Spirit March 2017

spirit

CHART TOPPING EXPOSURE What top 5 Ranking Means to University For the month of February, Gonzaga carried a No. 1 basketball ranking in the country, and with it came a significant increase in attention, not just to the basketball program, but to the University, as well. And there’s no sign that will diminish soon, the Zags still ranking in the top 4.

“It has had a significant impact on students inquiring about coming to school here,” says Julie McCulloh, dean of Admission. Already this year, inquiries have exceeded 55,000. The previous largest pool of inquiries was for the fall 2015 class, with 49,709.

“Being ranked the best in the country certainly changed our conversations with donors,” says Brian Ruark, assistant vice president for University Advancement. “The notoriety helped open doors and built enthusiasm about Gonzaga.

I don’t see that changing.” Alumni chapter game watches are drawing record crowds.

Website visits have increased significantly since GU was first ranked No. 1 on Jan. 30. Gonzaga is averaging 155,000 weekly visits to its main website (gonzaga.edu), up 20 percent, and 228,000 visits to the athletic website (gozags. com), up 57 percent.

GONZAGA FACULTY AND STAFF NEWSLETTER

›› 47% study abroad, 2 ›› UW-GU partnership at 1, 3 ›› Tournament talk, 4 MARCH 2017 | VOL 18 | #6

TAKING STOCK: BASKETBALL HALL-OF-FAMER IS ALL ABOUT OTHERS Social media lit up when the West Coast Conference announced Gonzaga’s John Stockton would be part of the ninth class inducted into the WCC’s Hall of Honor, March 4, in Las Vegas.

“It’s about time.”

Athletics’ Facebook page views were up 48 percent in February; and its Twitter account gained 14,000 followers, to 85,000 total.

Requests for interviews with Coach Mark Few and his players are off the chart, says Sports Information Director Barry Henderson. Few has done national programs like SportsCenter, The Dan Patrick Show, Jim Rome, Rich Eisen and others. Przemek Karnowski was featured on ESPN.com, SB Nation, and will be on CBS Sports, along with Nigel Williams-Goss and Few later in March. Williams-Goss will also be featured in the NCAA Tournament preview issue of Sports Illustrated. The Associated Press and USA Today are also doing national stories

100 Students Spend Spring Break in Service Through Mission:Possible, about 100 Knoxville – community building students are traveling during Spring Montgomery, Ala. – civil rights Break to sites across the U.S. to work history and impoverished alongside nonprofit organizations in communities serving vulnerable populations. WeekNeah Bay – Makah Reservation long immersion opportunities are support student-led with support from these faculty and staff advisers: Brooklyn New York City – children of Beeler, Aunja Staymates, Darcy incarcerated women Phillips, Hannah Klaasen, Andrew Portland – homeless services Mercer and Hilary Beardslee, all of CCASL; Jeff Dodd, English; Heidi San Francisco – Golden Gate Nordstrom, Physical Education; Jim National Parks Conservancy Simon, Sustainability; Megan Ferney, St. Louis – homeless services Business; Natalie Hastings, Rudolf Fitness Center; Sabrina Nelson, Tacoma – adults with Housing; and Nico Bernabe, Cura developmental disabilities Personalis.

A missioning ceremony to “send off” This year’s locations and projects are: these teams takes place Friday, Mar. 10, 5:30 in the Student Chapel. All are Denver – refugee resettlement and welcome. elementary school outreach

on the program that will run in March, and CNN International is doing a story on Assistant Coach Tommy Lloyd and our international guys, Henderson says.

The impact is just volume, says Deputy Athletic Director Chris Standiford. “This is what our staff is excited and prepared for, and embrace the opportunity. The coolest thing for us is we’re in the midst of this really big moment, working twice as hard but enjoying it twice as much, and not missing a beat with the other six sports (in action right now).”

MEN’S NCAA TOURNAMENT First Four – March 14-15 Dayton

Regionals – March 23-26 Kansas City First/Second Rounds – March 16-19 San Jose Buffalo Memphis Greensboro New York City Indianapolis Milwaukee Final Four – April 1, 3 Orlando Phoenix Tulsa Sacramento Salt Lake City

WOMEN’S NCAA TOURNAMENT First/Second Rounds – March 17-20 Final Four – March 31, April 2 16 non-predetermined campus sites Dallas Regionals – March 24-27 Bridgeport, Conn.

Lexington Oklahoma City Stockton

VIEW ONLINE AT: www.gonzaga.edu/spirit

“What took the league so long?”

Truth be told, Stockton probably delayed this as long as he could, as he is much more comfortable in the stands than under the spotlight. He played basketball for the love of the game, and his desire to compete, which was honed on the family’s driveway against big brother Steve.

