Notes From Under the Oaks | January 2014

By Martha Calus-McLain '03 | Director of Alumni Relations

A sketch of the earliest building on the Forest Grove
campus

As I look ahead to 2014, only two weeks gone and the rest full of possibility, I have many resolutions. Among them is a hope to acknowledge people who make a difference. This week I am thinking about the great teachers I had throughout my education.

Over the past six months my husband has been reading the Little Housebooks to our daughter, who is completely enthralled with them. I recently overheard them reading a passage describing conditions in the one-room school house where Laura is teaching in negative forty degree weather.

“At half past three they were all so cold that she thought of dismissing school early. The mile that Martha and Charles must walk, worried her. On the other hand, she should not cut short the pupils' opportunity for learning, and this was not a blizzard.”

This passage brought to mind the spirit of the pioneers who founded Pacific in 1849 in the face of immense adversity.

It makes me think of the students who were so deeply committed to their education they found time for it among the competing responsibilities of frontier life.

It reminds me of the courage of teachers, both in 1882 when they commanded one room school houses throughout the west and today when they risk, and sometimes sacrifice, their lives to save the children in their care.

I shared this passage when I welcomed a dozen new students into our special ed program earlier this week. In a few years, these students will be alumni who spend their days dedicated to the success of young people. Based on the reactions of the students it was clear the passion and dedication Laura conveyed in her memoirs is still true of aspiring teachers.

Last night we hosted the Student Teacher Alumni Reception on the Forest Grove campus. During the evening we got to hear teachers speak earnestly and candidly about their experiences. Again, the passion and dedication was evident.

I hope none of our alumni are teaching kids who have to walk a mile in negative forty degrees, but I’m sure these alumni have a few stories of their own to share.

I’d love to hear from alumni who are teachers. What inspires you? Do you have a great story to share about students who walked a metaphorical cold mile for their education?

I’d also love to hear from alumni about the teachers who helped them. Who was your favorite teacher at Pacific, before or after? How did they inspire you? Did you ever walk a cold mile for your education?

Send us your stories and as always don’t hesitate to contact us if we can be of assistance.

Best wishes,

Martha Calus-McLain '03
Director of Alumni Relations

Alumnus advises students to quit smoking

By Marshall "Preacher" Brown '69

Brown with this trachyostoma patch.

While at Pacific for Homecoming 2013, I read your September 19th Index editorial a “Proposed ban on smoking on campus.” 

Your analogy to being “at home” at Pacific doesn’t ring true. “At home” you do not live in proximity to hundreds of unreleated people.

“At home” young people are subject to many seemingly arbitrary rules, among which almost certainly is “no smoking.”

Very few, if that many, college-aged smokers are “painfully aware” of the health risks they take by smoking. If they were, would they smoke? Smoking vs. drinking is a false comparison. Unless done alcoholically, the effects of drinking seldom linger more than a day; smoking almost inevitably becomes a long-term drug addiction and habit. Finally, even if smokers abide by location rules, friends and others still have to put up with “tobacco stink.”

I do not understand why a young person today would take up smoking. When I started, there were whispers about cancer (that went unheeded by “immortal youth”) and absurd claims smoking would stunt your growth; cigarettes in Oregon in 1965 were 22 cents a pack, less by the carton! Today, so much more is widely known about smoking’s serious, long term damage to health; at three dollars or more per pack, smoking’s up-front cost is obscenely expensive.

After a 20-plus year habit, I quit smoking in 1988. In 2002, I was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer, and in October 2003, lost my larynx, thyroid gland and several lymph nodes, and I’m a lucky one: I’m still alive. I remember asking my oncologist why, if I had quit smoking 14 years earlier, cancer showed up now. “Cancer is very patient,” was all he said.

Hopefully, student smokers at Pacific have a habit far more easily broken than later in life. The proposed ban on smoking on campus is, I feel an opportunity for those who smoke to do the best thing they perhaps will ever do for themselves. Quit smoking. Seriously!

Brown '69 was Editor of The Pacific Index in 1968. This piece was originally submitted as a Letter to the Editor in November 2013. After a tour of duty in the Air Force, Brown worked in IT for 32 years and is now retired and living just north of Seattle. Pre-cancer, Brown was an avid rec cyclist -- he created Cascade Bicycle Club's "Ride Around Washington."

History: Pause, think and remember

By Callie Vandewiele '08 

Almost three quarters of a century ago, 72 years on December 7th to be exact, the course of the history of the United States of America dramatically shifted and forever changed.  

