Fr. Tom Oddo, CSC served as the 17th president of the University of Portland until his death in a traffic accident, twenty-five years ago on October 29, 1989. He was forty-five at the time of his death; a dynamic leader and in love with the University. Four years previous, at the end of the fall semester sending the students home for Christmas vacation, he wrote of himself and the University.
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On October 26, 1936 the University paid a sum of $600 to Mr. Mark Paulson for relinquishing his rights and claims to the name, “University of Portland”.
One resident of the University of Portland’s History Museum in Shipstad Hall is a life-size, half-a-manikin in a trunk named Resusci Anne. With resilient rib-cage and sturdy pipes, Anne has survived hundreds of nursing student trials toward cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Resusci Anne was manufactured in the 1960s by a Norwegian toymaker, Asmund Laerdal, and acquired by the UP School of Nursing in 1969. Current nursing students receive hands-on and real-life situation training in the School of Nursing’s Dean Terry Misener Learning Resource Center, a five-bed, state-of-the-art, model hospital and clinic dedicated on April 8, 2008. Anne, fully recovered and honorably retired, receives visitors in the University of Portland History Museum each semester, in particular, students in Introduction to Nursing and Healthcare 101. Today the new hard-to-injure interactive patients in the Misener Learning Resource Center include multiple male and female manikins, a pediatric manikin, 3 infants and a newborn, plus a top of the line high-fidelity sim man 3G, all computer controlled to simulate symptoms and behaviors in the Nursing environment.
A Person in the Heart of a Community: “Students will keep a president alive and honest.” *
The Fifteenth president of the University of Portland was the first to be Inaugurated at a faculty convocation. Following the experiment, Fr. Paul Waldschmidt offered these words of thanks to the University community:
…heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all of you for the heroic efforts you made to assure the success of the inauguration. . . .
…by an accident of fate, I happened to be the one upon and around whom the attention was centered, a recognition given based on the years of contribution to the work of higher education made by this University . . . [a communal legacy] in which all of you have shared significantly by your dedicated service. In these days of frills and pressures, I hope that all of us may keep in mind the essential activity and responsibility of a University – the development of the minds of its scholars, both junior and senior; and the added dimension of a Catholic University – the spiritual and apostolic formation of the students.†
The Seventeenth president mentioned this legacy directly in his Inaugural Address, Fr. Tom Oddo saying:
I am most excited . . . about the invitation and honor which you are holding before me today. I can accept them only because I have found here a community that will never let me do the task alone.
Naming them as the three pillars, the Holy Cross community and the community of faculty and staff – “who have always been committed to the excellence of this place” – and also “a student body of young, vibrant people, eager to be touched by the wisdom of the ages, most ready to learn and live out the values, the service, the social concern that this university espouses.”
All of whom are “people who have chosen this place because of its heritage of academic excellence and professional preparation, because it is a family in which they can feel at home and be nurtured.”‡
Inauguration dates:
Rev. Paul E. Waldschmidt, C.S.C., January 13, 1963
Br. Raphael Wilson, C.S.C., March 11, 1979
Rev. Thomas Oddo, C.S.C., October 10, 1982
Rev. David T. Tyson, C.S.C., March 3, 1991
Rev. E. William Beauchamp, C.S.C., September 19, 2004
Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C., September 26, 2014
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*Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., Keynote Address, Inauguration of Fr. Oddo, Portland Magazine, Fall 1982.
†Rev. Paul E. Waldschmidt, C.S.C., UP News (faculty newsletter), January 15, 1963, vol. 1, no. 12
‡Rev. Thomas Oddo, C.S.C., Inaugural Address, Portland Magazine, Fall, 1982; full text in the University Archives
For more pictures and history of University presidents visit the Clark Library’s Digital University Presidents Collection displaying images of photographs and objects held by the University Archives and Museum (with descriptions from the Archives and Museum).
