his Ph.D. in 1967, he became dean of instruction at Southwestern Oregon Community College in Coos Bay. Portland Pilots basketball, Mariners baseball, and his grandchildren’s sports teams were great passions for him. Survivors include his friend, Gail Dils; children, Janet Boe ’75, Erik Rulifson, Paul Rulifson, and Jeff Rulifson ’83; five surviving grandchildren, Madeline, William, Matthew, Adam, and Marta; and one great-grandchild, Aubrey. His wife of 54 years, Nancy, and his beloved grandson, Philip Boe, predeceased him. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial contributions in John Rulifson’s name to The Blanchet House of Hospitality, which was started by his classmates at the University of Portland. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Ronald Adolph Salvo ’55 passed away on July 6, 2015, in Independence, Ore., at the age of 84. He served in the Air Force and was stationed in Galena, Alaska during the Korean War. Ronald was vice principal of Floyd Light Middle School and was with the David Douglas School District for 37 years. He loved flying his Piper Archer II, rebuilding his WWII BT13, which is now in the Evergreen Aviation Museum, and his kitties, Tina and Louise. Ron is survived by his wife, Sue; sister Mary Lou Salvo; daughters, Sheri
C L A S S Kinnear, Lisa Salvo, and Kristine Glock; and son, Donald Salvo. He had 7 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren. Our prayers and condolences to the family. William C. Highfield ’59 peacefully passed away on October 18, 2015, surrounded by family in Portland. He is survived by his loving wife, Roberta; sister, Maggie Rose; children, Donald Zeidlhack, Chris Highfield, Lynette Thompson, Mary Kay Nagygyor, Karen DiPietro, and Dennis Zeidlhack; grandchildren, Michael Z., Paige, Lane, Steven, Elizabeth, Madelyn, Katelyn, Michael H., Meredith, Devan and Tony; and two great-grandchildren. He was an engineering graduate of the University of Portland. Bill greatly enjoyed traveling, model trains, and spending time with his family. Our prayers and condolences to the family. George Henry Forsman ’60 died on Tuesday, July 1, 2014 in his own home in the Canby, Oregon area. George served in the U.S. Air Force, and he was an engineer for the government. Our prayers and condolences to the family. John Criqui ’61 passed away on August 13, 2015. Our prayers and condolences. Please remember Thomas Franz ’62 and his family on the passing of his brother, Robert J. Franz, on August 29, 2015. Survivors include Robert’s wife, Carole; brother, Thomas; children, Jon, Lisa, Linda, Amy, and Tracy; stepchildren, Jay, Julie, Jerry, and Jim; and eighteen grandchildren. Paul Gallette ’63 passed away on March 23, 2015, in San Francisco, Calif. Paul was a music graduate of the University of Portland, and later on in his life he was a graduate of CCA, which took him to a career in Los Angeles and San Francisco in catering. “He was dear and loving person with a great sense of humor and made people happy with his cooking,” according to his obituary. “In all honesty, he could sometimes be a curmudgeon.” Our prayers and condolences to the family. Arnold Bruhn ’63, ’66 writes: “I recently attended the 80th birthday party of one of the all-time great University of Portland athletes. Chuck Rogers ’64 was a terrific basketball player. He was All Navy when he came to UP; was elected Campus King; was one of first black coaches at a Division 1 program (1962, freshman basketball); continued playing in Chile for Catholic University after his eligibility at UP
ended; went on to teach many years in Atlanta Public schools, sending over 100 kids to Division 1 schools on full athletic scholarships; coached three sports; was undefeated for years running; was named Teacher of the Year in Atlanta, Georgia, and the city proclaimed a day in his honor; and for years he took his Spanish classes to Mexico during spring break for Spanish immersion. Chuck was personally responsible for more fun
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N O T E S miss a clue. How Betty pulled off a surprise party at an airport hotel without Chuck catching wind of it I will never know. She deserves a commendation just for that.” Edward Arata, husband of Kathleen Leslie (Neiger) ’64, died on August 15, 2015 after gallantly fighting the debilitating effects of Guillain-Barre Syndrome for 28 years. He died peacefully, surrounded by family. Survivors include Kathleen; children, Michelle Miller,
hand. Remembered for her prize-winning green thumb, she was also remembered as an interior and exterior designer, quilter, seamstress, sports car enthusiast, ice skater, writer of award-winning prose, and artist — she designed and sculpted stone pieces for the Lewis & Clark College Chapel and Law School. Sally enjoyed a varied and successful career in libraries, serving as librarian for Oregon Episcopal Schools and research librarian for the Port of Portland. She established the Educational Curriculum Library at Lewis & Clark College and at the close of her career, was the catalog librarian for Lewis & Clark. In her years as a librarian, Sally received many awards, including the Friends of the Library Award from the University of Portland. Her husband, Leonard, preceded her in death in May 2015. Survivors include her twin sister, Nellie McCarty; niece and nephew, Muriel and Mark McCarty; nephew, Kyle McCarty; nieces, Molly McCarty and Kelsey McCarty; and cousins, Betty Larson, Sheryl Salazar, Karen Quibell, and Eric Larson. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’68 Prayers For Susan
The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) has elected retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dana Atkins ’77 as its new president and CEO, effective January 4, 2016. Akins will lead more than 390,000 members of the nation’s largest military service organization in its advocacy mission on behalf of the entire uniformed services community. and more joy in education and sports than any human being I have known in my life. As a coach he had a high-volume, very positive style, and he singled out kids for doing the right things on the court at a time when no one was doing that. It would be hard to find a man who touched so many so deeply and was personally responsible for so many kids in tough low-income Atlanta schools being inspired to learn Spanish and Russian in addition to mastering football, basketball, and track. Chuck’s wife Betty and her friends prepared a fabulous meal for the gathering (100+ people) and no one left hungry. Chuck loves food, and he does not
