Annuals 2

The first (annual) Junior & Senior Parents Weekend was 1-3 November 2019.  There was food, there was a soccer game, there were Q & A’s with the President and School Deans, there was a social flavor to the whole event.  A new and old initiative by the office of Alumni & Parent Relations.  In fact, celebrations sharing the campus and the students’ campus experience go way-back.  Junior Parents’ Weekend became an institution running 25 years, from 1994 until expanding in 2019-20 into two separate events; Junior & Senior Family Weekend in November, First-Year & Sophomore Family Weekend in February.

The University Museum was invited, setting up at the Beauchamp Recreation & Wellness Center for the Welcome Social.  Over 1,000 in attendance throughout the weekend – mixing, mingling, proud as Pilots. 

See the entire schedule of Events & Activities planned by the Dads and the Mothers Clubs in 1936 in the Clark Library Digital Collections:
Portland Day Program, 1936

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.

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.

The fashions and rituals of the First Day of School at UP have repeatedly changed through the years since 1901 when Fr. Edward Murphy, our first president, uttered the auspicious and memorable phrase, ‘I guess we should start. Ring the bell.’  (https://sites.up.edu/upbeat/from-our-past-first-first-day-of-school-sept-2-1901/); see James Covert, A Point of Pride: The University of Portland Story: p. 34 for the story of the very first day of classes).

The 2018 Orientation weekend concludes Sunday evening with a double-bill of Women’s and Men’s soccer games at Merlo Field.  Before that there are meetings with Deans and Advisors, Residence Hall leaders, Health and Wellness coordinators, Financial Aid counselors, and a Meet & Greet with Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C., the 20th President of the University.  Also social mixers, the Orientation and Welcoming Mass, and the Bell Tower Ceremony.

As the 1983 invitation explains, the goal of Orientation is to welcome the new and guide their transition in order to bring students from diverse and different formations and background home together as members (and not just residents) participating in the University community.  In 1983 when we were building the Chiles Center, did Casino Night help ease fears that college might be a gamble?

The emphases hit different notes in different decades.  The 1965 Orientation Brochure highlights college as a period of forming new bonds, as in the post-lunch Friday afternoon Frosh-Soph Tug-O-War (followed by sports & games) and Saturday night Hootenanny, a poorly remembered 60s activity involving bon-fire, guitars, and rapturous sing-along).  Also note in passing, a subtle underlining of the residence hall decorum of curfews and locked front-doors; declining from 1 a.m., to midnight, to 11 p.m. as the weekend progresses because classes start early on Monday morning.

In the 1990s the program programmed a moment for separation-anxiety, with Parent Departures fixed for Saturday afternoon.  But seemingly not exactly an over-indulgent pause when The Long Goodbye and the first meeting of Freshmen Seminar are scheduled for the same hour.  That first Seminar meeting was a weekend feature from 1991-2000, so that freshmen actually started classes at Orientation.  An echo of Fr. Murphy’s ethic, that we all might as well get right down to work to make a good beginning.

Previous Orientation posts from the Museum & Archives:
Pilots Choose their Own Course

Orientation at the UP Campus

Registering Prerequisites

At the end of the 2017-18 academic year, nine 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. Karen Cameron, Nursing, at UP since 2003
Dr. Richard Christen, Education, at UP since 1998
Dr. Michael Connolly, Performing and Fine Arts, at UP since 1988
Dr. Khalid Khan, Engineering, at UP since 1979
Dr. Mallie Kozy, Nursing, at UP since 2016
Dr. Joane Moceri, Dean of the School of Nursing, at UP since 2012
Dr. Patricia Morrell, Education, at UP since 1996
Dr. Susan Stillwell, Nursing, at UP since 2012
Dr. Peter Thacker, Education, at UP since 2004

(Photos from the University Archives, Clark Library, Marketing & Communications, School of Nursing, School of Education; Click on image to enlarge)

First Year students arrive on campus and from day-one leap into classes and studies.   The first day of term is the first day of classes with no padding or delay jumping right into work.  The assignment of desks, classrooms, instructors are locked in over the summer at the same time as enrollment is processed– and with 1000+ entering students, there is barely a desk to spare!  Students and schedules are matched before the first class day.  Thus new students are spared the familiar tradition of standing in long lines carrying various permission slips while seeking computer punch card registration tickets.

