The Undertaking

“The Undertaking,” Pomerleau Concert Series, Feb. 5

January 31, 2020

“The Undertaking,” part of the Rev. Claude Pomerleau Memorial Concert Series, will take place on Wednesday, February 5, at 7 p.m., in Hunt Center Recital Hall. A reception will follow.

An aging mother’s health teeters on the brink. Her adult daughter scrambles to find footing as her role shifts from child to authority figure. Death pounds at the door and they both wonder, “Could someone this ticked off actually be dying?” Through an interdisciplinary blend of music, movement, and theatrical storytelling, “The Undertaking” uses actor/dancers to portray the end-of-life care of an elder using Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2, played live by local music ensemble Northwest Piano Trio.

Featuring UP alumna Hannah Hillebrand ’05 and music faculty member Susan McDaniel, and directed by UP faculty/alumna Jessica Wallenfels, this performance is free to the UP community. Co-sponsored by the Garaventa Center, the Beckman Humor Project, the Fr. Claude Pomerleau Memorial Concert Series, the School of Nursing, and the Performing and Fine Arts Department. For ADA accommodations or more information contact Wallenfels at wallenfe@up.edu.

Jacquie Van Hoomissen has been selected by the steering committee of the NSF ADVANCE Partnership project (Advancing STEM Careers by Empowering Network Development) to join the inter-institutional peer mentoring network of Administrators in the Northwest region. As a member of an Administrator Alliance, she will work with teams to evaluate how campus policies and practices impact professional advancement and leadership development of a diverse faculty in STEM fields. The goal of the program is to reduce institutional obstacles to advancement for women in STEM fields, create more equitable communities, and foster the retention and advancement of a diverse STEM faculty population.

Hannah Highlander, mathematics, edited An Introduction to Undergraduate Research in Computational and Mathematical Biology: From Disease Dynamics to Big Data (with Carrie Diaz Eaton, Alex Capaldi), New York, NY: Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-33645-5, February 2020.

Simon Aihiokhai, theology, was cited in The Tablet, December 9, 2019: “Africans Warn Numerical Growth Has To Be Matched By ‘Tools of Liberation.'” See the article here. He was also elected as a member of the Board of Directors for a three years term at the College Theology Society in March 2020.

Elizabeth Lee, institutional research, has been elected to the Association for Institutional Research’s Board of Directors as a member-at-large. AIR is an organization that seeks to empower higher education professionals to utilize data, analytics, and evidence to make decisions and take actions that benefit students. Elizabeth has cycled off as treasurer for the Pacific Northwest regional organization for institutional researchers in time to serve at the national level. Full election results are available at this link.

Cara Poor, Shiley School of Engineering, contributed “Evaluation of agricultural byproducts as amendments in bioretention systems for metal and nutrient removal” (with Ben Guidice, Jacob Bib, and student coauthor Camille Morgan) to Journal of Environmental Engineering, 146: 04020029, March 2020.

Hillary Merk, Jacqueline Waggoner, James Carroll, Heidi Parrett, and Claire Tooley, education, presented one paper at the annual conference of the Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) in Atlanta, GA, February 28-29, 2020. The paper was titled “From High School to Teaching: Developing a ‘Grow Your Own’: Pathway for A More Diverse Teaching Profession.”

Jacqueline Waggoner, Hillary Merk, Randy Hetherington, James Carroll, and Bruce Weitzel, education, presented at the annual conference of the Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) in Atlanta, GA, February 28-29, 2020. The paper was titled “Trauma Informed Practices and Teacher Preparation.”