School History

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).

On July 22, 1901 the campus property of the old Portland University became the property of the Archdiocese of Oregon City under the title of Columbia University.  That is, transferring West Hall and some few adjacent yards of orphaned land.  The Archdiocese later ceded the same property to the Indiana Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross.  Since 1902, the Congregation of Holy Cross has been the bedrock of the ever expanding University, beginning with the first Holy Cross priest-president, Fr. Michael Quinlan to its twentieth President, Fr. Mark Poorman, and the hundreds of Holy Cross Fathers and Brothers who have served the student community in classrooms and residence halls, entered student lives, and rejoiced in the strength, faith, and friendship of the University of Portland community.

And yes, the campus has also expanded geographically since 1901, but that is the less important factor.

The University honored the men of Holy Cross in a proclamation issued by the Board of Regents in 2000; giving thanks for a century of commitment by the priests and brothers of the Congregation of Holy Cross at the University of the Portland.    A framed list of Holy Cross members who have served at the University since its founding is on display in Holy Cross Lounge on the third floor of Franz Hall and is also available here: Holy Cross at UP list, 2013

On July 20, 1901, Alexander Christie, Archbishop of Oregon City, entered into an agreement to purchase from the University Land Co. a building and twenty-eight acres of land on Waud’s Bluff under the conditions that “a school be conducted and a major building erected within ten years” (James Covert, Point of Pride, p. 33).

The original purchase brought us what is now Waldschmidt Hall, built in 1891.  Entrance to the university was via a simple dirt drive which skirted along the top of the bluff.  Both the 1891 building and that back access road, since paved, are still in use; fixed features of the University of Portland campus since the very first.  In a hurry to comply with the purchase agreement, classes began September 5, 1901 but the ‘new’ building was not to arrive until 1911, when Christie Hall was constructed and named to honor the archbishop’s initiative in founding the University.

The familiar Willamette main entrance and circular campus drive belong to the 1960s.  Major reconstruction of the entrance began in June, 2014.

“In Memoriam: Schulte Lake” by Brian Doyle, University of Portland Facebook post, June 24, 2014 (used with permission)

The University finally, after many years of pondering the matter, is building a new front entrance to campus – a vast project which will be finished in August, just before the biggest freshman class in 113 years arrives. It will be glorious, the new front drive. It will be impressive, as befits a fine university grown greatly in confidence and renown. It will be more welcoming, much clearer signage-wise, much more of a statement, even a marketing endeavor. It makes sense, and things like campus entryways must change and morph and mature, like any other entity; so that while alumni of a certain age still mourn the little stone bus-shelter that once crouched at one side of the front gate, and younger alumni still remember with affection the day the front sign read UNIVESITY OF PORTLAND after an R seceded overnight, some older members of the staff and faculty will remember an oddly persistent dip in the road, just as you drove your wheezing vehicle onto campus: the famous, or infamous, Schulte Lake, a remarkable space on this earth that instantly filled with six inches of water in any rain whatsoever, from the merest drizzle to the usual steady weeping of winter. For nearly fifty years the powers-that-be on The Bluff fought Schulte Lake, filling it in, paving it over, paving it a tenth and twentieth time, but never would it surrender, not even to the express command and herculean efforts of the legendary Arthur Schulte, long the vice president in charge of pretty much everything at the University. Again and again and again Art sent his agents against Schulte Lake, and they returned triumphant to report its demise, and as soon as the sky glowered and a mist arose the lake filled again, and cars and small dogs were lost in its depths; but come this August we can only assume the lake is gone at last, and while that will be an excellent state of affairs for cars and small dogs, and for the startled passersby who were again and again caught by waves of splashage from cars gunning desperately for the other shore, a small subtle piece of the University’s past will be gone too, receding gently like the lake did under the occasional sunburst; so let us pause a moment this morning, and remember that insistent water, and the dedicated man for whom it was named, and all those little stories that make up the University’s long and colorful tale, long may it wag.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This day, June 12, 1949, marks the sixty-fifth anniversary of the dedication of the Engineering building.  Built for $500,000, the 45,000 square foot, three-story building for Engineering and Physics was furnished with equipment purchased through war surplus, acquired by donations, or built-to-spec by our own faculty.  As a basement was not part of the original building plan (or covered by budget), Brother Godfrey Vassallo, C.S.C., other faculty, and dedicated students dug out the basement themselves using hand tools.  This new structure was not without its faults — though some claim that insufficient lighting and a noisy heating system added character to the building.