“UP dietician debunks freshman 15 myth” The Beacon, 23 September 2010
“Freshmen 15: Part of the meal plan?” The Beacon, 15 September 2011
“Bon Appetit adapts for students with gluten allergies” The Beacon, 4 October 2012
“Freshmen 15 myth flops” The Beacon, 19 September 2013
There are certain perennial themes and stereotypes that govern the headlines of the opening weeks of school, predictably returning each year along with the student population: homesickness, study habits, the dreaded freshmen fifteen.
In UP history, the freshmen-15 was once a literal, external, and potentially lethal phenomenon – well, lethal insofar as a small boulder close to hand might, as a blunt instrument, be turned spontaneously against an inconsiderate roommate. (Roommate-relations another oft recycled back-to-school theme.)
Part of the ritual of rushing Upsilon Omega Pi fraternity was the reception of a 15 pound pledge rock; nicknames were also bestowed. Pledges harvested their own rock from scree at the base of the Bluff. Upsilon Omega Pi (see related entry, under keyword hearse) was a campus service organization, chartered as the Pep Club in 1950; they were the core organizers for the beach party, toga dance, bonfire, and week-long homecoming festivities; the fraternity also served as the caretakers and animators of Wally Pilot.
According to the 1984 Reference Manual, “Over the past 35 years it has been tradition for pledges to carry a symbolic Upsilon Rock. This Rock builds strength, not just physical strength but also mental strength.” The rocks were not only symbolic, and so woe betide the pledge who was found without his assigned rock in his possession during the five-week pledge period. The surviving specimen on display in the University Museum weighs at least 15 pounds and is painted with the pledge’s nickname and the Greek letters U-o-P: Upsilon Omega Pi.
In 1964 the University of Portland had a projected enrollment of 1850 students. With the dedication of Mehling Hall (with a planned capacity for 367 residents), we expanded the residence offerings to allow 535 women and 395 men to live on campus. As we begin the 2014-2015 academic year, we have 1117 women and 905 men living in on-campus residence halls. And venerable Mehling Hall (capacity 381 students) continues to serve the University community. The ‘Tree of Life’ mosaic sculpture on the front façade remains an apt symbol of the vitality, joy, and friendships that grow among the 376 students (including RAs) who currently call Mehling home during their years at UP.
Rev. Theodore Mehling, C.S.C. was the 11th president of the University, serving from 1946-1950. The formal dedication of Mehling Hall on November 22, 1964 featured Mrs. Donald Frazer as the principal speaker. Gretchen Frazer earned a Gold Medal in Skiing at the 1948 Olympic games at St. Moritz. As part of the dedication activities, earlier in the month the women’s social sorority, Sigma Beta Phi, sponsored a performance by entertainer Jack Benny in the Mehling ballroom. Working the college-age crowd, the comedian continued to insist as always on being only 39 years old; though in fact his national broadcasts and celebrity had begun well before any of the students were born. (Mr. Benny’s radio program ran on NBC & CBS from 1932-1955; his television show, 1950-1965. Our current Hollywood connection, Kunal Nayyar ’03, lived in Corrado during his first two years on campus).
An eight story residence, at that time Mehling was the tallest building on campus and in surrounding north Portland. The dedication program notes as a special feature of the hall, “Two high speed Westinghouse electronically controlled automatic elevators.” The ‘speed claim’ of the elevators is today regarded by many residents as skeptically as Jack Benny’s famous claim to be a robust 39.
This year marks the University of Portland’s first fifty years in Salzburg, Austria. On August 30, 1964 the University sent its pioneer group of 30 students and director, Fr. Ambrose Wheeler, C.S.C., to enter a two-semester European adventure. Beginning the University’s oldest and most popular overseas study program.
Since that beginning, between 30-40 undergraduate students pursue their Portland degree each year through classroom study, cultural excursions, and individual travel in Europe. According to student and alumni reports, there is no down-side.
At the all-alumni reunion in June 2014, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the University’s 50 years in Salzburg, friends in Salzburg presented this gift of a statue of St. Ambrose, a pillar of Western learning and patron of our founding director, to reside at the home campus in the Clark Library. With summer sessions also hosted in the Merianstrasse site since the 1990s, nearly 2000 University of Portland alumni can claim the City of Mozart as part of their college curriculum.
