• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

University of Portland Museum

  • Home
  • About
  • This Day
    • The Bells Are Ringing
    • Library Dedication, 1958
    • Gute Reisen
    • Veteran’s Day
    • Fire on Campus
    • Engineering Building
    • Outbreak of World War I
  • Featured
    • Campus Archaeology: On the Shoulders of Giants
    • The Walls Came Tumbling Down
    • Broken Wall Memorial is Broken
    • 2nd Century: Second Wave
    • Retiring Faculty
      • 2019 Retiring Faculty
      • 2018 Retiring Faculty
      • 2017 Retiring Faculty
      • 2016 Retiring Faculty
      • 2015 Retiring Faculty
      • 2014 Retiring Faculty
    • TGIF all-class
    • No frogs were hurt in this demonstration
    • Orientation at the UP Campus
    • Upsilon Omega Pi Hearse
  • In the Beginning
    • Rev. John A. Zahm, CSC: Name-dropper, Promise Keeper
    • Cornerstone West Hall
    • Founder’s Day
    • Another Day
    • Day One
  • UP Trivia
    • NCAA or NAIA, First Nat’l Title Revisited
    • Medal of the Year
    • Hanging Up the Pads
    • Football
    • Cannons on the Bluff
    • Pilots on the Bluff
    • Columbia Prep, 1901-1955
    • Hours and Bases
    • domainname.com
    • Wally Pilot
    • 50 Years: A-Meh-zing Mehling
    • Broken Wall Memorial
  • Exhibits
    • Museum Photo Gallery
    • Football on the Bluff: 1902-1950
    • Mago Hunt Center 40th Anniversary
    • Salzburg Study Abroad
    • Museum Display in Buckley Center
  • People
    • Memorials
      • Rev. Claude Pomerleau, C.S.C., 1938-2019
      • Dr. Arthur Schulte, Jr., 1928-2018
      • Dr. Art Schulte: A Life on the Bluff
      • Brian Doyle, 1956–2017
      • Rev. Charles David Sherrer, C.S.C.,1935–2017
      • Rev. Ronald Wasowski, C.S.C., 1946–2016
      • Dr. James Covert, 1932-2016
      • Dr. Manuel Macias, 1929-2016
      • Dr. Kate Regan, 1959-2014
      • Martha Wachsmuth: 1921-2015
      • Rev. Tom Oddo, 1944-1989
      • Dr. David Alexander, 1957-2013
    • A Given Life
      • The Pioneer Four
      • Flowering in the Rose City
      • Rev. Richard Berg, C.S.C.
      • Rev. John Molter, C.S.C.
      • Sisters of Mary of the Presentation
      • Holy Cross Leadership
      • Rev. John Delaunay, C.S.C.
      • Holy Cross at UP
      • Sr. Angela Hoffman, O.S.B.
      • Rev. Art Schoenfeldt, C.S.C.
      • Rev. George Dum, C.S.C.
      • Rev. Maurice Rigley, C.S.C.
  • Recent Posts
    • National Scar-tissue, November 22, 1963
    • Nurses are Superheroes
    • Lamp of Learning
    • Sangfroid: Poised and Professional, after December 7, 1941
    • Five Months in 1945
    • Women’s First: Engineering
    • Taste of UP for Families
    • Prophecy and Visions
    • The Bells Are Ringing
  • Campaign Trail
    • President Ronald Reagan, 1984
    • Robert F. Kennedy, 1968
    • Nelson Rockefeller, 1964
    • John F. Kennedy, 1960
    • Harold Stassen, 1952

UP Trivia

Brushes with Fame: Buzz Aldrin

March 28, 2019 By Carolyn

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon, July 1969 (NASA photo)

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.

Alumni Bulletin, July 1970
University President Rev. Paul Waldschmidt, C.S.C. and 1970 Commencement Speaker, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Alumni Bulletin, July 1970
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Alumni Bulletin, July 1970

 

Commencement Speech by Buzz Aldrin, Alumni Bulletin, July 1970

 

 

 

Filed Under: Featured, Pilot Potpourri, UP Trivia 3 Comments

Pilot Potpourri

December 6, 2018 By Carolyn

These four figures are found around campus – inside or outside, for better or for worse.  No judgement here.   Just the question, can anyone identify them?  Sort of a trivia / treasure hunt tour of campus.  Location anyone?  Take a look, each tells a (forgotten) story from UP history.

