Momentum: Winter 2016 - The Future Starts Today

Momentum THE MAGA ZINE OF THE UNIVERSIT Y OF MARY

WINTER 2016

the future starts REFLECTING ON VISION 2030

MARCH

for Life In January, University of Mary students touched the hearts of the outside world while stranded on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, attracting international media attention for their resilience and cheerful witness while confined to their buses returning home from the 2016 March for Life in Washington DC. The 100 Mary students were snowbound for 54 hours and their dedication to life so impressed the march organizers that the university was invited to lead the 2017 March for Life Jan. 27 in Washington.

Organizer Anne Dziak expects close to 500 University of Mary students to board buses for this year’s march.

VOCATIONS

Jamboree

In partnership with the Diocese of Bismarck, Annunciation Monastery and Assumption Abbey, the University of Mary hosted its inaugural Vocations Jamboree in March. More than 50 religious orders were represented during the event that invited students to discern God’s will for their lives and witness the joy and beauty of lives consecrated to God.

DAY OF

Service The university’s third annual Day of Service in September drew more than 1,000 students to various sites around the community, volunteering in projects benefitting community programs and nonprofits, as part of the university’s commitment to the formation of students into lifelong servant leaders.

Contact Momentum Editorial (701) 355-8013 Circulation (701) 355-8262 Editor Karen Herzog

Graphic Design Specialist Holly Schaeffer

Graphic Design Specialist Laura Scott

Photographer Jerry Anderson

Last

Built to I

n the rangelands of western North Dakota, you can still find occasional fieldstone obelisks called ‘stone johnnies,’ relics of the 1874-77 gold rush, when they guided stagecoaches rumbling across the otherwise unmarked grasslands from Bismarck to the Black Hills of South Dakota.

These prairie sentinels are a version of the ancient ‘milestone’ in use for thousands of years, most famously in the marvelously engineered roadways constructed by the Roman Empire. [‘All roads lead to Rome,’ was literally true — Emperor Augustus erected a Golden Milestone in the Roman Forum to mark the center of the empire, where today there stands a great stone pillar, the Umbilicus Urbis Romae.]

Like many practical, physical objects, the milestone has been transformed into a metaphor for a pivotal event in history, or a new stage of development in life.

The University of Mary has reached an important milestone along the road to the fulfillment of our Vision 2030 strategic plan and capital campaign. The university received its 2,500th gift of the campaign, reaching nearly $54 million of the $96 million goal for Phase 1 of Vision 2030.

Visible proof of that progress is taking shape all across campus in the form of a new women’s residence hall completed and a fieldhouse and university center rising. Invisible, but just as deeply felt, are the exciting new programs and offerings that will enrich the lives of countless students and the people of our region in the years to come.

Milestones, ancient and modern, offer us vital information: What is our destination? Are we following the right road?

How far have we traveled and how far have we yet to go? Are we being true to the Voice which calls us onward?

In all of this we know that if we build the right road, and build the ‘road right,’ we build something enduring. Over the course of 700 years, Romans built more than 55,000 miles of marvelously constructed stone roadways that connected vast swaths of what would become Europe and even beyond.

So well designed, so expertly fashioned, these roads have endured in many places for 2,000 years, and some are still in use today.

So, too, the University of Mary builds to endure into a future so long that it goes well beyond our sight.

No mighty effort succeeds without a great dream to inspire it, without the effort of constructing it, and without the mile markers to guide its course and keep it moving in the right direction.

The University of Mary has embarked on this great endeavor and we are proceeding in faith and confidence in its good purpose.

It is for our students, the precious generations now at our doorstep and those to come, for their joy, for their flourishing, for their moral formation and virtuous lives, that we have set forth on this road.

We are incredibly grateful for you, our alumni and friends, for your prayers and your efforts that have helped the university reach this wonderful milestone.

Even as we celebrate our arrival at this milestone, we are looking ahead to the next, proceeding in steady faith, because we know the ultimate destination.

