Madeleine Boyle (philosophy/math) has had papers accepted for presentation at four conferences this spring: “A Catholic Philosophical Response to Pro-Natalism and Adoption,” accepted for the Society of Christian Philosophers Mountain-Pacific Regional Conference, the National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference, and the DePauw Prindle Undergraduate Ethics Symposium. Also, “The Truest Truth: Analytic Statements in Mathematics,” was accepted for the Pacific University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference.
Students
Everett McLean Law School Acceptances
Everett McLean (philosophy) has so far been accepted into the following law schools: University of San Francisco School of Law, Santa Clara Law, Lewis and Clark Law School, McGeorge School of Law, Washington University School of Law. Congratulations Everett!
CAS Senior Toast
The Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences
and the Student Leadership Advisory Council (SLAC)
invite all CAS Graduating Seniors and Faculty to the Third Annual
CAS Senior Toast
Founders Day, April 12, 4:30-5:00pm in St. Mary’s Student Center Lounge
All CAS Professors and Graduating Seniors are welcome!
Please come and enjoy refreshments, a short formal program
and a faculty appreciation slideshow
Anna Murphy Placed 3rd in the Pi Kappa Delta National Debate Tournament
Anna Murphy, Senior Business major and president of the University of Portland Speech and Debate Union, advanced to the semifinals placing 3rd in the Pi Kappa Delta, National Debate Tournament held in Lexington Kentucky last week. Congratulations Anna!
Paul Munn Accepted to Cultural Vistas Summer Internship in Germany 2016
Paul Munn (senior, double-major in German Studies and Engineering) has been accepted to a competitive and prestigious Cultural Vistas Summer Internship in Germany for summer 2016. After making it through a rigorous selection process that involved writing a c.v. and statement of purpose in German, Paul was chosen to complete a paid summer internship with a German engineering firm. (The placement is not yet finalized, but he has been contacted by two firms so far.) It is such a terrific opportunity for a student who has been so hardworking in two disciplines.
He will also be speaking about his experiences with German and Engineering at Founder’s Day, on our panel “Expand Your World: Combining Language Study with a Second Major” during Session I, 10:15-11:05, in Franz 026. We’d love to see you there!
Six Students Awarded Fulbright Grants
Six University of Portland students have been awarded prestigious Fulbright grants to work and study abroad. Four of the Fulbrights are for English teaching positions in Germany, one is for an English teaching position in Turkey, and the other is for an English teaching position in Mexico.
The University was ranked first nationally among its peers for Fulbright recipients in 2012- 13, 2011-12, 2010-11 and 2007-08, and second nationally in 2009-10, 2008-09 and 2006-07. Since 2001, 54 students from University of Portland have earned Fulbright grants. Recipients of the German teaching grants are Megan Lester, an English and German studies double-major from Veradale,Wash.; Erin Petersen, an organizational communication and German studies double-major from Sioux Falls, S.D.; Mikayla Posey, a communication and German studies double-major from Kingman, Ariz.; and Michelle Wilcox, a history and German studies double-major from Folsom, Calif. The recipient of the Turkish teaching grant is Rebecca Parks, an English major from Pittsburgh, Pa., and the recipient of the Mexican teaching grant is Megan Fitzgerald, an elementary education major from Hillsboro, Ore.
The United States Fulbright program began in 1946 after World War II to “assist in the development of friendly, sympathetic and peaceful relations between the United States and other countries of the world”through the exchange of students, scholars and professionals. The program operates in more than 140 countries worldwide.
For more information contact John Orr, assistant to the provost, at x7286 or orr@up.edu.
Sourced from UpBeat.
Northwest Undergraduate Conference for Literature (NUCL)
Saturday, March 19, 2016
The Northwest Undergraduate Conference on Literature creates a professional atmosphere to promote student criticism and challenge student critics. NUCL gives undergraduate and advanced high school students an opportunity to present their own scholarly papers or creative works in organized panels of their peers. Students are able to share and discuss their knowledge through these presentations, and are encouraged to participate in the discussion of fellow NUCL papers. Aside from presenting their papers, and listening to papers written by their peers, students are invited to attend NUCL’s keynote speakers, who are noted academics and writers in the field of literature.
Overview:
- NUCL is open to college and university students and honors or advanced-placement high school students.
- Conference sessions include 3-4 papers, plus student respondents facilitating discussion.
- NUCL invites 15-18 minute papers embodying your own, fresh response to an English or foreign language literary text, or texts (we will not accept papers longer than 10 pages in length and papers must be written in English). Consult “Submission Information” for more details.
- NUCL invites panel proposals: submit to us 3-4 related papers from your group.
- While the primary emphasis of NUCL is on critical/scholarly writing, NUCL also invites student poets and essayists to submit 1 essay, or 5-7 poems. Those chosen will read their work in a few sessions reserved for original poetry and personal essays.
- On behalf of NUCL, The University of Portland offers prizes and a scholarship for the best papers and works submitted, including the “Brass NUCL Award” for the hardest-hitting paper.
- All whose work is chosen for NUCL will receive official record of their participation.
Keynote Speaker:
Dr. William Deresiewicz is an award-winning essayist and critic, a frequent college speaker, and the best-selling author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. He taught English at Yale for ten years and at Columbia for five. His essay “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education” has been viewed over one million times. Deresiewicz is a Contributing Writer for The Nation and a Contributing Editor for The American Scholar. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New Republic, The London Review of Books, and elsewhere. He has won the Hiett Prize in the Humanities, the Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and is a three-time National Magazine Award nominee.
