UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

Marketing & Communications

Administrative Changes

lyons

Jim Lyons, vice president of University relations, has announced his resignation.  Jim and his family will be relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area where Jim will assume the role of vice president for university relations at Santa Clara University beginning in October.

Jim has served with distinction on the Bluff since 1998 when he began his service here as dean of admissions.  During the years Jim led admissions, applications more than tripled and, as a result, the quantity and quality of each incoming freshman class has risen.  In 2005, Jim was appointed senior associate vice president of University relations and in 2008, he was named vice president.  In this capacity Jim has been responsible for the Offices of Alumni Relations, University Events, Marketing & Communications, and Development, including the University’s $175 million Rise Campaign, the most significant fundraising campaign in the University’s 111-year history.  To date more than $162 million has been raised.  In addition, through his guidance and leadership in the marketing arena, the profile of the University has never been higher. Jim was the recipient of the Miltner Award, the University’s most prestigious staff award, in 2006.   Jim has also been very active in the community through board leadership for Seton Catholic High School, Catholic Charities of Oregon, and Saturday Academy as well as service on Our Lady of Lourdes Finance Council and volunteer youth coaching with Catholic Youth Organization.

Jim and his wife, Connie, and their four sons have added much to the fabric of the UP community.

Fr. Beauchamp has appointed Laurie Kelley, currently associate vice president of University relations and chief marketing officer, to serve as interim vice president of University relations upon Jim’s departure.  Laurie has served here on The Bluff since October 2006.  Laurie and her team have shepherded the UP brand to new heights.  In addition to marketing, Laurie has directed many of the University’s signature events including Focus the Nation, the Rise Campaign launch, the State of UP, the Pamplin School of Business’ 75th Anniversary, the School of Nursing’s 75th Anniversary and last year’s Rise for Scholarships Event, which raised over $1.3 million for scholarships.  In her new position, Kelley will oversee the Offices of Alumni Relations, Development, Marketing & Communications, and University Events.  Prior to coming to UP, she was the vice president of marketing & planning at Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB).

Laurie and her husband Mike have four children.  She has served on the boards of directors of the Blanchet House, Children’s Cancer Association and served as a national commissioner for CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education).  She currently serves on the board of Jesuit High School and Notre Dame Women Connect.  She holds an undergraduate degree in accounting and an MBA, both from the University of Notre Dame.

Please congratulate Laurie on her new position and thank Jim Lyons for his years of dedication and service to the University of Portland. For more information contact the president’s office at 7101 or simek@up.edu.

Say Cheese, Please

hThe next staff/faculty photo shoot for new employees or those who would like to update their photos will be on Tuesday, August 20, from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., in the Holy Cross Lounge on the third floor of Franz Hall, according to Mary Beebe, marketing and communications. Photos take no more than five minutes. To make an appointment, e-mail mktg@up.edu with the time that you are available. Call 7202 for any questions.

Employee Kickball Extravaganza

kickball150All UP employees, both faculty and staff, are welcome to take part in the first annual Employee Kickball Extravaganza on Wednesday, August 14, at 4 p.m., on the Shipstad Quad, according to organizers Mary Beebe and Joe Kuffner, marketing and communications. Kick off the new school year by playing everyone’s favorite schoolyard game (no, not dodgeball) with your UP coworkers. All skill levels welcome; the only requirement is a desire to have some fun in the sun before students show up and take over the campus. Please RSVP to Kuffner at kuffnerj@up.edu or Beebe at beebe@up.edu.

Course Packs Due

coursepackAll faculty and instructors must turn in their course pack materials for fall semester to the printing services office by July 30, according to Mary Scroggins, printing services. The lead time is needed so printing services staff can obtain copyright permissions and organize the packs for production before the start of the fall 2013 semester. Some copyright requests take up to six weeks to obtain—please keep this in mind so we are better able to serve your needs prior to the start of school. For more information contact Kassie Hansen at 8101 or hansenk@up.edu.

Tom Ank: Be The Match

ankUniversity of Portland information services staff member Tom Ank recently completed a medical procedure that started last fall on a whim. Several months later, he may have saved the life of a complete stranger.

Last fall, Ank convinced several students to sign up for tests to determine whether they would be a match to donate marrow to be used to treat life-threatening cancers like leukemia and lymphoma. Ank, a network engineer at UP, says he doesn’t like to ask anyone to do anything he wouldn’t do. So he also did the cheek swab in the lobby of the University’s Buckley Center, where UP nursing students had set up a testing operation. Three months after the swab, he received an e-mail telling him he had a very rare HLA type and was asked to complete a survey on his family history.