Joseph, James, Anthony, and Nicholas Arata, Elizabeth and Donald Leslie, and Charlette Kurfurst Leslie; sisters, Kathy Arata and Margi Arata; and 10 grandchildren. His brother, Father Henri Arata, preceded him in death. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Craig Casey ’65, ’09 has news to share: “I was ordained as a permanent deacon on November 6, 2010, and assigned to St. Mary’s Cathedral in Portland. I retired from practicing law after 37 years in June, 2005. I now assist at the Tribunal in the Portland Archdiocesan Pastoral Center weekly.” Sally Taylor ’65 passed away on September 14, 2015, with her twin sister holding her
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Susan Powers died on August 3, 2015. Susan grew up in St. Johns, and attended Roosevelt High School and the University of Portland. She worked as a registered nurse. Her husband of 43 years, Roy Dee Powers, passed away in 2013. Survivors include her sons, Steven E. of Ocean Park, Wash., and Michael A. of Portland; sister, Pamela J. Bourdeare of Oregon City; brother, William M. Walker of Portland; grandchildren, Zoey K., Holden E., Mason C. and Mica A. Powers of Ocean Park; extended family; and many friends. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’70 A Symphonic Life
Natalie Wiegel passed away on October 23, 2015, following a brief illness, at the age of 98. Music was at the center of her life from her early years. Starting on piano, she moved on to violin and clarinet in high school orchestra and band. At age 13, she met John Philip Sousa, “the March King,” who noticed that Natalie’s residence was near his own. He requested a meeting which became an hour-long conversation and a memorable experience for the young lady. She married the love of her life, Carl “Gerry” G. Wiegel, in 1940. In 1943, Gerry and Natalie moved west to Portland.
C L A S S They adopted a daughter, Jerri Ann Pomerinke, who, along with two grandchildren, survives. Gerry died in 1959 and Natalie returned to teaching and music education in the Portland schools. Until she was about 95, she drove her own car to her many activities around town. Memorials may be made to Trillium Family Services/Parry Center, 3415 SE Powell Blvd., Portland, OR 97202. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Marilyn Connor died on July 22, 2015. She began her teaching career at Chemeketa Community College and retired in 2006. She was a dedicated and gifted teacher who was highly respected by students and staff. In 1971, Marilyn and John (Jack) Connor were married after a “short” seven years of romance. They lived for a brief period in San Francisco until Jack obtained a transfer to Salem, Ore., where they resided, worked, and raised their beloved son, Daniel John. Their marriage lasted 44 wonderful years. She was a devoted, passionate wife, mother, aunt, Nina, and friend. “Mimi” is survived by her husband Jack; son, Daniel; sister, Mary Jo; niece, Erika; grand-nephews Ryan and Ethan Ohm; god-daughters Sarah and Deanna Salvatori; and many dear cousins and relatives. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Assistance League of Salem, the American Cancer Association, and or St. Edwards Parish. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
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’73 Please Remember David the medical field. A devoted David Mark Nasman passed away on August 24, 2015. He attended the University of Portland where he majored in communications and participated in the campus radio and theater programs. He was a talented writer and musician, playing guitar since the age of 19. He worked at Protemp Associates in Milwaukie as a transport and delivery specialist. He is survived by his wife, Dawn Nasman; daughters,
family man, the demands of raising a family superseded his own goals, until in 1970, at the age of 40, Chuck returned to school full-time at the University of Portland, and in three years graduated magna cum laude in nursing. Chuck worked as a registered nurse in hospital emergency rooms and thrived in the demanding environment. He would later serve in administrative positions until retiring
’82 Prayers, Please
’71 Tim’s Update
Tim Bergquist writes: “I retired from Northwest Christian University in May 2015 after 19 years of full-time teaching, with a title of emeritus. I also retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1991 after 20 years of active service.”
’72 Sad News
Howard Kuhnle, beloved husband of retired UP history professor Loretta Zimmerman, passed away on October 21, 2015, in San Antonio, Texas, after a long illness. He was interred at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio. Howard was an avid outdoorsman, and lived for many years near the Washougal River, where no steelhead was safe when he was plying its waters on foot or by drift boat. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
the student newspaper at Cal State Fullerton. Zandpour retired as associate dean for the College of Communications at CSUF and is now an emeritus professor. He teaches a graduate capstone course for advertising and branding. He was cited for his service as co-chair of the annual Orange County e-business education conference at CSUF, and also for working alongside various ethnic business owners by setting up workshops and working alongside various boards of Asian business associations and Asian women entrepreneurs. “I’ve always been interested to promote communication, especially to ethnic businesses,” he says. “They really should always think of themselves as mainstream.” He’s also been recognized and honored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein for his community service; the cities of Fullerton and Anaheim and the Orange County have also awarded him with certificates of recognition. See the entire article at http://tinyurl.com/ oggr2kg.
