UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

University Relations

$150,000 Lund Gift To RISE

The University of Portland has announced a RISE Campaign gift of $150,000 from longtime UP supporters Allen and Kathleen Lund of Pasadena, Calif. Their gift will purchase a Heritage Edition of the Saint John’s Bible, which will be on display on the main floor of the Clark Library when construction is completed in August.

The Saint John’s Bible is the first completely handwritten and illuminated Bible to have been commissioned by a Benedictine Abbey since the invention of the printing press. Divided into seven volumes, the original Saint John’s Bible was commissioned by Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota in 1998 and completed in 2011. With this gift, the University of Portland is one of approximately 45 institutions to have acquired a rare Heritage Edition. Other schools include Yale University, Brigham Young University, and Santa Clara University.

Allen Lund is the president and CEO of the Allen Lund Company and chairman of the University’s board of regents. The gift is part of the RISE Campaign, which seeks to raise $175 million over the next several years, one of the largest development campaigns ever for a Pacific Northwest private college or university.

2013 Mazzocco Lecture

Debra SatzThe annual William James Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice will take place on Wednesday, February 20, at 7:30 p.m., in Buckley Center room 163. Debra Satz (pictured left), the Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society at Stanford University, will present “Should Everything Be For Sale?” The lecture is free and open to all. Satz will explore the controversies around diverse goods (human organs, votes, sex, credit derivatives, etc.) and whether they should be treated as marketable commodities. She will draw much of her argument from her 2010 book, Why Some Things Should Not Be For Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets. Other works by Satz include Toward A More Humanist Justice: The Political Philosophy of Susan Moller Okin (2009) and Occupy the Future (2013). Her areas of academic specialty include the place of equality in a just society and theories of rational choice, and she is currently leading a multi-year research project which aims to clarify plausible interpretations of equality of educational opportunity and their implications for public policy.

The William James Mazzocco Memorial Lecture in Distributive Justice was established in 2006; Mazzocco earned his economics degree on The Bluff in 1937. A lifelong world traveler, Mazzocco had a long, distinguished career which included military intelligence assignments during World War II, diplomatic posts in Paris, Rome, Rio de Janeiro, and Abidjan, and significant contributions to the Marshall Plan. He credited his years at the University of Portland with giving him a solid moral foundation that would guide his life and work for the remainder of his 89 years, most notably his steadfast belief in distributive justice—the principles of equitable and fair distribution of wealth.

For more information contact Gary Malecha, political science, at 7452 or malecha@up.edu.

Dundon-Berchtold Initiative

The University of Portland recently launched the first semester of the Dundon-Berchtold Initiative in Applied Ethics, funded by Amy Dundon-Berchtold and Jim Berchtold ’63, and designed to ensure that the University meets its “aspirations both to form the moral character of its students and to conduct sustained ethical reflection in applied aspects of business, science, engineering, education, health care and the arts.” The initiative began in January 2013 after seven faculty fellows and seven student scholars were selected. The faculty-student groups will work on distinct ethics projects over the course of the semester:

  • Brian Adams and Colin Mahoney ’15, business administration: “Issues in Finance: Planning a Financial Ethics Symposium”
  • Timothy Doughty and Jordan Schiemer ’14, engineering: “Ethical Resources for Engineers: What To Do When You Don’t Know What To Do”
  • Karen Eifler and Cady Anderson ’13, education: “Ethics from the Teaching Trenches: A Principled Framework for Differentiated Instruction”
  • Deana Julka and Georgia Wilson ’13, psychology: “Ethical Issues Related to the Adoption of Physical Activity Programs in Various Social Settings”
  • Jeff Kerssen-Griep and Danielle Christensen ’13, communication studies: “Exploring Ethics in Organizational Decision-Making Practices at the University of Portland”
  • Lorretta Krautscheid and Molly Brown ’14, nursing: “Micro-Ethical Decisions in Clinical Practice Settings: A Qualitative Investigation of Student Nurse Experiences”
  • Jacquie Van Hoomissen and Tiffany Chau ’13, biology: “Ethical Issues Related to the Adoption of Physical Activity Programs in Various Social Settings.”

For more information on the initiative go to http://tinyurl.com/bz2ssvl.

UP Facebook Page Ranked Third

The University of Portland’s Facebook page has been ranked third in the nation for audience engagement among peer colleges and universities with 10,000-19,999 followers in 2012. The ranking is from Varsity Outreach, a leader in social media marketing for university audiences. The UP page ranked eleventh in 2011. Rankings are available at http://tinyurl.com/b39d7o8. UP’s Facebook page is at http://tinyurl.com/ajebpp3. The University placed third against schools such as Villanova, Santa Clara, Dartmouth, Loyola, and Portland State. The UP page also ranked 16th in the nation overall among all 627 college and university pages regardless of size classification. With more than 12,000 followers after gaining nearly 3,500 new followers in 2012, the page is operated by the office of marketing and communications, which also oversees UP’s social media efforts on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. For more information contact Joe Kuffner, marketing and communications, at 7202 or kuffnerj@up.edu.

Uncommon Heroes

heroes-upbeatAll employees are invited to learn more about the many academic, athletic, professional, and service heroes who surround us each day on campus and in the world community thanks to the University’s commitment to extraordinary Teaching and Learning, Faith and Formation, and Service and Leadership. Their stories can be found on the UP website at http://up.edu/heroes/. A small sampling:

  • Kurt Berning ’12, Global Supporter and Fulbright Scholar: as a UP student Kurt spent one summer in rural Kenya teaching high school students, where he raised $1,200 online in one week to provide the school with electricity. His non-profit Global ADE, raised $20,000 in its first year to foster educational opportunities in developing countries, especially Cambodia.
  • Matt Powell ’84, Educational Influencer and Community Booster: Matt saw potential where others did not. A decade ago, he helped found De La Salle North Catholic High School. His vision was for low income students in North Portland to receive an affordable, yet high quality, college preparatory education –tuition wouldn’t be the school’s main source of revenue. Instead, he modeled the financial system on that of Cristo Rey High School in Chicago where students work one day a week in the local community, gaining valuable work experience, and their earnings supplement tuition. At De La Salle North, this format helps fund 70 percent of the school’s budget. Tuition costs are $2,995 this year, but many families pay only $25 per month. The remaining balance is funded through donations. And the success of the school? Last fall, 95 percent of graduating seniors at De La Salle North were admitted to college.