Stockton earned WCAC Player of the Year honors in 1984, two Olympic gold medals (1992, 1996) and a permanent place in the Naismith National Basketball Hall of Fame (2009). His drive to compete at his highest level has not diminished.

“I remain amazed at the skill level John demonstrates,” says Shann Ferch, Gonzaga professor of leadership studies and a man who plays with and against Stockton and other Sunday warriors. “He could help some NBA teams in the playoffs right now. But beyond the excellence, John loves his family. He lives humbly, and with great respect for truth and compassion. He is a man of powerful conviction and faith. He inspires me to be a better man.”

Today, Stockton is a family man first. He served Montana State last season as assistant coach so he could watch his senior daughter Lindsay compete in her last year of college basketball. And he most always found a way back to the Kennel or wherever the Bulldogs were playing to see his then-freshman daughter Laura play for the Zags. He hardly ever missed a game son David played for Gonzaga (2010-14).

“He is consistent in every aspect of his life,” says Nada (’84), John’s wife of 32 years. “And he’s loyal. You always know what you have in John. That’s a blessing in this crazy mixed up world. You can always count on him.”

Here’s another sign of his character. “When his agent was renegotiating a contract for him with the Utah Jazz, talks broke down.

John wanted no part of the stress between he and the Jazz. So he respectfully told his agent he’d take care of it, and with a handshake agreed to terms with (owner) Larry Miller,” Nada says John’s other love is his community. He has lent a hand to more people and projects behind the scenes than anyone will ever know . . . and that’s the only way this extremely unpretentious and caring man will have it. His loyalty was evident, playing 19 seasons and 1,504 games for the Jazz, still the most ever played for one team in NBA history.

John’s No. 12 Jazz jersey was retired a year after he stopped playing.

At a dinner preceding the ceremony, one speaker after another told of things behind the scenes that made John the true gentleman that he was; not basketball exploits.

Jazz teammate Karl Malone talked about his mom’s illness, and the daily calls he’d receive from John asking how she was doing. When she died, John showed up at the funeral unannounced, in the backcountry bayou where Malone grew up, Malone recalled, tears running down

In a 1983 Bulletin, Stockton responded to a question about autographs: “It’s embarrassing (to be asked). It’s not like I’m a UCLA player who is expected to go to the NBA.” Above, John on NBA draft day, 1984.

his face.

Coach Jerry Sloan, choking up, talked about a friend whose 14-year-old son was dying of cancer, and the joy on the lad’s face when John made a lengthy bedside visit, about which there was never any publicity. The boy died the next day, perhaps content.

When Gonzaga employee Cindy Perry’s son broke his arm during a high school baseball game, John reportedly contacted and arranged for his orthopedic doctor to tend to

this young man. “We knew each other only through our connection to the baseball team, yet he went out of his way to make sure our son was seen by the best,” Cindy said.

So while the fact that John Houston Stockton is inducted into the WCC Hall of Honor for his basketball prowess, it is his human qualities that make him a hall-of-famer in minds of friends and family members alike.

MARCH 2017

AROUND CAMPUS >> Doug Kries and Pete Tormey are tag teaming a lecture series on Ireland. Philosophy Professor Kries presents “What Tocqueville Saw in Ireland in 1835: Photographs from his Footsteps,” March 2.

News Service Editor Tormey presents “Irish American Identity: Perspectives of an Immigrant’s Son,” March 9. Both free lectures are at 7:30 p.m. in the Wolff Auditorium. >> Women and Gender Studies will honor its seven co-founders publicly on March 8, 7 p.m., Hemmingson Ballroom, and cofounder Mary Jo Bona will deliver “Twenty-Five Years and Counting: Women’s Studies as a Field and the Queer Daughter’s Voice.” Free and open to the public. >>

The Wolff Company Chairman Fritz Wolff, former chairman of Gonzaga’s Board of Trustees, will discuss challenges and opportunities, and the rewards of getting and giving as he delivers the Pigott Entrepreneurship Lecture, March 21, 6 p.m., in Jepson’s Wolff Auditorium.

>> Dr. Rhea Seddon, USA’s first female surgeon astronaut, presents “Go for Orbit,” March 27, 7 p.m., in the Hemmingson Ballroom. Seddon’s three space shuttle flights included medical experiments that expanded understanding of the effects of space flight on humans and animals. >> Gonzaga received Spokane County’s All-Star Team Award recognizing its commute trip reduction committee and its work: Jim Simon, Joe Kinsella, Jim White, Tomson Spink, Rhonda Young, Angie Swan, Kaaren Goeller-Bloom, student Alec Pasqualina. >> Joe Madsen and the emergency preparedness and risk management team received a $3,000 award from United Educators recognizing a short video, produced by student staffer Alex McMichael to help Gonzaga’s staff and organizations mitigate risk. >> Sophomore David Ahern’s account of an avalanche victim retrieval, a narrative of the searchand-recovery operation, and a reflection on mortality and love earned first-place in WW Norton’s annual nationwide undergraduate essay contest. His senior lecturer is Heath Herrick.

