President
March 4, 2015
University of Portland president Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C., will give his first annual “State of the University” address and present the 2015 Alumni Awards on Tuesday, March 17. The luncheon will take place at the Sentinel Hotel, 614 S.W. 11th Ave. Doors open at 11:30 a.m., with a program from noon to 1 p.m.Tickets for the event are sold out.
Fr. Poorman became the University’s 20th President on July 1, 2014, and was formally inaugurated on September 26. With KGW’s Laurel Porter as moderator, Fr. Poorman will discuss the ongoing effects of the recently completed RISE Campaign that raised more than $182 million, the University’s latest achievements in athletics and academics, and other factors affecting the University’s short-and-long-term success.
Also on the agenda will be the annual Alumni Awards. This year’s winners are Scott Reis ’98, winner of the Distinguished Alumni Award; Stan Muessle ’62, winner of the Rev. Tom Oddo, C.S.C. Outstanding Service Award; Christina Palmer Fuller ’07, MBA ’12, winner of the Contemporary Alumni Award; and UP senior Nicholas MacKinnon ’15, winner of the Thomas A. Gerhardt ’55 Memorial Award for Student Leadership.
For more information, contact the marketing and communications office at 503.943.7202 or speaker@up.edu.
Alumni Award Winners:
Distinguished Alumni Award – Scott Reis ’98
High school mathematics teacher extraordinaire (at Portland’s De La Salle and Jesuit high schools) and gifted musician, Scott started his teaching career in North Carolina with the Alliance for Catholic Education, the program founded by the universities of Portland and Notre Dame. Returning to Oregon, he joined De La Salle High just as it opened, and became renowned for working with poor and African-American students. Noted for using humor, music, and rhythm as teaching tools, Scott spent 11 years at De La Salle (where he won the 2012 OnPoint Excellence in Education Award, given to superb teachers in Oregon and Washington) before moving to Jesuit High in 2012.
Rev. Thomas C. Oddo, C.S.C., Outstanding Service Award – Stan Muessle ’62
Stan had a respected career with IBM, as a software development and marketing guru, but it is his remarkable non-profit Global Outreach that is the true measure of his creativity and sweeping vision. Founded in 1997 to improve the education of students in the developing world, especially in Tanzania, Global Outreach establishes computer laboratories, trains teachers and technicians, develops syllabuses, builds libraries, finds sister schools, works with Tanzanian and American educational leaders, and much else. Thousands of students have had their educations and prospects elevated and brightened by Global Outreach.
Contemporary Alumni Award – Christina Palmer Fuller ’07, MBA ’12
Christina, co-founder with her husband Tyler of Fuller Events (which runs Feast Portland, among much else), began her career with the Rose Festival. The University honors her with the Contemporary Alumni Award for her dedicated and passionate commitment, in her life and work, to the University’s central tenets: teaching, faith, and service. She is articulate about her work as a community service, as a means of strengthening and deepening communal bonds, as a channel for joy and friendship; she is admired and respected by her employees for the way she is a calm and generous teacher of the values that guide her life; and she is generous with her time and counsel to other nonprofits in the community.
Thomas A. Gerhardt ’55 Memorial Award for Student Leadership – Nicholas MacKinnon ’15
Nick, a mechanical engineering major, is the sort of student who leaves a hole in the University’s communal fabric when he graduates. Air Force cadet, volunteer in the University’s Green Dot program battling sexual assault, Eucharistic minister, volunteer at homeless shelters and in broken Haiti, Nick has been an enthusiastic leader on and off campus. “I have come to learn that there are so many vulnerable people in the world, people who cannot defend themselves,” he says. “But we all can protect and serve our brothers and sisters in Christ.” Nick begins training as an Air Force pilot in May; he will also continue work on the medical technology company he founded with fellow engineering students.
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