Dr. Mark Salisbury

Dr. Mark Salisbury, a program director and professor at the University of New Mexico, will become the new dean of the College of Education, Leadership and Counseling at St. Thomas on Aug. 10.

Salisbury will succeed Dr. David Rigoni, announced Dr. Susan Huber, executive vice president and chief academic officer. Rigoni has served as interim dean since October, when Dr. Bruce Kramer stepped down because of his Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Huber said Salisbury’s experience on the New Mexico faculty since 1996 and his previous work for 11 years as a computer scientist at the Boeing Co. in Seattle provide him with a rich and interesting background for the dean’s position.

“Mark has been extremely creative and innovative in what he has done at New Mexico while teaching in and directing the university’s Organizational Learning and Instructional Technology program,” Huber said. “I expect that we will see the same characteristics in his work at St. Thomas and in strengthening the programs in our School of Education and Graduate School of Professional Psychology.”

Salisbury, 58, said the St. Thomas position appealed to him primarily because he saw an opportunity to help CELC grow in an extremely competitive environment.

“What is drawing me to St. Thomas is your reputation for being entrepreneurial and willing to look at issues outside the box,” he said. “It is time for us to step forward, make connections and develop partnerships as we re-imagine what form education and professional psychology should take in the 21st century.”

He also has a St. Thomas connection through his wife, Joan. She is a Minnesota native who earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota-Duluth and her master’s degree in human resource development at St. Thomas in 1990. She met Salisbury at Boeing and works in web-based training for Intel. They have three children: Luke, 14; Jake, 12; and Anya, 11.

Salisbury is a native of Astoria, Ore., where the Columbia River enters the Pacific Ocean. He has degrees from the Oregon College of Education (1978, Bachelor of Science in secondary education); Western Oregon State College (1982, Master of Arts in Teaching in economics); and the University of Oregon (1985, Master of Science in Computer and Information Science and 1986, Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction).

Worked at Boeing after graduate school

He was a graduate teaching fellow in the education and the computer and information science departments at Oregon while pursuing his graduate degrees. Boeing hired him in 1985 and he held several positions over the next 11 years, developing software to improve human performance and splitting his time between research and development efforts and commercial products.

“I loved my job at Boeing,” he said, “but after 11 years I had made a ‘lap’ through the company, working in most of the major divisions, and I thought I might move on and do what I was trained for – the life of a professor. That’s how I ended up at New Mexico and in Albuquerque.”

Salisbury is a full professor and directed the Organizational Learning and Instructional Technology program for more than a decade. He describes it as an interdisciplinary program that evolved to the point where it moved last year from the College of Education to the recently renamed College of the University Libraries and Learning Sciences, and the program will have a new name this fall: Organizational Information and Learning Services.

“I have done my lap here at New Mexico in teaching in and developing the program,” he said. “I figure I have another good lap left in me, and I am excited about the opportunity at St. Thomas.”

Salisbury also leveraged his skills after arriving at New Mexico by founding Vitel Inc., which has developed knowledge management systems for federal agencies, national laboratories and public utility companies. His experiences with Boeing and Vitel have helped him in the classroom.

“I liken it to a practicing heart surgeon,” he said in a New Mexico Campus News story in 2002. “I do heart surgery in the morning and then I teach in the afternoon. That helps me to be the teacher I want to be. I think this theory-into-practice approach is of value to the students, too.”

Salisbury has published a book – iLearning: How to Create an Innovative Learning Organization (2009) – and has written dozens of articles related to knowledge management in engineering, business and education journals. He has made presentations at conferences sponsored by organizations such as the American Society for Training and Development, International Society for Performance Improvement and Society for Applied Learning Technology. He is an editorial board member and reviewer for the International Journal of Knowledge-Based Organizations, Journal of Management Learning and Journal of Educational Computing Research.

Huber thanks Rigoni, search committee

Huber thanked Rigoni for his service as interim dean. Rigoni had been an associate dean since 2006 and a faculty member since 2000, and will return to teaching.

“Dave stepped into a challenging situation at a delicate time and performed admirably,” Huber said. “I appreciate his can-do attitude.”

Huber also thanked members of the dean’s search committee, chaired by Dr. Terry Langan, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Committee members included Jackie Punch, chair of the CELC Board of Advisors, and Kim Herrema, Dr. David Jamieson, Dr. Donald LaMagdeleine, Dr. John Melick, Ea Porter, Dr. Karen Rogers, Dr. Patricia Stankovitch and Dr. Doug Warring from the CELC faculty and administration.

“I consider it a privilege to have had a chance to serve St. Thomas over two tours of duty and, of course, will remain a proud and loyal St. Thomas alumnus for life,” Dienhart said. “I have great fondness and respect for Dick and Maureen Schulze and am excited to be able to help with Dick’s ambitious plans for his family foundation.”

Dick Schulze, founder of Best Buy Co. and a St. Thomas trustee since 1995, created the foundation in 2004. His daughter, Nancy Tellor, served as its founding executive director but has moved out of the area, creating the opening for the position that Dienhart will fill. The foundation has historically focused on grants in education and medical research.

“We are delighted with Mark’s decision to join the Schulze Family Foundation as its new president and CEO,” Schulze said. “Mark has had a meaningful impact at every turn of his career at St. Thomas. His knowledge will provide insight and experience to our mission of creating transformational change for mankind.”

Father Dennis Dease, president of St. Thomas, congratulated Dienhart on his new position and thanked Dienhart for exceptional leadership during a period in which the university increased its undergraduate enrollment, constructed several new buildings and raised $515 million in the Opening Doors capital campaign. Dienhart directed the campaign.

“Mark had both the vision and the organizational skills to accomplish a great deal during the time of a challenging recession and escalating competition for students,” Dease said. “He always has had the highest standards and worked tirelessly to carry out each and every task. His contributions have been enormous and will be felt for many years.”

In his new role, Dienhart will continue to work closely with the university in support of the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. In addition, to ensure the university has the continued benefit of his institutional knowledge and experience, Dienhart has agreed to serve as an advisor to Dr. Julie Sullivan, who will succeed Dease as president of St. Thomas on July 1, and to work on special projects as requested by Sullivan.

During Dienhart’s tenure leading the university’s non-academic administrative units, St. Thomas has:

• Improved its financial strength and maintained balanced budgets. Net assets have grown 63 percent over the last 10 years and endowment assets have grown 68 percent.
• Increased undergraduate student enrollment 21 percent, from 5,241 in 2003 to 6,336 in 2012, including freshman classes that have exceeded 1,300 in every year except one since 2005. Applications have doubled over that time.
• Raised $515 million in the Opening Doors capital campaign, which concluded last October. The amount exceeded what was raised in the previous four capital campaigns combined and in the process the number of individual donors grew from 6,413 in 2001 to 15,300 in 2012. “Mark’s leadership as director of Opening Doors will provide the university with incredible opportunities to carry out its mission and vision – opportunities that would not have been available with a less successful campaign,” Dease said.
• Built and opened seven major buildings, including two in Minneapolis (School of Law and Schulze Hall) and five in St. Paul (Flynn Residence Hall, McNeely Hall, the Anderson Parking Facility, the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex and the Anderson Student Center). The Anderson buildings have greatly enhanced on-campus experiences for students, faculty, staff and alumni and have received national recognition and accolades from the community.
• Achieved extraordinary success in athletic programs. Five teams have won national championships in the past 10 years and 10 teams have finished in the top five in Division III over the last three years. The men’s and women’s athletic teams have swept the MIAC All-Sports Championships for six straight years.

Dienhart, a Minneapolis native, is a 1975 summa cum laude graduate of St. Thomas with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy. He holds two degrees – a master’s in journalism and mass communications and a doctorate in higher education administration – from the University of Minnesota.

A member of the St. Thomas Athletic Hall of Fame, he was an All-American in track and field as a national champion and national record-holder in the shot put, and an All-American and two-time Academic All-American in football. He won the 1975 Tommie Award, given annually to the senior who best exemplifies the ideals of the university.

Dienhart held several jobs, including two head-coaching positions, at St. Thomas after graduation. He was named men’s track and field coach in 1980 and football coach in 1981. His football teams compiled a 44-14-1 record in six seasons, winning the MIAC title with a 9-0 record in 1983 and going on to St. Thomas’ first national playoff game. His track and field teams won four indoor and four outdoor MIAC titles and won the NCAA Division III indoor championship in 1984.

He left coaching after the 1986 football season to serve as executive director of public and alumni affairs until 1990, when he joined the University of Minnesota as an associate athletic director. He was promoted to senior associate athletic director in 1992 and athletic director in 1995. He left the university in 1999 and was a senior vice president in consumer banking at US Bank until he returned to St. Thomas in 2001 as senior vice president for institutional advancement. He was later promoted to his current role.

