UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

Archbishop Alexander Christie

From Our Past: Christie Hall Groundbreaking

June 8, 1911 saw the groundbreaking for Christie Hall, at a ceremony attended by Portland archbishop Alexander Christie, the building’s namesake, who turned the first spadeful of earth himself.

When the property on which the University stands was purchased in 1901 from the University Land Company, the terms called for the construction of “a major building” within ten years. The Columbia Colosseum athletic fieldhouse was built in 1903, but Christie Hall is the second-oldest building on campus, since the Colosseum collapsed during a storm in 1927.

The school catalogue described Christie as “a model school dormitory,” designed in Tudor-style brick with three floors and a full basement, with 122 private rooms. “Each room was lighted, ventilated, heated by steam, and contained a washbasin with hot and cold running water,” according to Jim Covert’s A Point of Pride. The University library was moved from West Hall to the Christie basement that year; the “temporary” basis of that move lasted until the Clark Library was built in 1958. The basement also included two bowling alleys, a billiard room, and a smoking room. Christie Hall’s chapel was located where it is today, and has served for the past 107 years as a refuge for quiet prayer and reflection.

Christie Hall has served a number of functions over the decades. Many of the legendary Holy Cross priests and brothers made their homes there, including Frs. John and Con Hooyboer, Fr. John Delaunay, and many others whose open-door policies led students to seek their counsel at all hours. Faculty members kept offices in Christie Hall rooms, especially before the construction of Buckley Center in the late 1960s, and Christie was also home to the University’s credit union, administered faithfully and meticulously by business professor Russell Braden and his wife Kay until the early 1980s.

Founders’ Day: Tuesday, April 12

ChristiesThe University’s annual Founders’ Day celebration will take place on Tuesday, April 12. Student presentations will be held in place of regularly scheduled classes, and all students and faculty are encouraged take part in the day’s events, featuring senior presentations, undergraduate research, panel discussions, recitals, and more. Classes scheduled to begin after 4 p.m. will be held as usual.

Founders’ Day was first celebrated at the University in 1902, when University founder Most Rev. Alexander Christie visited the school he had established on The Bluff the summer before. Christie’s annual visits were eagerly anticipated by the University’s college and preparatory students until his death in 1925.

For more information, including a schedule of the day’s events, go to www.up.edu/foundersday.

Founders’ Day: Tuesday, April 12

ChristiesThe University’s annual Founders’ Day celebration will take place on Tuesday, April 12. Four sessions of student presentations will be held in place of regularly scheduled classes, and all students and faculty are encouraged take part in the day’s events, featuring senior presentations, undergraduate research, panel discussions, recitals, and more. Classes scheduled to begin after 4 p.m. will be held as usual.

Founders’ Day was first celebrated at the University in 1902, when University founder Most Rev. Alexander Christie visited the school he had established on The Bluff the summer before. He continued his annual visits throughout his tenure as archbishop.

For more information, including a schedule of the day’s events, go to www.up.edu/foundersday.

From Our Past

quinlan2Fr. Michael Quinlan, C.S.C. (pictured), the second president and first Holy Cross president of the University of Portland, died on August 29, 1944, at age 70. He served as president from 1902 to 1906, succeeding Fr. Edward P. Murphy, a Portland archiocesan priest who had been appointed president by archbishop Alexander Christie. Fr. Quinlan’s tenure proved to be difficult, due mostly to a clash of personalities with Archbishop Christie. Both were plain-spoken men with no use for diplomacy. Fr. Quinlan was succeeded in 1906 by Rev. Joseph A. Gallagher, C.S.C., who served as president until 1914.

Also, on August 30, 1964, the first group of UP students departed for the University’s program in Salzburg. Under the guidance of the program’s first resident director, Fr. Ambrose Wheeler, C.S.C., the group would travel to Scotland to begin a tour that would take them through England and the continent before arriving in Salzburg. For more history from this week, see the University of Portland Almanac at www.up.edu/almanac/.

Founders’ Day Celebration, April 8

Christie3The University’s annual Founders’ Day celebration will take place on Tuesday, April 8. Four sessions of student presentations will be held in place of regularly scheduled classes, and all students and faculty are encouraged take part in the day’s events, featuring senior presentations, undergraduate research, panel discussions, recitals, and more. Classes scheduled to begin after 4 p.m. will be held as usual.

