UPbeat

News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.

Humor Scholarship

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.

Unique Scholarship Opportunity

Patricia and John Beckman ’42 have funded four scholarships of $3,333 that will be awarded to University of Portland undergraduate students during the 2013-14 academic year. Recipients of the Brian Doyle Scholarships are expected to, over the course of next year, “create a gently humorous project, something that makes people laugh, draws people together, and reminds us that we are brothers and sisters in a joyous way.” Faculty or staff who know of students who may qualify for this new scholarship are asked to have them send an e-mail to scholarshipthankyou@up.edu with their first and last name, student ID number, and a few sentences describing their idea for a humorous project. They should type “Humor Scholarship” into the subject line of their e-mails. The deadline is Friday, May 3.