A. Figure Striding, The Beacon October 12, 1962, p. 1

B.  Urban League, Equal Opportunity Award, Education.  For special efforts to increase success for local black students at UP.  Alumni Bulletin, July 1977, p. 3.

C.  Papa Sierra, The Beacon April 24, 1980, p. 2

D.  ‘Le Petit Feu’, The Beacon October 28, 1982, p. 3

Filed Under: Pilot Potpourri, UP Trivia 2 Comments

Hearty Congrats

April 5, 2017 By Carolyn

Congratulations to the Gonzaga Bulldogs, West Coast Conference Champions, for their appearance in the Championship Game of the 2017 NCAA Basketball Tournament.  UP and Gonzaga were founding members of the WCC in 1952, two Catholic colleges competing before and since.

A not always polite rivalry.  Although the last Men’s Conference game held in venerable Howard Hall occurred in spring 1981, earlier in December 1978, the Portland – Gonzaga game in Howard so rocked the court, stands, and the building itself that Fire Marshalls and student fans feared the worse (but no worries, the Pilots were off to a 5-0 start that season, defeating the Bulldogs 91-76).  All later appearances in rivalry against Gonzaga have commanded a larger, sturdier venue.  In recent years Gonzaga sells out the Chiles Center as visitors meeting us on our home court.

Filed Under: Featured, UP Trivia Leave a Comment

UP Trivia / Bar Bets: Who put Sol in the Solar System?

February 2, 2017 By Carolyn

Large slide rule, ca1959 (University Museum, click to enlarge)
Large slide rule, ca1959 (University Museum, click to enlarge)

Positioned above the interior doorway of the University Museum is a large-scale yellow Pickett N4-ES Vector Hyperbolic Log Log Dual-Base Slide Rule.  With moving parts.  Somewhat easier to use than a Rubik’s Cube.  The moving parts were the point, allowing classroom demonstrations.

Slide rules are the trombones of scientific equipment (the abacus = the xylophone?), an early improvement on the humble pencil, and a short-cut saving pages of parchment in calculating large equations.  The invention of the slide rule arriving in the seventeenth century, having to wait for the discovery of logarithms (1614), which had to wait for Copernicus to give us large-distances — planetary orbits in a heliocentric dynamic — to measure.  (But before Newton & Leibniz and the discovery of calculus.)

Aristarchus of Samos [fl. 250 BCE] according to the report of Archimedes (trans, Thom. Heath, 1897), considered the distances of the heliocentric system to be too incomprehensible to measure (like the interior angles of a chiliagon or the enumeration of the sand-grains on all the beaches of all the oceans).  John Napier in 1614 in Mirifici Logarithmorum Cannois Descriptio found a way to fold complex equations answering the problems of scale and celestial magnitudes.

Slide rules were used by Engineering and Physics students at UP through the 70s.   The slide rule was a useful tool for solving equations in analytics and trigonometry.   Once a required school supply, the microchip revolution doomed this plastic analog technology.  The introduction of the (affordable) pocket calculator in the mid to late 1970s eliminated the slide rule from shirt-pockets and belt-holsters, leading to a different aesthetic in geek chic.   Even so, the slide rule is a tool requiring neither batteries nor electricity for those who appreciate (or enjoy) manual computations in case of power-outages.

(Researched by the University Archivist)

Photo gallery, click on images to enlarge

Slide rules with deluxe leather pocket protectors (University Museum)
Slide rule sold in UP bookstore (University Museum)
Large slide rule close up, ca1959 (University Museum)
Large slide rule, ca 1959 (University Museum)
The Limit y = f(x), retired after many years on display in the Math department

 

 

Filed Under: Featured, UP Trivia 1 Comment

Rudolph (Rudy) Scholz, Olympic Gold Medalist

August 21, 2016 By Carolyn

The last of our early Olympians is Rudolph (Rudy) Scholz, the first of our University-connected competitors to win gold in two Olympic games.