A month later he received a call from Be the Match, an agency which connects patients with their donor match for a life-saving marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant. It was March 25, 2013. “The nice lady on the phone directed me to a lab in my area and a bunch of blood was drawn. The folks at the lab told me they do this all the time and rarely does anything come of it,” Ank recalls. On March 29, Good Friday, he was told he was a match. Within a couple of weeks, he flew to California where he would spend five days away from family and friends “to try and save the life of someone with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Someone I have never met.”

During his stay at a cancer center, he received a number shots and his health was monitored. He then was hooked to a machine for six to eight hours to collect his stem cells. “Two days later, on my birthday, this person I’ve never met before received the cells.” It all happens very fast, Ank notes. His nurse told him that it isn’t always finding the match that is a problem, but “finding a willing match.”

“Sometimes you have to travel,” says Ank. “Sometimes you will be hundreds of miles away. But you still have to step forward. No matter what I may have to deal with, the recipient is dealing with worse. That is what made me press forward. I was putting aside work, fun, holidays, and everything else. I was pausing my life to hopefully save another. All I can think at this time is ‘Good luck, man. I hope you make it.’”

From Our Past

Buzz150On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the surface of the moon, followed closely by Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin. The University conferred an honorary doctorate of science on Aldrin at commencement exercises on May 10, 1970. During the course of his visit, Aldrin gave a talk, shook hands, and signed autographs for admirers in Buckley Center Auditorium. A certain star-struck young future upbeat editor, all of ten years old, snuck to the back of the line after meeting Aldrin and getting his autograph so he could shake hands and ogle his idol once again, hoping said idol wouldn’t notice. He noticed.

For more history from this week see the University Almanac at www.up.edu/almanac.

Four New Humor Scholarships

U of P - students and faculty on a white backgroundOne of the University’s most entertaining RISE Campaign gifts are the annual Brian Doyle Scholarships in Gentle & Sidelong Humor – $3,333.33 per student for one academic year, during which the recipients must create and publicly share a project of some sort that “brings the community together in laughter, acts as a statement that the cultural bias to cruel humor and constant irony is shallow, promotes helpless giggling, and insists gently that true humor is a weapon against violence and greed,” says donor John Beckman ’42, who began the scholarships last year with his wife Patricia, as the start of what they hope will be a renowned Humor Project on The Bluff, akin to the University’s nascent Character Project. The first three recipients, last year, were students who devoted themselves to improv comedy, humorous film, and humor on the Web. The four recipients of the scholarships (named for Portland Magazine editor Brian Doyle) for the 2013-2014 year are Katherine Hampl (who plans to organize a campus comedy week), Sara Jacobs (who plans to bring local children to campus for humorous events), Andrew Stacey (who hopes to start a comic film competition and festival), and Katy Stevens (who plans to make a hilarious promotional video over the course of the year).

The scholarships are open to any current or prospective student (there were 66 applications this year), and are awarded by the University’s financial aid office; the only requirement on acceptance is public sharing of all projects. For information on applying for the annual scholarships (there will be six next year), contact Denise Stack, development, at 8545 or stack@up.edu; for information on the projects, contact Brian Doyle, marketing and communications, at 7202 or bdoyle@up.edu.

Bringing Home The Bronze

food issue150The University’s quarterly journal, Portland Magazine, has earned a national medal from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), a Bronze Medal for the Winter 2012 issue, knows as “the Food Issue.” Other medals in that category, “Special Issues,” went to Pomona College, University of Michigan, Pratt Institute, and Stanford Medical School, according to Portland Magazine editor Brian Doyle, marketing and communications.

In the general excellence category for 2012 issues, medals went to Kenyon College, Sarah Lawrence, Australian Catholic University, Rhode Island School of Design, the Frankfurt (Germany) School of Finance, and University of Texas Austin. Doyle notes the international flavor of the awards; for many years the competition was essentially among magazines in North America. For more information contact Doyle at 7202 or bdoyle@up.edu.

New “University Report” Tool

UPrept-1A new online portal designed for faculty use in recording their scholarly activity was launched on Monday, May 20, according to John Orr, assistant to the provost. The goal of the tool is to provide members of the University community with one site that can be used to record and save their scholarly activity during the year. The data captured there will be used to populate the new and improved Provost’s University of Portland Report, which will now be published at the beginning of the fall semester.

Faculty should start loading scholarly activity for the past academic year as soon as possible in order to see their information appear in the fall report. Data will be sent to the marketing and communications office on Saturday, June 15, so please load materials before then.

Faculty members will find their personal, secure access to the portal on PilotsUP (https://pilots.up.edu) under the “Academic” tab. Hover over the Academic tab with your mouse and then click on “Scholarly Activity.” Instructions on how to use the portal appear in the left side bar. For assistance contact Orr at orr@up.edu or 7857, or Michele Leasor at leasor@up.edu or 7857.