PAGE 2

A DAY IN THE LIFE

NOTEWORTHY

Menard spans the globe

New Hires

Often before the crack of dawn, Richard Menard checks the morning’s news feeds to see what’s going on around the globe. As director of Gonzaga’s Study Abroad program he keeps a watchful eye on the world around the students he has sent abroad.

“In fall 2015, we witnessed the attacks in Paris, and shortly thereafter in Brussels. We located every student, and had to decide whether to evacuate, and determine how we could get them out of the country if we had to,” Menard says. “We’ve had earthquakes in Chile, New Zealand and Italy. Just because students aren’t physically here doesn’t mean they’re not part of the Gonzaga community, and we care for them in the same way.”

Needless to say, Menard has had some restless nights.

“Now we’re looking at Sinope, Turkey. That country is still in a state of emergency following last year’s attempted coup. We are working with our risk manager and faculty member to determine whether or not it’s a place suitable to send students on an archeological dig this summer.”

FOCUS ON... BEING GOOFY

“We have something for every Gonzaga student. We deliver.” – Richard Menard, Study Abroad

“I have no typical day. What I do is not glamourous with jet-set travel around the world. Safety and security is our top priority. Our work involves risk management, negotiating our insurance policy, working with Title IX folks, the counseling center, and advising students about how Study Abroad relates to what they want to do personally and professionally.”

Menard’s program is very popular. Nearly 47 percent of GU students study abroad by completion of their senior years. That ranks No. 22 nationally for schools our size.

Senior Caleb Dawson went to Chile for a semester to study Spanish. But he found there was a big difference between traditional Spanish and slang. He saw dancers freestyling But all is not shrouded in doom. “We have 700 in the streets, and asked if he could join in. “I couldn’t students studying around the world,” says Menard, speak slang at first, but we communicated through dance. who arrived at Gonzaga in 2012, met his future wife I learned there’s more to language than words.” here, and couldn’t be happier.

THE ART OF DISCOVERY Rachel Noyes (’17) recalls working alongside a girl named Naomi, at the Spokane Salish School. “We brought in Madagascar hissing cockroaches for the students to observe and apply what they know about insects. All of the students could hold a cockroach if they wanted. Naomi was simultaneously terrified and thrilled. When I set the cockroach in her hand, her eyes lit up, she smiled and immediately started asking questions.”

The excitement of cockroaches aside, Noyes’ favorite experiment involves Gonzaga students bring science to life for students at Salish School of solving the fictitious Spokane. crime of a kidnapped to mold-growth on a bread ecosystem. Most activities dog, Fido. Students use not only emphasize the scientific content being taught chromatography (separating the colors in ink) to identify which marker was used to write a ransom note, in the classroom, but also the process of science itself. and thus, who was the guilty party. “I love this because “When college students enter my classroom, they it shows students that science applies to much more share a drive to pursue higher education. My students than just the classroom – it’s used in real life,” she says. hear what college is like, and that personal exchange makes these volunteers true mentors who inspire my Noyes is part of Science in Action!, an outreach students and invite possibilities that the kids might program developed by Gonzaga’s Chemistry and not have previously considered for themselves,” says Chemistry & Biochemistry departments, which Dominique Wiley-Camacho, the science curriculum includes visits to elementary school classrooms specialist at Salish School of Spokane. where hands-on experiments demonstrate just how fun scientific discovery can be. Activities range from altering the density of salt water to make an egg float, to Rohan Kundargi is GU’s outreach coordinator for student-directed investigations on factors contributing Science in Action!

Donald Stringle, lecturer-AT, Chemistry; Diana Taylor, office assistant, AVP; Alexis Robison, assistant coach, Women’s Soccer; Kendall Gallop, assistant athletic trainer; Joshua Patino, assistant coach, Women’s Soccer; Bennie Jordan, security officer; Danielle Teague, academic adviser, Academic Advising & Course Enrollment; Amanda Flores, academic coordinator, Athletics; Andrea Friedman, registered nurse, Health Center; Mary Bieberbach, program coordinator, Learning Strategies; Wayne Shadd, event manager, Hemmingson; Taylor Kirschenmann, strategic learning specialist, Learning Strategies; Dana Jacobson, lecturer-IR, Nursing; Valerie Shayman, behavior intervention team coordinator, Security