The University’s finest alumni writer, nursing graduate Sallie Tisdale ’83, has a new collection of essays coming out in the spring: Violation, from Hawthorne Books. Among her many other books is the Northwest classic Stepping Westward — a basic text for Pacific Northwest residents, we think. Lauren Teoli and Hayley Nasman; grandson, Rocco Teoli; and siblings, Carole Riedel and Tom Nasman. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Charles Lundgren passed away on October 9, 2015, at his home in the care of his loving wife and family. Chuck was discharged from the USAF in 1953 and held engineering and mechanic positions at companies including Boeing and Freightliner, but his lifelong desire was to work in
due to health issues. Survivors include his wife of 62 years, Bernice; children Michael, Michele, Nels, and Jerry, nine grandchildren; and five greatgrandchildren. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’80 Well-Deserved
Fred Zandpour was featured in an article by Sule Recinos titled “Professor Fred Zandpour reflects back on his notable career,” in the September 22, 2015 edition of the Daily Titan,
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Leigh Bottaini, stepmother of Ann Bottaini Holstrom, passed away on September 5, 2015. Her early career was with the U.S. Navy in Washington, D.C., New York, Florida and California. While being a wife to a military and defense contractor husband, she was very active in raising their daughters, Mary Ann, Betsy and Sarah; and sons, Michael and James. She was active with the Daughters of the British Empire (DBE) and was very involved with senior issues, meeting with members of Congress to educate them on senior causes. Survivors also include her husband, Leo Bottaini ’52; daughters, Mary Ann Mason and Betsy Kercher; son, James Mason; grandsons, Cameron, Daniel and Andrew; granddaughters, Tanya, Melissa and Kaitlyn; step-grandchildren, Tyler, Andrew and Annika; sister, Janie Mirko; and brother, Robert Price. She was predeceased by her son, Michael; and daughter, Sarah. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’85 The Music Man
Kenneth Willson earned a doctor of arts degree in piano performance and pedagogy from the University of Northern Colorado and is currently a tenured professor of music at George Fox University. Willson also works as a pianist at Southminster Presbyterian
C L A S S Church in Beaverton and was the founder of Southminster’s Concert Series. He recently offered “Encounters with Beethoven, a Multi-Media Piano Recital” at First Presbyterian Church in Newberg, Ore. Prayers please, for Jill Marie Parrott and her family on the death of her mother, Barbara Ann (Kruse) Parrott, on October 10, 2015. “Barbara lived a life of childlike joy,” as noted in her obituary, “always appreciating the wonder in things. She was a warm and giving person and always tried to help others be happy.” Survivors include her husband of 62 years, Walt; children, Greg, Brad, Jeff, and Jill; grandchildren, Jen, Adam, Chris, Matt, Naomi, Ashlie, Austin, Zachary, and Hunter; great-grandchildren, Maximo and Cortez; brother, Walt; and sisters-in-law, Jackie and Mary. If you would like to make a donation in honor of Barbara, please send it to one of her favorite places on earth, The Grotto, Portland. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
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Health & Science University. She did an internship in obstetrics and gynecology in Wisconsin before spending a year in research on melanoma in Portland, and then did a residency in dermatology at Wake Forest University.
within each person, whether child or adult. Her teaching and influence contributed to the learning and character building of many students from Gladstone, West Linn-Wilsonville, and finally to Oregon City School Districts. She closed her teaching career as a Teacher ’91 Remembering Holly on Special Assignment (TOSA), We received the following collaborating with colleagues message from Janice Leonetti: to enhance the literacy exper“As the parents of Joey Leoniences for children and the etti ’92 we just received an instructional advancements e-mail regarding the University’s of her peers. Holly was and is
Rock, B.C. In June I completed the studies required to obtain a CPA, CMA designation here in B.C. Now I’m just enjoying some time away from school and work to focus on family!”
A group of early 1980s alumni met at the T-Room to reminisce and enjoy a T-Burger or two, according to Matt Waite ’84. He even sent us this photo: Row 1, l-r: Matt, Lisa DiTommaso ’83, Natalie Gray Haar ’84, Angie Gray Roarty ’83, Susan Renee, Sue Quedado ’83. Row 2, l-r: Keith Kintz, Janet McElligott ’83, Christine Raivio ’83, Ed Aguon ’83, Greg Dardis ’84. Back: Mark Johnson ’84, Jean Rinella Johnson ’84, Elizabeth Carney Halladay, Kelly Kintz ’83, Mark Weber ’84, A.J. Gomez ’82.
