UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

Brian Doyle

New Portland Magazine Editor: Jessica Murphy Moo

Jessica Murphy Moo has been appointed editor of Portland magazine, the award-winning publication of the University of Portland. A writer, editor, and teacher, Murphy Moo comes to UP from Seattle, where she has been senior communications manager for the Seattle Opera, as well as an adjunct instructor teaching nonfiction writing for the University of Washington’s Professional and Continuing Education program. She was formerly a staff editor at The Atlantic and fiction editor at Memorious, an online literary magazine.

Murphy Moo, who will begin her role at the University in July, follows the late Brian Doyle as the editor of the magazine, a literary publication that reflects both Catholic tradition and a unique Pacific Northwest aesthetic. In addition to her fiction and nonfiction work in various literary journals and magazines, Murphy Moo also profiled a group of Benedictine nuns who live on Washington’s Shaw Island for Portland magazine in 2008.

Murphy Moo says her top priority when she arrives will be to get to know the people who comprise the UP community and their stories. “In my experience, most people don’t know that their life and their work tell a story. The value of writers resides in our ability to connect the dots between a person’s every day and a person’s heart. In that space, story and mystery abound.”

Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, Image, and Memorious, and Signs of Life, an anthology for Seattle-based writers. Her nonfiction has appeared in Portland magazine, Poets & Writers Magazine, ParentMap, The Tablet, Boston College Magazine, and The Atlantic Online, among other publications. In 2006, she earned a nine-month postgraduate writing fellowship from Image magazine, an award given annually to a writer of Christian commitment who is working on a first book.

When she isn’t writing, she and her husband can be found chasing after their three children and finding the humor in things.

For more information contact marketing and communications at x7202 or mktg@up.edu.

Spirit of Holy Cross Awards, Blessed Basil Moreau Feast Day, Jan. 20

All University of Portland community members are invited to celebrate the feast day of Blessed Basil Moreau, C.S.C., founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross, on Saturday, January 20, at 10:30 a.m., in the Chapel of Christ the Teacher. Brian Doyle will be honored posthumously as a recipient of the 2017 Spirit of Holy Cross Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Congregation upon its lay collaborators.

The award is given annually to lay collaborators of the Congregation of Holy Cross, United States Province of Priests and Brothers. The award recognizes lay collaborators who devotedly work to make Blessed Basil Moreau’s vision and mission to “make God known, loved, and served” a reality at the Congregation’s education, parish and mission apostolates. Honorees receive a proclamation of gratitude signed by Provincial Superior Fr. Tom O’Hara on behalf of the entire U.S. Province.

For more information, contact Campus Ministry at 7131 or ministry@up.edu.

CASE Gold, Bronze Awards

The marketing and communications office received notification of two awards in the 2018 Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District VIII Communication Awards competition:

  • The University’s quarterly journal, Portland Magazine, earned a Gold Medal in the “Print, General Interest Magazines, circulation 30,000-74,999” category for its spring 2017 issue, which was the last under the editorship of the late Brian Doyle. CASE’s District VIII represents 152 member institutions in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, and all of western Canada.
  • The marketing and communications and development offices earned a Bronze Medal in the “Platinum: Best Practices in Fundraising” category for the “All Hands on Deck” campaign.

For more information contact marketing and communications at mktg@up.edu or x7202.

Spirit of Holy Cross Award for Brian Doyle

The late Brian Doyle, whose connection with the Congregation of Holy Cross spanned over 40 years until his sudden passing in the spring of 2017, has received a posthumous 2017 Spirit of Holy Cross Award. Given annually to lay collaborators of the Congregation of Holy Cross, United States Province of Priests and Brothers, the award recognizes those who devotedly work to fulfill Blessed Basil Moreau’s vision and mission to “make God known, loved, and served” a reality at the Congregation’s education, parish, and mission apostolates.