Sometimes something as simple as a text message can change your life. Alex Daley ’12 received this text message in November 2011:

 “Do you think it’s possible to dribble a soccer ball across the United States?”

That question stuck with Daley, and while he can’t answer the question – yet – he now knows the challenge it would entail. On Tuesday, June 18, Daley, Matt Scott ’12 and Tommy Hanlon, friends since their Eagan High School days, completed a border-to-border, soccer-ball dribbling journey that started on Sunday, May 26, in International Falls, Minn., and finished on the Minnesota-Iowa border near Preston, Minn., a journey of more than 400 miles which spanned the globe and last January spawned a nonprofit – Dribble Daily.

And it all began with what Daley described as an “out-of-the-blue” question via text message from Trevor Flaten ’12.

“That’s why it was so cool,” Daley said in a recent interview. “It was just out of the blue. I played soccer my whole life. I played at St. Thomas. I never thought of something like this – dribbling across Minnesota or the country. So when I received the message it just sparked something in me.”

Tommy Hanlon juggles the ball with residents of Isle. (Video and photos courtesy of Dribble Daily.)

That text message led to a conversation with Scott, whose passion is environmental science. Together they combined their skills and their passions and developed an idea of transforming urban decay in inner cities through soccer pitches and urban gardens – and bringing people together through, as Daley described it: the “power of the ball” –  a soccer ball.

“It really was the perfect storm because Alex was inspired by our friend with this idea about soccer, and I had spent years studying environmental science here at St. Thomas, and I learned so much about these issues we’re dealing with – sustainability and our decaying urban culture, urban sprawl and the problems with it – and so I was really passionate about implementing this knowledge that I had gained here and doing something really good with it,” Scott said. “This is a very new thing. And so I wanted to create something like this, and when Alex came along with this idea of soccer it really was the perfect storm. … We can address these issues of urban sustainability. We can address the issues of civic pride. We can address the issues of obesity.”

“We both believe that soccer can be a real tool for social change, specifically here in the United States, which is the melting pot of the world,” Daley added.

St. Thomas Futbol Club

Both have traveled and studied abroad and have experienced what it is like to be the outsider.

“For the first time in my life, I was like a foreign person. I didn’t have my network of friends, and I didn’t know anybody,” Scott said. “I learned firsthand what it meant to be accepted into a community or a school, into a network of people who are completely different from you and how much that experience meant to me having nothing. And when I came back to St. Thomas I had a better understanding of what the foreign students were going through here.”

While dribbling through downtown Minneapolis, the Dribble Daily team met a man from Ghana, pictured here shaking hands with Alex Daley, who explained how soccer was a culture, lifestyle and meant everything to his people.

In talking about their plans for Dribble Daily, here at St. Thomas they focused on the gap between international and domestic students.

“When you are in the student center, you notice the international students kind of stick to themselves and the domestic students kind of stick to themselves. That’s not good. That’s not productive,” Daley said. “What will unite all of us? A simple thing like a soccer ball was the answer. So we started the University of St. Thomas Futbol Club.”

Founded in spring 2012, the club has more than 150 active members and played “futbol” twice a week, watched games at Scooter’s, and participated in other activities.

“The relationships that were formed on the field were carried over off the field. We realized, it’s simple but it’s very effective, and so we wanted to translate that on a more macroeconomic level out to cities like Minneapolis and urban communities,” Daley said.

Through the club Daley and Scott met Miraz Abdullah, an international student from Bangladesh. He invited them to Bangladesh, which enabled them to film and document the way that the ball can break down social barriers, and which also led to Dribble Daily’s first project – a soccer pitch in Nepal.

To Nepal

After visiting the Abdullah family in Bangladesh for two months, Daley and Scott left for Nepal to renew their visas.

“When we were there we were almost overwhelmed by the beauty of the country and the hospitality of the people,” Scott said. And they scouted out areas to build a soccer pitch for kids.

Chatting with a resident of Ogilvie regarding urban decay.

“They have nothing there. It’s like a concrete maze everywhere. Kids don’t have any place to play,” Scott added.

They literally stumbled upon a school (Great Compassion Boarding School, run by donations) in the village of Pokhara, which happened to have an area that could be transformed into a soccer pitch.

Funded by donations, they bought nets, goal posts, chalk and a ball, all of which had to be hand-carried halfway up a mountain. Leveling the pitch by hand, with children helping by tossing rocks, the project took about a week.

“We just started building it, and the kids from the school came out and helped us, and the teachers came and helped us. It was a total community-driven development project. By putting in their own blood, sweat and tears into it, people have more pride for what they have. It couldn’t have gone better. We were really happy that we were able to leave them something, and we know that they truly appreciated it,” Scott said.

The story behind the story

While Daley’s feat (feet?) of dribbling a soccer ball border to border, with some assistance from Scott and mutual friend, navigator and driver Hanlon, is significant and newsworthy in itself, the real story, as is often the case, is the story behind the story.

“The project is really to raise awareness, and I think we’re all very satisfied with all of the awareness we were able to receive through news reporting and television reporting,” Scott said.

As Alex Daley, left, and Tommy Hanlon know, soccer is the sport that appeals to young and old, boys and girls, and men and women around the world, and even at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

“We’re trying to address physical health, environmental health and mental health with something as simple as this green recreational space that we are trying to put in. We are trying to take dead space and give life to it. A soccer field serves as that common ground to bring neighbors in diverse urban communities together around a mutual passion,” Scott explained. “You know, how are you going to get this Ethiopian guy and this Latino guy with this Asian woman together? They understand soccer; it’s part of their cultures. It’s about providing people with space in our diverse urban areas to bring them together to do some outdoor recreation with soccer. That will start to break down those social barriers.”

“Why urban gardens? It doesn’t get talked about very much that we want to add these gardens, but it’s a very important factor,” Scott continued.

Scott pointed out that “in Minneapolis we actually have the fifth largest food desert in the country,” with little access to healthy, organic, affordable food, that nationally childhood obesity and diabetes rates have increased dramatically over the past 30 years.

“So by providing people with space to garden, we’re going to be empowering people to grow their own food and to eat healthier and ultimately live better lives. … A lot of people are just trapped in their urban setting, in their apartments, and so by providing them an outdoor space to grow and to play, we think that it’s going to do a tremendous good for the community as a whole,” Scott said.

“A number of studies, including one by the National Council for Science and the Environment, show how the addition of green space in urban settings increases surrounding property values. So everybody wins, and it’s as simple as a soccer field and growing food,” he added.

This group of women in downtown Minneapolis, pictured juggling with Alex Daley, were inspired by Dribble Daily’s mission and happened to love soccer.

Dribbling daily

Dribbling a soccer ball some 20 miles a days has taken a physical toll on Daley, and there were times when Scott and Hanlon were called on to dribble so he could rest and recover. Then there were times that they were chased by dogs, spotted bear tracks outside their tent, had “so many ticks you can’t count them,” rained on almost every day, slept in a tent most nights, and showered in cold rivers.

But the journey has not been without its rewards. Some people slow down and honk, wave, and ask what they are doing, support and encourage them, and some have even taken them in for the night. And they’ve come to appreciate even more the beauty of Minnesota and the freedom of living in America.

“The highlight has been interacting with people and breaking down those barriers through something like a ball. They see the ball and they wonder what you’re doing, and that’s really the big picture – getting to know your neighbors, and creating a stronger sense of community,” Scott said.

Dribble across America

That November 2011 text message has not been forgotten or cast aside despite the rigors of dribbling across Minnesota. Daley and Scott envision, perhaps, something akin to an Olympic torch-style relay across America, involving local communities and soccer clubs along the way.

On the side of the road near Mille Lacs, a conversation with locals led to an invitation to dinner and a night’s sleep in their camper.

They are looking for support from the soccer community, individual donors and corporations, and they hope the University of St. Thomas will support them as well as they live out its mission to be “morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely, and work skillfully to advance the common good.”

“People have been very responsive to the social message,” Scott said. “What we’re hearing from people is that, yeah, we are a nation that is now divided. We used to have something that we would unite behind in generations past, but now we don’t know where the country’s going. Everybody agrees that something needs to be done and not very many people have an answer to what needs to be done. But people collectively believe that we need to come together and rally around something.”

Dribble Daily believes in unity through the “power of the ball.”

“We’re very appreciative of everyone who has helped us in our ventures in Asia and in the United States. It is only through their support that we’re able to positively impact communities and change lives of people with our efforts,” Daley remarked. “We look forward to continuing to work with individuals, communities and business alike in future endeavors. Soccer is a tool for social change, and together we can make that happen.”