Gregory Moen passed away on July 26, 2015, at his home in Seattle, Wash. He earned his master’s in civil engineering from the University of Washington, then went on to work at HDR as an engineer consultant. Greg loved spending time with his 5-year-old son Braden; he courageously and stubbornly fought brain cancer for 11 years and never lost hope or his sense of humor. Survivors include his wife Jenny, son Braden, mother Marilyn, father Philip, brother Andrew, and many other family and friends. In lieu of flowers, remembrances can be made towards the National Brain Tumor Society or Braden Moen’s educational fund. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’88 Our Condolences
Please remember Janet (Kloucek) Timmerman and her family in your prayers on the death of Richard “Craig” Timmerman Jr., who passed away in a tragic car accident on October 16, 2015. He attended St. Cecilia grade school in Beaverton and graduated from Jesuit High School. He attended the University of Portland, the University of Oregon, and graduated from Colorado State University with degrees in chemistry and mathematics. He was employed as a lab director at the time of his death. His lighthearted nature, sense of humor, and welcoming personality will be sorely missed. Craig is survived by his parents, Rick and Janet; brother, Mitch; fiancé, Emily Gilmore; grandparents, Dale and Arlene Kloucek, Lana Sawyer, and Ron and Gayle Timmerman; and many aunts, uncles, and cousins. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests remembrances be made in Craig’s name to support leukemia research at OHSU Knight Center Institute. Our prayers and condolences to the family.
’89 Here’s The Skinny
Patricia O’Hare practices dermatology in Albany, Ore., her hometown. She specializes in a wide range of procedures, from surgical treatment of skin cancer to education and therapy for acne. She earned her medical degree at Oregon
Month of Remembrance during November and the dedications of prayer for those who have passed before us. It inspired me to notify you that our daughter-in-law--one of your alumnae — has passed. Holly Michelle Morrison Leonetti passed away on June 19, 2015. Holly was a UP graduate in 1991 from the School of Education. She married Joseph in August of 1992. They had three children: Emily (20), Blake (19) and Chloe (15). Holly valued her learning experiences at U of P and enthusiastically carried that love of learning forward and throughout her teaching career, even while fighting valiantly against breast cancer for the last 15 years. Holly blessed many lives, as she nurtured the learner
beloved by many and greatly missed.” Thank you for letting us know, Janice, and our prayers and condolences to you and your family.
’93 Living In The Heartland
Ruth Ohm graduated from UP with a master’s degree in nursing and recently earned her Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Kansas. She and her husband Ken live in Topeka, Kansas.
’94 Jodi’s Update
Jodi Soheili writes: “2015 has been a busy year. In March we welcomed our third little boy. Arren Joseph Soheili is happily chasing his two older brothers Arman, 14, and Artin, 10, all over our home in White
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’97 Welcome Back!
Diane Elliott writes: “Here’s an update: after teaching in Southern California for 11 years I moved back to Oregon in 2013. I’ve been subbing since then. I accepted a full-time teaching position for the upcoming school year in Albany, and I’m thrilled to be back in Oregon!” Margaret Trout has been appointed director of the University’s Health Center. She comes back to The Bluff from Willamette University, where she served as director of the Bishop Wellness Center for the past 10 years. She was peer-nominated and awarded Willamette University’s Administrator of the Year in 2013. Prior to her time at Willamette University, Trout worked as a nurse manager and assistant director at the Center for Student Health and Counseling at Portland State University for five years. We’re glad to have her back.
’98 Gone Too Soon
’01 Kelsi Settles Down
Kelsi Compton-Griffith writes: “After doing the on/off travel physical therapy thing for the past six years, having lived in Southern Oregon, Texas, Arizona, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Washington D.C., I am finally calling San Diego home. I moved here around Christmas time in 2014 and am working at Rady Children’s Hospital as a physical therapist. I love it! No better place to call home than an area that’s sunny, warm, and close to the
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derful man, William Pearce. Muscogee (Creek) Nation OfOn June 20, 2015, William and fice of Community Research I wed at St. Cecilia Parish in and Development, where she Boston and celebrated at a re- was responsible for providing ception with many family program management, leadmembers and friends, includ- ership, technical assistance, ing a few University of Porttraining, and technical assisland alumni. William gradutance for 25 chartered Indian ated from Babson College in Communities throughout Wellesley, Mass., in 2008. We eight counties in eastern Okla’04 Smart Stuff homa. She has experience in Jonathan Simcoe has been keep- bought our first home just a team building across cultures, ing busy since his days on The few weeks after the wedding and are now settling in nicely and has volunteered with Bluff. He writes: “I thought in Milton, Mass. We look formany organizations, including you guys might be interested Mvskoke Women’s Leadership, in this story. I’m a UP alumnus ward to starting our lives to(graduated in 2004 with a B.A. in communications) and I work as a product designer for Circle, a smart device and app that allows users to manage all connected devices in a household. Parents