At 7:48am, Hawaiian time, Japanese planes flying low over the US naval base on Oahu.  The ensuing attack, which took the men below by complete surprise, would result in 8 ships being sunk, with nearly a dozen more damaged, over 300 aircraft lost, and the deaths of 2,402 Americans.  Most of them military personnel. 

For a nation burned by World War I, and dedicated to leaving the world’s problems, to the world, the bombing of Pearl Harbour was a rude awakening.  An unwanted and costly notice that sometimes the world’s problems belonged to the whole world, and not just to one nation or region.  In bombing Pearl Harbour, the Japanese central command hoped to permanently cripple the United States military in the Pacific--and by doing so to limit US involvement in the escalating war.

In a world before twitter, instant updates, death tolls reported in online news sources, or even common color photography, the US government and population had put it’s whole might behind the war effort before all the families of the killed servicemen had even been properly notified.  A behemoth of an economic engine, shifted overnight, and with it the destiny of the United States.  The next five years would cost the nation dearly in both money and blood.  And yet at the end of the war, in 1946, the United States stood at the edge of the world stage as both the strongest military and economic force in the world.

It’s easy to take a minute to pause and think about soldiers on Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day, and there was a time when WWII veterans were common.  Most men that most of us knew.  Not anymore.  As each year rolls by those surviving veterans get a little older and little fewer in number.  The people whose sons and brothers and fathers and husbands were on the USS Arizona or the USS California aren’t all around to light candles each year anymore. 

December 7th is bit by bit turning into just another day.  Just another point in history that we’re supposed to memorize to pass an exam sometime in the 10th grade.  Just another war that the United States fought and won. 

But December 7th is not just another day.  And the war that it launched pushed the United States into a position of world dominance (wanted or not at the time).  Our history, we learned, will be marked with moments when we as a nation get to choose our response, and in choosing our response, choosing our future.

The greatest generation woke up to newspaper headlines about ships sinking in the Pacific.  The millennials awoke to live news coverage of buildings falling down in Manhattan.  We cannot say which crises our grandchildren will face---or whether they will come in the sickening thud of sudden attacks, or the slow rise of global temperatures.  What we can ask of ourselves and of them, is to always remember.  To pause and reflect on the anniversaries of the days that the world shifted and changed.  To read the stories of the heros and the families.

To know the heavy burden of what choices we as a people make when faced with tragedies beyond comprehension.  To know that when we define the cost of an American life, we are valuing it in comparison to the cost of other, non-American, lives, and that the decisions we make can alter the world in good, bad and unknown ways.

So when December 7th rolls around, take a pause.  Think, and remember.

Sources include the US Navy Museum Website (http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/teach/pearl/aftermath/facts.htm) and USHistory.Org

Vandewiele '08 originally wrote this piece for the Beaverton-Valley Times in December 2013. 

Race Talks | Borrowing Cultural Traditions

By Ginger Moshofsky 

In November I had the privilege of attending Race Talks: Uniting to Break the Chains of Racism, at the Kennedy School.

A little background: Race Talks is a sort of lecture series that focuses on pertinent issues of race like “Interacial Relationships” or “Race and the Housing Crisis.” Instead of the usual “stand and deliver” format of most lecture series, Race Talks adds a couple of key elements which induce interaction and dialogue between the attendants.  

First of all, there is a panel of experts who speak to the topic. Instead of one person’s take on a topic, you get several points of view. This is not only informative but also sets the tone; different people have different experiences and may have differing opinions- and that is okay.

Next, at every Race Talks, the discussion moves from the podium to the tables. After the panelists have finished,  each table group discusses the topic. Before the discussion, the attendees are prompted to make sure that each table has a diverse mix of people. If not, they ask that a person or two move so each group has different races represented.

The Race Talks that I attended examined “Race and the Arts”.

When we moved to the table discussion portion of the evening, one of the things we did was introduce ourselves and our racial background. Now that’s something you don’t do every day. When we did, I was surprised to find that, despite how things looked at first glance, I was not sitting with only Caucasian people but also American Indian, Japanese and Mexican. We had a very interesting dialogue about “borrowing” traditions from other cultures. We questioned, when is it disrespectful to integrate a dance or an artistic style into American culture, and when is it an honor and a compliment? We talked about “fads”, like “Gangnam Style” or skull tattoos- did that bring to the masses interesting cultural elements from around the world or is it exploitive or something else? We bemoaned the practice of taking ceremonies that are sacred in their country of origin and making them spectacle in the United States. If these sound like heady topics, you are right. We found ourselves discussing these ideas and more with people of different races who we had never met before and it was fun!

