Carolyn

Employing once more the same format for this The Beacon series, here is the campus response to the disruptions and sorrows of September 11, 2001; another day that tested American society and the strength of our community bonds. First, the editorial statement. The front page is reproduced at the bottom.

The text surrounding the front-page poster-montage reads:

(from top left-corner) William Pitt (1777) * “God bless America, land the I love.” * “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.” Psalm 23 * “I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.” – President G. W. Bush * “And the rockets red flare . . . . gave proof through the night that our flag was still there” * “U.S.A.!” “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see.” * “You cannot conquer America.”

The text superimposed on the photo-montage is a quotation from Fr. Obermiller, the then Director of Campus Ministry (pictured at lower right)

“The Events from the last few days do not make any sense.
The people who have done this tragedy
to us as a country obviously do not know us.
They do not know our faith, our compassion, and conviction.
We cannot be broken because we have our faith and support of each other.
Buildings may be destroyed, but our spirits cannot.
We are shaken, yes, but not destroyed.”
–Rev. Edwin Obermiller, C.S.C.

For everyone of a certain generation there is a memory that coordinates the Kennedy assassination with their own position in time and space when they heard the news.  And when they tell that story they unconsciously link the personal and the national stories, and each is given equal weight.  The answer to the question Do you remember the Kennedy assassination? is always a personal story.

President John F. Kennedy was killed Friday, November 22, 1963.  The Beacon published a special Saturday edition inside of 24-hours to report on and process the national and personal trauma.  On Friday, on the Catholic campus, the flag was lowered, afternoon classes canceled; the priests and students flooded the chapels.  In fact, with a 2000-year history, Catholics tend to believe they own a ready-made play-book telling them exactly what-to-do, whatever the situation: but in the face of the assassination of a president, no gesture seemed enough.  The Associated Students of UP (ASUP) telegrammed a message of sympathy to the White House.  There was a lot of incomprehension.  There was a lot of turning to one another for support and turning to God for answers and care.

University of Portland nursing graduates and student-nurses are heroes in their own right, delivering critical care and hope day after day. Often at the peril of personal safety and individual vulnerabilities, placing patient needs ahead their own. This is stated with clarity in the opening paragraph of the School of Nursing’s website: “We are a strong community dedicated to educating nurses and health care professionals who empower patients, families, and communities to embrace healthy living and strive for wellness. […] We believe that all nurses are healers, advocates, and health care leaders who believe that social justice lies at the head, heart, and hands of all that we do.”

For 85 years the University has dedicated itself to educating students for the nursing profession. Beginning in partnership with St. Vincent Hospital Training School for Nurses (1934), on-site classrooms and training at the hospital moved to the UP campus in 1960. Internships and practicums continue to reach beyond campus, while the School of Nursing prepares candidates with care and attention through a rigorous curriculum and the expanded computer-modelled Simulated Health Center in the Buckley Center.   

As students progress from classrooms and labs to on-site clinical training at hospitals and care facilities, the transition is marked by ceremony as well. Into the mid-1970s, the Capping Ceremony occurred during Junior Year when students received their nurse’s cap and promised themselves to the values of the Nightingale Pledge. Today, students at the half-way point receive a blessing with oils handed on by nursing faculty in a “Blessings of Hands” ceremony.

During graduation weekend every UP graduate receives an earned diploma. In addition, nursing students participate in a more personal commissioning. With faculty and family present, each nursing graduate receives a UP School of Nursing pin. At the Pinning Ceremony each student is individually recognized and “pinned” by a person (faculty member or loved one) who has been a significant influence on their academic success.

The modern nursing professional no longer wears caps and capes (like a superhero) as their uniform, but their actions and service have marked them as heroes with their sharply trained minds, open hearts, and healing hands as advocates, healers, and leaders for all who seek medical care.

Additional links:
History of Nursing Digital Collection

1949 Log p. 5

1961 Log, p. 118

1975 Log p. 120

Resusci Anne

Alone, cresting the hill, the seeker stands either as a brave sentinel watching the distance and planning for the future; or less nobly, counts maybe as someone lost.  The mission at UP embraces both sets of students, because most of us know that we humans alternate between those two roles from time to time. Hence the photo and the promise seen here (left).

Education seeks and opens a wider horizon.  The University of Portland has leaned on this association, where ‘Upon the Bluff, high over the Willamette, the spires of learning reach up to the sky’ (as the Alma Mater has it).

There is also an old bit of picture-writing which connects learning and lamps. Partly because students have to ‘burn-the-midnight-oil’ putting in all-night study-sessions. Partly because education ‘lights the way’. The lamp is almost a ‘natural-symbol’ of the enlightening that accompanies education. And even the campus newspaper, The Beacon, has a ‘light-house’ theme; raised on the Bluff, pouring forth light to issue warning against danger and indicate the safe-path.

The pre-1940s University Seal positions the lamp in the foreground, looking out from the Bluff onto the Willamette and reaching to Mt. Hood against the far horizon. The 1935 Beacon masthead has an arc-lamp that radiates light all-around. The 2020 Student Leadership Awards symbol continues the theme showing an image of the street-lamps that dot today’s campus pathways.

There are milestone moments in history, dates that signal the end or start of ‘an era’. December 7, 1941 is one such memory-tab, recalling a date that indicates a recognized Before & After, and making a clear division in American and personal history for those who lived through that day and its consequences. Here are three exhibits from the University of Portland reacting to that event, recorded in the December 12, 1941 issue of The Beacon (the weekly campus newspaper).

First, from the bottom corner of the first page. The declaration of a stiff-upper-lip. While waiting for the new-future to manifest and acknowledging that the world has changed for every student, every person at the University, the editors declare that on that day, in that place, during that uncertain December, there remains a duty of preparation and character assigned to each even as all look to the unknown tomorrow. 

Some might enlist, all would serve; and all would need and should know that they are part of a whole. Therefore, The Beacon and school will go on.

Also included here is a slice of community reaction from the opinion page; where both Mr. Foley (student) and Fr. Miltner (10th President) published columns and commentary throughout the year.

The final exhibit in this post is a digital reproduction of the front-page (which enlarges when the reader clicks the image).

During World War Two the UP enrollment numbers crashed. By 1945 we were working with an abbreviated calendar, reduced personnel, and an expanded break between terms.

The Commencement exercises of May 27, 1945 bestowed degrees on 32 graduates, of whom 23 were Nursing students, and included four others who received their diplomas in absentia because the new graduates were already undergoing military training. So while the front page of the final Beacon of the 1944-1945 school year begins with the Commencement announcement and those thirty-two names; the last two pages of the newspaper are the final installment of a massive project to list all UP alumni, faculty, and students on active military service. Thus, pages 3-4 give one hundred and fifty-five names, from Swanson to Zoeter (inclusive). A fraction of the whole.

Peace arrived during the summer. The first Beacon issue for the new year announces new hope and new conditions for the new school term. Already in October there is a surge in enrollment though the great majority of the American military had yet to be discharged and demobbed back to civilian life. Not that normalcy is restored overnight, or after five months. Still, turning a corner in the summer of 1945, which marks the beginning of a longed-for beginning begun.

See also:
1949 Log, pg. 20

The Beacon, May 1945 – Message from University President, Rev. Charles Miltner, C.S.C.