We are building the Via Domini – the Way of the Lord.

Monsignor James P. Shea President www.umary.edu

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FRO M T H E P R E S I DE N T

We need to be preparing graduates in these ways, not just to graduate and get a job, but to become a leader that stands for

something eternal.

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paying it

Forward O

ver the decades, the folks responsible for the vital job of raising the funds to support the University of Mary have changed, but their mission remains fixed: Build for the future.

Three of the most recognizable faces of the university’s fundraising are Dr. Harold (Doc) Miller, Neal Kalberer and Jerome Richter. The work of these three spans the decades from 1968, when Doc Miller started, through Neal Kalberer’s many years of fundraising, to Jerome Richter’s current role as Vice President for Public Affairs and Mission Advancement.

Richter is the beneficiary of the accumulated wisdom of his predecessors.

Keeping the university moving forward by investing in high-quality facilities and programs requires financial resources from friends who support the university — its donors.

Kalberer’s advice is simple: “The best thing to do is go out and see people. There’s nothing better a person can do than that.”

All three agree that what is most vital in talking to potential donors is faith in the cause they are raising money for.

“You need to know why you’re raising money and how you’re going to handle it,” Miller said. “The biggest difference between me and most people is that most people are interested in the ‘what.’ I’m more interested in the ‘why’ than the ‘what.’ It goes back to our mission.”

Of all the qualities that make fundraisers effective, the only thing that is always necessary is that they believe in the mission of the University of Mary, Richter said.

“If the ‘why’ isn’t in our hearts, the ‘what’ doesn’t matter,” Richter said.

“You are representing the university in a public way, and you must believe in what the university is trying to accomplish,” Kalberer said.

“The university is making a difference in people’s lives, in 18-year-olds’ lives,” he said. “I have a firm belief that as students graduate, they go out and make a difference in this world.”

Richter has an image of the university’s future that was awakened while guiding his most recent pilgrimage group through Rome. At places such as the Forum, he was relating to his group the chaos and turbulence of society in the Rome of that era, and some of its resemblances to the problems of society today.

Richter was struck by the contrast of that tumult of ancient Rome with the haven of Subiaco and Monte Cassino, where St. Benedict lived in a cave to escape the chaos of his time.

Benedict’s decision to step away from the strife of his age shaped and saved civilization for hundreds of years, Richter said, because it was Benedictine monasteries that preserved classical learning after the fall of Rome.

“If we continue to stay true to what we are here at the university, we can be what the Benedictine monasteries were for their time,” he said.

He sees the University of Mary as a place of peace and learning in a serene and quiet landscape, where the great truths of civilization and Christianity are kept and given, held and shared.

Looking forward 20 years, Richter said, “our graduates should be the leaders of North Dakota, making a difference through moral courage and serving truth.

“We need to be preparing graduates in these ways, not just to graduate and get a job, but to become a leader that stands for something eternal.”

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Two words, Lumen Vitae, were chosen to be engraved on the Great Seal of the University of Mary, expressing its dedication to following in all its endeavors — ‘the light of life.’

LUMEN VITAE UNIVERSITY CENTER In April, the university celebrated the groundbreaking for its new Lumen Vitae University Center, a hub at the heart of campus where the Mary community will gather for fellowship, food, fun and study.

With spaces such as Founders Hall conference and dining venue, the Student Success Center, Student Life/Development and 24/7 dining, the nearly $22 million center includes the bookstore, bank branch, ‘living rooms,’ coffee shop, C-store, clinic, Hall of Fame concourse, a warm and cozy fireplace, and a connection to the McDowell Activity Center This space, when complete, will become the warm hearth of campus in which our students, faculty, family and friends can experience the excitement of sharing ideas and the beauty of building friendships, forming bonds that knit our community together.

