The Saint John’s Bible: Did You Know?

February 2, 2018

The Saint John’s Bible is a stunning resource and a too-hidden jewel at UP. To mark the new millennium, the Benedictine monks of St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville Minnesota commissioned this work—the first fully hand-calligraphed, illuminated Bible manuscript to be crafted since the invention of the printing press, which is why it’s called The Saint John’s Bible. It’s meant to be a universal and inclusive work, and to that end, features art from 16 different artists, all charged with the task of creating images in which all beholders have a chance to see themselves. A page is always on display in Clark Library, and the selection changes regularly. With the gift of all seven volumes came special training for docents at UP to learn twelve kajillion facts about them, so that classes in theology, history, the sciences and fine arts could tap the riches of this audacious work. Beth Barsotti and Karen Eifler are trained by the St. John’s community to share the volumes with anyone from the UP community, both in the classroom and as an inspiration for prayer. Contact either of those if you would like to learn more.

The “Did you know” series comes to you as an initiative of Campus Ministry and the Garventa Center, intended to broaden awareness of spiritual development opportunities on the University campus. If you are curious about anything under that broad umbrella and would like to see an answer published in UPBeat, please contact Karen Eifler (eifler@up.edu) or Fr. Jim Gallagher (gallaghe@up.edu).

Aziz Inan, Shiley School of Engineering, had his brain teaser, “A Number of Reasons to Celebrate Gert Boyle,” published in the Portland Tribune on December 4, 2019.

Barb Braband, Rebecca Gaudino, and Anissa Rogers received a Teaching Poster Award for the presentation of “Innovations in Interdisciplinary Education on Grief: An Interview Project” at the 2019 National Symposium for Academic Palliative Care Education and Research in San Diego, CA, on Oct. 12, 2019. The 2019 National Symposium was sponsored by the Shiley Institute for Palliative Care.

Jane Scott, Clark Library, presented a poster, “Empowering ethical practices: Activities for access services” (with Heidi Senior) at the Access Services Conference, Atlanta, GA, November 2019.

Christina Ivler, Shiley School of Engineering, wrote “Frequency-Response and Frequency-Domain Models” and “Classical Frequency-Domain Design Methods” (with J. David Powell) and “Control System Optimization Methods in the Frequency Domain” in Baillieul J., Samad T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Systems and Control. Springer, London, 2019.

Buck Taylor, chemistry, wrote “Cooperative CO2 Scission by Anomalous Insertion into a Rh–Si Bond” (with Matthew Whited, Daron Janzen, and student coauthors Michael Trenerry, Jia Zhang, Theodore Donnell, Paul Peterson, Vanessa Eng) in Organometallics , November 2019 , 38 , 4420–4432.

Ami Ahern-Rindell, biology, was invited to be a member of a 3-person review panel to participate in onsite campus visits during October 29 – November 1 to review several PUIs (Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions) in Oklahoma who are recipients of an NIH-INBRE Consortium Award. This multi-million dollar grant provides funding for 5 years to improve biomedical research across the state of Oklahoma collaboratively between research intensive universities, PUIs, and Community Colleges.

Lora Looney, international languages and cultures, gave a faculty workshop on “Unpacking the Project First to Identify a Course’s Driving Question(s) Towards Teaching for Understanding” at the 39^thOriginal Lilly Conference on College Teaching at Miami University in Oxford, OH, on November 22.