Founders’ Day was first celebrated at the University in 1902, when University founder Most Rev. Alexander Christie (pictured) visited the school he had established on The Bluff the summer before. For more information, including a schedule of the day’s events, go to www.up.edu/foundersday.

From Our Past

Br Ferdinand MoserJuly 13, 1964 saw the death, at age 74, of Br. Ferdinand Moser, C.S.C., pictured. He had come to the University in 1933 and became, in addition to his teaching, the University’s first landscape architect, establishing the beginnings of a remarkable collection of varieties of camellias as well as rhododendrons, azaleas, holly, and other plantings, especially the tall sequoias (S. gigantea) that now tower over the campus. His tenure started much too late, however, for Br. Ferdinand to have planted one of the campus’s iconic trees; the awe-inspiring white oak in the Pilot House plaza is estimated to be at least 300 years old.

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 in the far, far outskirts of North Portland, under the conditions that “a school be conducted and a major building erected within ten years,” according to James Covert’s 1976 University of Portland history, A Point of Pride. On July 22, 1901, the portion of the present campus that had formed the old Methodist Portland University (including West Hall, now Waldschmidt Hall) became the property of the Archdiocese of Oregon City under the title of Columbia University. The Archdiocese later ceded the same property to the Indiana Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross, which continued to operate the institution under the Columbia University name until 1935, when the name was changed to the University of Portland. In 1968 the Indiana Province turned the assets of the University over to its newly formed lay board of regents, which has governed and operated the University ever since.

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

From Our Past

Br Ferdinand MoserJuly 13, 1964 saw the death, at age 74, of Br. Ferdinand Moser, C.S.C., pictured. He had come to the University in 1933 and became, in addition to his teaching, the University’s first landscape architect, establishing the beginnings of a remarkable collection of varieties of camellias as well as rhododendrons, azaleas, holly, and other plantings, especially the tall sequoias (S. gigantea) that now tower over the campus. His tenure started much too late, however, for Br. Ferdinand to have planted one of the campus’s iconic trees; the awe-inspiring white oak in the Pilot House plaza is estimated to be at least 300 years old.

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 in the far, far outskirts of North Portland, under the conditions that “a school be conducted and a major building erected within ten years,” according to James Covert’s 1976 University of Portland history, A Point of Pride. On July 22, 1901, the portion of the present campus that had formed the old Methodist Portland University (including West Hall, now Waldschmidt Hall) became the property of the Archdiocese of Oregon City under the title of Columbia University. The Archdiocese later ceded the same property to the Indiana Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross, which continued to operate the institution under the Columbia University name until 1935, when the name was changed to the University of Portland. In 1968 the Indiana Province turned the assets of the University over to its newly formed lay board of regents, which has governed and operated the University ever since.

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

From Our Past

aerialJune 8, 1911 saw the groundbreaking for Christie Hall, named for Archbishop Alexander Christie of the Portland Archdiocese, founder of Columbia University (renamed the University of Portland in 1935). When the campus property purchased in 1901 from the University Land Company, the terms called for the construction within ten years of a major building. A huge athletic field house had been built in 1903, large enough for indoor track meets and even baseball games, but Christie Hall would be the building which officially satisfied the terms of the sale. The archbishop himself turned the first shovelful of earth, and photographs show him, shovel in hand, towering above the gathered boys and faculty. Aerial photographs from the time show West (now Waldschmidt) Hall, Christie Hall, and the Columbia Colosseum huddled together on the mostly blank campus; Christie and West Halls survive, but the colosseum, which was located roughly where Howard Hall and the Pilot House are now, collapsed during a winter storm in 1927.

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

Founders Day, Tuesday April 9

The University’s annual Founders Day celebration will take place on Tuesday, April 9. Four sessions of student presentations will be held in place of regularly scheduled classes, and all students and faculty are encouraged take part in the day’s events, featuring senior presentations, panel discussions, recitals, and more. Classes scheduled to begin after 4 p.m. will be held as usual. Founders Day was first celebrated at the University in 1902, when University founder Most Rev. Alexander Christie visited the school he had established on The Bluff the summer before. For more information, including a schedule of the day’s events, go to www.up.edu/foundersday.