O N B R I E F LY The Rise Campaign finished at $182 million on June 30, with 19,304 donors creating 232 new scholarships, 9 new professorships, renovating or building 12 new halls (including the Beauchamp Rec Center now under construction), buying the land for the eventual River Campus on the river below Corrado Hall, and creating such interesting ideas as the new Humor Project and the Ethics Initiative, part of which is a Character Project class taught by the University’s new president, Father Mark Poorman. “The most successful campaign in the 113-year history of the University concluded in June,” sad Father Poorman, “and we started redoubling our efforts on July 1. We want to make the University of Portland accessible to any and every bright creative student who deserves and desires a UP education, period.” Admirable ambition, that, and we will need very generous help. Targets for the next campaign: new residence halls, an academic center, and 500 new scholarships. Whew. Best Value The top Oregon school in the Kiplinger’s Personal Finance annual rankings of best values in private colleges and universities: the University of Portland. The annual report evaluates 600 schools nationwide for outstanding education and economic value. Enrollment on The Bluff during the Campaign (2007 to 2014) went up 31%, from 2,753 undergraduates to 3,612 this year, as the biggest freshman class ever arrived (1,100!), among them the finest young runner in American history, New York native Mary Cain (at left), who already turned pro to train with Oregon’s Alberto Salazar ’13 hon., but who also very much wanted an academic challenge in college. Faculty Feats Nursing’s Susan Stillwell won the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s ‘Scholarship of Teaching Award,’ presented to one nursing educator annually; she is particularly absorbed by the use of technology in nursing education. ¶ Engineering’s Deborah Munro (in photo) won the 2014 Vernier Software and Technology Engineering Contest, honoring teachers who use Vernier sensors creative-
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ly in their engineering classes; Munro is deft at engineering and biomedical research. ¶ Computer science’s Anmdrew Nuxoll earned an Erskine Fellowship to teach at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand this fall; he’s a specialist in artificial episodic memory and game theory. ¶ Off to Mysore, India, for a year on dual Fulbright grants: literature professors and married couple Molly Hiro and Lars Larson. ¶ Off to excavate and explore the ancient Roman city of Polléntia in Mallorca, Spain, this past summer: theology professor Father Dick Rutherford and chemistry professor Ray Bard, who will return, with students in 2015. The Father Bill Beauchamp Rec Center began in May, and should be finished next fall. It will take up all the grassy space between the Chiles Center and Fields/Schoenfeldt halls (the public safety office moved into Haggerty Hall), and feature an indoor track, a climbing wall, and two basketball courts, among much else. Soil and concrete from the dig went down onto the river campus, the old oaks were milled for future campus use, and the public safety building fell to a bulldozer (driven briefly by University president Father Mark Poorman, which was entertaining). We will not drop Howard Hall, contrary to rumor; that old barn may well outlast the rest of the campus in perpetuity. Student Feats Alexandra Quakenbush ’14 won the Rita Peterson Award in Science Education from the American Association for the Advancement of Science; she is absorbed by ethics education in biology research. ¶ Seniors Martin McMahon, Ingrid Nelson, Michelle Siegal, and Tyler Desmarais won the national American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Accounting Competition in Washington, D.C. , earning $10,000 and the chance to say national champs the rest of their careers. ¶ Both the Speech & Debate team and the Mock Trial team advanced to their discipline’s national championship rounds, for the first time in the 113-year life of this university. Whew. ¶ The University was again among the top three small schools in America in earning Fulbright grants for postgraduate study: 46 students have earned Fulbrights over the last 13 years. ¶ Biology major Sarah Donohoe earned national postgrad scholarship from the Harry S. Autumn 2014 13
Truman Foundation; she is intent on a career in wilderness conservation. ¶ The student Engineering World Health club was in Haiti for a week this summer, fixing infant incubators, electrosurgical units, patient monitors, suction pumps, and ‘other repairs,’ as senior Maldeep Kang said, politely and wearily. All told University students spend some 180,000 hours a year on service projects. Holy moly. Father Mark Poorman, C.S.C., is the University’s 20th president, as of July 1. Some things you did not know about this equable soul: he was born in Phoenix and earned his doctorate at Berkeley, so he is our first Western president; he will continue to teach his popular ethics course; he is riveted by how the University actually deep down teaches character more than anything else; he was once the rector of legendarily shaggy Dillon Hall at Notre Dame; he continues to say weekly Mass in the residence halls; he was a University of Portland regent for 12 years, and knows our dreams and ambitions very well indeed; and we wish him God’s peace and light in his crucial new job. Back on campus November 12, for a free Music at Midweek noon concert in Hunt Recital Hall: the masterful American songwriter Steve Forbert, Grammy nominee and composer of some 300 songs and 30 records. Information: Brian Doyle, bdoyle@up.edu.