Campus - Student Life

Tailgating is coming back to UP! The Athletic department is spotlighting tailgating for five 2025 soccer games this fall. For the sake of soccer, for Homecoming, for gathering together outside office or department, beyond a division, student club, team. Gathering as a group! Gathering for a social event wrapped around a sporting event.

Giving PortLog the opportunity to once more point out how ‘What is Old is New again‘. Tailgating, hospitality, bringing the student community out to cheer a sports contest at the same time we welcome alumni, fans, and friends and neighbors to the campus and celebrate our student athletes — this is long-standing tradition at UP, even before the smoke and kilts of the Villa Drum Squad.

The welcome efforts were first organized in 1937, when particular students — acting as parking attendants and campus ushers – formed a club to greet game-day visitors to campus. The newly formed service organization, Intercollegiate Knights, was called into action by Football Coach Bob Matthews (1937-1942) to promote and encourage Pilot spirit and hospitality at home games. Continuing into the 1990s Intercollegiate Knights, later Iota Kappa Pi, steadily expanded their community building activities beyond the parking lot. Still ushering sports events and regulating traffic, by the 1950s they were the student representatives and co-chairs of Red Cross Blood Drives, the United Fund, while also organizing student activities such as the Homecoming Torch-light parade, Thanksgiving & Christmas socials, as well as seasonal tasks such as stacking logs for the fireplace in the Student Lounge, and taking the lead in cleaning and landscaping the Victory Bell, Bus Stop, and campus signage.

Oddly, in past issues of The Beacon, student journalism chooses not to highlight pre-game parking lot grilling and barbeque, frisbee toss, bean-bag pitches. The post-weekend coverage tends to center on the game and the seasonal prospects of the sports team. That is, when reporting game results, the social side of how the campus brings together neighbors from all parts of the City of Portland is taken for granted. But the memories taken away by the crowds continue a long tradition in which our community hosts, celebrates, and participates in a wider family with fun and food, welcome and shared activities.

Filling stadiums and parking lots, displaying loyalty to Pilot Purple Pride.

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Related Stories:
Taste of UP for Families
Orphan Holiday

It is the individual person who puts the I in P-i-l-o-t because each of us has a unique, specific contribution in creating the UP experience. For example, STEM pursuers — particularly Engineering and Math — occasionally think of themselves as π-lots. And of course mathematics is an essential element in a well-rounded collegiate curriculum. Then there is the student life, night-life, CPB/ASUP bonfire, spirit of all-around vitality emphasis (Pi-lit). Finally, wheeling around again, combining wheel, anchor, and directions: A Portland Pilot is someone who knows where they are going.

Wally Pilot is 75 years old this year!

In honor of Wally’s milestone birthday, the 2023 First-Year and Sophomore Family Weekend featured selections from our collection of Wally/Spirit of Portland U (SPU) memorabilia. The entrance of Clark Library was turned into a University Museum gallery space to display the different faces of Wally/SPU over the years. The current Wally Pilot made an appearance to check out the previous incarnations of Wally, in addition posing for photos with Family Weekend attendees, staff, and library patrons.

Though Wally Pilot (originally Spirit of Portland U or SPU until the mid-1970s) does not have an official birthdate, The Beacon announced Wally’s 30th birthday celebration during Wally Pilot Week, February 13-17, 1978. In the years after, Wally’s birthday has been celebrated around these dates.

UP’s much-loved mascot has grown fitter and trimmer through various iterations (haven’t we all?), altering in size and aspect (molded in paper-mache, plastic, foam); always a symbol of confident purpose. The winner of a mascot-design competition in 1948 the Spirit of Portland U (SPU) became “Wally”, an identifier and emblem of campus vitality, appearing in full-sized mascot costume for sporting and University events, with the status of both host and guest at Homecomings and Reunions ever since. We write about Wally’s evolution in an earlier post, here: https://sites.up.edu/museum/?s=wally+pilot

Wally’s 75th birthday celebration continues this summer at the University’s All-Alumni Reunion. The retired Wallys’ regular home is the Museum Heritage Room, 014 Shipstad Hall, where the various headpieces are displayed year-round.