New Positions/Promotions

Lin Murphy, interim dean, Nursing; Vicki Weaver, intake specialist, Disability Access; Kathryn Stefano, senior financial aid counselor; Bryce Thomas, associate director, Learning Strategies; Deborah Ellis, program manager, Diversity, Inclusion and Cultural Engagement; Terezeta Graham, event manager, Hemmingson; Kristin McNeley, program manager, Annual Campaign; Matthew Edenfield, program manager, GU Outdoors; Jolanta Weber, associate academic vice president and interim dean for professional studies; Clement Lye, digital content producer, Virtual Campus; Rubena Cela, learning management system assistant administrator, Virtual Campus

Goodbyes

Chris Wheatley, associate director, CCASL; Christine Ryman, internship manager, Career Center; Brian Kenny, lead investigator, Title IX/EO; Amber McKenzie-O’Neill, director, International Admissions, Student & Scholar Services

Anniversaries Jill Culley, associate director, 15 Academic Advancement & Assistance; Todd Ullrich, grounds keeper, Plant Von Muller, assistant to the 10Carolyn dean, Arts and Sciences Ronna Madden, custodian, Plant; 5Financial Helen Van Blaricom, office coordinator, Aid

Cradle Call

Kathleen Jeffs, assistant professor and chair, Theater and Dance, and spouse Guy had a baby girl, Charlotte. Jordan Green, assistant women’s basketball coach, and spouse Jessica had a baby girl, Josephine.

Krista Mather, program coordinator, Center for Student Involvement, and husband Rev. Nic Mather had a baby girl, Charlee Rae.

Pam Ames keeps an eye on you.

Pam Ames may be most comfortable in muumuus and tutus, although she rarely wears her Red Hot Mamas costumes to work here as a communications officer in the Campus Security and Public Safety office.

But she can’t help but exude delight in talking about her group’s invitation to perform in the November Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

“I don’t mind being by myself, sometimes 10 or 11 hours at a time. Just the other day, two dark colored cars were seen driving in circles in the McCarthey parking lot, stopping and pausing as I watched them on our cameras (500 of them positioned across campus). They were following each other. I dispatched officers to check it out.

They were playing Pokemon Go,” Ames says.

“I became an empty nester recently, and I was in crisis,” she says, only partly tongue-in-cheek.

“I had always loved ‘I Love Lucy’ and the ‘Carol Burnett Show.’ I saw an ad for tryouts for the Red Hot Mamas, and I knew I had to try.”

On nights and weekends, the communications officers answer the University switchboard. “One regular gal, Babs from New Jersey, calls two or three times on game nights, with comments like, ‘It’s too close,’ and ‘I’m so proud of the boys,’” Ames says. “We all look forward to her calls.”

The group’s founder and longtime director, Mikki Stevens, watched the women perform. She quickly sorted out those with rhythm and those with two left feet. Those gifted with coordination became dancers and those without became the characters.

Ames is adept at both. Last April she became a Red Hot Mama, a nationally renowned group of parade and event entertainers, brightly costumed in red outfits, hats and lipstick. “And the chance to perform in the Macy’s parade was just the dangling carrot I needed,” Ames says.

For 22 years before GU, Ames served the Spokane Police Department, most recently as dispatch supervisor. “One of the last calls I received was when two deputies were shot near Northpointe. I was also working when the MLK day parade bomb device was found. Now I enjoy running into SPD officers who work for GU on weekend nights,” Ames says.

This is a woman who can’t sit still beyond her shift.

She volunteers for Northwest Honor Flight, Meals on Wheels and teaches Bible Study Fellowship.

Obviously, her job on the dispatch desk in lower Welch Hall is a quiet contrast to her schtick on the streets of NYC.

But mostly, “I’ve always loved being goofy.”

One Year Down: Medical School Partnership Thriving It was just one year ago the University of Washington School of Medicine formed a regional health partnership with Gonzaga to expand and enhance top-ranked, cost-effective medical education in Spokane, leverage expertise and innovation to educate future health care professionals, advance research, and begin to create collaborative solutions with the community to grow eastern Washington’s economy.

McCann, David Thorp, Kevin Measor, Nancy Staub and Allan Scruggs, in areas ranging from Molecular and Cellular Basis of Disease, to Mind Brain Behavior. Planning is underway for a new teaching and research facility on the GU campus, as well as interdisciplinary research projects.

Courtney Law was hired to manage GU’s part in the partnership, and advance shared research projects.

The report card looks good. A strong medical education foundation has been established.

Enrollment of first-year medical students has increased from 40 to 60 per year, and pending legislative approval, could rise to 80 in fall 2017.

Medical students are pleased with campus support services at GU, they report. Five Gonzaga faculty members are teaching medical students: Dan

In February, Dr. Darryl K. Potyk was named chief of Medical Education for the University of Washington School of Medicine-Gonzaga University Regional Health Partnership, and associate dean for Eastern Washington for the UW School of Medicine. He has served as a UW faculty member and physician in Spokane since 1994.