Spring forward to the 21st century to a thriving School of Engineering in need of classrooms and space to house the equipment and technology needed for teaching the rapidly growing number of students enrolled in multiple engineering programs.   In 2008, with lead gifts from distinguished alumni and benefactors, Darlene and Donald ’51 Shiley and Sharon and Ed ’56 Sweo, the Engineering building underwent a complete remodel and expansion, nearly doubling in size and providing a state-of-the-art facility.    From the darkness of the basement labs, the School is newly re-housed within its old home, renamed Donald P. Shiley Hall, where light streams through expansive glass windows.  This year the Shiley School of Engineering conferred over 120 Bachelor of Science degrees in Mechanical, Electrical, and Civil Engineering and in the field of Computer Science on May 4, 2014 as part of the University of Portland Commencement Exercises.

 

 

Columbia Preparatory school and Columbia University were the same school, with the same faculty, campus, and buildings.  Founded in 1901 and ‘residing’ in West (Waldschmidt) Hall the high school unit existed as the backbone of this University, with strong academic programs and a reputation for athletic competition.  With the first collegiate class graduating from the school in 1929 (SIX graduates!), the two schools separated in 1935, taking the names, The University of Portland and Columbia Preparatory School (Columbia Prep).  In 1948, due record setting undergraduate enrollments for the University following World War II, Columbia Prep was moved from the University of Portland campus and relocated to the fifty acre Wilcox Estate in Southwest Portland.  The Prep school did not thrive after this transplant, and as enrollment declined, the decision was made to close Columbia Prep for good in June 1955.  As announced in the Oregon Journal newspaper on June 3, 1955, “Doors Close for Good — Columbia ‘Prep’ Ends 54-Year Life”.  In its day Columbia Prep was one of the premier private secondary schools for young men in the West; fulfilling in part the dream and intention of Archbishop Alexander Christie, our founder and first patron.  The University of Portland proudly hosts the annual Columbia Prep reunion on campus in honor of this legacy.

On this day in 1935 University officials announced the adoption of the nickname “The Pilots” for the athletic teams of the newly renamed University of Portland.  Prior to 1935, teams had been called, variously “The Irish” and “The Cliffdwellers”.

 

 

 

 

The Origins of the Feast . . .

Founder’s Day began informally in the kind act of Archbishop Alexander Christie who chose to celebrate his name’s day by spending time with the community of students on the Bluff at the school he so strongly supported and with which he powerfully identified himself.  And so in the Columbiad, the University periodical of 1903, there is this note:

Called ‘Founder’s Day’ already in 1904, and celebrated even in the absence of the Archbishop in 1905, the Columbiad of 1906 hails the day as an institution.

In 1907 the day of assembly as opened with the recitation of an Ode to Archbishop Christie, a student composition of 113 lines, over seven stanzas.  Prudentially not repeated here.

On the evening of March 19, 1949, a three-alarm fire severely damaged Howard Hall.   The loss amounted to nearly $50,000, including the new baseball suits and equipment just purchased a few days earlier.  Much of the interior — dressing rooms, training rooms, and equipment rooms were thoroughly destroyed and considerable damage was done to the basketball court.  But not enough to require replacement.  Durable Howard Hall, built for $99,000 in 1927, saw the roof collapse over the swimming pool after heavy snow in 1937; the pool actually freezing over in February 1949; and suffered flooding in 1982 when a steam pipe broke in the gymnasium area.  A survivor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This year, eighty-seven years after Howard Hall was built, groundbreaking for the new Beauchamp Recreation and Wellness Center will take place in May 2014.  This long-awaited facility is expected to become a dynamic focus of student life on campus.   Building design plans call for modern, up-to-date equipment and space to accommodate a growing campus community.   Proposed rooms for the Beauchamp Center include a fitness center, gymnasium, indoor track, two exercise studios and a spin studio, climbing wall, outdoor pursuits center, and more.

On this date in 1943, University of Portland students, faculty, and staff gathered at Union Station to see 52 of the University’s army enlisted reserve off to Fort Lewis, Washington for active duty.   The student band played “Anchors Aweigh” and “The Marine Hymn”, and many of the boys who sang with the gleemen were singing for the last time.  Rev. John Delaunay, C.S.C., Dean of Men, addressed the reservists with these words “Broadway will not be the same without you … your homes and school will not be the same without you.”
(The Beacon, March 19, 1943)