The genius of Race Talks is that while everyone admits that talking through race issues with a diverse gathering of individuals is helpful and informative, few have figured out how to do it on a grass roots level and do it effectively. Donna Maxey ’70, founder and director of Race Talks, is the genius behind the “genius” of Race Talks.

Maxey has a history in education, has an extensive network and is a long time resident of Portland. As it explains in the Race Talks brochure, Maxey approached McMenamins Historian Tim Hills “with the idea to partner with McMenamins in a series that stepped out of the box of the typical history lecture into a more interactive realm- where the audience had a participatory role and left with a tangible task toward dismantling racism.”

The result is Race Talks: Uniting to Break the Chains of Racism and it is brilliant. Maxey partners with McMenamins monthly to bring interesting topics to the Kennedy School. If you have not been to Race Talks, I urge you to mark your calendar for 7 p.m., the second Tuesday of the month. I hope to see you at Race Talks. 

Moshofsky is the Assistant Director of Alumni Relations at Pacific University. She is a Lewis & Clark alumna, freelance writer, thespian and activist on civil rights issues. 

Notes from Under the Oaks | November 2013

By Martha Calus-McLain '03 

I've always been awed by the power of buildings to evoke
emotion. Buildings are simply timber and steel, bricks and
concrete, yet they have the ability to make us feel

I've always been awed by the power of buildings to evoke emotion. Buildings are simply timber and steel, bricks and concrete, yet they have the ability to make us feel.

Even fifteen years after I first laid eyes on Marsh Hall, I still feel an incredible sense of nostalgia and pride when I see those red bricks through the trees.

Although I was not yet alive when the Columbus Day storm raged through town, the photo above has the ability to take my breath largely because I am drawn into it by the glimpse of Marsh Hall behind the destruction.

Here in the Abbott Alumni Center, a cozy and sweet little structure, we’re all positively buzzing about a wonderful Homecoming last weekend when we had a record number of alumni back on campus. It is remarkable how many alumni who returned for Homecoming hadn’t been on campus since graduation and were stunned by the changes that have unfolded in the ensuing years.

If you missed Homecoming and haven’t been back in a while, I’d like to say, “Don’t be a stranger.”

One of the many reasons to revisit campus again and again is to integrate oneself in the change. During Homecoming we broke ground on a new residence hall. While enormously exciting, this groundbreaking was a poignant reminder of how progress brings change.

The first stage of construction for this building was the removal of sod on what was left of Tom Reynolds Field, where soccer was played until the addition of new fields at Lincoln Park. Many alumni remember this field as McCready Field, home of Badger (and later Boxer) football for nearly 100 years. In recent years, some of the field was replaced with new tennis courts.

While we’re all very excited about this change, which will eventually lead to the removal of Clark Hall and a complete transformation of this corner of campus, we took a bittersweet moment at the ground breaking to reflect on the long history of this soil.

Although the buildings remain long after we’ve graduated and moved on (or in my case moved on and then came back to work), it is alumni who truly hold the history of the University. McCready Field or Clark Hall or Marsh Hall amid the rubble of the storm mean nothing without the stories from alumni who bring those places to life.

Please, don’t be a stranger!

Come home and share your stories.Whether you join us for Homecoming 2014 or you stop by the Abbott Alumni Center for a cup of coffee on your way through town, we want to see you on campus and hear your stories.

I hope to see you soon!

Calus-McLain '03 is the director of Alumni Relations and was a media arts major at Pacific University. martha@pacificu.edu. 

Help a fellow Boxer

By Kaitlyn Gutierrez '13

You know that moment when you feel like destiny stepped in, tapped you on the shoulder, and said, “Here Kaitlyn, this is exactly what you need?” 

Well, apparently LinkedIn is Destiny’s new cover! 

I had just finished my afternoon run and thought I’d mosey on over to my laptop and check my messages. My mouse was meandering toward Shut Down when I decided to check my LinkedIn account; man oh man, I’m glad I did.

I happened to see a link to an article entitled ‘Is This the Best Job of All Time?’ I’m overly curious, so what could I do but click?

Curiosity turned to excitement, which turned into me nearly self-combusting as I kept reading - eyes growing bigger and bigger, grin growing wider and wider. “‘Help wanted: An "enthusiastic" traveler to fly around the globe for a year, all expenses paid, earning $100,000 salary for blogging about it – and for volunteering to leave each destination ‘a little better than when you found it.’” Cue my faux heart attack….

