University of Portland Museum

Carolyn

In Memory: Rev. Claude A. Pomerleau, C.S.C., August 16, 1938 – July 21, 2019

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United Nations Peace Medal given to Rev. Joseph Powers, C.S.C. by the United Nations for his efforts in establishing and promoting the Peace Studies Program at UP. (University Museum)

Peace studies began at the University of Portland in 1975. Fr. Joseph Powers, C.S.C., the then Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, acting as impresario. This program of Interdisciplinary Studies was at first an academic concentration terminating in a certificate, it continues today as the Social Justice Minor, a program of undergraduate study.

Dr. Loretta Zimmerman (History) was the first director; then Dr. Matthew Baasten (Theology), and from 1993-2008 Rev. Claude Pomerleau, C.S.C., (PhD., Political Science) headed Peace Studies, and (later) Social Justice Studies. Fr. Pomerleau died July 21, 2019. He served at the University of Portland until his retirement in 2014 — and of course was still teaching post-retirement, leading students in classroom instruction and discussion through Spring 2019. Retired, but not retiring.

Rev. Claude Pomerleau, C.S.C., 1998 Presidents Report

International Relations was his academic box; but of course Fr. Pomerleau’s reflex was to escape pigeonholes and boxes. From his arrival on campus in 1991, his courses were cross-listed with the Peace Studies Program. When he became chair of the Department of History and Political Science he was already Director of Peace Studies (he was chair of Political Science and Director of Peace Studies simultaneously, 1994-2000). He was still Director of Peace Studies when the program was renamed in 2003 and then reimagined in 2006 to incorporate service internships into the curriculum. Fr. Pomerleau continued in the director’s role through 2008. Plus, somehow, while on sabbatical in 2003, he also served as the founding director of “The Department of Diplomacy and International Studies” at Uganda Martyrs University (Kampala); and also also, as visiting professor of International Studies at the University of Chile (IEI) since 1991. Many-sided, Claude preferred international football (Futbol = soccer) to the American game. Yes, Pilots’ Soccer first of all. Many-many-sided. Priest. Teacher. Scholar. Pastoral Resident. Prison Chaplain. Musician. Friend. In every role, an encourager cheering and inspiring others onward.

A model where what is received is handed on with value-added (see, listen, act); what the Holy Cross religious tradition refers to as an Educator in the Faith.

2014 Retirement Recognition

Campus Archaeology: On the Shoulders of Giants

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Bath House, stone and mortar foundation, Viewed from Waldschmidt Hall stairwell, May 21, 2019 (University Archives photo)

At the completion of Dundon-Berchtold Hall landscaping is one of the final phases, squaring off the green-space-quad joining Dundon-Berchtold, Romanaggi, Swindells, and Waldschmidt Halls.  While scraping away gravel and going some inches below the top layer of grass and soil when dressing what has been the construction-workers’ staging site, the excavators excavated an unexpected find.  An archaeological puzzle.  The machines uncovered a tracery of foundation-walls, disclosing the remains of a structure outlined in the field north of Waldschmidt Hall. 
     

Obstruction extracted, Bath House site, May 21, 2019 (University Museum photo)

A slight embarrassment and inconvenience when the University had not warned the workers against the presence of buried concrete.  But gosh, a great question, because no one was aware that there had ever been a structure there.

A detective story!  To the Archives!  The excavators had uncovered a piece of UP sports culture; the cement and stone remains of a locker room out-building, fitted out to complement our show-piece all-weather out-door roof-covered-state-of-the-art Track & Field facility (1903).   The changing room and shower was heated, too!

And the Solution?  Starting with only the location, we turn for clues to the database list: Buildings, Past, Present & Demolished.   Searching there for any conjectural entries; for example, The Bath House, a generic name with no given location and obelized (uncertain) dates, but the listing nestled among the early buildings.  Provisionally pairing an unknown ruin with an unspecified building name, and a hint for possible further investigation. 
     Next, seek witnesses.   There were four pioneer Holy Cross Religious, including the first Holy Cross president, Father Michael A. Quinlan, C.S.C. (1902-1906), who arrived here in 1902.  Among them, Brother Wilfred Schreiber, C.S.C.- our most valuable witness– who served here the longest (1902-1933) and whose care was maintenance, fire-stoker, gardener, campus security officer and fixer, and a ministry cheering students.  [Pioneer Four]   

Colosseum Interior, 1904 (University Archives)

Bro. Wilfred recorded this ‘clue’ via a 1944 oral history project: “The old bath house was built by Fr. Quinlan at the time the Colosseum was built and it served as a shower room and dressing room for the athletes; also a lavatory for the students.  It was built about half-way between the Main Building and the Colosseum.”   (When the new gymnasium was finished it became a shop and was not moved from there until about 1937.  Then all the shops and out buildings were transferred down below the steam plant. Ed’s note.) **