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Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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t e e Sw HOME

HOME

ROERS HALL The new $11 million, 276-bed for freshmen women will also house faith-centered St. Scholastica Learning Community for women, an on-site suite for Sisters, and a lovely chapel. The hall is named for Jim and Sandra Roers, who made a multi-million dollar donation on behalf of Roers Development.

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engineers

First-Class (of)

START AT MARY

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ccording to the National Association of Engineers (NAE), in the year 2020, graduating engineers should: • be able to define and solve problems • be lifelong learners, and • have had interdisciplinary learning.

To Dr. Terry Pilling, program advisor for the University of Mary’s newly established engineering program, the university hits on all counts.

In its very first year, the University of Mary’s engineering program has attracted an impressive 45 freshmen.

More than 50 expert professional engineers from the city and the area are adding the benefits of their real-life experience to the design of the university’s engineering curriculum and the new classrooms and labs planned to house the program.

This group meets monthly to brainstorm and fine-tune the structure of the program.

“We would like our engineers to be in demand,” Pilling said.

“It would be nice if engineering companies were coming to the University of Mary first when recruiting and hiring engineers,” he said.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––--------------------––––––––––––––––– Engineering program director Terry Pilling, sixth from left, meets monthly at Bismarck’s Bobcat Acceleration Center with a group of engineers who share their expertise as the University of Mary designs the program’s curriculum and facilities. This group includes engineers Pius Fischer and Dave Schneider, both of Basin Electric; Jaret Hoesel, Scott Schuh, Steven Sundvor and Trevor Krause, all of Bobcat: Mark Limpert of Stantec, Joseph Tousignant, Ideal Aerosmith, and Luke Arnold, Moore Engineering.

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Terry Pilling is an assistant professor at the University of Mary, teaching algebra, statistics and mathematical constructs of physics. He earned his MSc in Theoretical & Experimental Nuclear Physics at Saskatchewan Accelerator Laboratory, and his PhD in High Energy Particle Physics and Gravitation from North Dakota State University. Pilling is the winner of a number of awards in his field and author of numerous publications and articles.

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rofessional engineers tell Pilling that it can be difficult to find engineering graduates with adequate communication and salesmanship skills.

“Engineers have to give presentations and work in teams,” Pilling said. “You have to be able to explain projects and sell them to customers.

Because of athletic schedules – time spent training, at games, and on road trips – student athletes miss a lot of classes and have less time to do homework.

“That’s where we (at the university) have a great advantage,” he said.

Classes are smaller so students have more access to professors, as well.

The University of Mary’s foundation of liberal arts courses — that interdisciplinary learning cited by the NAE study — is built into the school’s curriculum.

Like other engineering programs across the country, the university will be looking at the challenge of recruiting and retaining women to the program.

“By the time students graduate with an engineering degree, those skills will be ingrained. There will be no concerns, no stage fright.”

“Everyone is trying to attract more female students to engineering,” he said. “We’re working on that. Whatever is turning (women) away (from pursuing engineering) happens before they get to us, and that needs to be addressed.”

The University of Mary’s size also gives it the advantage of being nimble in a quickly changing field, Pilling said.

“Engineering is always using new technology and new software,” he said, “and we want to be right on top of it. Bigger universities can’t change as fast.”

This university’s goal, Pilling said, is to graduate engineers who require significantly less on-the-job training time than the typical new engineer.

“We are accommodating this,” Pilling said, “by setting up a system to get them the notes they miss and have other students who were in class bring them up to speed.”

The university’s engineering program will focus primarily on mechanical, civil and electrical engineering, and will also include chemical and petroleum engineering, Pilling said.

The new engineering program is located within the university’s School of Arts and Sciences. After the engineering facilities are built, the university’s goal is to make engineering its fifth school.

Because Bismarck and this region have so many engineering companies, it will be really convenient for their needs to have an engineering program in Bismarck, he said.

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he University of Mary incorporates into engineering, as in all its courses, a high standard for ethics and moral values as well, Pilling said.