can use it to filter content, limit screen time, and set a bedtime for every device in the home. Circle can even pause the Internet. On November 4, we launched Circle with Disney to the world.” Find out more at https://meetcircle.com. Jessica Grimes married Geoffrey Friason ’07 on May 10, 2015, in Oregon City. “We had many UP alumni and future alumni in attendance,” she writes. “I even had a purple and white garter and it was caught by cousin Kevin Farley ’16! Here’s a list: Andy Li ’02, Christine Muir Li, Paul Bunce, Charlie Keller ’05, Rebecca Patla Keller ’03, Bryan Schlief ’03, Pat Keller ’03, Alyssa Walker Keller ’03, Shane Fulwiler, Kevin Farley ’16, Ken Hallenius, Kristin Zerkel Edwards ’07, Jenny Kranc ’03, Breanne Wilson Brown ’03, Astin Bush Mills, and Caron Edwards Horttor ’03.” Thanks Jessica and Geoffrey, and congratulations! So how did Hallenius get in there? We heard the best kind of news from Madeline (Maxwell) Sabatoni recently: “My husband Chris and I welcomed Professors and colleagues alike expected big things our baby girl, Ramona Maxwell Sabatoni, on July 3, 2015. from Sarai Geary ’08 when she graduated from The We’re all doing great! We reBluff in 2008. Turns out they were right. See more cently baptized Ramona and under Sarai’s class year on this page. my UP college roommate, Chrissy Roes is her godmother!” Congratulations, Madeline! gether and I cannot wait until Oklahoma Federation of IndiYou’ll be hearing from our I am able to bring William to an Women, and the Oklahoma admissions office soon. Portland for his first trip to the Bar Association Leadership ’07 Dr. Webber’s Update Pacific Northwest and show off Academy. See more at http:// Sarah Webber recently updated our beautiful campus!” energy.gov/indianenergy/ us on what’s going on in her contributors/sarai-geary. life: “I graduated with an MD ’08 Born To Serve from Oregon Health & Science Sarai Geary a member of the ’09 Isaac Checks In University in 2013. I also got Muscogee Creek Nation, is a We got a welcome message married that same year in program manager in the U.S. from Isaac Chol Achuil recently: September, at the family farm Department of Energy’s Office “I hope everyone is doing well in Canby, Ore. Our first baby, of Indian Energy Policy and at UP and I just want to let all Sierra Louanne Boeholt, was Programs, where she works in of you know that I am now born on January 28, 2015.” energy development and proback on campus in the UK, Rachel (Munyon) Pearce motes energy education for I have been here since the writes: “Earlier this year, I was Indian tribes. She previously beginning of October actulucky enough to marry a won- served as director for the ally, but I wanted to get in beach year-round. I’m also glad to be back on the West Coast. I’d love to hear about any alumni events happening in the SoCal area.” Thanks for writing, Kelsi, I’m sure you’ll be hearing about lots of local UP alumni events.
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touch with y’all again. I want to thank everyone for helping me during the last 2-4 years in writing references in support of my application; the result is the reason I am writing you from Birmingham today, thank you very much for all your time.”
’10 Trick Or Treat!
Wonderful news from Maryanne Kraeger: “At 12:23 in the afternoon on the eve of all Saints Day (that is, Halloween), we met our son, Edmund William Kraeger. Since my husband Adam is still in college we were planning on having kids after he graduated, but God had grander plans for us. Edmund was the best surprise I ever received! Thankfully he sleeps a lot like his Mommy and he loves to cuddle. We are loving the adventure of parenthood and look forward to watching our son grow up, which I can already tell you is going by too fast! Just wanted to share the wonderful news with our UP family. Please e-mail me at berger10@up.edu so I can send you a picture!”
’11 So Why Not?
Carla Kenyon has a great idea: “I sure would love to see an alumni group form in Austin, Texas. There are a couple of us from my class year, but not many that I know of!” So how about it, Austin-area alumni? Bryce Bertolin and Madison Stroup ’10 got married on August 8, 2015, in Seattle, Wash. “We had over 25 UP alumni at our wedding,” says Bryce. “We all love UP and hope all is well on The Bluff.” Thanks Bryce, and congratulations!
’12 Doing It For The Kids
Doug Orofino has taken a staff position at the orphanage in Honduras where he volunteered after graduation from UP. He is currently an employee of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that cares for orphaned or abandoned children in Central and South America. Doug also created and maintains a website for Catholic young adults called industria ex veritate/Industry from Truth, which can be found at www.iexv.net. To see his blog, go to https://douglasorofino.wordpress.com. We received wonderful news from Marissa Plummer (now Brynteson): “I got married to Keeler Brynteson in Truckee, California in August 2015! We had a great UP alumni turnout, includ-
C L A S S ing Kati Hronek (now Kati Genther), Danielle Dupar ’11, Ariel Usher ’13, Sam Westendorf, Chad Kjemhus ’13, Chris Dennis ’11, Tyler Thompson ’11, Matt McCallister ’13, Beau Fraser, and Garrett Queen ’11. All of the guys played baseball and all of the girls played volleyball.” Congratulations, Marissa and Keeler, and thanks for sharing!
’14 Tragic News
Prayers, please, for Kristen Gates on the death of her husband, Phillip Johnson, on October 1. He was struck by a car as he crossed an intersection in Hillsboro, Ore., three days short of their first wedding anniversary. Words simply cannot convey the heartbreak, but prayers, prayers, and more prayers from the UP community can convey the support and condolences Kristen and her family need.