PAGE 3

AROUND CAMPUS >> Doug Kries and Pete Tormey are tag teaming a lecture series on Ireland. Philosophy Professor Kries presents “What Tocqueville Saw in Ireland in 1835: Photographs from his Footsteps,” March 2.

News Service Editor Tormey presents “Irish American Identity: Perspectives of an Immigrant’s Son,” March 9. Both free lectures are at 7:30 p.m. in the Wolff Auditorium. >> Women and Gender Studies will honor its seven co-founders publicly on March 8, 7 p.m., Hemmingson Ballroom, and cofounder Mary Jo Bona will deliver “Twenty-Five Years and Counting: Women’s Studies as a Field and the Queer Daughter’s Voice.” Free and open to the public. >>

The Wolff Company Chairman Fritz Wolff, former chairman of Gonzaga’s Board of Trustees, will discuss challenges and opportunities, and the rewards of getting and giving as he delivers the Pigott Entrepreneurship Lecture, March 21, 6 p.m., in Jepson’s Wolff Auditorium.

>> Dr. Rhea Seddon, USA’s first female surgeon astronaut, presents “Go for Orbit,” March 27, 7 p.m., in the Hemmingson Ballroom. Seddon’s three space shuttle flights included medical experiments that expanded understanding of the effects of space flight on humans and animals. >> Gonzaga received Spokane County’s All-Star Team Award recognizing its commute trip reduction committee and its work: Jim Simon, Joe Kinsella, Jim White, Tomson Spink, Rhonda Young, Angie Swan, Kaaren Goeller-Bloom, student Alec Pasqualina. >> Joe Madsen and the emergency preparedness and risk management team received a $3,000 award from United Educators recognizing a short video, produced by student staffer Alex McMichael to help Gonzaga’s staff and organizations mitigate risk. >> Sophomore David Ahern’s account of an avalanche victim retrieval, a narrative of the searchand-recovery operation, and a reflection on mortality and love earned first-place in WW Norton’s annual nationwide undergraduate essay contest. His senior lecturer is Heath Herrick.

PAGE 2

A DAY IN THE LIFE

NOTEWORTHY

Menard spans the globe

New Hires

Often before the crack of dawn, Richard Menard checks the morning’s news feeds to see what’s going on around the globe. As director of Gonzaga’s Study Abroad program he keeps a watchful eye on the world around the students he has sent abroad.

“In fall 2015, we witnessed the attacks in Paris, and shortly thereafter in Brussels. We located every student, and had to decide whether to evacuate, and determine how we could get them out of the country if we had to,” Menard says. “We’ve had earthquakes in Chile, New Zealand and Italy. Just because students aren’t physically here doesn’t mean they’re not part of the Gonzaga community, and we care for them in the same way.”

Needless to say, Menard has had some restless nights.

“Now we’re looking at Sinope, Turkey. That country is still in a state of emergency following last year’s attempted coup. We are working with our risk manager and faculty member to determine whether or not it’s a place suitable to send students on an archeological dig this summer.”

FOCUS ON... BEING GOOFY

“We have something for every Gonzaga student. We deliver.” – Richard Menard, Study Abroad

“I have no typical day. What I do is not glamourous with jet-set travel around the world. Safety and security is our top priority. Our work involves risk management, negotiating our insurance policy, working with Title IX folks, the counseling center, and advising students about how Study Abroad relates to what they want to do personally and professionally.”

Menard’s program is very popular. Nearly 47 percent of GU students study abroad by completion of their senior years. That ranks No. 22 nationally for schools our size.

Senior Caleb Dawson went to Chile for a semester to study Spanish. But he found there was a big difference between traditional Spanish and slang. He saw dancers freestyling But all is not shrouded in doom. “We have 700 in the streets, and asked if he could join in. “I couldn’t students studying around the world,” says Menard, speak slang at first, but we communicated through dance. who arrived at Gonzaga in 2012, met his future wife I learned there’s more to language than words.” here, and couldn’t be happier.

THE ART OF DISCOVERY Rachel Noyes (’17) recalls working alongside a girl named Naomi, at the Spokane Salish School. “We brought in Madagascar hissing cockroaches for the students to observe and apply what they know about insects. All of the students could hold a cockroach if they wanted. Naomi was simultaneously terrified and thrilled. When I set the cockroach in her hand, her eyes lit up, she smiled and immediately started asking questions.”