To become licensed as an engineer, a clean record is required, he said. Abuse of standards, such as practicing in a state where one is not licensed, not paying your expenses, or cheating a client, means a licensing board can take away your license, he said.

University of Mary graduates will have been taught to hold to high ethical values, with no corners cut, the result of the university’s courses in ethics and values that other universities don’t require, he said.

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illing is pleased that more than half of the freshmen engineering students are student athletes. In Pilling’s experience at other universities, that is rare.

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The Marian Grotto Each student who comes to us is on a pilgrimage – to find God’s purpose for their life, to grow closer to that purpose, and to find amid the noise and distractions of life, places of peace and prayer, of reverence and worship.

This grotto, dedicated to Mary, the Blessed Mother, will become a place of holy listening to the guidance of God, to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, a sacred place to experience the love and comfort of the Mother of God.

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FIELDHOUSE Nearing completion and scheduled to open for the 2017 spring semester, an 80,000-squarefoot fieldhouse will include a 4,250-squarefoot Wellness Center and a 200-meter indoor track, four basketball courts, a climbing wall and other amenities to meet the recreational, athletic and fitness needs of students.

We believe that true health encompasses body, mind and spirit and that athletic competition teaches the lessons of effort and reward, and the ability to handle defeat and victory with equal grace.

UNIVE RSIT Y OF MARY ATHLETICS

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“

Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition.

”

— Jesse Owens

Making a ith the launch of a women’s swimming program this 2016-17 season, the University of Mary added its first major new sport in two decades, making the women’s swimming program the university’s 17th varsity sport. Home swim meets are being held at the BSC Aquatic & Wellness Center in Bismarck.

W

“We have strong swimming programs locally and in the state. One of the best aquatic facilities in the region is located in Bismarck. We have had tremendous success with our women's athletic programs overall and feel that women's swimming will be another successful sport for Marauders athletics.”

“This is a perfect time to add a sport to the University of Mary athletic department and women’s swimming is a great fit with our campus and community,” said Marauders Athletic Director Roger Thomas.

Led by head coach Allan McCallum, the 16-member Marauders swim team captured their first-ever program win on Oct. 28 against Augustana.

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UNIVE RSIT Y OF MARY ATHLETICS

Standing from left: Kaycie Stewart, Kate Fox, Rebekkah Bond, Jaiden Schuette, Emma Hafdahl Sitting from left: Ida Narbuvoll and Alexis Zeis

on the

RIGHT TRACK

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oth the University of Mary men’s and women’s track and field teams were named a 2015-2016 U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Academic Team. Men’s and women’s teams had grade point averages above a 3.0.

Six student-athletes from the women’s track and field team were also awarded with All-Academic Individual Honors.

of our track and field program,” head men’s and women’s track and field coach Mike Thorson said.

“Success in the classroom and success in our athletic endeavors are a trademark

Marauders’ women competing in track and field and cross-country events have continued to shine this season. The team was voted the No. 3 team in NCAA Division II National Coaches Poll for the fourth straight time conducted by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.

“We aspire to the highest levels in both academics and in athletics and this has been proven time and time again with the academic honors that have been bestowed upon our program and athletes.”

The NCAA regional crown is the first for the Marauders cross-country program.

Their head coach, Dennis Newell, was named the USTFCCCA Central Region Coach of the Year and the NSIC Coach of the Year for the second time.

Ida Narbuvoll and Alexis Zeis

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Newell credits the women with the perseverance to meet the challenges of the competition and the strength of the team’s commitment to each other.

ALUMNI NE WS & NOTES

1980s

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD

ANNE OPPEGARD, ‘82 retired from the faculty of Augustana University, Sioux Falls, SD, where she taught accounting for 28 years.

She had previously taught at Jamestown (ND) College for five years.

JENNY (RAMBUR) JOHNSON, ‘09 married Brock Johnson on August 27, 2016 in Bismarck.