From Bro. Wilfred’s account we now have a name, function, and approximate date and location.  The next step is the search for contemporary documentary evidence.  Such as are found in the School Notes printed in the early campus publication, The Columbiad.  This blurb from 1906 provides a precise beginning date, and, by giving the dimensions, adds a specific, checkable data-point:

The new bath house has been nearly completed.  When finished it will afford the students splendid accommodations for dressing rooms, lockers and shower baths, which occupy a floor space 14 x 58 feet.  The whole structure is much larger, containing in addition to what has been mentioned above two apartments for toilets and a room for the hot water plant.  If the weather permits, the work should be completed by the first of March.  By that time the old bath room will be converted into a carpenter shop.  The Columbiad, Feb. 1906, p. 77.

The work was completed on-schedule in March, and heat was added to the out-building in 1909.  The circumstantial case for identification complete.  Probably.

The last question is the date of demolition.   The only notice about the removal of buildings and the realignment of sidewalks and paths in the area behind West (Waldschmidt) Hall is found the The Beacon of September 19, 1936, prior to the opening of a new academic building.  The student newspaper gives a progress report on campus changes, telling how during the summer two structures and several trees were removed in order to create a green-space of lawn between West, Howard, and the new Science (Romanaggi) Halls.

QED. The Bath House, March 1906-Summer 1936.  Name, function, location, and dates.  Probably.  The ruin certainly of the building shown here, which is incidentally included (bottom-left) in this image of West (Waldschmidt) and Christie Halls  (reproduced in The Columbiad, June 1926).

Columbia University, pre-Howard Hall. The Columbiad, June 1926, p. 277 “West Hall, Bath House indicated” (University Archives)

**Recollections of Columbia University of Portland Oregon; preserved and edited, Rev. Michael Early, C.S.C., (1944, p. 44), thanks also to those who organized and compiled the databases consulted: Bro. David Martin,C.S.C., first UP Archivist; Frs. Barry Hagan, C.S.C. and Robert Antonelli, C.S.C.; and Cora Miller and Martha Wachsmuth, long-time Archives associates.  Fr. Early’s credentials for editing the Recollections are impeccable, he was himself a graduate of Columbia University (High School) in 1912, and before 1944 he had served as Vice President and President of Columbia U. 1933-36, 1935-1940, respectively.  So, a qualified witness in his own right.

Additional Resources
1914  Aerial Campus 

Connelly, A Century of Teaching, Faith, and Service  

Covert, A Point of Pride 

Covert, A Point of Pride, with pixs

2019 Retiring Faculty

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At the end of the 2018-19 academic year, four members of the University of Portland faculty will retire after many years of service to this institution and making a difference in the lives of untold numbers of students.  The University gives thanks to our retiring faculty for their dedication and commitment to teaching and learning and wishes them all the best.

Dr. Russell Butkus, Theology & Environmental Studies, at UP since 1985
Marcela Cinta, International Languages and Cultures, at UP since 2007
Susan Hinken, Library, at UP since 1980
Dr. Mead Hunter, Performing and Fine Arts, at UP since 2012

(Photos from the University Archives, Clark Library, Marketing & Communications, Performing and Fine Arts, International Languages and Cultures; Click on image to enlarge)

 

Additional photos on display in the Buckley Center first floor display case across from the Studies Abroad office.  

Brushes with Fame: Buzz Aldrin

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Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon, July 1969 (NASA photo)

Fifty years ago during the summer of 1969 human-space flight reached, and humans walked on, the surface of the moon.  The next year we scored the SECOND person to walk the lunar trail as UP commencement speaker.  Not Neil Armstrong, but Buzz Aldrin spoke to the 1970 graduation class, commissioned the new AFROTC cadets, and left us inspired.  Astronaut Edwin Aldrin served as Mission Specialist on the Apollo Eleven craft that landed on the moon 20 July 1969.

Alumni Bulletin, July 1970

University President Rev. Paul Waldschmidt, C.S.C. and 1970 Commencement Speaker, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Alumni Bulletin, July 1970

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Alumni Bulletin, July 1970

 

Commencement Speech by Buzz Aldrin, Alumni Bulletin, July 1970

 

 

 

Buckley Center at 50

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Buckley Center, West Side, ca1990
Buckley Center, West Side, ca1990

Buckley Center is fifty years old, dedicated February 7, 1969.

When new, Buckley Center met a major need on the UP campus for faculty office space, general-use classrooms, and nursing and communications labs.