Brian graduated with a degree in English from the University of Notre Dame in 1978, and after positions with U.S. Catholic magazine and Boston College magazine, Brian accepted a position on the Bluff as editor of Portland magazine, which he served with talent, creativity and joy. In 2005 the magazine won the Sibley Magazine of the Year Award, the top national honor for publications in higher education advancement. His volumes of fiction and nonfiction alike attracted a dedicated following, and his honors included an Oregon Book Award and the 2017 John Burroughs Medal for distinguished nature writing for his book Martin Marten. Brian blessed the Holy Cross Community with his friendship, and served as a mentor to many.

He joins the following 2017 Spirit of Holy Cross Award winners:

  • Nancy Conroy of Holy Cross House in Notre Dame, Ind.
  • Paul Fujawa, lifetime member of St. Casimir Parish in South Bend, Ind.
  • James Kramer, associate director of development for the United States Province and the former Indiana Province since 2004.
  • Pedro Pablo Miranda, manager of St. George’s College since 2004.
  • Mary Nucciarone, director of financial aid at the University of Notre Dame.
  • Benito Salazar, who has served for more than 40 years as director of the “Celestial Choir” at St. Adalbert Parish in South Bend, Ind.
  • Lucyann Skvarla, who is in her 40th year of service to King’s College, where she began in 1978 as assistant for the humanities and social sciences faculty in Hafey-Marian Hall.

The honorees will be recognized in their local communities by the Holy Cross ministry for which they work during the month of January as part of the celebrations of Blessed Moreau’s life. At that time, they will receive a proclamation of gratitude signed by Rev. Thomas J. O’Hara, C.S.C., Provincial Superior, on behalf of the entire U.S. Province.

Brian Doyle, 1956-2017: Chuid Eile i Síochain

The University of Portland lost a beloved member of our community when Brian Doyle, award-winning author and editor of Portland magazine for 25 years, passed away at his home, early in the morning of May 27, 2017, from complications related to a brain tumor. Brian, 60, is survived by his wife, Mary, their daughter, Lily, and twin sons, Liam and Joseph.

All who knew, loved, and admired Brian are invited to attend his Funeral Mass, which will be held on Friday, June 2, at 11:30 a.m., at St. Mary’s Cathedral in downtown Portland. A luncheon with his family and friends will immediately follow at University of Portland’s Bauccio Commons.

Born in New York City in 1956 to James A. Doyle, a journalist, and Ethel Clancey Doyle, a teacher, Brian grew up in a large Irish Catholic family in a home peppered with Irish Gaelic. Brian always knew he would be a writer and credits his start to his parents, whom he described as gifted raconteurs and storytellers. Jim Doyle was head of the Catholic Press Association for thirty years, and Brian’s writings, like his father’s, reflect his deep Catholic faith.

After earning a degree in English from the University of Notre Dame in 1978, he went on to become the assistant editor at U.S. Catholic magazine and, later, a senior writer for Boston College magazine, before he was hired as editor of the University’s quarterly Portland magazine in 1991. Called “the best spiritual magazine in the country” by author Annie Dillard, Portland magazine, under Brian as editor, has consistently been ranked among the best university magazines in the country and, in 2005, won Newsweek’s Sibley Award as the top university magazine in America.

Brian has also authored many books of fiction, essays, and poems, including his novels “Mink River,” “The Plover,” “Chicago,” and “Martin Marten,” for which he won a 2016 Oregon Book Award for Young Adult Literature. His most recent novel, “The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World: A Novel of Robert Louis Stevenson,” was published in March 2017. His essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Orion, The American Scholar, The Sun Magazine, and The New York Times, and have been reprinted in the annual anthologies from Best American Essays, Best American Science & Nature Writing, and Best American Spiritual Writing.

Other honors include the Catholic Book Award, three Pushcart Prizes, the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (previous recipients include Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut, and Flannery O’Connor), the John Burroughs Award for Nature Essays, and, most recently, the 2017 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature Writing for his novel Martin Marten, only the second work of fiction to be awarded the Medal in its 90-year history.

2017 Commencement Honorees Announced

The University of Portland has announced the honorees to be recognized during the 2017 Commencement ceremonies, which will be held on campus in the Chiles Center on Sunday, May 7. Commencement I begins at 10 a.m. and is held for undergraduate and graduate students of the Pamplin School of Business, the Shiley School of Engineering, and the School of Nursing. Commencement II starts at 2 p.m. and is for all graduates of the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Education.

