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University of Portland Museum

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This Day

Veterans’ Day Observance

November 6, 2014 By Carolyn

The Praying Hands monument on the quad near Kenna and Christie halls has been a place of care and observance since 1948.   A graduation gift to the school from the Class of 1948, the bricks carry the names of the dead from World War II.

Since 1987 cadets of Air Force and Army ROTC have marked Veterans’ Day by mounting a twenty-four hour vigil at the memorial. And this being Portland, keeping vigil rain or shine means lots of hours spent in the rain.

The Air Force cadet program (DETACHMENT 695) has been a part of the University of Portland since 1951.  In these historical photos from the University Archives, we see the cadets prominently standing as Honor Guard at the Praying Hands during outdoor Military Mass, part of Campus Day, a spring-time tradition and celebration (picnic, dance, balloon toss!).

Each year the cadets honor the fallen with a thirty minute service beginning at 11:11 a.m.

Cadets: click on photo to enlarge
Military Mass, 1961
Doug Edwards '67, 1963
Military Mass, 1963

Dedication circle, 1990
Praying Hands, 2000

Campus Day: click on photo to enlarge
1961 Campus Day image 1
1961 Campus Day image 2
1961 Campus Day image 3
1961 Campus Day image 4

1961 Campus Day image 5
1961 Campus Day image 6
1961 Campus Day image 7
1964 Campus Day Schedule

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Orphan Holiday

October 23, 2014 By Carolyn

This October students host neighborhood children in the residence halls and the Chiles Center for Halloween fun.   The basement of Shipstad Hall, scary enough in normal times, is decorated as a Haunted House.  And Trick-or-Treat events are scheduled for monsters, princesses, and characters from Frozen (college students as well as visitors in costume) on Halloween Day.

The seed of these celebrations, from an earlier slice of time, is the annual Orphans’ Christmas Party.  From as early as 1948, University of Portland student run service groups sponsored and hosted Christmas parties for children from St. Mary’s Home for Boys (Beaverton) and Christie Home for Girls (Oswego).  The tradition was maintained into the 1960s by the Associated Women Students, bringing as many as 100 orphan children to campus each year for this holiday event.   Then, as now, the festivities were almost as much for those who give as for those who receive.

Click on image to enlarge photo
The Beacon, December 10, 1948
Intercollegiate Knight member with girl and Santa, 1950
Boy Scout with Santa, 1952
Girls with Christmas gifts, 1954
Students entertain children, 1954
The Beacon, December 2, 1955
Two children with Santa Claus, 1956
Young boy, Iota Kappa Pi members, and Santa, 1959
Teresa Kuffner, '01 as an Emergency Services Firefighter from Never-Never-Land, 2000
Children in Halloween costumes, 2005
Fairy princess, 2005 Halloween

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In Memory: Rev. Thomas C. Oddo, CSC (1944-1989)

October 23, 2014 By Carolyn

Fr. Tom Oddo, CSC served as the 17th president of the University of Portland until his death in a traffic accident, twenty-five years ago on October 29, 1989.  He was forty-five at the time of his death; a dynamic leader and in love with the University.  Four years previous, at the end of the fall semester sending the students home for Christmas vacation, he wrote of himself and the University.

Oddo memory 1985 and photo 1983
Oddo memorial text and water color, 1995

 

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October 26, 1936 – domainname.com

October 23, 2014 By Carolyn

University of Portland Archives, ZG X6 RECORD 26762; University of Portland: Historical and Legal Documents File Items, DOCUMENT #76 (click to enlarge)
University of Portland Archives, ZG X6 RECORD 26762; University of Portland: Historical and Legal Documents File Items, DOCUMENT #76
(click to enlarge)

On October 26, 1936 the University paid a sum of $600 to Mr. Mark Paulson for relinquishing his rights and claims to the name, “University of Portland”.

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August 30, 1964 – Gute Reisen

August 27, 2014 By Carolyn

This year marks the University of Portland’s first fifty years in Salzburg, Austria.  On August 30, 1964 the University sent its pioneer group of 30 students and director, Fr. Ambrose Wheeler, C.S.C., to enter a two-semester European adventure.  Beginning the University’s oldest and most popular overseas study program.

First Salzburg Group with Fr. Ambrose Wheeler, C.S.C., 1964-65 (click to enlarge photo)
First Salzburg Group with Fr. Ambrose Wheeler, C.S.C., 1964-65 (click to enlarge photo)
Fr. Ambrose Wheeler, C.S.C., 1962 (click to enlarge photo)
Fr. Ambrose Wheeler, C.S.C., 1962 (click to enlarge photo)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since that beginning, between 30-40 undergraduate students pursue their Portland degree each year through classroom study, cultural excursions, and individual travel in Europe.  According to student and alumni reports, there is no down-side.