Editor’s note: Additional videos and photographs are available on the Dribble Daily website.

On the road in northern Minnesota. Alex Daley, left, and Matt Scott, along with Tommy Hanlon (not pictured) have dribbled a soccer ball daily from International Falls, Minn., to the Minnesota-Iowa border.

Dr. Christopher Puto

Dr. Susan Huber, executive vice president and chief academic officer, said she asked Puto and Gleason to remain in their positions because recent searches for their successors were not successful. The searches will be restarted later this summer.

Puto announced in February 2012 that he would step down as dean last June 30 and transition to full-time faculty member. He agreed to remain as dean during the 2012-13 academic year while the search for his successor was conducted. Witt/Kieffer, an executive search firm based in Oak Brook, Ill., will continue to assist St. Thomas in identifying candidates for the position.

Puto became dean in 2002 and holds the Opus Distinguished Chair. He directed the successful effort to earn accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. He also carried out the combination of graduate and undergraduate divisions into the College of Business, established a full-time day MBA program, doubled to 105 the number of full-time faculty members, opened Schulze and McNeely halls and revitalized the Family Business Center. Among the 449 AACSB-accredited schools, St. Thomas ranks No. 110 for its MBA program and No. 80 for its undergraduate programs.

Dr. Bruce Gleason

Huber appointed Gleason as interim director of the International Education Center last September. He is a tenured faculty member of the Department of Music, has taught at St. Thomas since 1999 and is a former director of Graduate Programs in Music Education.

Gleason has led concert tours of New England and Europe. He has been involved in music history research with government and military agencies, museums, universities, libraries and art galleries in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, visiting 30 countries in the process.

Over the last several years, I saw an increasing number of technology news reports about a technology called MapReduce, first revealed by Google in a 2004 paper. In 2006, a group of software engineers created an open source version called Hadoop. This technology uses large clusters of computers, numbering into the thousands, to distribute data and processing. Hadoop is used by a number of very high profile companies, including eBay, Facebook, Yahoo! and Walmart. The technology can tolerate faults and restart tasks as needed. It is designed to efficiently handle terabytes and petabytes of data. Google’s original use was to process the giant index it creates after it crawls the Web in search of information, but it has since spawned applications in many other directions.

One of our adjunct instructors, Gary Berosik, had experience with Hadoop at his company, Thomson Reuters, and encouraged us to explore it. Last year, I attended a local Java user’s group meeting where the speaker from the company Cloudera described the technology and their experiences consulting with it, and that really opened my eyes to Hadoop’s potential. We had an unused computing cluster in our department, so with the help of a student, Harlan Bloom, we got Hadoop running on it. I then decided to teach this technology in my information retrieval course via individual virtual machines and also make the cluster available for student projects.

In today’s computer systems, most of our computing resources are blindingly fast (i.e. CPUs) and hugely abundant (i.e. memory and disk capacity). Moore’s Law predicts that these capabilities double every 18 to 24 months; however, disk access time and throughput have not kept pace with this exponential growth, and this is typically the performance bottleneck for most applications. We compensate by putting more memory in our computers so that we don’t have to access the disk drive as often. Hadoop, operating on a cluster of computers, takes advantage not only of parallel processing but also of parallel disk access. Moving data on and off disk drives in parallel helps alleviate this historic performance bottleneck, and so enables efficient processing of huge amounts of data stored on these disk drives.

Recently, CPU speed is also being strangely affected by Moore’s Law. Instead of racing up the gigahertz ladder, the speed of an individual CPU core is tapering off, so the industry is responding by offering multiple CPU cores to keep pace over time. This, in addition to the disk bottleneck changes, is causing the software engineering community to rethink architecture and programming languages to respond to these changes. At the highest level, I am interested in how traditional applications change under this new paradigm, and what new applications now are enabled by it.

I have two sons. My eldest, Justin, is a junior at St. Thomas, majoring in actuarial science, economics and statistics. My youngest, Nathan, is a senior in high school. He will be attending St. Thomas to major in neuroscience. To help him make his college decision, he asked to attend a neuroscience course, so I found one – taught by Dr. Jadin Jackson, a clinical faculty member in the Biology Department – for him to visit. Afterward, while we discussed Nathan’s academic options, Jadin and I found we had some things in common, including degrees in electrical engineering. Over lunch, he described a computing problem that was getting in the way of his neuroscience research, so we teamed up to see if Hadoop could help him out. Meanwhile, one of my graduate students, Ashish Singh, wanted to work on Hadoop with me in an independent study course, so we decided that he would work on this real-world problem.

During Jadin’s post-doctoral work, he acquired a lot of data from electrodes that were implanted in rat brains. These signals represent individual neuronal activity in a brain region called the hippocampus, which correspond to the rat’s position in space. When the rat finds itself at a tee in the maze and has to decide whether to move left or right to get its reward, the signals reflect the rat’s thinking about moving down the left path, then thinking about moving down the right path, then deciding which route to take and then physically moving. Amazingly, sometimes this signal pattern is generated while the rat is sleeping, so he can see a rat “dreaming” about moving in the maze!

Jadin needs to digitally signal process these signals using a mathematical technique called wavelet analysis, which can pull out both frequency and time information from the neuronal signals. The huge volume of data and amount of computation needed, however, overwhelm his individual computer; furthermore, he would like to have all his processed data available online to query and explore. We hope to show that this processing can be efficiently performed using the parallelism available on a Hadoop cluster, and that the results efficiently can be accessed with a data warehouse component called Hive, which leverages Hadoop. Jadin and I have identified other pre- and post-processing steps that we can explore in future projects in this cross-discipline area called computational neuroscience.

Both Jadin and I enjoy crossing academic boundaries to engage in interdisciplinary work. For me, it is a chance to learn about a new field from an expert and to see if I can apply the knowledge in my own domain to someone else’s real-world problem. This is far more interesting and challenging than contriving a problem. During this process, I also get to deepen my understanding of the MapReduce model and the Hadoop technology, which allows me to share my experiences more effectively with my students.

As another example of how these projects can spawn other activities, I have teamed with another member of our department, Dr. Saeed Rahimi, to create a new special topics course in big data for fall 2012. The course will include these technologies and several others that have gained traction in the industry to deal with the increasingly massive amounts of data and the desire to efficiently analyze them and turn them into information. These technologies provide alternatives to traditional SQL-based relational databases and are better optimized for the fast-growing amount of unstructured and semi-structured data.

In our department, we recently decided to form a Big Data Center of Excellence to integrate our faculty expertise in database, data warehousing, data mining, operating systems, computer architecture, information retrieval and business intelligence around this new area. Our goals are to spawn further research activity within our department, between St. Thomas departments, with other universities and with industry. This effort will influence the curriculum for our existing courses and future ones, including homework assignments, class projects, independent study opportunities and thesis topics. I think this is a good example of using applied research to further our twin goals of maintaining currency and competency in the classroom. This effort is also a good example of a traditional strength of the Graduate Programs in Software, which is to quickly respond to the ever-present changes in the information technology industry, bringing these technologies into the classroom for our students, which in turn benefits their current or future employers.

Bradley Rubin is associate professor at the Graduate Programs in Software program.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

My work at the Opus College of Business is not my first career, but I have been fascinated with intellectual property law since I wrote my first research paper on fair use in copyright as an undergrad. I’d planned to proceed directly to law school, but because I had developed an interest in the publishing industry, I spent my first ten years after college working in college textbook and scholarly publishing. It was this work, including negotiating international subsidiary rights and distribution agreements, which made me realize the importance of understanding foreign law in international business practices. I pursued my J.D. in the early 1990s, focusing on private and public international law and intellectual property, and practiced with a boutique business law firm in Minneapolis after graduating. It was during that time that I began teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of St. Thomas.

I love both teaching and research. My research always follows along two tracks: pedagogy and the scholarship of teaching and comparative law. The first stream helped me to develop my teaching philosophy and what I believe are appropriate projects to prepare undergraduates and graduate students for business careers. I’ve presented this work at conferences in the United States and Europe and am delighted my jury simulation has been used in colleges and universities across the United States, including Wharton’s M.B.A. program.

My substantive research has focused on comparative law in the digital age. As people and businesses interact on the internet, knowing foreign laws and the philosophical and  historical underpinnings for those laws becomes increasingly important. My first big scholarly piece delineated what U.S.-based multinational employers with operations in the EU needed to know about the European Union Data Privacy Directive. European views on privacy differ substantially from those in the United States. European Law gives people a fundamental human right in data about themselves that protects them from unauthorized processing. This means that businesses and employers must follow very specific rules if they are going to use someone’s personal information, including obtaining permission to do so. Because of my law school training, my co-writers gave me the tasks of researching the historical basis for the Data Privacy Directive and explaining the requirements of the EU law, including how the law varies from country-to- country. The work was important to me professionally, not only because it was published in a top journal, but also because I learned a great deal about European Union law. Data privacy also became a key topic in the undergraduate international business law class when we studied comparative privacy law and how differing perceptions on privacy impact how businesses operate.

