Fr. Richard Rutherford

News From Pollentia

August 1, 2014

An updated, final edition of the UP Pollentia Expedition blog, including a new About section, is available at https://wordpress.up.edu/pollentia. This project involves UP faculty Ray and Ronda Bard as well as Fr. Ron Wasowski, C.S.C., and Fr. Richard Rutherford, C.S.C. In addition, six volunteers, including alumni Rev. Larry Hansen, Alan Helyer, Rachael Thurston, family members Mary Hansen and Jacob Bard, and UP friend/benefactor Howard Rumjahn contributed expertise on the dig site in Mallorca as well as donations to support the project.

This year’s Pollentia Expedition is projected as Phase I of future expeditions to involve multidisciplinary student/faculty research projects in both CAS and professional schools. The expeditions current success has established a beachhead from which to expand to significant new, never-before-uncovered evidence of early Christianity in Roman Spain. “There is every reason to believe that UP can continue to head up this new Spanish endeavor,” says Fr. Rutherford, “surely a tribute to our beloved Kate Regan, who blessed the project with her endorsement and a CISGO seed grant.”

UP Team On Expedition To Ancient Roman City

July 21, 2014

Fr. Richard Rutherford, C.S.C., emeritus theology, is leading a team of UP faculty, alumni, and supporters on an expedition to the old Roman city of Pollèntia near Alcúdia in Mallorca, Spain, this month. The UP team is working by invitation from the Consortium of the Roman City of Polléntia and in collaboration with Miguel Cao from the University of Barcelona. The team’s work includes mapping the farm site Ca’n Fanals, partially excavated in the 1920s and known to contain a necropolis dating to the Roman Republic and Christian antiquity; aerial photography of the Polléntia excavations and the buried necropolis; and confirmation of earlier excavations in Ca’n Fanals. A test excavation trench predicted to intersect previously mapped features shows great promise, as a known wall has already been uncovered. As the UP team heads home, Fr. Rutherford and colleagues are already planning to raise funds to take a team of students back to Pollèntia in Summer 2015. Find more information, including photos and day-to-day stories, at http://wordpress.up.edu/pollentia/.

Aziz Inan, Shiley School of Engineering, had is article, “Carter facts add up,” published in The Columbian on October 5, 2019.

Dean of admissions Jason McDonald was quoted in an article titled “Cooperation across school lines” in the October 7 edition of the Catholic Sentinel.

Michael Prendergast, adjunct instructor in theology and music, gave five presentations at the Catholic Educators Conference in Boise, Idaho October 4-5, 2019. He delivered talks on the Eucharist, Liturgical Year, Mariology, and preparing liturgies for the sacraments of First Reconciliation, Fist Communion, and Confirmation.

Patricia Morrell, Sally Hood, and Erik Mellgren, education, had their paper, “A First-Year Middle School Science Teacher’s Experiences Navigating Science Content in a Dual Language Immersion Program,” printed in the latest edition of the online journal Heliyon (Volume 5, Issue 10).

Dawn Lee Garzon Maaks, nursing, will be inducted into the American Academy of Nursing on October 28 in Washington, DC.

Hannah Highlander, mathematics, presented “Using Agent-Based Modeling to Investigate the Existence of Herd Immunity Thresholds for Infectious Diseases on Randomly Generated Contact Networks” (with student co-presenter Owen Price) and “It Takes a Village: Delivering Education and Enabling Research in Mathematical Biology via an Organized Community Approach” (with co-presenter Olcay Atman) at the International Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Oct. 2019. She served as Chair and Organizer for invited session “Open and Accessible Problems for Undergraduates in Mathematics,” for the International Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research, June-October 2019.

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