At the all-alumni reunion in June 2014, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the University’s 50 years in Salzburg, friends in Salzburg presented this gift of a statue of St. Ambrose, a pillar of Western learning and patron of our founding director, to reside at the home campus in the Clark Library.   With summer sessions also hosted in the Merianstrasse site since the 1990s, nearly 2000 University of Portland alumni can claim the City of Mozart as part of their college curriculum.

St. Ambrose Statue, Clark Library, 2014 (click to enlarge photo)
St. Ambrose Statue, Clark Library, 2014 (click to enlarge photo)

For more Salzburg study abroad photos from the University Archives and Museum, click on this link:
https://sites.up.edu/museum/salzburg-trips/

 

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In the Beginning: another day

July 16, 2014 By Carolyn

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

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In the Beginning: day one

July 16, 2014 By Carolyn

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).

Portland University, Main entrance road along the Bluff, ca1892
Portland University, Main entrance road along the Bluff, ca1892

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.

Crash at University of Portland Entrance, 1953
Crash at University of Portland Entrance, 1953

 

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June 12, 1949 – Engineering Building Dedication

June 5, 2014 By Carolyn

The Quadrant, Dedication Issue, p.16, 1949
The Quadrant, Dedication Issue, p.16, 1949
The Quadrant, Dedication Issue, pg. 17, 1949
The Quadrant, Dedication Issue, pg. 17, 1949

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Engineering Building, June 12, 1949
Engineering Building, June 12, 1949

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.

Donald P. Shiley Hall, September 2009
Donald P. Shiley Hall, September 2009

 

 

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April 18, 1969 – Fire on Campus

April 10, 2014 By Carolyn

Click on image to enlarge
Campus fire, photo by Fr. Michael Heppen, C.S.C., April 18 1969
Student Affairs Building on fire, April 18, 1969
Firemen and the blaze
Books and equipment saved from fire by Wes Guderian (The Oregonian April 18 1969)
Students watching fire, photo by
Shell of the Student Affairs Building, 1969
Devastation of Education and Music Hall
Aftermath of the fire, photo by Fr. Michael Heppen, C.S.C., April 18, 1969
Aftermath of the April 1969 Fire
Close-up of area affected by the fire, right side of photo
Remains of Auditorium, Education Hall, Music studios

This aerial view (below) of the central campus is from 1962.  Notice how familiar and yet how far campus geography is from the characteristic University of Portland academic quadrangle.  Buckley Center was added in 1969, with the Chapel of Christ the Teacher in 1986, Franz Hall in 1995 closing the ends of the modern quad.

[Photo: Digital Collections, Clark Library: Campus Aerial Views and Maps.  This is a segment from the image, ‘1962 – View from the East’,

http://up.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15458coll2/id/16/rec/1 ]

In 1962 the four corners of the quad are Science Hall (Romanaggi) at the bottom left, and then the pre-renovation Commons and Shiley Hall along the top, with half of the present Library bottom center.  1969 saw a redesign of the center of campus.  Also pictured here beside Science Hall are Science Annex and the Steam Plant (with smoke stack), which were taken down to make space for the construction of Buckley Center and Buckley Auditorium.   And then fire removed Education Hall and Music Hall (the two complexes at the right side of the photo) on April 18, 1969.

On this date in 1969 a fire, which broke out in the early hours of the morning, destroyed Education Hall and damaged other nearby wooden structures.  Education Hall had served not only as an assembly space for the University but for many years had also been the theatre.  The fire destroyed not only the facility itself but most of the equipment used in theatrical productions including a large stock of costumes.  Students helped to move pianos from attached structures that had housed the music department and its practice facilities.  The wooden buildings stood along the western side of the main parking lot in and near the area that now is occupied by Mago Hunt Center, which replaced the old hall and some of its attached facilities.  The buildings had been transported to the University in 1945 in an effort to accommodate quickly the expansion of enrollment that came following the Second World War.  Classes for the Columbia Preparatory School were held in these buildings until the removal of the high school to the former Wilcox Estate in the West Hills.  Several University departments had their offices and classes in these buildings before the opening of Buckley Center in February of 1969.  With the expansion of the library in 1978 some of the buildings that remained were moved to the western side of the main quadrangle.  The larger of these buildings, known as Columbia Hall, served as a center for continuing education on the campus before being razed at the time of the construction of Franz Hall.  The last building standing on its original site, known as the Student Communications Building in its final days, was razed also for the construction of Franz.  The last of the wooden structures on the campus, Chemistry Annex, stood at the northwest end of Engineering Hall and was razed after the construction of Swindells Hall.

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April 12, 1935 – Pilots on the Bluff

April 10, 2014 By Carolyn

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 Beacon, April 12, 1935
The Beacon, April 12, 1935 (University Archives, Click to enlarge)

 

 

 

 

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