My research then shifted to international and comparative intellectual property law. For companies based in the United States their intellectual property (patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets) are often their most valuable asset. Intellectual property law, long considered esoteric and outside public scrutiny, has become more and more controversial as millions worldwide download their favorite music and movies without paying the copyright owners and as patented technologies expand to include genetics and inventions implemented on computers or software. Increasingly, the international community has mandated a certain level of harmonization in national laws.

I began my comparative intellectual property work in the early 2000s, focusing on copyright in the digital era. Two World Intellectual Property Association treaties designed to address the issue of copyright infringement via the Internet recently had been transposed into national law. I completed one of the first comparative studies of the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the European Union Directive on Digital Copyright. That paper focused on some of the more draconian aspects of the laws, which circumscribe many of the uses we have come to expect, such as use for research, teaching, private use and news casting in instances where the digital content is protected by code.

For the last several years, my research has focused on patent law. I began this work with a marketing colleague in preparation for an international conference in Brazil. We compared the development of the pharmaceutical industries in Brazil and India based on how and when each country implemented World Trade Organization requirements for drug patents into their law. One of the most hotly debated issues in patent law has been the proliferation of patents for software and business methods. A colleague from the University of Florida and I recently have published the most comprehensive article on this side of the Atlantic comparing the U.S. approach to patenting software and business methods to how the issues are handled under European law in the European Patent Office, the United Kingdom and Germany. Last year, the United States passed the American Invents Act, our first comprehensive patent reform in almost 60 years. Shortly after the law was enacted, a group of scholars in the Academy of Legal Studies in Business invited me to provide a comparative law perspective in a book project designed to consider the impact the AIA will have on American businesses. Part of the impetus for the book is that much patent scholarship does not provide this kind of business orientation. My work considers changes in U.S. law that allow business competitors to challenge the validity of issued patents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office without having to resort to costly litigation. The work compares the new U.S. system with that in operation in the European Patent Office, where post grant oppositions have been useful in weeding out bad patents. It also considers the U.S. system in light of national patent offices in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and China, which have abandoned their post grant review procedures in recent years.

My research in comparative and international law has opened a world of opportunities to me. Based on this research, I have been invited to teach in Russia, Hungary, France and Germany, and as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at Bene Suef University in Egypt. It also has led to other foreign travel, including Jordan, where I participated on a panel that considered the impact of culture on the development of intellectual property laws at the World Arbitration Forum on Intellectual Property. The forum was attended by academics, intellectual property lawyers and judges from around the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf.

Most recently, I traveled to Beijing, China, this year on a faculty development grant to speak with intellectual property scholars and practitioners. The opportunity to meet colleagues and practitioners from these countries, which are in the throes of developing patent laws appropriate to their cultures and economies in light of international norms, has been both fascinating and instructive and has helped me develop a sensitivity to how those issues play out in their laws.

According to my colleagues at the recent book colloquium, I am one of the leading experts in the academy on comparative intellectual property law writing in the United States. Because of its size and relative power in shaping global intellectual property law debates, some believe the United States has set the accepted, international standard for intellectual property protection. I don’t agree. There is much we can learn from how intellectual property laws function in other countries. In the creation of the America Invents Act, many looked to Europe when formulating post grant review procedures. In addition, as countries – such as China, India and Brazil – continue to develop as global economic engines, their laws also will develop in ways that best meet the needs of their economies. Because it is likely some of these countries, particularly China, will have a growing impact on the global intellectual property agenda, it is important to understand the economic and cultural norms driving changes in those countries.

I’ve been fortunate to have a number of very talented undergraduate, JD/MBA and law students involved in my work over the years. They have helped me with the discrete pieces of my comparative law research; moreover my comparative work has influenced my collaboration with students on their own research through a number of the Young Scholars and Collaborative Inquiry Grants and/or in their independent study courses.

Last year I worked with one of our legal studies in business students, directing her research on EU laws impacting social media. Her paper was selected as a finalist in the Academy of Legal Studies in Business’ student paper contest. She presented the paper at the academy’s national conference in New Orleans. This student has been accepted to the St. Thomas School of Law and it is my hope that this kind of research preparation will serve her well in graduate school. I hope to work with another law major during the coming academic year on a project that considers recent changes in China’s intellectual property laws.

Teaching is my family’s “business.” Both of my parents were teachers and the first generation in their families to attend college. They were my role models and played a pivotal role in my decision to become a professor. My dad was one of 13 children and the son of an immigrant from Slovenia. He was one of nine in his family to attend college and become educators. Education was the way he and his siblings moved toward the American dream. My mother also was the first in her immediate family to earn a college degree. She served as an inspiration as well. In addition to teaching, she became a researcher, writing one of the seminal works in listening communications. Both of my parents completed their undergraduate educations at private Catholic schools.

I am really proud to be following in their footsteps and that I’m able to teach and research at St. Thomas in the tradition I passed down to me by my parents. In the mid-1980s, while working in the publishing industry in Chicago, I wanted to teach at a college of business and had considered a Ph.D. in marketing at the time. My career, however, took me in a different direction. I’m absolutely delighted it has brought me to teaching in the Opus College of Business, where I have the opportunity to research the law in my areas of interest – areas that I believe will have an impact on the business community.

Susan Marsnik is associate professor of Ethics and Business Law at the Opus College of Business.

From Exemplars, a publication of the Grants and Research Office.

As one of the university’s wellness program enhancements, effective June 1, 2013, the University of St. Thomas will offer complimentary Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex (AARC) memberships to all regular full-time and part-time employees. AARC activity will automatically feed into Vitality, the new rewards-based wellness program, and employees who utilize Vitality will earn points for their fitness activities. Each point earned is worth one “Vitality Buck,” which can be redeemed for rewards at the online Vitality Mall.

Lockers and fitness classes will continue to be offered for a nominal fee. For more information visit the AARC website.

Locker rental

A limited number of faculty and staff lockers are available to rent at the AARC. Lockers must be rented by term. Rental is $10 per month for each month of the term. (Summer term is $30, which includes June, July and August.)

For more information about renting a locker visit the AARC website.

Other locker options

• Daily lockers are available for use in the women’s and men’s general locker rooms. Daily locker users must bring their own locks to secure belongings. Contents of daily lockers may be kept in the lockers only on the day the lockers are being used. Locks that remain on daily lockers longer then 24-hours will be removed, and contents will be placed in the lost and found at the AARC front desk for seven days. After seven days the contents will be donated or thrown out.
• Airport-style lockers also are available for day use and are located at the entrance of the restricted-access area. Contents of these lockers, which are smaller than the daily lockers described above, may be kept in the lockers only on the day the lockers are being used. Contents left in an airport style locker longer than 24-hours will be removed and placed in the lost and found at the AARC front desk for seven days. Visit the AARC front desk to be issued a key to use a daily airport-style locker.

Fitness classes

A variety of fitness classes are offered to faculty and staff during each term for a fee. Faculty and staff can sign up for fitness classes at the Tommie Central desk inside the Anderson Student Center.

For more information about fitness class offerings and related fees visit the AARC website.

For information about your employee status contact the UST Benefits Department, (651) 962-6520.

The survey generated overall favorable responses between 58 and 84 percent in seven theme areas: Catholicism in today’s world; communication and community engagement; diversity effectiveness, commitment and accountability; diversity engagement; diversity-related experiences; equitable treatment; and satisfaction with the university.

The 5,429 respondents who completed or partially completed the survey gave higher marks to St. Thomas in all seven theme areas compared to the 2007 campus climate survey. Double-digit percentage favorable increases were uniform among faculty, staff and students in the equitable treatment and Catholicism in today’s world themes.

“Upon conclusion of the 2007 survey, I asked that the community work to make the university a more welcoming and inclusive place,” said Father Dennis Dease, president. “Clearly, all have taken that to heart. I am gratified by the improvement.”

“We have made significant progress since 2007, but we realize we still have areas to address,” said Dr. Susan Alexander, executive advisor to the president and the university’s affirmative action officer, and Dr. Michael Cogan, associate vice president for records and institutional effectiveness. “We have done some very good things over the last six years, but with any project like this we always need to look at ways to make St. Thomas more inclusive for everybody.”

Cogan credited the 36-person Climate Study Advisory Group (CSAG), which began meeting last September, with playing a key role. The group’s objectives were to provide a variety of perspectives and ideas in developing survey questions, encourage participation and develop research questions answered by data analysis when the survey was completed.