From its inception in 1951, the Associated Women’s Students sponsored awareness events. One such popular event was a Women’s Week to mark women’s accomplishments and activities. They capped off the week with a Sadie Hawkins-type dance — The TWIRP Dance (which was also a fundraiser). The woman partner arranged the date and purchased the dance ticket = TWIRP (see our header); at the end of the evening the attendees voted (by bid) to select a King of the event.

The dances begin in 1954 and were held at various venues, both on-campus and downtown. 1965 appears to be the last in the series.

The dashing king of the Dance is First-Year Student Benny Dean (right).  Mr. Benjamin Dean, BA ’60 is the brother of Kay Frances Dean,  BA ’64.  Ms. Kay Dean Toran (PhD., Honorary, 2012) has served on the University’s Board of Regents since 2006, and helps support both the Class of 1964 Endowed Scholarship and the Class of 1964 Leadership in Ethics or Diversity Endowed Scholarship. Part of the UP family. Defining a legacy of commitment.

The yearbook page from 1960– sixty years ago– prompted this fact-check: in that year women constituted 35% of the undergraduate population at UP. The education school had not yet been separated, but we do find certain stereotypes fulfilled: women dominated the nursing enrollment (124-0), and they were over-matched in Engineering (1-188). Today the undergraduate ratio of women is approaching 60%. The picture constantly changing, and different doors constantly opened (there are even male students in the School of Nursing, the first of whom graduated in 1973.)

Photo & article credits:
top, 1960 LOG, p. 109
middle, 1957 LOG, p. 162
bottom, The BEACON, Oct. 22, 1954

For Kay Toran, see Portland Magazine, Winter 2020

American society seemed to fracture and unravel in the late 1960s; a time of social revolution and mutual distrust characterized by the generation-gap, Nixon’s Southern strategy, tense race relations, anti-war and draft protests. Many of these protest movements found natural outlets on college campuses. But the University of Portland was not much disturbed or disrupted by the larger social unrest. As reflected on in this retrospective piece from the July 1971 UP Alumni Bulletin:

However, some assembly of persons was allowed—and even encouraged—to move towards healing divisions, expressing grievances, and valuing the free exercise of speech and opinion. Though students were expected to observe the ‘5-minute rule’ (the context for this directive is found in the exhibit at the bottom).

This last exhibit is spliced and edited from the Alumni Bulletin, January 1969, pp. 6, 11.

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.

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 (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

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

Reunion each year fittingly brings home to campus members of Upsilon Omega Pi, the campus spirit club.  2016 commemorates the club’s 65th year anniversary.  Upsilon Omega Pi’s first president, Dennis Moran ’51, brought about the merger of the campus pep and spirit groups, adopting the cool greek-letter name [ΥΩΠ decoded: UoP] in 1950-51.

Since its beginning, Upsilon pep club activities centered around basketball and dances and University life.   In their first years members hosted a reception for homecoming princesses and their escorts; sponsored “Stag Nights” with Upsilon men cheering as a unit at basketball games; and hosted several post-basketball game dances in Education Hall.   For the University’s all-school carnival in 1951, members contacted firms and businessmen for prize donations, and also participated in the carnival with their penny-pitching booth giving 80% of their profits to the student council.  (Also, the ΥΩΠ Club of ’56 saw the first suspension of charter; 2016 marking the 60th year since they were levied a $25 fine and suffered suspension for allowing alcohol to be served at an October club meeting.)    Other Upsilon projects were the construction of a large bulletin board in the Pilot House for student activity notices and other club communication; and helping to renovate the campus infirmary in 1958.

From the start, beginning in 1951, Upsilon Omega Pi also hosted an annual high school senior weekend at the University [an early version of Campus Visitation Day], and also served as sponsors of the University’s first jazz concert in 1958.

In 1953, the group officially changed its name from “Upsilon Omega Pi Pep Club” to “Upsilon Omega Pi Spirit Fraternity”.  School spirit was always the foundation of Upsilon in its activities at UP, as found in this preamble to their constitution in the 1984 Upsilon Omega Pi Reference Manual:

“Whereas there is a need for greater student participation in student body activities, and a need for the development of the student social welfare, we have resolution to organize Upsilon Omega Pi Spirit Fraternity at the University of Portland.”

