One-hundred-and-twenty years, and continuing

Dr. Robert Kelly has been named the Twenty-first President of the University of Portland.  He is the first person to hold that office who has not been a Holy Cross Religious at some point earlier in his life.  (Trivia point: our first president, Rev. Edward Patrick Murphy, began his clerical career as a Holy Cross priest, and had even been president of a Holy Cross school, St. Edward’s College in Austin, Texas, before Archbishop Alexander Christie appointed him president of Columbia University for one-year in 1901.) 

But Dr. Kelly is not our first President Kell(e)y.

The name of the 21^st President is now joined beside that of Rev. Louis Kelley, C.S.C.; the Seventh President (1928-1934).  Both of these educators—as indeed all of the presidents—assuming the role in a time of transition.  Between 1928-1934, we grew from junior college status to a fully accredited 4-year university program, and merged into full partnership with St. Vincent Hospital to form the School of Nursing. The school’s development during these years was so significant as to lead to altering our name to describe the new reality, Archbishop Christie’s Columbia University becoming the University of Portland in 1935.  Now entering our 121’s year, President Kelly’s time — and our time– promising a period of new growth and potential for the years ahead.