“I am impressed with the participation at all levels,” Cogan said. “Everybody pitched in here – from CSAG’s involvement on each and every issue to such a strong response rate from students, faculty and staff  – and that made a big difference.”

Survey results will be turned over to Dr. Julie Sullivan, who will become president on July 1, for further analysis and study on ways to continue to improve campus climate. (Links to survey results are at the bottom of this story.)

Survey conducted in March

Cogan’s office sent survey invitations to 13,619 St. Thomas community members in late February and followed up with four email reminders before closing the survey on March 22. Nearly 4,200 people (31 percent) completed the survey and more than 1,200 people responded to at least one question for a combined response rate of 40 percent.

In addition to quantitative results, nearly 1,050 people responded to the question, “Please provide any additional comments … that you would like to share as it relates to your experience at the university, campus culture, or the university’s diversity and inclusion initiative.” Those comments were grouped into five themes: affiliation, diversity, leadership, mission and finances.

Cogan defined several university “strengths” as determined by the quantitative survey:

• Five questions related to the “satisfaction with the university” theme generated an 84 percent overall favorable rating (75 percent in 2007), with students at 85 percent (78 percent), staff at 81 percent (70 percent) and faculty at 76 percent (61 percent). The range was 73 percent for full-time faculty to 88 percent for graduate students; male and female respondents were equally satisfied.
• The community had the most favorable perception of the four questions presented in the “diversity engagement” theme – 86 percent overall (compared with 80 percent in 2007), 86 percent of students (82 percent), 84 percent of faculty (78 percent) and 83 percent staff (78 percent)
• Graduate students were more favorable than undergraduate students on six of the seven themes.

Cogan also defined several “opportunities” coming out of the quantitative survey:

• Respondents who identified themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender had a less favorable perception of campus climate than heterosexuals, and reported lower satisfaction scores on all seven themes.
• People of two or more races had a less favorable perception than those of one race in responding to 14 questions that were part of the diversity effectiveness, commitment and accountability theme.
• Full-time faculty generally had the least favorable perception of the university’s climate when compared to staff and students.
• Women had a less favorable perception of the eight questions related to the equitable treatment theme than men.
• Those who identified English as their native language were less favorable regarding all seven themes when compared to those who indicated English was not their native language.

In addition to Cogan and Alexander, CSAG members are: Jill Akervik, Young-Ok An, Bernard Armada, Kristine Baker, Maureen Bird, Sanjeev Bordoloi, Chad Brinsfield, Jane Canney, Nicholas Chang, Linda Dorn, Barb Dunker, Bridget Duoos, Terry Eggert, Kristi Flanagan Villar, Kari Fletcher, Marla Friederichs, Lori Friedman, Michael Glirbas, Mari Graham, Sara Gross Methner, Ann Johson, Lisa Keiser, Sushant Khullar, Aaron Macke, Father John Malone, Susan Myers, Mike Orth, Peter Parilla, Eleni Roulis, Julie Seykora, Victoria Svoboda, Becca Swiler, Mark Vangsgard and Amanda Wright.

Links to climate survey data

For more information, go to:

• The Office of Institutional effectiveness climate survey website.
• A summary of the survey findings (PDF).
• The abridged results (PDF).
• The extended results (PDF).

Huber met recently with Dr. Julie Sullivan, president-elect, and agreed to remain for another year before ending an association with St. Thomas that began as a graduate student and continued with roles as a professor and administrator for more than two decades.

“I want to thank Sue for her exceptional service to the university,” said Father Dennis Dease, president, who appointed her executive vice president and chief academic officer on an interim basis in June 2008 and on a permanent basis the following April. “She has performed with distinction in every position she has held, and she has been a great leader and collaborator on so many projects.”

“I am pleased and grateful that Sue will remain with St. Thomas for another academic year,” said Sullivan, who will succeed Dease as president when he retires June 30. “Continuity is necessary in a position as critical as chief academic officer, especially with issues such as our accreditation visit this fall. It’s important that Sue is involved in those issues.”

Sullivan said she will launch a national search this fall for Huber’s replacement.

Huber said she will retire with mixed emotions because she has loved each of the faculty and administrative positions that she has held at St. Thomas since 1992.

“I have never been bored at work, and that’s because St. Thomas is such a dynamic institution,” she said. I can’t imagine having a more satisfying career. This is a stimulating educational community, and I will always treasure the time I have spent in the classroom with students and outside of the classroom engaged with colleagues in efforts to improve our programs and our learning environment.”

Huber joined the St. Thomas community as a graduate student and earned two degrees: a master’s in curriculum and instruction and a doctorate in educational leadership. Her bachelor’s degree in Latin and English is from the former College of St. Teresa in Winona.

She taught English in Burnsville and Roseville public schools and English as a Second Language at Hamline University before she moved to St. Andrew’s Catholic School in St. Paul as an English teacher and then principal. She was dean of continuing education and special programs at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota before joining the St. Thomas School of Education faculty.

She served as chair of the Teacher Education Department and was associate dean of the School of Education before she was appointed interim dean in 2006. She became the first dean of the College of Applied Professional Studies in 2007 after a decision to bring the School of Education and the Graduate School of Professional Psychology into the new college (since renamed the College of Education, Learning and Counseling).

Huber’s professional appointments include service on the boards of Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, and the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at St. Thomas and St. John’s University. She is a board member at Risen Christ School in Minneapolis and a former board member of the Convent of the Visitation School in Mendota Heights.

“I’ve always felt that racing on the bike is a microcosm of life. There are the joys and the tragedies and the pain and the elation, and sometimes you just have to get back on the saddle.”

~ John Barron

John Barron, 53, has been on a bicycle (or tricycle) most of his life – from the time he was a lad of 4 scooting around on his tricycle on the sidewalks of St. Louis Park to entering local road races as an adult to competing at the velodrome at the National Sports Center in Blaine.

He no longer races, but he’s back on the saddle as team manager of a female collegiate all-star bicycle racing team that will compete at the Nature Valley Grand Prix, which is held annually during June in Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

From trike to racing bike

An older brother raced and influenced him to ride “at a higher level.”

“He fixed up a bike for me and turned it into a racing bike,” Barron said in a recent interview. “He showed me how to ride a light, fast, skinny-tire bike, and he noticed that I was pretty good on the bike.”

The coaching he received from his brother was informal – such as how to position himself on the bike, and he offered this advice: “Just go fast.”

John Barron, about 4 years old, on the saddle and ready to ride.

Barron, director of St. Thomas’ Service Center, bought a used racing bike in 1988 and he began to compete. “My first race was on a course in the Minnetonka area, and it was fun. Racing is hard and it hurts, but it’s fun, too,” Barron said.

After some 100 races during a 13-year span, he stopped racing and became a Level One coach, USA Cycling’s highest certification level.

“I took the classes mostly for fun but also to work with junior racers and do some casual coaching. And then I got the opportunity to manage a professional team for the Nature Valley Grand Prix in 2004. … The team wasn’t able to bring its manager, so I was the interim manager and I did a lot of the logistics and that kind of thing,” Barron said. “That was my introduction to managing a professional team at a big professional race. I had a lot fun with that, and I did that for three years in a row.”

In 2007 he was asked to help form and manage a female collegiate all-star bicycle racing team to race at the Nature Valley Grand Prix. This June will be his seventh year managing the Kowalski’s Markets Collegiate All-Stars, the team’s official title.

The Nature Valley Grand Prix, part of the Nature Valley Bicycle Festival (June 6-16), will feature six races over five days, June 12-16. The first race – the 7.7-mile St. Paul Riverfront Time Trial – will roll past the University of St. Thomas from 8:30 a.m. until about noon Wednesday, June 12, on Mississippi River Boulevard; the start line and finish line of this “race of truth” will be located just south of the Ford Bridge. Other stages of the grand prix will be held in Cannon Falls, Minneapolis and Stillwater, Minn., and Menomonie, Wis. St. Paul also will be host to a second race on June 12, the St. Paul Downtown Criterium, with races starting at 6:15 p.m.

The all-stars

Six all-stars are selected each year to compete in the grand prix based on how they finished in the USA Cycling Collegiate Road National Championships, which was held May 3-5 this year in Ogden, Utah. The goal of the program, Barron said, is “to identify otherwise relatively invisible collegiate student-athletes who are on the bike – identify them and give them an opportunity to race at the highest level.”

John Barron raced for 13 years, which included a lot of races on the velodrome oval at the National Sports Center in Blaine.

“These young women are exceptional,” he added. “They are student-athletes so they have to figure out how to manage their time and their studies as well as an incredible number of hours of training on the bike.”