The Alumni Bulletin (January 1969) touted the advantages of the new faculty and classroom building, “a modern facility in every sense of the word“, including fresh features like:

AIR-CONDITIONED 400 seat auditorium …
the newest audio-visual equipment…
the most up-to-date nursing apparatus…
three psychology instruction rooms equipped with two-way mirror glass…
the language laboratories, the radio and TV laboratories…
and study rooms and seminar rooms look more like a board room…. and [where] students and professors may study Shakespeare or Buber, whatever the class may be, around polished tables, surrounded by formal arm chairs, or colorful posture chairs. … Variety abounds!
                                                                                                  … a total of 92,1187 square feet.  It’s big!”

Plastic-molded desk chairs will always have disputed chiropractic effects, but The School of Nursing’s Learning Resource Center, has continued to grow in space and clinical sophistication, and Buckley has come to house student services such as The Shepard Academic Resource Center and The Learning Commons.   As a result of changing with the times and adapting to student needs, even at age fifty Buckley Center remains a positive contributing factor in the University receiving high national and regional rankings for the quality and value of the student experience in our community. 

 

For more photos and memorabilia associated with Buckley Center, visit our display case on the first floor of Buckley Center across from the Studies Abroad Office.

Also, Clark Library Digital Collections

Pilot Potpourri

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These four figures are found around campus – inside or outside, for better or for worse.  No judgement here.   Just the question, can anyone identify them?  Sort of a trivia / treasure hunt tour of campus.  Location anyone?  Take a look, each tells a (forgotten) story from UP history.

A. Figure Striding, The Beacon October 12, 1962, p. 1

B.  Urban League, Equal Opportunity Award, Education.  For special efforts to increase success for local black students at UP.  Alumni Bulletin, July 1977, p. 3.

C.  Papa Sierra, The Beacon April 24, 1980, p. 2

D.  ‘Le Petit Feu’, The Beacon October 28, 1982, p. 3

Four Corners meet at the Center

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Día de los Muertos invitation postcard, 2018

A University is a cross-roads and intersection.  We mix intellectual disciplines in Schools of Business, Engineering, Nursing, Education, Arts and Sciences and hold to core competencies in the education of every student moving forward toward a University of Portland degree.  We also mix and meet a diversity of students.  The life-experiences and the family, geographic, national traditions encountered among the student body and faculty – in the people of our campus community – are diverse and enriching.

Implementing the University’s Vision 2020 Strategic Plan, a new academic unit was formed this summer, The Office of International Education, Diversity, and Inclusion.  One of its first initiatives, a new Diversity Center – a nurturing, inclusive, safe space for all members of the University Community – was dedicated in September 2018.

Alumni Bulletin, January 1948, p. 11

Enrollment analysis for the 206 students of 1918-19 records 2 Peruvian plus 8 international students drawn from Canada.  In 1938-39 the count is 117 non-Oregonians of a 795 total; in 1958-59 the 1434 students include 257 drawn from 8 countries beyond the United States (where Hawaii is still part of an outsider demographic in 1958).

Cultural diversity within the student body population has been part of UP for years.   And for years and years student clubs and organizations have sponsored programming on campus to introduce and celebrate awareness of our cultural differences.  From International Week (every November, from 1963), The Hawai’i Club’s annual Lu’au (in the spring, since 1974), to Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

Día de los Muertos altar, 2007

Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) was first organized on campus in 2005 by the students of UP’s Foreign Language House and Sigma Delta Pi (Spanish Honors Society).   The holiday expresses the Catholic holy days of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day from a particular cultural tradition.  Our students observe Día de los Muertos with the creation of a traditional altar display where personal objects, photographs, and food honor and remember deceased loved ones.   The day-long celebration also includes displays of artwork and a fiesta with food, music, and dancing. 

Click image to advance through the slide show

[Show thumbnails]

 

Videos of previous Día de los Muertos celebrations (from The Beacon)

2016 – http://www.upbeacon.com/multimedia/7459

2017 – http://www.upbeacon.com/multimedia/9814

Dr. Art Schulte: A Life on the Bluff

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Dr. Art Schulte, arrived in 1958, appointed Instructor in Business Administration; retired 1996, appointed Executive Vice President Emeritus and Special Assistant to the President.  A good and faithful servant.

Dr. Schulte receiving the Culligan Award from Rev. Richard Rutherford, C.S.C., 1990
Dr. Arthur Schulte, Dean of the School of Business, 1965
Dr. Art Schulte & Rev. David Tyson, C.S.C. University President, 1992
John Goldrick, Dr. Schulte, Rev. David Tyson, C.S.C. President, Roy Heynderickx, Br. Donald Stabrowski, C.S.C., Tony DiSpigno, 1996
Dr. Schulte with students, 1967
Dr. Schulte as Financial Vice President, 1971
Front: Bob Fulford, Dr. Schulte, Louis Masson, Rev. George Bernard, C.S.C.; Back: Mike Johnson, Bob Duff, Richard Harris, Mauro Potestio, Nick Bauman, Manuel Macias, 1987
Dr. Arthur Schulte, Acting President, 1981
At the Renaming of West Hall to Waldschmidt Hall, 1992
Dr. Schulte and University President, Rev. Paul Waldschmidt, C.S.C. move Columbia Hall, 1976
Dean of the School of Business, 1967
Alan Timmins, ’81, Robert Pamplin, Dr. Art Schulte, ca1980
Dr. Schulte and Robert Pamplin, Jr.
University President Rev. Thomas Oddo, C.S.C. and Rev. George Bernard, C.S.C., Hal Westby, Dr. Schulte, Guy Sievert, 1986
Art and Ruth Schulte, 2003