Christus Magister Medal

Sr. Charlene Herinckx, S.S.M.O. ‘78
Receiving the University’s highest honor, the Christus Magister Medal, is Sr. Charlene Herinckx, S.S.M.O. Sr. Herinckx was elected Superior General of the Sisters of Saint Mary of Oregon (S.S.M.O.) in 2010 and was re-elected in 2015. The S.S.M.O., which are the only religious community to be founded in Oregon, officially opened their convent in 1886, and in 1889, they opened an orphanage. Since that time, the sisters have been deeply committed to serving others, especially through education and health care. Through the years, the order founded St. Mary’s Home for Boys, St. Mary’s Institute, St. Mary of the Valley boarding school, St. Mary of the Valley High School (now known as Valley Catholic), and Maryville Nursing Home. Sr. Herinckx was raised in Roy, Oregon, a small community near the Tualatin Valley, where the Sisters of Saint Mary began teaching in 1912. The sisters taught her parents, siblings, and extended family, playing a vital role in her faith development. She entered the convent as a candidate in 1966 and professed perpetual vows in 1974. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Marylhurst University, Sr. Charlene earned a master’s degree in education at the University of Portland and a second master’s degree from the University of San Francisco. A teacher and principal at schools across the Portland metro region, she also served on the National Religious Vocation Conference Board.

Honorary Doctorate Recipients

Celia Hammond, L.L.M.
Celia Hammond, the speaker for both ceremonies and an honorary doctorate recipient, was appointed to the top position of University of Notre Dame Australia (UNDA) in 2008, becoming its vice chancellor at the age of 39. The school, established in 1989 as the first Catholic university in Australia, now has 11,000 students at three campuses. One of her many achievements was the opening of the Institute for Ethics and Society in 2009, one of the university’s three national research institutes. In addition to research, it provides leadership in ethics education across the university, with a focus on applied and professional ethics, ethics education, bioethics, religion and global affairs, and indigenous research and ethics. Hammond is known as a passionate advocate of Catholic higher education who strives to create a culture and community conducive to the development of the whole person. Before becoming vice chancellor, Hammond served as the deputy vice chancellor and oversaw the university’s law school in Fremantle. She also served as UNDA’s general counsel, executive director of the vice chancellery, and assistant provost. Prior to UNDA, Hammond worked as a legal practitioner in Western Australia and taught law at other Australian universities after earning her law degree in 1991 from the University of Western Australia.

Lieutenant General Dana T. Atkins, United States Air Force, Ret. ‘77
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dana Atkins, a distinguished military officer and private-sector business leader, became the president and chief executive officer of the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) in 2016. MOAA has 390,000 members and is the nation’s largest, most influential association of military officers. Prior to his appointment, Atkins was the president of Chronicle Media, a large media and marketing services firm in Augusta, Georgia. When he retired from the Air Force in 2012, Atkins was serving as the commander of Alaskan Command, Alaska NORAD Region, Joint Task Force Alaska, and 11th Air Force at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. During his military career, he served as a command pilot with more than 4,000 hours in fighter aircraft, as vice commander of the 7th Air Force and U.S. Air Force Korea, as director of operations (J3) U.S. Pacific Command, and as special assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe during the air war over Serbia. He flew as a demonstration pilot for both the European A-10 demonstration team and the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. Atkins earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Portland and holds two master’s degrees, one in aeronautical science from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and another in national security strategy from the National War College.

Rev. George C. Bernard, C.S.C.
Fr. George Bernard, C.S.C., has spent the last 48 years at the University of Portland, where he has served as a Holy Cross priest, professor, and administrator. Although he officially retired in 1987 with the title of associate professor emeritus of theology, he has remained active in assisting local parishes, praying the Divine Office and Rosary, and offering Mass on campus. From an early age, religious life appealed to Fr. Bernard and this interest grew at the University of Notre Dame where he was introduced to the Congregation of Holy Cross through classmates who were also seminarians. In 1943, he professed his first vows, and he was ordained to the priesthood in 1949 at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. After six years of teaching theology at Notre Dame, Fr. Bernard became vice president of student affairs from 1958 to 1961. He then served as president and religious superior of Holy Cross College in Washington, D.C., until that college closed in 1968. In 1969, he arrived on The Bluff, serving as chair of the theology department from 1970 to 1977 and as academic vice president from 1977 until his retirement. Today, Fr. Bernard resides at Holy Cross Court on the University campus.