Thirteen women in the past six years have received pro contracts. This year’s team members hail from Vermont, California, Massachusetts and Colorado.

“My job is primarily logistics,” Barron said. “Getting them here and creating an environment where all they have to worry about is getting on their bikes and racing. … It gets better and better every year, but we’ve got a real nice package going where it all just seems to work. Because my support staff and, indeed, the people who make this very successful race happen, are all volunteers, my job is really to make sure that everybody has fun, because these volunteers don’t do it for the pay, they do it for a chance to give back to racing and to have fun.”

His duties include working with the media, coordinating with USA Cycling, working with the racers’ coaches, and arranging for housing during the grand prix and also a three-day training camp in Wisconsin that he hosts before the start of the series. His team’s support staff includes a bike mechanic, a massage therapist and others who, like Barron, all raced at one time.

“Being a part of the all-star team is a chance to be a part of racing without being wheel-to-wheel. … What I get out of it is the satisfaction of sharing my knowledge and experience with others,” Barron said.

Microcosm of life

Racing, like life, can be loaded with disappointment. Often you don’t win the race. No one likes to lose, but we learn, get back on the saddle and ride forward, and we hope there is joy and elation along the way.

In the various grand prix stages, the all-stars typically are overmatched by older, more experienced elite and professional racers; still, as Barron points out, “They usually come away saying it was one of the funnest things they’ve ever done. … My racers usually come away from this week of racing saying it was just a fantastic experience. Fun. Filled with learning. Filled with meeting new people. Meeting coaches and sponsors from around the country, and traveling and connecting with people in a different part of the country – these are all opportunities.”

The bike festival also is an opportunity to raise funds for Children’s Lighthouse of Minnesota, the festival’s 2013 benefiting charity. According to the festival’s website, the nonprofit “has been working since 2009 to create the first residential children’s hospice and respite care home in the Twin Cities. The home will provide palliative care for children with conditions not responsive to curative care.”

In bicycle racing, as in life, win or lose you get back on the saddle and ride again – and sometimes it’s for those who can’t.

The fountain is a gift from Pentair Ltd. and five current or former directors of the company in honor of the late Harpole, its founder and first chief executive officer. St. Thomas installed the fountain last summer after the student center’s January 2012 opening.

Father Dennis Dease, president of St. Thomas, thanked Pentair chairman and CEO Randall J. Hogan and two predecessors – Eugene Nugent and Winslow Buxton – for the gift. Their contributions, when matched by a gift from members of the St. Thomas Board of Trustees, paid for the fountain and its future maintenance as well as a landscaping and irrigation system for the lower quadrangle.

(Photo by Mike Ekern ’02)

“This spectacular water fountain honors Pentair for its global leadership in water technologies that help make the world a better place,” states a plaque at the fountain. “It also honors the entrepreneurial legacy of Murray J. Harpole, a cherished benefactor who provided early guidance that helped to lead to the eventual establishment of today’s flourishing St. Thomas programs in entrepreneurship and engineering.”

Harpole quit his job as an engineer at the age of 45 to start Pentair in 1966 and retired as chief executive officer in 1981, by which point revenues had grown to $238 million. His successors – Nugent (1982-1992), Buxton (1992-2001) and Hogan (since 2001) – attended Monday’s dedication ceremony, as did Harpole’s widow, Ruth, and members of her extended family.

Pentair today is a global leader in the water, fluid, thermal management and equipment protection industries. During Hogan’s tenure, Pentair’s annual revenues have increased from $2.6 billion to $8 billion, its market cap has grown from $1 billion to $11 billion and its workforce has more than doubled to 30,000 employees in more than 30 countries.

The St. Thomas-Pentair connection goes back 25 years, when the company funded a classroom during the 1989 expansion of Murray-Herrick Campus Center. Pentair established the Pentair Prize – a $5,000 scholarship to an entrepreneurship student – in 2000 and has sponsored the STEPS (Science, Technology & Engineering Preview Summer) camps that have brought 3,000 girls to campus since 2005.

Quent Hietpas, senior vice president emeritus of St. Thomas, served on the Pentair board for 25 years (15 as lead director). He emceed a luncheon program after the dedication ceremony.

 A plaque identifying the Murray J. Harpole Legacy Fountain has been placed in John P. Monahan Plaza. 

Lisa Weier

Marta loves music. Absolutely loves it. She loves to dance, too. As a consequence, she let us listen to a song sung in Italian at the end of every class, often repeating ones we had previously heard. We would translate the lyrics to English to understand what the song was about. (98.6 percent of Italian lyrics, even if the underlying music is happy-sounding, are tragic and dramatic.)

Here’s my resulting Italian playlist:

• “Tutta mia la cittá” by Giuliano Palma and the Bluebeaters
• “50 Mila” by Nina Zilli, featuring Giuliano Palma
• “La Prima Cosa Bella” by Malika Ayane
• “L’amore Verrá” by Nina Zilli
• “Miserere” by Pavarotti and Zucchero

On our last normal day of class, we listened to all of the songs as a kind of culminating celebration. When we started “L’amore Verrá” (the Italian version of “You Can’t Hurry Love” by the Supremes), Marta sang along and danced, swaying to the beat. We tapped our toes and sang along from our desks. Suddenly, my classmate Tim turned to me: “Lisa. I want to dance with Marta. Will you dance too?” After a moment’s thought, I replied, “Yeah. I will if you will.”

He thought one second more, stood up, pushed his chair back and stepped out into the aisle. I followed. Once we made our intentions clear, the class laughed. Then we worked on getting them out of the seats. After a little persuasion, everyone was up and dancing, to Marta’s sheer delight. I’m proud to say that we were the first of her American Italian classes where everyone danced. She was proud too, inviting us to a homemade gelato feast in return. We enjoyed that a couple of days later, meeting her family at her apartment.

I don’t know if I ever would have danced in a class before. I can’t imagine having a professor quite like Marta, or a group of classmates like my fellow Bernardians (as we call ourselves). It is one of my favorite memories from this semester, a semester not quite past, but very close to being so … .

My next Scroll, I’ll be stateside. See you then!

Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, 
And say my glory was I had such friends.

I have always loved those words, which are the closing two lines of the poem, “The Municipal Gallery Revisited,” and as I approach my final weeks as president of the University of St. Thomas I cannot find a more appropriate valedictory in thanking this community.

I find it fitting to quote Yeats, considering that he counts among the dozens of Irish poets who have visited our campus over our 128 years. He appeared on a bitterly cold  January day in 1904 to give a St. Paul Seminary lecture to what one newsletter called “a large and cultured audience.”

I also borrowed Yeats’ words about friendship when I informed the faculty last May of my plans to retire, and in an effort to add some levity to the situation I quoted a  second Yeats observation: “Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” The line drew welcome laughter, and I said it could be seen as even inspirational. “I know there have been days that were difficult as well as days that were good,” I told the faculty. “It’s the kind of existential resignation captured in the more homespun American proverb, ‘Some days you’re the bug; some days you’re the windshield.’” And there was more laughter!

In all seriousness, my gratitude today knows no bounds, and for good reason. Any success that I have enjoyed during my 22 years as president has been directly the result of generous, unselfish and heroic work by you – our faculty, staff, students, parents, alumni and benefactors. Or, as I like to say when I address a gathering, our “friends all.”

You also have been kind beyond description – to me and to St. Thomas. I will forever carry fond memories of those kindnesses, which I know were borne out of a genuine desire to make this a better university and to help us provide the best possible education for our students. The lengths to which you go to provide assistance astound me time and time again, almost to the point that it would be easy to take you for granted. I hope I never have done so.

As you know, I am fond of quoting our mission statement, which so perfectly captures what we attempt to do – to educate students “to be morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely, and work skillfully to advance the common good.” I take comfort in knowing how those words unite us as we seek to live up to one more Yeats maxim: that “education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire” – and I know they will motivate me in the years ahead.

I will see you around campus!

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

The President’s Staff under Father Dennis Dease endorsed the tobacco-free concept at its May 6 meeting, and a committee will be appointed to work out an implementation plan in conjunction with smoking cessation programs before returning to the President’s Staff this fall for final approval. The policy would affect the St. Paul and Minneapolis campuses but not the Rome campus or the Gainey Conference Center in Owatonna.

More than 30 Minnesota colleges and universities already have tobacco bans. Nationwide, 700 are tobacco free and more than 1,000 are smoke free.

“Research shows that having a tobacco-free campus literally changes the behavior of students,” said Dr. Jane Canney, vice president for student affairs. “They smoke less and have a better understanding of the health and wellness aspects of their lives, and they come to value a tobacco-free environment.”