The excitement of cockroaches aside, Noyes’ favorite experiment involves Gonzaga students bring science to life for students at Salish School of solving the fictitious Spokane. crime of a kidnapped to mold-growth on a bread ecosystem. Most activities dog, Fido. Students use not only emphasize the scientific content being taught chromatography (separating the colors in ink) to identify which marker was used to write a ransom note, in the classroom, but also the process of science itself. and thus, who was the guilty party. “I love this because “When college students enter my classroom, they it shows students that science applies to much more share a drive to pursue higher education. My students than just the classroom – it’s used in real life,” she says. hear what college is like, and that personal exchange makes these volunteers true mentors who inspire my Noyes is part of Science in Action!, an outreach students and invite possibilities that the kids might program developed by Gonzaga’s Chemistry and not have previously considered for themselves,” says Chemistry & Biochemistry departments, which Dominique Wiley-Camacho, the science curriculum includes visits to elementary school classrooms specialist at Salish School of Spokane. where hands-on experiments demonstrate just how fun scientific discovery can be. Activities range from altering the density of salt water to make an egg float, to Rohan Kundargi is GU’s outreach coordinator for student-directed investigations on factors contributing Science in Action!

Donald Stringle, lecturer-AT, Chemistry; Diana Taylor, office assistant, AVP; Alexis Robison, assistant coach, Women’s Soccer; Kendall Gallop, assistant athletic trainer; Joshua Patino, assistant coach, Women’s Soccer; Bennie Jordan, security officer; Danielle Teague, academic adviser, Academic Advising & Course Enrollment; Amanda Flores, academic coordinator, Athletics; Andrea Friedman, registered nurse, Health Center; Mary Bieberbach, program coordinator, Learning Strategies; Wayne Shadd, event manager, Hemmingson; Taylor Kirschenmann, strategic learning specialist, Learning Strategies; Dana Jacobson, lecturer-IR, Nursing; Valerie Shayman, behavior intervention team coordinator, Security

New Positions/Promotions

Lin Murphy, interim dean, Nursing; Vicki Weaver, intake specialist, Disability Access; Kathryn Stefano, senior financial aid counselor; Bryce Thomas, associate director, Learning Strategies; Deborah Ellis, program manager, Diversity, Inclusion and Cultural Engagement; Terezeta Graham, event manager, Hemmingson; Kristin McNeley, program manager, Annual Campaign; Matthew Edenfield, program manager, GU Outdoors; Jolanta Weber, associate academic vice president and interim dean for professional studies; Clement Lye, digital content producer, Virtual Campus; Rubena Cela, learning management system assistant administrator, Virtual Campus

Goodbyes

Chris Wheatley, associate director, CCASL; Christine Ryman, internship manager, Career Center; Brian Kenny, lead investigator, Title IX/EO; Amber McKenzie-O’Neill, director, International Admissions, Student & Scholar Services

Anniversaries Jill Culley, associate director, 15 Academic Advancement & Assistance; Todd Ullrich, grounds keeper, Plant Von Muller, assistant to the 10Carolyn dean, Arts and Sciences Ronna Madden, custodian, Plant; 5Financial Helen Van Blaricom, office coordinator, Aid

Cradle Call

Kathleen Jeffs, assistant professor and chair, Theater and Dance, and spouse Guy had a baby girl, Charlotte. Jordan Green, assistant women’s basketball coach, and spouse Jessica had a baby girl, Josephine.

Krista Mather, program coordinator, Center for Student Involvement, and husband Rev. Nic Mather had a baby girl, Charlee Rae.

Pam Ames keeps an eye on you.

Pam Ames may be most comfortable in muumuus and tutus, although she rarely wears her Red Hot Mamas costumes to work here as a communications officer in the Campus Security and Public Safety office.

But she can’t help but exude delight in talking about her group’s invitation to perform in the November Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.

“I don’t mind being by myself, sometimes 10 or 11 hours at a time. Just the other day, two dark colored cars were seen driving in circles in the McCarthey parking lot, stopping and pausing as I watched them on our cameras (500 of them positioned across campus). They were following each other. I dispatched officers to check it out.

They were playing Pokemon Go,” Ames says.

“I became an empty nester recently, and I was in crisis,” she says, only partly tongue-in-cheek.

“I had always loved ‘I Love Lucy’ and the ‘Carol Burnett Show.’ I saw an ad for tryouts for the Red Hot Mamas, and I knew I had to try.”

On nights and weekends, the communications officers answer the University switchboard. “One regular gal, Babs from New Jersey, calls two or three times on game nights, with comments like, ‘It’s too close,’ and ‘I’m so proud of the boys,’” Ames says. “We all look forward to her calls.”

The group’s founder and longtime director, Mikki Stevens, watched the women perform. She quickly sorted out those with rhythm and those with two left feet. Those gifted with coordination became dancers and those without became the characters.

Ames is adept at both. Last April she became a Red Hot Mama, a nationally renowned group of parade and event entertainers, brightly costumed in red outfits, hats and lipstick. “And the chance to perform in the Macy’s parade was just the dangling carrot I needed,” Ames says.