Come back to this website frequently for up-to-date information about NUCL, the conference speaker, deadlines, and registration. Or please contact conference chair Molly Hiro at nucl@up.edu.
NUCL is sponsored by the Department of English; the Provost’s Office, the College of Arts & Sciences; and the Dean of Admissions, all of the University of Portland
“To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire, and to answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar.” —Samuel Johnson, Chapter VIII, The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
The General
- Courtesy of Thomas Dempsey
On the evening of Saturday, January 23, 2016, over 400 students, faculty, and guests packed Buckley Auditorium for a special showing of “The General,” a classic black and white silent film staring Buster Keaton that featured a full film score written by Environmental Studies major Dana Coppernoll-Houston as her senior capstone student research project. Under the directorship of Dr. David DeLyser, the film score was performed live by the UP Orchestra. Sponsored by the McNerney-Hanson Endowed Chair in Ethics, Dr. Andrews, Dean of CAS, noted that, “The General explores ethical themes of war, love, death, honor, loss, and joy. Produced in 1926, it is a film that critics have called the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made. The film and orchestral score invite us to enter-into a work of art in order to be transformed by it. The film raises the question of the relationship between ethics and art. Why do human beings create art / music / poetry / drama / theater at all? The General illuminates for us deep, moral truths about the human condition. It is no accident that artists, ranging from Plato’s Republic down to our own American democratic experiment, are often viewed as perhaps the single most dangerous element in society. After all, artists speak thru the discourse of symbol, illusion, metaphor. On the other hand, ethics, the Greeks remind us, entails rational discourse amidst the search for virtuous action. As a work of art, The General pushes rational discourse to its absolute limit. Think of Greek tragedy, the medieval passion play, 19th and early 20th century Italian and German opera, the works of Moliere and Jean-Paul Sartre and Chekov, improvisational jazz, contemporary RAP music, etc. In the College of Arts and Sciences, this uneasy relationship between ethics and art underlies what is principally meant by the ‘liberal” or ‘liberating’ arts. It is what makes the humanities and the liberal arts possible, it is what animates the Catholic sacramental imagination and the Holy Cross mission of this University.” Edmund Stone, national film score expert, presented a pre-concert film and music talk.
Students Receive The Murdock Poster Prize in Environmental Science
University of Portland hosted the 40th Murdock conference on November 6th and 7th. Two University of Portland students earned the Murdock Poster Prize award in Environmental Science. Their poster was titled: “Performance of a Vegetated Roof with Xeric Species in Portland, OR” and was co-authored by Calli VanderWilde and Brooke Holmes. Ted Eckmann acted as their faculty advisor.
The Road to UP Fullbright
UP prides itself on being ranked third in the nation among producers of Fulbright Scholars. The path to teaching or doing research in a foreign country after graduation requires months of preparation, as seniors find out through working on Fulbright applications.
Dylan Vahradian, a triple major in Spanish, philosophy and political science, applied for a research Fulbright in Chile, approaching it as a jumping off point for figuring out what kind of education he wants to pursue in the future.
“I didn’t feel ready to go immediately into graduate school. I don’t quite have a good understanding of what I want to do,” Vahradian said. “The Fulbright will hopefully allow me to explore an avenue that otherwise I wouldn’t have the opportunity to.”
In his research, Vahradian is especially interested in land right issues of indigenous people in Chile. Having started the application process halfway through his junior year, he describes the process as hectic, but simultaneously rewarding because it pushed him academically.
“It definitely has been the thing that I have put the most effort into in my entire life,” Vahradian said.
Vahradian noted that researching his subject and developing his ideas took up most of his time, but that the process provided him with clarity, allowing him to already narrow down what he wants to do with his life after graduation.
Fatima Scotto-Rodriguez, a Spanish major, applied for an English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) grant in Spain. She hopes to learn from different teaching styles abroad to become a better teacher in the future.
Working on the grant proposal was the hardest part of the application process for Scotto-Rodriguez. The grant proposal is a two-page outline for students to explain the purpose and vision they have for their projects.
“You are like, ‘How do I sell myself?’ But at the same time it helps you build confidence,” Scotto-Rodriguez said. “Now I know how to really express why I’m a better candidate than other people.”
In being forced to reflect on herself and working closely with several professors at UP, Scotto-Rodriguez said that the application process has already yielded valuable results.
Augustus Leveque-Eichhorn, a political science and Spanish major, applied for an ETA in Spain after he found out about Fulbright from professors. In his grant proposal, he pitched the idea of teaching ballroom dance to Spanish students learning English as a second language.
“I thought that it’d kind of be an informal way for students and the community at large to continue their English language learning,” Leveque-Eichhorn said.
He believes that the international outlook gained from participating in community projects and teaching abroad will be beneficial for the career he aspires to have in politics.
“I do think that that being able to say that I’ve been part of an international community, been able to assimilate into a new culture is something that will help me in the long run,” Leveque-Eichhorn said.
The applications were due on Oct. 13 and award recipients will be announced between March 2 and May 29, 2016.
–Story from the Beacon by Alina Rosenkranz