In the St. Thomas policy, “tobacco” is defined as any lighted cigarette, cigar, pipe, clove cigarette, hookah smoked products, electronic cigarettes and smokeless tobacco in any form. Promotion, sale or distribution of tobacco products and merchandise, including any items carrying tobacco logos, will be prohibited on campus or at any university-sponsored events.

“Compliance with this policy will depend upon the cooperation of all faculty, staff and students as well as campus visitors,” states a policy proposal considered by the President’s Staff. “The university will develop training programs to assist and prepare students and employees to help one another honor the tobacco-free environment that this policy supports.”

Proposal came from students

In the fall semester of 2010, Mike Orth, then president of the sophomore class and until recently president of the Undergraduate Student Government, approached St. Thomas leadership about ways to reduce tobacco use on campus.

“Mike took a real leadership role on the issue,” Canney said. “He formed a USG Tobacco Policy Review Committee during the 2010-2011 academic year, which conducted two student surveys and did thorough research. They involved a lot of students, and they concluded that they wanted to advocate for a tobacco-free campus.”

Orth decided to become involved because he knew the issue would become “incredibly important” for the St. Thomas community. Over time, he became convinced it made sense for St. Thomas to be tobacco free.

“A tobacco-free campus means two things,” he said. “First, that our university offers a safe and healthy place for students, faculty and staff to work, attend class and live. Second, that St. Thomas encourages the entire community to make healthy choices. That has an especially profound impact on students who are developing habits for the rest of their lives.”

Through the surveys and interviews, the USG committee became more familiar with the pros and cons of limited or no tobacco consumption on campus. Supporters objected to inhaling second-hand smoke and believed limits or a ban would promote healthy practices for people to follow for the rest of their lives, including in smoke-free work places. Opponents said a ban would infringe on their personal freedoms and would create safety concerns and littering problems by forcing people to smoke on public property, such as sidewalks, streets and the Summit Avenue median.

“There are strong opinions on both sides of the issue,” Orth said. “A change like this takes time, and we have been careful to include every opinion in the discussion.”

Tobacco-Free Campus work group formed

Following the Undergraduate Student Government recommendation in the fall of 2011, a Tobacco-Free Campus work group was formed. It included representation from faculty, students, exempt staff and non-exempt staff. After 18 months of consultation and research, the work group developed a draft tobacco free campus policy proposal.

This spring, members of the workgroup made nearly 20 presentations to committees and organizations across campus, discussing the proposal and assuring each constituency that it would be involved in future discussions regarding implementation of the policy once it was approved.

“I believe we are ready to move forward as an educational institution and not only become a tobacco-free campus,” Orth said, “but also utilize this opportunity to educate our students, faculty, and staff about living healthier lives.”

Among those participating on the Tobacco Free Campus work group is Dr. Jill Manske, a biology professor who completed a master’s degree in public health at the University of Minnesota last year. Manske and Dr. Jolynn Gardner of the Health and Human Performance Department (also a work group member) are developing tools to assess the attitudes and tobacco use before and after the ban.

Manske said she became involved in the work group a year ago after Canney asked her if she would be interested in serving as faculty representative. She said yes because of its origin as a student-generated initiative.

“It represents the type of student/grass-root ‘working for the common good’ that we hope to inspire in our students,” said Manske, who teaches a course in women’s health. “I also see this as an important women’s health issue. More men than women smoke, but smoking among college-age women has increased since the 1980s for a variety of reasons, including weight control and media exposure.”

Manske cited a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General’s report that women’s death rates due to lung cancer, a disease primarily caused by cigarette smoking, have increased 600 percent since 1950 and that “smoking-related disease among women is full-blown epidemic.”

Added Manske: “I think that anything we can do to counter these social pressures, and to introduce a different culture around tobacco use, is important.”

U of M will have smoking ban

The University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus is the most recent to announce a ban – at least a smoking ban, that is. The University Senate, made up of faculty, students and staff, voted May 2 in favor of a smoking ban and President Eric Kaler concurred, telling the Star Tribune: “A tobacco-free campus has become an expectation … rather than an innovation. It’s about time for us.” The ban could begin in the fall of 2014, and in the meantime officials will determine details such as whether the ban will include chewing tobacco.

Two other U of M campuses already have bans – tobacco in Crookston and smoking in Duluth. Private colleges with tobacco bans are Bethel, Northwestern, St. Catherine and St. Scholastica, and other major public institutions include state universities in Bemidji, Mankato, Marshall, Moorhead, St. Cloud and Winona.

The program featured much laughter, some tears, two sustained standing ovations, kind words, and a chance to see Dease cover his distinguished gray hair with a Harley Davidson “do-rag,” complete with bright orange flames.

Speaking at the event were Father John Malone, vice president for mission, and Archbishop Harry Flynn, chair of the university’s board for the past 18 years.

Flynn, also sporting a Harley cap at the podium, commented on Malone’s string of jokes and stories that peppered the program. “When Father Malone was speaking, I was wishing this was six years ago and I was still in office … so I could can him.”

Father John Malone, left, cracks a joke as Archbishop Emeritus Harry Flynn and Father Dease look on.

The archbishop turned serious and described this as a bittersweet time for the university. “We’ve all grown with him,” he said of Dease, who will retire at the end of June after 22 years as the university’s president.

“The hardest job in the world is being president of a Catholic university,” he said. “The president is responsible to so many constituents … students, faculty, the board, alumni and to the local bishop. It is a delicate balance, and Father Dease has done it brilliantly.”

Flynn said there are two types of leaders. One is the “instrumentalist” who is focused primarily on getting the job done. The other is the “expressive leader” who accomplishes tasks through encouragement, through listening, by making sure the morale is high and who leads others to work toward goals. “Those two forms of leaders landed in one person, Father Dease. He has been a patient, patient leader … and how important that is.

“I always describe Father Dease as steel wrapped in velvet. He smiles when he asks you for something.”

There are stories behind the Harley do-rags and the Groucho glasses.

Years ago, Dr. Ron Bennett, former dean of the School of Engineering, gave Dease a piggy-bank for his office desk. It was inscribed, “My Harley Fund,” and Dease often joked that he planned to buy a Harley motorcycle when he retired. At the start of the program, Malone and Dease donned their do-rags and the archbishop put on a more dignified Harley beret.

The origins of the Groucho glasses go back two years, to the fall faculty convocation. At the annual gathering, Dease put on a pair of Groucho glasses while commenting on a widely reported controversy involving British climate-change skeptic Lord Christopher Monkton and St. Thomas engineering professor and climate-change expert Dr. John Abraham. It was in the course of the controversy that Monkton called Dease a “creep of a president.”

As Malone recounted the story Friday afternoon, members of the audience took their Groucho glasses out of hiding and put them on.

Staff and faculty applaud Father Dease at a sendoff celebration.

“I thought a nice thing about getting old is you couldn’t be shocked anymore,” Dease said when he took the podium. “I was wrong. I never believed I’d be up here with an archbishop in a Harley hat and me in a do-rag.”

Dease’s remarks were short. “I don’t have a speech. I want to say thanks to all faculty and staff for making the St. Thomas culture so really, really special … and it’s hard to look out and say that with everyone wearing Groucho glasses.”

And at that, the audience rose and gave him a long standing ovation.

Leave a Farewell Note for Father Dennis Dease

If you were unable to attend the faculty and staff farewell celebration for St. Thomas President Father Dennis Dease, you can still offer your best wishes to him by signing a memory book that will be given to him when he retires on June 30. Stop by Aquinas Hall Room 102 to sign the book through Friday, May 31. The first 100 signers will receive commemorative Groucho glasses.

During his 1973-2001 tenure at St. Thomas, Foy taught British literature and was best known for teaching Shakespeare. He also served as chair of the English Department from 1973-1976, and as the founding director of the Center for Faculty Development from 1981-1987.

After graduating in 1955 from Emory University in Atlanta, he served as a navigator/radar observer in the U.S. Air Force, 1956-1959, and in the Minnesota Air National Guard, 1959-1961. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in English (Latin minor) at the University of Minnesota in 1973.

He is survived by daughters Malinda Foy and Elizabeth Foy Bergman, and grandchildren Helena and William Bergman. His wife of 42 years, Nancy Burkitt Foy, died in 2002.

On campus: Dr. Robert (Rob) C. Foy II.

Elizabeth remembers her father having two great passions for things (other than people) in his life – his garden and drama – specifically Shakespeare: “While his passions wandered and expanded – at the end those two things remained core to who he was.