NICHOLE (OHLHAUSER) DOLL, ’12 married Shannon Doll on September 10, 2016 in Linton.

1990s TAHNI CULLEN, ‘97 is the author of a book, "Josiah's Fire: Autism Stole His Words, God Gave Him a Voice" which was released on September 1 through Broadstreet Publishing. "Josiah's Fire" follows the journey of Tahni and Joe with their son, Josiah's, autism diagnosis and the startling discovery of what he is able to communicate on an iPad even though he is nonverbal.

2000s ANN (SACKMAN) HOFF ’00 in June completed a fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN. She has recently accepted a new job with Mayo Clinic Health System as a palliative medicine consultant.

JOHN TALERICO ’07 of Windsor-Essex is set to host the top 16 boys high school hockey teams in Ontario March 7-10 at South Windsor Arena and the Vollmer Complex in LaSalle.

DESSONVILLE ORDAINED

JANET PAUL ‘09 took a new job at the University of Northern

FATHER WESLEY DESSONVILLE, a 2005 graduate

Iowa as Director of Dining Services in Cedar Falls, IA.

2010s BARRY WILEY II, ‘10 married Priya, relocated to Los Angeles, CA, working as a Services Delivery Executive for Cisco Systems, and has a 4-month-old daughter, Kareena Faith Wiley.

MALLORY (WIPF) HOLZ, ’12 Graduated in July 2016 from the University of South Dakota PA program and has accepted a position in pulmonology with Regional Health in Rapid City, SD.

JULIE (HELLE) READE, ‘13 has continued her education since leaving the University of Mary and is currently working on her Doctor of Business Administration degree. Reade says, “I could never have made it this far, or have done this well academically without the instructors I had at the University of Mary.”

IN MEMORY KELLY STECKLER, ’94 died October 16, 2016. She was the Library Director of the Morton Mandan Public Library.

SMALL BLESSINGS SCOTI (HUTZENBILER) WELDER, ’09 & Daniel Welder, a girl, Austin Josephine, on August 27, 2016.

KEEP IN TOUCH! HERE’S HOW. Submit your information at: umary.edu/forms/alumni or mail to:

Alumni Office, University of Mary 7500 University Dr. Bismarck, ND 58504 alumni@umary.edu

of the University of Mary with a bachelor of arts in theology and pastoral ministry, was ordained in May and presided at his first Mass with University of Mary President Monsignor James P. Shea in attendance. Dessonville is a Dominican of the Central Province who worked at Shanley High School in Fargo from 2006-09, when he entered the novitiate for the Dominican Friars in Denver. He made his first vows as a friar and studied for the priesthood at the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated with a dual degree master of arts in theology and master of divinity. His first assignment was as parochial vicar of St. Dominic Parish in Denver.

Of his time at the University of Mary, Dessonville said: “It was a place where I encountered the Gospel of Jesus of Christ and the faith of the Church in both my fellow students and my professors. Because of the small size of Mary, we were a tightly knit group with a strong sense of community, helping me to discern my vocation to community life.

“The University of Mary instilled in me a love of putting my faith into action in ministry and teaching and in studying theology and the tradition of the Church. The witness of the Sisters, the monks, the priests of the diocese and the faithfilled faculty and students had a profound effect on my life and vocation. It forced me to ask in a real and vulnerable way what God’s plan was for my life.”

Please include: Your name, address, email address, year of graduation, home and work phone number, alumni spouse’s name and class year Photos sent electronically should be print quality.

Sorry, we can’t return photos sent by mail.

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44TH ANNUAL UNIVERSITY OF MARY JAZZ FESTIVAL Featured artists New York Voices, Dave Douglas & High Risk

SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 7:30 PM MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 7:30 PM Belle Mehus City Auditorium 201 North Sixth Street, Bismarck General Admission: $15 Senior & Student: $10 UMary students/employees: Free

umary.edu/jazz