’15 Andrew & Emma
We heard recently from Andrew Herzog, who writes: “I am a 2015 UP graduate. On July 11, 2015, I married Emma Irwin (class of 2014, philosophy major) on Whidbey Island. You can see some of the pictures here: juliakinnunenphotography.com/emma-andrew. Emma is studying philosophy as a first year master’s student at Columbia University. I am looking for a job in the city. My experience ranges from international affairs (I was a political science major at UP) to entrepreneurship (I worked on an online news software company in conjunction with the 2014-2015 Entrepreneur Scholars program) to advertising/marketing (I interned over the summer as the digital advertising associate at Hatch Advertising in Spokane Valley, Wash.). I’m looking at going into the political, media, news, creative, or general business industries. I would love to connect with fellow UP alumni in the NYC area working in similar fields.” Thanks for the update, Andrew, and we’re quite certain you will land your dream job in the Big Apple. We heard recently from proud mama Michele Roth, who writes; “My daughter Chelsea Roth graduated in May and left on May 20th to spend eight weeks as a UP volunteer to Bologna’s L’Arche Community. That in itself was an adventure, but she needed more. After her service to L’Arche, she made her way to St. Jean, France to begin a 30-day pilgrimage on the Camino. She reached Santiago today, on August 16! She did this alone, and as a
parent, and hearing some recent disturbing stories, I was very nervous about my 22-yearold daughter being on such a path completely alone. I have learned that most people in the world are good. It has helped restore my faith in others; especially in strangers across the world. She was safe, and although there were many, many hours she spent alone, she was never really ‘alone.’ She returns this Thursday, August 20, and I thought you might be interest-
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N O T E S 2016 and after that she will be living and working aboard a NOAA research vessel. According to the NOAA website: “The NOAA Corps today provides a cadre of professionals trained in engineering, earth sciences, oceanography, meteorology, fisheries science, and other related disciplines. Officers operate ships, fly aircraft, facilitate research projects, conduct diving operations, and serve in staff positions throughout NOAA.”
programs, handbooks, etc.), contact Carolyn Piatz Connolly at the museum: museum@ up.edu or piatz@up.edu; 503-943-8038; University of Portland Museum MSC 015, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland, OR 97203.
Here Ye, Here Ye, Upsilon Omega Pi Members!
A message to Upsilon Omega Pi fraternity members of all class years, from Matt Waite ’84: “Brothers: Your presence is commanded at next year’s Reunion 2016, June 23-26, to celebrate the 65th anniversary of our founding. There will be a special event on campus on Saturday, June 25, in the afternoon, followed by the Reunion Barbecue. Please mark your calendars now. Contact me with any questions at 503-3090007 or the alumni office at alumni@up.edu.”
Faculty, Staff, Friends
Philosophy professor emeritus Thompson Faller was installed as Lieutenant of the Northwestern Lieutenancy of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem during its 2015 meeting, held September 18 to 21 in Anchorage, Alaska. He is replacing Her Excellency Lady Mary O’Brien, who became a member of the Grand Magisterium. The Northwest Lieutenancy is one of 62 in the world. It is comprised of the States of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Sam Bridgman ’13 continues to inspire and impress, Northern California, Utah, and Northern Nevada, and is one not that we’re surprised to hear that. He’s currently of the largest in area. Since the founding of the Order 900 a grad student at the University of South Florida, years ago, members have dedworking on his MBA and master’s in sports and icated themselves to personal sanctification, fidelity to the entertainment management. He’s featured in a story teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, and support of the in the August 28 edition of the Tampa Tribune. See Christian Community in the the article at http://tinyurl.com/n9a44v8. Holy Land. Environmental studies professor Robert Butler has been ed for the alumni section and/ Got Stuff? awarded the 2015 Neil Miner or for future students applying The University of Portland Award in honor of his excepto participate in the UP L’Arche Museum welcomes donations tional contributions to the opportunity. Her e-mail is of Columbia Prep and Univer- stimulation of interest in the olivas15@up.edu.” Thank you, sity of Portland memorabilia Earth sciences. Before joining Michele, we know you’re proud and photographs from alumni the faculty at UP in 2004, he of Chelsea and we hope she and friends. (We would eshad an amazing 30-year career can inspire (or advise) future pecially love to hear from stu- at the University of Arizona, UP L’Arche volunteers. dent publications photo editors where he attained the title Sarah Donohoe, the Univer- from years past.) If you have of University Distinguished sity’s first National Oceanic and items of interest about CoProfessor. He was also made a Atmospheric Administration lumbia Prep and University Fellow of the American Geo(NOAA) Hollings Scholar, most of Portland academic, social, physical Union in recognition recent Truman Scholar, and religious, and athletic history of his research publications and UP Honors Program partici(examples could include but a popular textbook on paleopant, was recently accepted are not limited to: sports uni- magnetism. In association into the NOAA Corps. Sarah forms and equipment; overwith EarthScope and the Inwas one of 10 applicants ac- seas studies mementos; social, corporated Research Institucepted out of the biggest appli- religious, and academic club/ tions for Seismology (IRIS), cant pool the Corps has seen. organization memorabilia; he has developed videos, onShe will be attending the Coast educational materials; publica- line programs, teachable moGuard Academy in January tions such as yearbooks, sports ments, and field trips that have Winter 2015 45