Rudolph Scholz attended Columbia Preparatory School for one year, 1911-1912, moving to California to complete his studies.   He made his mark here in basketball and baseball.    Small in size but quick to react on the court and field.   As a forward on the basketball team, “Rudy was the best scrapper on the team.  What he lacked in inches he made up in cleverness.  Very fast and good on tossing baskets.” (Columbiad, April 1912)   As short stop for the baseball team, he was a “fielding star.” (Columbiad, May 1912).

Columbia Preparatory School Basketball Team, 1911-12; Rudolph (Rudy) Scholz, 3rd from left in the back row (Columbiad, April 1912; University Museum photo)
Columbia Preparatory School Basketball Team, 1911-12; Rudolph (Rudy) Scholz, 3rd from left in the back row (Columbiad, April 1912; University Museum photo)

Rudy must have hit a growth spurt before attending Stanford University where he joined the school’s rugby squad, beginning of a lifetime career in rugby.  In 1920, at the age of 24, he competed with the United States rugby team to win a gold medal at the Summer Olympic games in Antwerp, Belgium.  He returned with the team for the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, France to win his second gold.

Olympic gold medal, Antwerp 1920, designed by Josue Dupon (from Wikimedia, click to enlarge)
Olympic gold medal, Antwerp 1920, designed by Josue Dupon (from Wikimedia, click to enlarge)

Rugby was part of the Olympics in 1900, 1908, 1920 and 1924 and then it disappeared from the Olympic scene.  It is one of two sports returning to the Olympics in the 2016 games.

Filed Under: Featured, Olympics, UP Trivia Leave a Comment

First University Olympian

August 5, 2016 By Carolyn

The University boasts many alumni Olympic athletes who once trained and competed on the Bluff.   Proud Pilots instantly recall our recent University soccer stars returning as Olympic medalists in 2008, 2012 for the USA and Canada teams.  But the honorable title of First University Olympian reaches back to the very, very, very early years of the University when we had barely three buildings on campus and were still called Columbia University.  Student-athlete Daniel Kelly attended Columbia University for just one year, 1904-1905.  And Daniel Kelly excelled in track and field.

Dan Kelly, Long Jump record, 1905 Columbiad (Click on image to enlarge)
Dan Kelly, Long Jump record, 1905 Columbiad (Click on image to enlarge)

At a 1905 Columbia University indoor track and field meet held inside the Columbia Colosseum (a sports’ facility here on-campus, 1903-1929; replaced by Howard Hall, but back then spilling across Shipstad quad), Mr. Kelly set a new world record for long jump by shattering the previous world record of 21 feet, 10 inches with a jump of 22 feet, 1 1/4 inches.

Daniel Kelly went on to the University of Oregon from the Bluff.  In 1908 Kelly represented the United States at the Summer Olympic Games held that year London, winning a silver medal for Team USA in Long Jump, his best competition jump covering a distance of 7.09 metres (23 feet, 3 1/4 inches).

The Long Jump event is one of the original Olympic Track and Field sports (from 1896).  The Women’s Long Jump was added in 1948.

1908 London Olympic Event Medal (front and reverse) for first, second, and third place finishers (Wikipedia, Public Domain Image: published before 1923 and public domain in the U.S.)
1908 London Olympic Event Medal (front and reverse) for first, second, and third place finishers (Wikipedia, Public Domain Image: published before 1923 and public domain in the U.S.; Click image to enlarge)

 

Filed Under: Olympics, UP Trivia Leave a Comment

UP Trivia / Bar bets: NCAA or NAIA, First Nat’l Title Revisited

March 17, 2016 By Carolyn

1985 NAIA Women's Cross Country Trophy (original in University Museum; click to enlarge photo)
1985 NAIA Women’s Cross Country Trophy (trophy in University Museum; click to enlarge photo)

During March Madness and the bowl season contests leading up to the National Football Championship it sometimes appears that the NCAA is the sum and summit of collegiate sports.  In highlighting the achievements of Pilot Athletics we tend to focus on our brushes-with-greatness in terms of NCAA honors.  But before UP hooked-up with the NCAA, we used to go steady with the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics).