True, some students express shock and surprise over their 8:10 class or the prescribed lab assignment- quick seeking transfers and adjustments after the first speed-date class meeting- there are still rather more options for the disappointed today than, say, for new students entering and wrestling with assigned schedules and the more limited one-size-fits-all university curriculum from past years.

Here we have the model First Year schedules required in each of the colleges for 1967 [click and enlarge, above left].  Also, for the sake of context: the 1967-68 Campus Map, with slightly more generous parking options.  And, as further proof how times have changed, the cheerful advisory concerning Campus Social Life as found in the 1967 Bulletin.

At the end of the 2016-17 academic year, five 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 number 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. Matthew Baasten, Theology; Associate Provost and Graduate School Dean (from 2012), at UP since 1981
Dr. Carol Craig, Nursing, at UP since 2008
Dr. Wayne Lu, Engineering, at UP since 1988
Dr. James Male, Engineering, Sweo Endowed Chair (from 1997), at UP since 1997
Dr. Zia Yamayee, Engineering, at UP since 1996

(Photos from the University Archives; Click on image to enlarge)

Each year the campus community is ever renewed with new members, about whom established faculty and staff forever sigh: so young.  Even the senior class envies the fresh-faces of the freshmen class.

But everyone was new once: Our 25 year class of new faculty and staff from 1991 includes — Brian Doyle, editor of Portland Magazine; Howard Feldman, Business; Patrick Berg, Political Science.  Each continuing to enrich our common enterprise.  Beginners from 20 years ago include — Mark Kennedy, Engineering; Regina Largent, Army ROTC, then, first director of the Shepard Freshman Resource Center; Peter Osterberg, Engineering; Patricia (Tisha) Morrell, Education; Stephen Vegdahl, Computer Science/Engineering; and Zia Yamayee, Dean of Engineering from 1996.  People whose continuing influence benefits UP student life and learning today.  But the maximum impact member of the 20 year club is surely *** Kirk Mustain *** Chef, Supervisor, Manager in the Kingdom of Bon Appetit at the Commons, Pilot House, and new to Lund Family Hall.  We all rely on him and his ever-young reading of the need, care, maintenance of a quirky community.

Also, on March 3, 1991, Rev. David T. Tyson, C.S.C. was inaugurated as the 18th President of the University of Portland.

(Photos from the University Archives, click to enlarge.)

Tisha Morrell, 1997

Steven Vegdahl, 1997

Brian Doyle, 1994

Col. Regina Largent (Army ROTC), 1997

Howard Feldman, ca1993

Kirk Mustain, 2000

Mark Kennedy, 1997

Zia Yamayee, 1997

In his 1988 book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Robert Fulghum observes how truly the skills learned in pre-school and kindergarten launch us into social and cultured life; such rudimentary learning as pairing with a partner and holding hands to walk-in-line when proceeding as a group– all the while eschewing chewing gum while in-motion.  Perhaps the last formal application of this lesson occurs at college graduation, dressed in unfamiliar robery, balancing square-hats, and trying not to call attention to yourself getting to your seat on the floor of the Chiles Center.

All under the watchful care of MACE-WIELDING senior Marshals attempting as best as they can to keep order among the Faculty too, which august and more colorfully garbed assemblage is sometimes as challenged keeping their lines and precedence as is the body of celebrating and properly gleeful graduates.

(Click on image to enlarge)

At the end of the 2015-16 academic year, six members of the University of Portland faculty will retire after many years of service to this institution, making a difference in the lives of untold number 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. Robert Butler, Environmental Science, at UP since 2004
Dr. Howard Feldman, Business Administration, at UP since 1991
Ms. Drew Harrington, Dean of the Library, at UP since 2006
Rev. Thomas Hosinski, C.S.C., Theology, at UP since 1978
Dr. Lawrence Lewis, Business Administration, at UP since 2001
Dr. James Seal, Business Administration, at UP since 1977

(Click on image to enlarge photo)