C L A S S brought geoscience to the attention of millions. “Bob’s career exemplifies how a scholar can break out of the lab and have an immense impact on building understanding in Earth science worldwide,” according to the National Association of Geoscience Teachers. Civil engineering professor and associate dean for the Shiley School of Engineering Mark Kennedy received the 2014-2015 Oregon Engineer of the Year Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Kennedy was nominated and approved by unanimous vote from the ASCE board as one who “best exemplified dedication to profession, public service, and continuing education.” Legendary Oregonian publisher and University of Portland life regent Fred A. Stickel passed away on Sunday, September 27, 2015, at the age of 93. “He died in the home he bought in 1967 in Southwest Portland,” according to his obituary in The Oregonian, “a home where he and the love of his life, Peggy Stickel, raised six children, hosted epic parties, and shared quiet evenings.” He served in the Marines during World War II, and started in the newspaper ad business upon his return to civilian life. Stickel worked his way up to the position of publisher of the Jersey Journal, and moved to Portland to become general manager of The Oregonian in 1967. Stickel became president of Oregonian Publishing Co. in 1972 and publisher in 1975 — a position he held until his retirement at the age of 87 on September 19, 2009. Stickel was preceded in death by his beloved Peggy in 2008. He is survived by his sons Fred Jr., Patrick, Geoffrey, and Jamie Stickel of Yakima; daughters, Daisy Medici and Bridget Otto; 10 grandchildren; and 15 great-grandchildren. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Patricia Elizabeth Brandt of Silverton died on September 15, 2015, in Salem, Ore. Pat attended Catholic schools in Portland, Silverton, and Mt. Angel. She graduated from Mt. Angel Academy (valedictorian) and Mt. Angel Women’s College (BS Ed). She received a BA of music education from the University of Portland, a master of music education from Willamette University, and a master of library science from the University of Denver. She spent the majority of her career at Oregon State, retiring in 1990 as head reference librarian. A descendant of Oregon pioneers, she wrote several
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books and numerous articles on Northwest history. She was the recipient of the Bishop Francis Leipzig award, given by the Oregon Catholic Historical Society for Adapting in Eden, a history of the Catholic Church in Oregon, which she coauthored with the late Lillian Pereyra of the UP history department. Survivors include her siblings, Katherine Huber, Carol Sandaal, Mary Rose Brandt, and John Brandt; a
N O T E S (1988–91). He then worked as chaplain at St. Mary of the Valley in Beaverton. He retired for health reasons in 1992 but it didn’t take (not to anyone’s surprise) and he kept right on working by helping out at various parishes, and in 1995 he became pastor at St. Edward in North Plains. He retired a second time in 2001. Before entering the priesthood, Campbell served in the U.S. Marines, taking part in one
Msgr. Frank Campbell, longtime UP friend and beloved father confessor to countless parishioners around the Portland Archdiocese, not to mention students at Central Catholic and Regis high school. See his obituary under “Faculty, Staff, Friends” on this page. niece and four nephews, and numerous grand nephews and nieces. Our prayers and condolences to the family. Msgr. Frank Campbell died on Sunday, July 26, 2015, at the age of 89. Campbell taught at Central Catholic High School, Portland (1953–63), and was principal of Regis High School, Stayton (1963–67). He served as a chaplain with the Oregon Army National Guard (1959– 78), concurrent with other assignments. He returned to Central Catholic as principal and director (1967-75). He was pastor of Queen of Peace, Portland (1975–80), St. Mary Magdalene, Portland, (1980-88), and St. Mary Cathedral
of the bloodiest battles of World War II: the assault on Iwo Jima. While he didn’t often talk about his war experiences, Campbell would sometimes recall “the guy who air-conditioned my helmet” in that battle. Remembered for his no-nonsense yet friendly and voluble demeanor, Campbell celebrated his 50th jubilee in 2003. Our prayers and condolences to his family and friends.
Deaths
Anthony “Tony” Casciato ’41, September 7, 2015. John C. Beckman ’42, October 19, 2015. Peter Piluso ’42, October 7, 2015.
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James N. Lynch ’45, October 4, 2015. Hugh McGinnis ’48, September 4, 2015. Jean VanHoomissen, wife of Peter VanHoomissen ’50, September 14, 2015. Olive “Poody” (Riedel) Harder ’51, October 21, 2015. Leigh Bottaini, wife of Leo Bottaini ’52, stepmother of Ann Bottaini Holstrom ’82, September 5, 2015. Gibson “Hoot” Bassett ’52, May 11, 2014. Mary Dobos, wife of Kenneth Dobos ’53, October 13, 2015. Leonard Fortun ’53, August 6, 2015. James P. Murphy ’53, September 4, 2015. Joan Van Dyke, wife of Richard “Dick” Van Dyke ’55, July 23, 2015. John Rulifson ’53, August 31, 2015. Ronald Adolph Salvo ’55, July 6, 2015. William C. Highfield ’59, October 18, 2015. George Henry Forsman ’60, July 1, 2014. John Criqui ’61, August 13, 2015. Robert J. Franz, brother of Thomas Franz ’62, August 29, 2015. Paul Gallette ’63, March 23, 2015. Edward Arata, husband of Kathleen Leslie (Neiger) ’64, August 15, 2015. Sally Taylor ’65, September 14, 2015. Susan Powers ’68, August 3, 2015. Natalie Wiegel ’70, October 23, 2015. Marilyn Connor ’70, July 22, 2015. Howard Kuhnle ’72, October 21, 2015. David Mark Nassman ’73, August 24, 2015. Charles Lundgren ’73, October 9, 2015. Leigh Bottaini, stepmother of Ann Bottaini Holstrom ’82, September 5, 2015. Barbara Ann (Kruse) Parrott, mother of Jill Marie Parrott ’85, October 10, 2015. Richard “Craig” Timmerman, Jr., son of Janet (Kloucek) Timmerman ’88, October 16, 2015. Holly Michelle Morrison Leonetti ’91, June 19, 2015. Gregory Moen ’98, July 25, 2015. Phillip Johnson, husband of Kristen Gates ’14, October 1, 2015. Fred Stickel, UP life regent, September 27, 2015. Patricia Elizabeth Brandt, September 15, 2015. Msgr. Frank Campbell, July 26, 2015. Msgr. Carl Gimpl, October 25, 2015.