And while the NCAA National Championship Women’s Soccer teams (2002 & 2005) won trips to Washington, D.C. and the White House, and a parade in downtown Portland….

https://sites.up.edu/museum/up-trivia-bar-bets-medal-of-the-year/

The University of Portland’s first National Championship athletic title was earned at the NAIA by the women of the 1985 Cross Country Team.  A rapid and amazing development, as related in the 1983 Track Media Guide, “In 1980 the University of Portland women’s track team consisted of two women –  Teresa Holmes and Diana Brink.  Three years later the track team has 19 athletes and the foundation of a solid program” (p. 17).  A confidence well-founded.  The Women’s Cross Country team entered NAIA competition in 1982 winning the District II title, and repeating as District II champs in 1983, 1984, 1985.  In 1985 going on to take national honors and emerge as the team to bring the University of Portland its first national title.  The pioneering achievements of the 1985 squad were recognized in 2010 when the National Championship Cross Country Team was inducted into the University of Portland Athletic Hall of Fame (see Hall of Fame Citation, below).

(Click on image to enlarge)

Track Brochure, 1985-86 (University Archives)
Track Brochure, 1985-86 (University Archives)
Track Brochure, 1985-86 (University Archives)
UP Athletic Hall of Fame Citation, 2010 (University Archives)
1985 Women's Cross Country Team (1986 Log)
1985 Women’s Cross Country Championship Team: Karen Wilhelms, Clare Krill, Ann Manning, Laura Johnson, Mary Hillenkamp, Julie Mullin, Kristy Johnston (1986 Log)

Filed Under: Featured, UP Trivia 1 Comment

The Future War: human v. machine (0-9)

February 5, 2016 By Carolyn

Catalogues and Bulletins reaching back to the beginning of the University list at least ten general usage phone numbers and exchanges for the outside caller seeking to reach someone on campus.   Though the very first phone number was not even a number at all.  In 1901-1902 callers would simply pick up a telephone and ask an operator to be connected with “Columbia University”.   There was likely just one phone in West Hall (the only building then, now Waldschmidt Hall) and by the mid-1920s (with two campus buildings!) there were two or three phone lines serving the campus, including a pay telephone in Christie Hall.

From two or three phones in the mid-1920s, campus telephone service added stations on individual wires in the 1930s.  These moved back to a switchboard exchange passing through West Hall in 1938.  Christie Hall had a private pay telephone on each floor for student use; the student residents were responsible for answering the phone for an entire floor or wing.   An arrangement recalled by Fr. Barry Hagan, C.S.C., ’53, former University Archivist, in an oral history conducted by Archivist Brother David Martin, C.S.C, in 1968: “The telephones; there was one telephone per floor; it was located right next to the steam pipe.  You walked into a room lined with a kind of iron or steel sheeting and pulled shut behind this heavy fire door; …  you stood inside and absolutely sweat profusely while you made your telephone calls.”

A switchboard operator fielded calls placed to the University at UNiversity2626, UN1641, TWinoaks 8841, TW5541 from the 1930s through the mid-50s.   The expanding demand for telephone service in the 1950s ushered in a 7-digit number-system nationwide and the university’s number changed to BUtler 9-5541; the West Hall UP switchboard then successively becomes 289-5541, 286-7911, 283-7911 through the 1960s.  Today, cell-phone demand has created a ten-digit system, and we are 503-943-8000.

The first private telephone in a dorm room was installed in 1957 in Christie Hall by sophomore student, Don Gorger.   In 1966, The Beacon notices that phones were installed in all rooms in Mehling Hall.  The University provided phones for student rooms until about 1985.

Portland Magazine reports 1,415 telephones on campus in 1993: 800 for faculty and staff; 600 for students; and 15 pay phones.  Today (January 2016) Information Services reports there are 956 VoIP telephones running on the University’s network: 946 for faculty and staff; 10 for students.  There are no pay phones operating on campus.  And no count at all accounting for wireless mobile devices, which seem to be issued in multiples far in excess of one per-person.