For more about Upsilon Omega Pi

Wally Pilot: https://sites.up.edu/museum/851/

Upsilon Omega Pi Hearse: https://sites.up.edu/museum/upsilon-omega-pi-hearse/

The Freshmen 15: https://sites.up.edu/museum/the-freshmen-15/

First row: Farrell Bjorkman, Don Zenger, Jerry Fuller, Ken Strode, Manuel Mike, Bud Nash, Dan Duffy, Al Anderson, Kev Wagner, Dick Donovan
Second row: Earl Farley, Tom Sears, Jim Newman, Frank McCanna, Dave Sutherland, Joe Brozene, Jim Popham, Lloyd Weisensee, Jim Vincent, Jim Malone
Third row: Newt Acker, Al Weber, George DeLong, Jerry McCarthy, Jim Creegan, Dick Crisera, Dick May, Gary Jacobson, Dick Gibbons, Dick Davi, Tom Condon
Fourth row: Faculty Advisor: Jim Headrick, Tom Cooney, Don Mayfield, Dick Van Hoomissen, Norm Wirth, Jim Flynn, Bob Christensen, Al Rousseau, Kenny Uphoff

 

 

In 2015 the Pilot House brought a PUB to campus.  The renovation expanded seating and space for food and entertainment so much so as to take over most of the available Pilot House space, all dedicated to the finer elements of student life in the form of the cultivation of friendship, community, and leisure spilling over into an al fresco patio, live-streaming KDUP music and programming, and even appropriating the NAME of the Pilot House from the whole.  Changing and evolving, meeting new needs and demands: but also ending an 80-year tradition.

From 1935 to 2015, the snack-space, the student hang-out— the place where students intersect between classes over sandwiches and soda– was called The Cove.  Partly this recalls a time when UP was something like half a commuter campus and The Cove was a harbor providing the low-end of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for day-students between intervals in the UP classroom and library pursuing the highest and happiest of intellectual goods.  Partly this recalls a time before the Beau, when UP deployed a lot of nautical nicknames for stuff (Beacon, Log, Pilots).

The first Cove was located on the first floor of Howard Hall.  By sacrificing some rows of lockers between the swimming pool and basketball court, The Cove acquired an open space for a dozen tables, allowing service for as many as 50 patrons (The BEACON, September 27, 1935).  Always catching up to demand, the cafeteria was already swamped after one month’s operation, as this BEACON editorial applauds:

We pause in the midst of our daily campus rush to pay tribute…
For many years there has been felt a crying need – sometimes an audible one ..
.. Now the time has arrived when day students can obtain a wide variety of foods,
including warm lunches to tide them over….
in filling this long felt need, the cafeteria is a project deserving of patronage…as the
crowded condition at noon periods clearly shows (October 25, 1935).

Across campus today, venerable and multipurpose Howard Hall has been superseded by the excellence of the Beauchamp Recreation & Wellness Center.  So too, The Cove is dead; long live The Anchor coffee shop in Haggerty Hall?

(Click to enlarge photos)

After ending the fall 1949 football season with a win against Lewis and Clark College, Pilot football players and fans were stunned in early February when University President, Rev. Theodore Mehling, C.S.C., announced the end of football on the Bluff.  Financial resources were increasing but strained, and directed first toward meeting the extraordinary challenges of the enrollment bubble of World War II vets.  Fr. Mehling’s letter cites limited funds and inadequate stadium facilities as prime reasons for not being able to support a first-class football program.  An alumni group, “Pilot Booster Club”, with former football player, Emmett Barrett, ’41, as president, led a failed attempt to reverse the administration’s decision.  The image of former football players at a football burial summed up the somber mood on campus.

More football trivia & history:
https://sites.up.edu/museum/up-trivia-bar-bets-football/

https://sites.up.edu/museum/exhibits/football/

(Gallery from the University Archives, click on image or text to enlarge)

When were the first and last football games for Columbia University/University of Portland?

First football game — October 11, 1902      Columbia University (5) vs Bishop Scott Academy (15)

Last football game —  November 19, 1949  University of Portland (35) vs Lewis and Clark College (20)

 

Football on the Bluff began with a loss and ended with a win for the University.  The program ran consecutively except during the war years, 1943, 1944, 1945.  The overall record for Columbia Cliffdwellers/University of Portland Pilots Football — 150 wins; 136 losses; and 33 ties.

For more about the University’s football program, visit our online exhibit at: https://sites.up.edu/museum/exhibits/football/
and also see football memorabilia and photographs in person in the University’s Museum and Archives on campus in Shipstad Hall.