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N O T E S
The Oregon Catholic community lost one of its legendary figures when Msgr. Carl Gimpl passed away on Sunday, October 25, 2015, at the age of 87. Anyone who went to summer camp at Camp Howard — and we’re willing to bet that includes many UP alumni—from the 1950s through the 1980s will remember Fr. Gimpl. Gruff and blunt and not prone to putting up with any nonsense, he seldom lost the impish twinkle in his eye for long; imposing and strong as an ox, he was in reality a gentle, holy man who found his life’s calling in serving his flock, exasperating as a flock of hundreds of kids and teenage counselors could be. He was equally adept at hammering together cabins, clearing trails, felling trees (rumor had it he pulled them up by the roots), and offering his famous “15-minute Mass,” complete with sermon. Countless parishioners from all reaches of the state marveled at Fr. Gimpl’s capacity for responsibility and hard work. There will never be another like him. He ended each day of camp with kids and staff gathered together at dusk to lower the flag and sing “Taps”: Day is done, gone the sun, From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky, All is well, safely rest, God is nigh. He would then bellow “Good night, campers!”; the kids would holler “Good night, Father!” We wish him the same now, eternal rest and peace. Winter 2015 47
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T R A V E L L E D
Passing back into the mysterious starstuff that fascinated him all his life: the wry witty generous John Beckman ’42, at age 95, on October 19. Inventor (he built the first superfast cameras), pilot, rancher, entrepreneur, he was also, with his late wife Patricia, enormously generous to the University: ten scholarships (four of them honoring his mentor, the great physics professor Brother Godfrey Vassallo, C.S.C.) and the wonderfully visionary Humor Project, which sets out to, in John’s words, “outwit violence, puncture pomposity, deflate arrogance, and explore how warm gentle humor gathers and binds people together.” Travel in the light with our prayers, John.
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R O A D S
Question: What sort of wry generous far-sighted people are the University’s many donors? Answer: People like the late elegant willowy gentle gracious Lee Brenneisen, who died in September at age 95. The reports say that Lee (above at about age 35) was enormously generous to the University, making gifts to the library, this magazine, and the new Beauchamp Rec Center — she really liked Father Bill Beauchamp. But context and story are everything, of course. The immediate back story: Lee called the University out of the blue, ten years ago, to be sure we knew that our distinguished alumnus Tom Padden ’50 was ailing, and would probably welcome prayers and good wishes from the alma mater he loved. Tom had been her beloved husband Leo’s FBI partner. Tom had also been a Marine on Iwo Jima, a Portland cop, a legendary FBI agent (he caught Patty Hearst), and much more, and of course we did a magazine story. (And Lee established a whopping scholarship in his name.) And Lee became a dear friend to many at the University, which she much admired; and so eventually she invested, joined our creative efforts, sent many votes of confidence. The deeper back story: Born in Arkansas, and home-schooled for years; earned a bachelor’s at Kansas and a doctorate at Stanford; studied at Oxford; was a famous girl reporter for the Associated Press in the 1940s; was stationed with her husband in Hawaii, Paraguay, Arizona, and California; spoke Guarani and Hawaiian; read and loved Thomas Carlyle and Thomas Macaulay; paid off her caregiver’s mortgage; and was the absolute essence of courtesy, wit, dignity, and grace. The world without her shy smile and piping curiosity and flowing energy is a lesser world, substantively dimmed, bereft of a most gracious woman of minimal ego and maximum kindness. Do we welcome any and all donors? Yes. Are we riveted by the stories of their generosity and courage and endurance and humor and creativity? Yes. Do we often sigh and think that in an ideal world we could somehow explore and share the thousands of glorious stories of our investors? Yes. Here are there we can, and we do so with the deepest gratitude. Your gifts change the lives of lanky kids, and what could be cooler than that? Think you can join us? Call Sharon Hogan at 503.943.8677, hogans@up.edu. And thanks. And quiet prayers for our gentle friend Lee B.
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PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNA LAGESON-KERNS
LADY MADONNA
... CHILDREN AT YOUR FEET... This lovely gentle unassuming wonderful bronze statue of Miryam, mother of the Christ, was forged in Italy and given to the University by the Galati family of Portland, in memory of their late daughter Margaret Mary. The Madonna is the centerpiece of the Marian Garden surrounding the University’s prayer tower, with its prayer stones and meditation walkways, and cherry trees that flower annually around Easter. Mary is the University’s patroness, and in her guise as Our Lady of Sorrows she is also the patroness of the Congregation of Holy Cross. She is also, we note happily, the patroness of airplane crews and pilots, bicyclists, blood donors, cooks, coopers, distillers, harness makers, navigators, nuns, potters, and the Bolivian Navy, among maaaany other entities, professions, vocations, and pursuits. Coolest woman ever, other than your mom.