For 22 years before GU, Ames served the Spokane Police Department, most recently as dispatch supervisor. “One of the last calls I received was when two deputies were shot near Northpointe. I was also working when the MLK day parade bomb device was found. Now I enjoy running into SPD officers who work for GU on weekend nights,” Ames says.

This is a woman who can’t sit still beyond her shift.

She volunteers for Northwest Honor Flight, Meals on Wheels and teaches Bible Study Fellowship.

Obviously, her job on the dispatch desk in lower Welch Hall is a quiet contrast to her schtick on the streets of NYC.

But mostly, “I’ve always loved being goofy.”

One Year Down: Medical School Partnership Thriving It was just one year ago the University of Washington School of Medicine formed a regional health partnership with Gonzaga to expand and enhance top-ranked, cost-effective medical education in Spokane, leverage expertise and innovation to educate future health care professionals, advance research, and begin to create collaborative solutions with the community to grow eastern Washington’s economy.

McCann, David Thorp, Kevin Measor, Nancy Staub and Allan Scruggs, in areas ranging from Molecular and Cellular Basis of Disease, to Mind Brain Behavior. Planning is underway for a new teaching and research facility on the GU campus, as well as interdisciplinary research projects.

Courtney Law was hired to manage GU’s part in the partnership, and advance shared research projects.

The report card looks good. A strong medical education foundation has been established.

Enrollment of first-year medical students has increased from 40 to 60 per year, and pending legislative approval, could rise to 80 in fall 2017.

Medical students are pleased with campus support services at GU, they report. Five Gonzaga faculty members are teaching medical students: Dan

In February, Dr. Darryl K. Potyk was named chief of Medical Education for the University of Washington School of Medicine-Gonzaga University Regional Health Partnership, and associate dean for Eastern Washington for the UW School of Medicine. He has served as a UW faculty member and physician in Spokane since 1994.

PAGE 3

spirit

CHART TOPPING EXPOSURE What top 5 Ranking Means to University For the month of February, Gonzaga carried a No. 1 basketball ranking in the country, and with it came a significant increase in attention, not just to the basketball program, but to the University, as well. And there’s no sign that will diminish soon, the Zags still ranking in the top 4.

“It has had a significant impact on students inquiring about coming to school here,” says Julie McCulloh, dean of Admission. Already this year, inquiries have exceeded 55,000. The previous largest pool of inquiries was for the fall 2015 class, with 49,709.

“Being ranked the best in the country certainly changed our conversations with donors,” says Brian Ruark, assistant vice president for University Advancement. “The notoriety helped open doors and built enthusiasm about Gonzaga.

I don’t see that changing.” Alumni chapter game watches are drawing record crowds.

Website visits have increased significantly since GU was first ranked No. 1 on Jan. 30. Gonzaga is averaging 155,000 weekly visits to its main website (gonzaga.edu), up 20 percent, and 228,000 visits to the athletic website (gozags. com), up 57 percent.

GONZAGA FACULTY AND STAFF NEWSLETTER

›› 47% study abroad, 2 ›› UW-GU partnership at 1, 3 ›› Tournament talk, 4 MARCH 2017 | VOL 18 | #6

TAKING STOCK: BASKETBALL HALL-OF-FAMER IS ALL ABOUT OTHERS Social media lit up when the West Coast Conference announced Gonzaga’s John Stockton would be part of the ninth class inducted into the WCC’s Hall of Honor, March 4, in Las Vegas.

“It’s about time.”

Athletics’ Facebook page views were up 48 percent in February; and its Twitter account gained 14,000 followers, to 85,000 total.

Requests for interviews with Coach Mark Few and his players are off the chart, says Sports Information Director Barry Henderson. Few has done national programs like SportsCenter, The Dan Patrick Show, Jim Rome, Rich Eisen and others. Przemek Karnowski was featured on ESPN.com, SB Nation, and will be on CBS Sports, along with Nigel Williams-Goss and Few later in March. Williams-Goss will also be featured in the NCAA Tournament preview issue of Sports Illustrated. The Associated Press and USA Today are also doing national stories

100 Students Spend Spring Break in Service Through Mission:Possible, about 100 Knoxville – community building students are traveling during Spring Montgomery, Ala. – civil rights Break to sites across the U.S. to work history and impoverished alongside nonprofit organizations in communities serving vulnerable populations. WeekNeah Bay – Makah Reservation long immersion opportunities are support student-led with support from these faculty and staff advisers: Brooklyn New York City – children of Beeler, Aunja Staymates, Darcy incarcerated women Phillips, Hannah Klaasen, Andrew Portland – homeless services Mercer and Hilary Beardslee, all of CCASL; Jeff Dodd, English; Heidi San Francisco – Golden Gate Nordstrom, Physical Education; Jim National Parks Conservancy Simon, Sustainability; Megan Ferney, St. Louis – homeless services Business; Natalie Hastings, Rudolf Fitness Center; Sabrina Nelson, Tacoma – adults with Housing; and Nico Bernabe, Cura developmental disabilities Personalis.