This couldn’t be real. I did a little digging into the company and loved what I saw. Jauntaroo, a vacation matchmaker, is more than a way to find your next vacation spot. Jauntaroo believes in leaving the world a better place and strives to take traveling to a new level. With Jauntaroo you can “Travel With A Cause,” as the company features and donates to organizations that promote ‘VolunTourism’.

Jauntaroo happens to be looking for a new Chief World Explorer. Requirements include: Always be ready for an adventure, be generous of spirit and help others, be eager to capture local cultures, foods and activities, and share your experiences with the world.

The job was MADE for me!

Volunteering is something I am passionate about, and doing it abroad is icing on the cake. Traveling and blogging about my experience, that is right up my alley; I knew my creative writing degree would come in handy!

Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you find yourself in the right place at the right time, and you know you have to throw your hat in the ring because the opportunity could change your life; this was one of those moments.

I’ve tossed in my hat and now I need help getting there. Please go to the link and like my video. Help me become a finalist by watching my video and liking it.

http://www.bestjobaroundtheworld.com/submissions/view/1442

Guiterrez '13 was a creative writing major at Pacific University and needs your help! Support a fellow Boxer and "like" her submission so she can have the job of her dreams. 

Notes from Under the Oaks | July 2013

Burbank '09 rubbing Boxer's nose for good luck. 

By Rachael Burbank '09 

Traditions are precious no matter their significance.

Sometimes they include something silly like grandma always bringing the potato salad to the Fourth of July barbecue. Other times it’s more heartfelt like visiting Uncle Joe’s headstone Memorial Day weekend or returning to your wedding venue every year on your anniversary.

I think we each hold on to the uniqueness of our traditions because they define us. But what happens when we have children, we get married, we relocate for work, we lose a family member or we are stuck in a rain cloud and we have to adjust our plans? We start telling the stories of how things used to be to the next generation in hopes that one day history will repeat itself.

I frequently forget that the Pacific I know, isn't what all alumni know. There wasn't a dress code to eat in the University Center in the 2000s. Old College Hall, the library and the football field have changed locations multiple times. And most importantly, Boxer wasn't always the mascot.

After graduating in 2009, I’ve already seen changes made to the Pacific I know. The ‘PAC’ is now the Stoller Center. There are dorms and academic buildings I’ve never set foot in. And sadly, students are graduating without seeing the Boxer statue on campus nor are they participating in any sort of Boxer tosses, flashes or Olympics!

Times have changed and will continue to change on the Forest Grove campus, but also in Hillsboro, Eugene and Portland. I can already imagine the conversation I’ll have with staff or students at my 30-year reunion. I know it’ll start with “when I was a student here, everything was different.” But will it really be different?

I believe Marsh Hall will still be standing in 2039. I believe the Noise Parade will still be the loudest tradition during Homecoming. And I believe that Boxer will live on by word of mouth if there hasn't been a third statue already made by then.

What was your favorite tradition during your days at Pacific? What traditions do you miss? What do you envision for your 30-year reunion or 50-year reunion?

If you wish to write about your memories, please submit photos and a 400-word piece for the Boxer and Badger Notes blog to alumni@pacificu.edu.

I hope you come back to where all these traditions began for Homecoming 2013, if not before. Give us a heads up and you can stay in the Abbott Alumni Center guestrooms during your visit or we can take you on a campus tour and explore how things have changed since you’ve been on campus.

You can contact the Office of Alumni Relations at 503-352-2057 or alumni@pacificu.edu.

In the meantime, cherish the memories and traditions you made while at Pacific because they define you as alumnus/a of the University. 

--

Burbank '09 is the assistant director of alumni relations at Pacific University. You can reach her at 503-352-2969 or rburbank@pacificu.edu. 

Story behind Boxer becoming Mascot

Jolley '68, OD '70 

By Jerry Jolley '68, OD '70 

Bruce, you are all wrong about Boxer……

Yes, Bruce Bishop '68,  I mean you….

Now keep in mind that no one is working harder than Bruce to make the Class of ’68 Reunion a fun event for us all. But he has the Boxer Mascot issue ALL WRONG.

Bruce recently sent me an email suggesting this article should mention the leadership role of the ’67-’68 ASPU Student Council in changing Pacific’s mascot from “a moth-eaten Badger to a brassy Boxer.” 

That part is very accurate, but Bruce went on to say that the switch to Boxer in 1968 is “important history for our class (and the entire University community) to celebrate. Who would have thought 45 years ago that the change would still be symbolizing Pacific's quirkiness?”

