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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.  

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

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).

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.

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.

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

Summers in the city of Portland have temperate temperatures and sporadic spats of rain, or not.  Yet regardless of the weather, for over a century June in the City of Portland means the Rose Festival, highlighted by the Grand Floral Parade.  For the 50th anniversary, the 1958 Rose Parade called for the featured floats to express the Rose Festival theme of “50 Golden Years”, with each float representing a different year.   The University of Portland entry “Golden Jubilee” remembered our own 50th anniversary in 1951, a year which marked the beginnings of our AFROTC program and the opening of campus to women students in all educational programs and (surprise!) as on-campus residents.

The Engineering Club constructed a boat-float as our entry; at the helm rode an AFROTC cadet standing sentry and Doreen Voeller, ’61, Military Ball princess.  (The University was ahead of the AFROTC by twenty years, it is not until 1971 that women were accepted into the AFROTC program on-campus.)

Video footage of the 1958 Rose Festival Parade is found at this link, with UP’s Float entry at the 4:25 mark.
(video with permission by Thomas Matlock, owner)