Anthony Doerr
Anthony Doerr’s 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See has won numerous literary awards, including the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. His first work, The Shell Collector, is a collection of short stories and was a New York Times and Publishers’ Weekly Notable Book of 2002. He then released About Grace (2004), his first novel, which was followed by the memoir, Four Seasons in Rome (2007). In 2010, Memory Wall, a collection of stories set on four continents, won the acclaimed Story Prize. His short fiction has also earned him four O. Henry Prizes and been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction, and The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories. Other awards and honors bestowed upon Doerr, whose works have been translated into more than 40 languages, include the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the National Magazine Award for Fiction. Doerr earned his undergraduate degree in history from Bowdoin College and a master’s degree in fine arts from Bowling Green State University. Anthony Doerr will be awarded his doctorate of humane letters when he speaks as a guest of the University of Portland’s annual Schoenfeldt Distinguished Writers Series on February 27, 2017.

Brian J. Doyle
Catholicism has long played an important part in Brian Doyle’s life and work. He was raised in an Irish Catholic family in New York and earned his degree in English from the University of Notre Dame in 1978. He was the assistant editor at U.S. Catholic magazine and was a senior writer for Boston College magazine before he became the editor of the University’s Portland magazine in 1991. During his tenure, Portland has consistently been ranked among the best university magazines in the country and, in 2005, won Newsweek’s Sibley Award as the top university magazine in America. Doyle has also authored many books of fiction, essays, and poems, including his novels Mink River, The Plover, Chicago, and Martin Marten, for which he won a 2016 Oregon Book Award for Young Adult Literature. His essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Orion, The American Scholar, and The New York Times, to name a few, and have been reprinted in the annual anthologies from Best American Essays, Best American Science & Nature Writing, and Best American Spiritual Writing. Other honors include the Catholic Book Award, three Pushcart Prizes, the John Burroughs Medal for distinguished nature writing in 2017 and for Outstanding Published Nature Essay in 2012, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2008.

Rafer Owens
Rafer Owens was born and raised in Compton, California, home to the notorious Bloods and Crips street gangs. When he was nine, his brother Vincent, a gang member, was sent to prison for murder. To keep their youngest son from a similar fate, Owens’ parents encouraged him to attend church and school, with the hope that faith and education would keep him off the streets. After graduating with honors from Verbum Dei Catholic High School in Los Angeles, Owens attended the University of California, Los Angeles. Since then, he has dedicated his life to healing the community in which he not only grew up but raises his own children. Owens is now a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff working in community relations and the head pastor of Faith Inspirational Missionary Baptist Church. In 2006, he partnered with area churches to found the Compton Initiative, a 40-year commitment to improve and restore the city through painting homes, schools, and churches on quarterly workdays. In 2014, he wrote The 7 Pillars of Community Leadership so as to provide a roadmap for others who wish to make a difference in their communities. Owens and his wife Natalie have six children, including Rachelle, a communications major and guard on the Portland women’s basketball team.

More information about the University’s Commencement ceremonies can be found at http://www.up.edu/commencement

2017 John Burroughs Medal Awarded to Brian Doyle

The John Burroughs Association has announced that Portland Magazine editor and novelist Brian Doyle has been selected as the winner of the 2017 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature Writing for his book, Martin Marten, published by Macmillan Publishers in 2015. The John Burroughs Medal will be presented, and the finalists recognized, on April 3 at the Annual Literary Awards ceremony of the John Burroughs Association during a luncheon at the Yale Club of New York City. John Burroughs (1837-1921) was one of the most popular authors of his day and is credited with creating the modern nature essay; formed shortly after his death, the John Burroughs Society recognizes excellence in nature writing through its Literary Awards program. The organization enriches lives through nature by celebrating the legacy, writing, and natural world of one of the great American nature writers.