There it is, that word “quirkiness.” How can Bruce use it to describe our University and our beloved Boxer mascot? Okay, I will agree today’s student may think it a little quirky that in 1968, Friday’s dinners in the dining hall required dresses for women and ties/long pants for men. And maybe it was a little quirky by today’s standards that men’s and women’s dorms were strictly segregated, not even allowing coed visits. And looking back in the ’67 yearbook, the fact that Mike Staples was “Standards Chairman” and Craig Stout was “Cultural Chairman” may also have signaled a bit of early quirkiness.

But how could Boxer becoming Mascot be considered “quirky?” Boxer represented, and I trust still represents, the best of each Pacific student’s fighting spirit and stamina. Boxer represents strength, having been cast in the Ming Dynasty in about 1580, surviving the Boxer Rebellion in China and being gifted to Pacific in 1896. 

Wow, in my mind boxer still represents extreme strength. In one boxer fight I wormed my way into the center crunch to finally get a hand on him/her, only to be squashed like a bug by some bulky football player. Remember how the yelling of “Boxer Flash” on campus would get everyone’s blood boiling. And a “Boxer Throw Out” would often result in an on-campus rough-and-tumble fight which could last many hours. I believe the Thetas once even beat up the optometry students (by breaking their glasses) to gain control of Boxer in front of Marsh Hall, but you will need to check that fact with Don James at the reunion.

Boxer definitely represented strength. During a boxer throw out, you could even come in late and muddy to Dr. Reif’s ethics class and not get much more trouble than a disapproving look over the top of his glasses.

So in ’67 when funding for a new Benny Badger mascot uniform came before Student Council, we decided not to replace the moldy old weasel who had been bloodied and bruised by several recent team losses. I think it was Student Body Vice President, Scott Pike, who came up with the idea of making our new mascot the beloved Boxer.

My first stop was with Dean Charles Trombley, a wonderful man and sage adviser  who shrugged and said something like “sounds good if you can get it done.”

In retrospect, I think Dean Trombley was just very happy that I was not telling him we were planning to burn down Forest Grove city center or Old College Hall to protest the Viet Nam war. The late 60’s were a tumultuous time for our country, and many students were taking activist roles. I would get calls weekly from other student body presidents across the nation asking me to fly somewhere for a peace rally.

My reasons for staying home from student peace demonstrations were:

1) As a guy fresh-off-the-Idaho-ranch, I naively and incorrectly figured our country’s leaders always knew what was best,

2) Our student body was divided on the war, all of us having both anti-war friends and friends who had military school funding,

3) I knew the Index editors would rip me to shreds if I used ASPU funds to fly to D.C. to a protest rally,

4) I couldn’t miss work or give up study time for that next mid-term, and

5) There was a cute California girl on campus I wanted to ask on a date. (Her parents were so conservative they made Richard Nixon look like a liberal, and I knew if I trotted off to a protest somewhere, my chances of a farmer-from-Idaho like me getting a date with her would be completely dead.)

So we turned our energy to adopting Boxer as mascot. We took the idea to fraternities, sororities, administrators and other key groups for discussion. Finally the ASPU Student Council, after some heated discussion, gave us a unanimous vote to make the change to Boxer on December 13, 1967.

Members of the ASPU Student Council

Bruce, 45 years of Boxer cannot be considered “quirky” but rather “brilliant.” Even the Heart of Oak editors wrote in the 1968 yearbook, “all of us can be proud our Temple Dog Boxer tradition, and with this change in mascots our pride in that tradition can become even greater: now the Boxer can truly serve his calling as the SPIRIT OF PACIFIC.”

So all of us should let the BOXER SPIRIT move us. Let’s get together for Homecoming, October 10-13. All of you, including fellow optometry-types, please come for some fun and bring your golf clubs.

By the way, I was able to date that pretty California girl.  We married 43 years ago. Peggy Spencer Jolley and I will both be at Homecoming. Please introduce yourself and say hello.

If you like the idea that we changed to the Boxer mascot 45 years ago, when I see you at Homecoming please give me credit. If you think the change was a bad move, please discuss your complaints at length with Scott Pike.

Even though I have been giving Bruce Bishop a bad time with this article, please know that we all owe a debt of gratitude to Bruce and the other Homecoming Reunion Committee members for the Class of 1968: Judy (Engdall) Bishop, Monica (Wolf) Marvin and Scott E. Pike.

Jolley '68, OD '70 was the ASPU President for the '67-'68 school year and will celebrate 45 years since graduation during Homecoming 2013. This piece was originally used for the Class of 1968 Reunion Newsletter. He is currently living in California and practicing optometry.