In Memory: Dr. Arthur Schulte, Jr., March 15, 1928 – September 24, 2018

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100 Years of Service to UP: Dr. Manuel Macias, 34 years; Dr. Arthur Schulte, 34 years; Dr. James Covert, 32 years in 1992

Dr. Arthur A. Schulte, Jr., died September 24, 2018 at age ninety in his sixtieth year as a Pilot. Which is not to say that his priorities were strange, though there is a hint of madness topping the list when asked in 1998 how he would choose to be remembered and Dr. Schulte confessed:

“Well, I’d like to be remembered as a man who loved the University and the people he worked with, as a man who worked and prayed each day for the University’s success. As a man who worked hard to keep the University’s progress as a whole in mind, and bent all his efforts to making it secure so it could grow safely and responsibly.  As a good steward of the Church I loved.  As a father who loved his daughters deeply.  And as a husband – a good one, I hope, but there you’ll have to ask Ruth. God blessed me with Ruthie.  Or that I used the tools God gave me to make the University better than it was when I started.  I helped the place change for the better, I hope.” (Portland Magazine, Spring 1998)

In truth, that hope was full and realized.  Dr. Schulte’s work earned him the University’s highest faculty honors and national recognition for his scholarship.  And also the University’s trust, twice steering the University in crisis times, appointed Acting President following the resignation of Brother Raphael Wilson, C.S.C., and once more after the tragic death of Rev. Thomas C. Oddo, C.S.C. in 1989.  In fact, he served as Executive Vice President for 25 years in total, from 1971-1996.

Therefore, very much a good-steward as in the quotation above, but remember those words were delivered in the Alumni magazine, and large heart is able to answer more than one duty.   Dr. Schulte’s family also earned the full devotion of a full heart.  And after their children were grown two Schulte scholarship funds were established at the University assisting a new and expanding generation of the Pilot family learning, living, and growing at UP.  From 1996 to date, the Dr. Arthur A. Schulte, Jr. Endowed Scholarship and the Tessa Ruth Schulte Endowed Scholarship funds have provided a helping-hand for nearly eighty students attending UP.

Gallery of photos from the University Archives

Spires of Learning Reach Up to the Sky

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In our earliest documents, when the University Catalogue describes the situation and advantages of the young University it hits grace notes that are still found in the words of the Alma Mater (Upon the Bluff, high over the Willamette. . ..)  The basic text from 1902 – alongside course offerings, program sequences, fees and tuition – is both stable and embellished over the years. By 1907-08 the campus is described in the Catalogue as a salubrious Shangri La-like health resort, “… the entire year the temperature varies little.  Excessive cold or heat is comparatively unknown”, and where no one is ever sick (not a single serious illness in the six years since the school’s founding!).

The 1907-1908 Catalogue was issued twice: in the second revised version, after the initial description of the situation and mission, there are the usual paragraphs detailing the wonderful classroom building (a one building school-house in 1907) and a supplement which offers a more exact description of the extensive grounds and the facilities available for student recreation (this paragraph, below, is repeated in each new edition of the Catalogue from 1907-1934).

University Archives, Columbia University Catalogue, 1907-1908, revised, p. 10

University Archives, 1914 Campus Aerial M2; Christie Hall (right) arrives in 1911

 

 

 

 

Enrollment for the 1907-1908 school year stood at 159 students.  The University has grown from 1901-2018; from 25 acres to 150, and a current undergraduate and graduate community of 4,200 students.  The new Franz Campus developments bring vastly improved recreational facilities still offering that ample opportunity for physical exercise and outdoor sports so necessary to the developing student.  (1907-08 revised).  This balance of classroom and other activities acknowledges that the whole-person is central to the educational mission defined by Fr. Basil Moreau, C.S.C. (founder of The Congregation of Holy Cross), for all his schools: We shall always place education side by side with instruction, the mind will not be cultivated at the expense of the heart.

University Relations, Franz Campus, architect’s drawing, 2018

Announcement on Franz Campus expansion plan

CURRENT BULLETIN: The University is situated on a bluff near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in one of the large metropolitan areas of the West.  Located in a residential section of the city of Portland, the 150-acre campus offers lawns, hundreds of trees, and beautiful buildings in a quiet, peaceful setting which is conducive to the learning process.