Doyle’s Martin Marten, only the second work of fiction to be awarded the Medal in its 90-year history, is an engaging novel about the relationship between a boy and a pine marten, the home they share in the forest near Mt. Hood, Oregon, and the other lives going on around them, human and other. The judges felt the way he combined an acute sense of human behavior with a wild natural setting and the life of a native denizen of the forest showed uncommon breadth, depth, and originality of insight.

Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine and is well known to contemporary readers of environmental literature. His essays have appeared in Orion, The Atlantic Monthly, American Scholar, The New York Times, and other periodicals around the world, and have been reprinted in the annual anthologies Best American Essays, Best American Science and Nature Writing, and Best American Spiritual Writing. He has also edited several anthologies. His many books include the critically acclaimed Mink River, The Plover, and Children and other Wild Animals. His awards include the John Burroughs Nature Essay Award, 2000, Oregon Book Award, three Pushcart Prizes, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2008. He will also be presented with an honorary doctorate at the University’s commencement on May 7.

For more information contact marketing & communications at 7202 or mktg@up.edu.

New Faculty Essay Collection: “Awaken the Stars”

stars-dt-copyShannon Mayer, physics, and Jacqueline Van Hoomissen, biology, are pleased to announce the publication of Awaken the Stars, their co-edited volume of essays on what faculty really teach in their classrooms, beyond the standard course content. The collection is comprised of reflective writings from 25 faculty from a broad range of disciplines at the University of Portland and is dedicated to Brian Doyle, the creative, inquisitive, and joyous colleague who, with a single request for an essay for Portland Magazine, inspired Mayer and Van Hoomissen to curate their current collection.

Mayer and Van Hoomissen hope the essay collection will provide readers with a deeper look at what UP faculty members believe education is really about, and that it will serve as a catalyst to inspire conversations about the deeper meanings of education. The essays add to the national dialogue on the value of higher education, but they are unique in that each author takes a more personal look at how thoughtful engagement, personal connection, and intentionality inform and transform what happens between professor and student. The collection is not an “academic” book, but is a simple collection of personal essays that seek to add compelling and compassionate stories to the national conversation on higher education.

Awaken the Stars is available for through ACTA Publishers (www.actapublications.com) and at the University of Portland bookstore.

For more information contact Mayer at mayers@up.edu or Van Hoomissen at vanhoomi@up.edu.

You Must Be Joking! Brian Doyle Scholarships, 2016-2017

U of P - students and faculty on a white background

Five University of Portland students have been awarded $3,333 Brian Doyle Scholarships in Gentle & Sidelong Humor, having agreed to publicly share a project 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,” as set forth by donor John Beckman ’42, who began the scholarships with his wife Patricia as part of the RISE Campaign. The recipients are:

  • Molly Kerns, who will borrow a page from the Portsmouth Sinfonia, which chose to take skillful musicians and have them play several well-known pieces after switching instruments with each other. The results are music that is just recognizable and entirely hilarious.
  • Isabelle Pisani, who proposes to create a short film titled “I could never be a nurse” with the help of the School of Nursing, to provide a comical glimpse into the life of a student nurse.
  • Alana Laanui, who intends to produce and share a video working with some of the Holy Cross priests on campus. She will show them how to use Snapchat and record their reactions to some of the more popular filters.
  • Guadalupe Zamora-Resendiz, whose idea is to conduct a project combining the lyric theater, music, actUP, and improv clubs on campus in a music/theater production where the students of these clubs, as well as other UP students who wish to participate, present scenes ranging from Shakespeare to more modern works to improv and works from opera to musical theater.
  • Sawyer Hudson proposes broadcasting a comedy podcast talkshow at KDUP, inspired by alternative comedy podcasts like “Comedy Bang Bang,” “improv4humans,” and audience participation shows like “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.”

For more information contact Denise Stack, development, at stack@up.edu.