(click on photos to enlarge)

Old house phone, ca 1920s (In University Museum)
University of Portland and Columbia Prep Telephone Numbers, Bulletin of University of Portland, Summer 1939 (University Archives)
Rev. Lloyd Teske, C.S.C., ca1961 (University Archives photo)
Rotary telephone, c1983 (University Museum)
Brother Pius Leising, C.S.C., ca1956 (University Archives photo)
Centrex phone system West Hall, 1969 (University Archives photo)
Pradeep Kumar Karunakaran with new NEAX 2400 telephone system, 1988 (University Archives photo)

Additional photographs and artifacts about telephones are on display on the first floor of Buckley Center (across from the Studies Abroad Office) until the end of February 2016.

Filed Under: Featured, UP Trivia 2 Comments

UP Trivia / Bar bets: Medal of the Year

December 1, 2015 By Carolyn

Other than our Good-Attendance record and being all-round good-sports, have Portland Pilots teams earned National Titles and Distinction?

The Jewel in the Crown has been Women’s Soccer, twice NCAA national champions.

2005 Championship Team on the White House Lawn, April 6, 2006 (Steven Gibbons, photographer)
2005 Championship Team on the White House Lawn, April 6, 2006 (Steven Gibbons, photographer)
Championship team with trophy, 2005 (UP Soccer Media)
Championship team with trophy after winning the final match on December 4, 2005 (UP Soccer Media)

Women’s soccer began in UP in 1980 under coach Ken Robinette.  Soccer on the Bluff became dominant under former Timber’s player, Clive Charles’ leadership (1988-2002), resulting in Pilots appearances at national tournaments starting in 1992.   The pinnacle of Clive Charles’ Pilot career was coaching the 2002 Women’s Soccer team to achieve for UP our first ever national championship; which was also the last collegiate game he coached.  Garrett Smith picked up the reins as head coach and led the team to its second national championship in 2005.

Pilot women’s soccer – Best in the Field = 2 national championships; 3 national title appearances; 21 playoff berths.

Rev. E. William Beauchamp, C.S.C. with Christine Sinclair ’06; in 2006 receiving the NCAA "Top VIII" Award 2006; top female collegiate soccer player 2006 (University Archives photo)
Rev. E. William Beauchamp, C.S.C. with Christine Sinclair ’06; in 2006 receiving the NCAA “Top VIII” Award 2006; top female collegiate soccer player 2006 (University Archives photo)

Plus, our alumnae are World Cup playmakers: 3 first place; 1 second place; 3 third place; 1 fourth place, and Olympic medalists: 4 gold, 3 silver, 2 bronze!

We can also go back a century to brag over the Men’s Soccer Interscholastic League title in 1914!

Celebrate Pilot Women’s Soccer with a visit to the University Museum where displays include: Rachael Rapinoe’s national championship jersey (2005); President George W. Bush’s letter of praise for our National champions (2002); National championship ring (2002); Soccer ball signed by members of the national championship team (2005); Cameron Cup Soccer Trophy (1914!) .  For museum hours and information: https://library.up.edu/museum

Soccer Men 1914 Champions (University Archives photo)
Soccer Men 1914 Champions (University Archives photo)

Filed Under: UP Trivia 1 Comment

UP Trivia / Bar bets: Hanging Up the Pads

November 12, 2015 By Carolyn

John O'Donnell, Alumni Bulletin, Winter 1950 (University Archives photo)
John O’Donnell, Alumni Bulletin, Winter 1950 (University Archives photo)

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)

End of Football Announcement, Alumni Bulletin, Winter 1950
Putting football out of its misery, Dale Gier and John O’Donnell, 1950 (University Archives photo)
Ed Castagna, Dale Gier, Jack Peterson, John O’Donnell, Football burial, 1950 (University Archives photo)
The Beacon, March 10, 1950
Alumni Bulletin, Summer 1950

Filed Under: UP Trivia Leave a Comment

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to this site via email


Highlights from the Museum

Jim Creegan Automobile License Tag, 1950

Hours and Location

University of Portland Museum
014 Shipstad Hall

Available only by e-email at:  museum@up.edu

Recent Posts

  • Spirit of Portland U Pennant
  • From the University Bulletin, themes of mission and value
  • Battling Germs
  • On the Bluff: looking out, looking up
  • Tonsillectomy Bag
  • A Given Life: Entwined with Learning
  • TWIRP DANCE (=The Woman is Requested to Pay)
  • A Most Noble Order Indeed

Archives

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright © 2021 · University of Portland