A missioning ceremony to “send off” This year’s locations and projects are: these teams takes place Friday, Mar. 10, 5:30 in the Student Chapel. All are Denver – refugee resettlement and welcome. elementary school outreach

on the program that will run in March, and CNN International is doing a story on Assistant Coach Tommy Lloyd and our international guys, Henderson says.

The impact is just volume, says Deputy Athletic Director Chris Standiford. “This is what our staff is excited and prepared for, and embrace the opportunity. The coolest thing for us is we’re in the midst of this really big moment, working twice as hard but enjoying it twice as much, and not missing a beat with the other six sports (in action right now).”

MEN’S NCAA TOURNAMENT First Four – March 14-15 Dayton

Regionals – March 23-26 Kansas City First/Second Rounds – March 16-19 San Jose Buffalo Memphis Greensboro New York City Indianapolis Milwaukee Final Four – April 1, 3 Orlando Phoenix Tulsa Sacramento Salt Lake City

WOMEN’S NCAA TOURNAMENT First/Second Rounds – March 17-20 Final Four – March 31, April 2 16 non-predetermined campus sites Dallas Regionals – March 24-27 Bridgeport, Conn.

Lexington Oklahoma City Stockton

VIEW ONLINE AT: www.gonzaga.edu/spirit

“What took the league so long?”

Truth be told, Stockton probably delayed this as long as he could, as he is much more comfortable in the stands than under the spotlight. He played basketball for the love of the game, and his desire to compete, which was honed on the family’s driveway against big brother Steve.

Stockton earned WCAC Player of the Year honors in 1984, two Olympic gold medals (1992, 1996) and a permanent place in the Naismith National Basketball Hall of Fame (2009). His drive to compete at his highest level has not diminished.

“I remain amazed at the skill level John demonstrates,” says Shann Ferch, Gonzaga professor of leadership studies and a man who plays with and against Stockton and other Sunday warriors. “He could help some NBA teams in the playoffs right now. But beyond the excellence, John loves his family. He lives humbly, and with great respect for truth and compassion. He is a man of powerful conviction and faith. He inspires me to be a better man.”

Today, Stockton is a family man first. He served Montana State last season as assistant coach so he could watch his senior daughter Lindsay compete in her last year of college basketball. And he most always found a way back to the Kennel or wherever the Bulldogs were playing to see his then-freshman daughter Laura play for the Zags. He hardly ever missed a game son David played for Gonzaga (2010-14).

“He is consistent in every aspect of his life,” says Nada (’84), John’s wife of 32 years. “And he’s loyal. You always know what you have in John. That’s a blessing in this crazy mixed up world. You can always count on him.”

Here’s another sign of his character. “When his agent was renegotiating a contract for him with the Utah Jazz, talks broke down.

John wanted no part of the stress between he and the Jazz. So he respectfully told his agent he’d take care of it, and with a handshake agreed to terms with (owner) Larry Miller,” Nada says John’s other love is his community. He has lent a hand to more people and projects behind the scenes than anyone will ever know . . . and that’s the only way this extremely unpretentious and caring man will have it. His loyalty was evident, playing 19 seasons and 1,504 games for the Jazz, still the most ever played for one team in NBA history.

John’s No. 12 Jazz jersey was retired a year after he stopped playing.

At a dinner preceding the ceremony, one speaker after another told of things behind the scenes that made John the true gentleman that he was; not basketball exploits.

Jazz teammate Karl Malone talked about his mom’s illness, and the daily calls he’d receive from John asking how she was doing. When she died, John showed up at the funeral unannounced, in the backcountry bayou where Malone grew up, Malone recalled, tears running down

In a 1983 Bulletin, Stockton responded to a question about autographs: “It’s embarrassing (to be asked). It’s not like I’m a UCLA player who is expected to go to the NBA.” Above, John on NBA draft day, 1984.

his face.

Coach Jerry Sloan, choking up, talked about a friend whose 14-year-old son was dying of cancer, and the joy on the lad’s face when John made a lengthy bedside visit, about which there was never any publicity. The boy died the next day, perhaps content.

When Gonzaga employee Cindy Perry’s son broke his arm during a high school baseball game, John reportedly contacted and arranged for his orthopedic doctor to tend to

this young man. “We knew each other only through our connection to the baseball team, yet he went out of his way to make sure our son was seen by the best,” Cindy said.

So while the fact that John Houston Stockton is inducted into the WCC Hall of Honor for his basketball prowess, it is his human qualities that make him a hall-of-famer in minds of friends and family members alike.

MARCH 2017