For more Salzburg study abroad photos from the University Archives and Museum, click on this link:
https://sites.up.edu/museum/salzburg-trips/
On August 24, 1891 the cornerstone of West Hall was dedicated in a public ceremony, the public promise of the foundation that would grow to become our University of Portland community. West Hall was the first building on the University campus. Originally the home of the Methodist-sponsored Portland University (1891-1899), Archbishop Christie acquired the building and land on July 20, 1901 for the new Columbia University which opened September 5, 1901. West Hall was designated a National Landmark in 1977. At its century mark, West Hall received a major refurbishing and renovation and was renamed Waldschmidt Hall on October 17, 1992.
For more pictures and history of West/Waldschmidt Hall visit the Clark Library’s Digital University Building Collection, displaying images of photographs and objects held by the University Archives and Museum (with descriptions from the Archives and Museum).
The University of Portland campus continues to grow. One hundred years ago life on the Bluff cycled through just three buildings: West, Christie, and Howard Halls. That was the story.
Today the campus – upper and lower – is 150 acres, with 30+ buildings supporting and sheltering student life. So this brief, helpful orientation for new members of the University Community.
If you can hear the bell chimes of the Bell Tower, following the sound will lead you to Bauccio Commons and The Chapel of Christ the Teacher; the south corner of the academic quad where body and soul are nurtured and fed.
If you look up and see a purple P against a white background, you are at the sports and practice fields along Willamette Boulevard: the Chiles Center, Merlo Field, Prusynski pitch, for varsity and club sports.
If looking west from Etzel baseball field you see a gorilla on the horizon: well, some matters are beyond explanation. All anyone knows is that the gorilla has risen joyously above Villa Maria at the opening of the school year on and off since 1998.
If you look up from green space into these marvelous arches, you are lost: off-campus, in Cathedral Park at the base of the St. John’s bridge.
Dr. Kathleen “Kate” Regan, professor of Spanish at the University of Portland, died unexpectedly on July 23, 2014. The University community mourns Dr. Regan, remembering her as an innovative, engaged, and popular professor who joined the faculty in 1995. In 2000 Dr. Regan was honored as the Carnegie Foundation’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year. She led study abroad programs to Spain and Costa Rica and focused her research projects in Spain. Dr. Regan completed her first film Sephardic Legacy of Segovia: Pentimento of the Past in 2005. This was followed by a film about Sephardic singer Judy Frankel in 2008, and an unfinished film project on Don Quijote de la Mancha. Dr. Regan incorporated filmmaking into her classes at UP as a fresh medium to engage her students in a way that writing cannot. Leading the department of Foreign Languages from 2007-2010, since 2010 Dr. Regan served as chair of the Collaborative in International Studies and Global Outreach (CISGO).
The following are Dr. Regan’s words about the purpose of her work from a November 30, 2000 Beacon interview following the announcement of Dr. Regan’s Carnegie Outstanding Teaching Award.
[On becoming a Spanish professor] When I was a freshman in college, I knew that I would be teaching. I just felt that calling and that’s what it was. It was really bizarre. You’re not the greatest student on earth and then you say, “I’m going to teach college-level students” and you’re thinking “This is bizarre because that means I have to get a masters and then a doctorate.” [. . .] Also, in my senior year, metaphorically speaking, a professor tapped me on the shoulder and he said, “Are you going on to do a masters?” And that was such a key because I had been flirting with the idea but I didn’t think I had it in me to go on to graduate school. And so his asking me that and thinking I could made all the difference in the world.
[On the task of teaching] I come from a family of sales-people and teachers. You know, what are you trying to do when you teach? You’re trying to get students excited. I really believe that when you’re learning foreign language it’s life transforming. It opens up a whole new world. I just like to share that. It’s really exciting when a student signs up for study abroad and then comes back and says, “Oh man! This was the greatest thing because . . . . ” I’ve been there and I know this but I still want to hear the story because it continues, it goes on.
The University Archives and Museum offer this slide show as a remembrance of Dr. Kate Regan.