“As to his garden, there were many hand-drawn plans for the garden floating around the house. He was a quasi-trained landscape architect as he dropped out of college for a semester to study the subject, reflecting an interest in plants and design he had had since childhood. But after one semester he clearly knew that his greatest satisfaction was in academia. His garden plans all featured ‘the grass circle,’ which was the centerpiece of the garden. As a child it really frustrated me that we were not allowed to walk on it. I mean – it was just grass! Only as an adult have I really come to understand the beautiful geometric simplicity it represented. The best time to talk with him was when he was gardening. His hands were busy – but his mind free. I can remember long talks, mostly about politics and government with him while he planted.”

“Over the years, he had many young helpers beyond me and my sister – they came away knowing a lot more about Shakespeare, gardening, and landscape architecture, and I think they always knew they had found a friend and mentor,” Malinda commented.

“Drama was his other consistent passion,” Elizabeth continued. “We went to the theater a lot. I might have been 6 when I sat through my first Shakespearean play. I am not sure when exactly I started to understand them or more importantly appreciate them – but I remain an active and appreciative theater goer. There would always be a lecture before the show. First explaining the plot and then detailing how the play should really be done. Phrases such as ‘if the director really understands Shakespeare …’ were common. Most memorable was his discussion of the levels. He would say, ‘On one level this is a play about love, but on another level – which meant a deeper one – it is about loss of identity.’ There were always three levels.

“My sister and I would jokingly ask him to tell us about the levels before he started on this topic, and he would be delighted we were so interested. It took him a while to realize that his sweet girls had become snotty teenagers. I sometimes find myself talking about the levels after I see a play.”

“But more than anything, my father and mother encouraged me and my sister to find our potential, believe in ourselves, and serve our communities,” Malinda summarized.

Dr. Michael Jordan, English Department, describes Foy as “an engaged teacher with far-reaching intellectual interests that rendered him well suited to be the founding director of the Faculty Development program at St. Thomas, a position he first held the year I arrived here in 1982. He was also one of the collaborators for a program at St. Thomas called ‘Texts and Traditions’ that for a short while brought together core courses in English and theology in an integrated sequence. Rob brought intellectual spark and wit to every conversation, and was especially renowned for his Shakespeare course.

“I regarded Rob as something of a mentor during my first years at St. Thomas, and he graciously introduced me to the complex reality of the institution while assuring me that there were good opportunities here for true interdisciplinary learning. The sound of his laughter during hallway conversations was a regular feature of life in the English Department. In the years following his retirement, I would encounter him from time to time at the theater or at a classical music concert or in the hardware store, and it was evident that he never lost the endless love of learning that seemed always to be brimming in him.”

Being a student of Foy’s also made for interesting experiences. Brian Brown ’98 M.A, executive director of media and publications in University Relations, recalls taking a couple of master’s in English classes with him in the 1990s, including an independent study one summer on the influence of jazz on the Beat poets:

”Once a week I would bike over to Rob’s house near Macalester and we would talk for hours – rarely on topic, unless I forced the issue. Rob was passionate about so many things – Shakespeare, gardening, travel. Eventually, his beloved wife, Nancy, would step out onto the porch with homemade iced tea and cookies. Rob would turn to me – often midsentence – and say, ‘Well, that’s enough of that. Let’s eat something.’

“Rob frequently embodied the ‘absent-minded professor’ stereotype. I remember stopping by his office at 44 North Cleveland once when he was particularly distracted. I asked him what was wrong, and he said he rode his brand-new bike to campus and someone stole it. ‘I leaned it up against the tree outside and when I went back out a few hours later it was gone!’”

Although Foy was particularly fond of Shakespeare, it wasn’t all Shakespeare all the time in class. Kelly Engebretson ’99 M.A., a writer and editor in University Relations, recalls this unique Shakespeare class break: “Dr. Foy unwittingly introduced me to yoga during his Shakespeare class when I was a graduate student in 1997. He asked a friend of his – an instructor at a nearby yoga studio – to lead a 15-minute yoga session during the break in our three-hour evening class. Every week she showed up to lead us through a series of sun salutations and the like. Those of us who didn’t smoke would participate, and we loved it. I can still picture Dr. Foy, barefoot and jolly, easing into ‘Downward Dog’ like it was no trouble at all.”

Foy was among 25 noted and popular professors whose faces were featured in caricatures drawn by John Kascht ’83 on the cover of the 1981 Aquinas yearbook, along with caricatures of the university’s president, provost and Vice President Walter Mondale.

A colleague, Dr. Lon Otto, describes Foy as a “brilliant scholar, working always on a book about Shakespeare and the biblical David story, a book that never was finished but is very real and powerful to those of us who knew Rob, a book in the oral tradition, always his most natural medium, along with soil and brick and plants. He was one of the most complicated and interesting people I’ve ever known – funny and generous and deeply intelligent, passionate about what he loved, absolutely unforgettable.”

Foy was the chair of the English Department when Otto was hired at St. Thomas. “He and Nancy made me feel like a part of their family those first few years, and I will be forever grateful to have been included in that loving and intellectual and often chaotic household. Among his many other talents, Rob was a formidable landscape gardener. It was an honor and an education to scavenge brick and stone with him on demolition sites in the evenings after the workers had quit for the day, to build fences with him, to follow the ever-evolving intricacies of his richly folded city garden.”

Nancy shared Rob’s passion for gardening. Their garden was written about in both the Minneapolis and St. Paul daily newspapers, and in Highland Park’s The Villager. Titled Healing Words, The Villager story was reprinted in the fall 2005 edition of Writing in the Margins (Page 12), a publication of the English Department.

Carol Nigrelli, the author, wrote: “’It’s a great way for a mental guy to get his hands dirty,’ Foy said. The division of labor was simple: He did the work; his wife nodded her approval. ‘My wife loved the garden,’ Foy said. ‘She loved to buy plants for it. She loved to show it off. She loved to be on garden tours. But she didn’t want to get her hands dirty.’”

Their love of gardening and their advocacy for the Center for Victims of Torture resulted in the 2005 publication of Landskips, a 46-page book of Rob’s poetry about nature and gardens. He dedicated the book to his late wife: “Lover of gardens and the Center for Victims of Torture.” Proceeds from sales of the book were donated to the center.

A memorial service will be held 10 a.m. Saturday, June 1, at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church in St. Paul. An open house will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, May 31, at 1671 Berkeley Ave., St. Paul. An obituary and guest book can be viewed at legacy.com.

Father Dennis Dease will retire on June 30, completing 22 years as the 14th president of the University of St. Thomas.

The St. Thomas that Dease will hand over to Dr. Julie Sullivan on July 1 is dramatically different from the St. Thomas he inherited from Monsignor Terrence Murphy, yet his desire always has been simple and forthright – to improve the quality of education and to carry out the mission.

That desire has manifested itself in many ways – in new campuses and new buildings, in a more racially and ethnically diverse student body, in a stronger faculty and staff, and in highly successful fundraising efforts.

Dease is the first to credit the entire St. Thomas community for making so many dreams come true. He speaks quietly of how “incredibly blessed” he is to be surrounded by people “who care deeply about this university and who have a deep passion for learning and helping others to learn.”

He sat down this spring to reflect on his presidency and to look ahead to the challenges that await his successor and the University of St. Thomas.

Q. Twenty-two years! Does it seem that long?

A. The first year seemed like 22 years because of the learning curve, but the last 20 years have just vaporized. It’s like if you get on a plane and don’t have anything to read, the trip takes forever. But if you have a good book, you’re there before you know it. There has been so much activity and growth here at St. Thomas that the years have just flown by.

Q. In 1991, how long – honestly, now – did you expect to be president? Are you surprised that you have served 22 years?

A. I knew the average term for a university president in the United States was about 6.5 years, and a little longer in Catholic institutions. Archbishop John Roach, our chairman at the time, asked me on the day of the board’s interview with me if I would be willing to give 10 years to the job. I said I would. I was just hoping I could hang in there for 10 years!

Why did I stay 22 years? No one is more surprised than I am. Maybe it was just the grace of God. One thing I know for sure: It’s important to have good people around you to take on responsibility and work together, and ours is a wonderful culture in that sense. I am so fortunate that the faculty and staff became my friends and have been magnificent in carrying out our mission, and I could not have asked for a better board of trustees. They are can-do, make-it-happen individuals who know how to solve problems. Those are the real reasons for the long run.

This is a unique kind of university. You don’t find here the acerbic divisions that are so common in academe. On a 1 to 10 scale in this regard, the St. Thomas community rates a 10. I do not exaggerate. Sure, we’ve had strong disagreements at times, but the civility with which we have carried on our discussions always made me proud.

Q. How has the job changed over the years?

A. The job as a Catholic university president is never easy, but there is less stridency today surrounding our Catholic identity. There is more clarity, thanks to the decade-long discussion prompted by the Holy See’s document Ex Corde Ecclesiae. In my early years, there were many hard discussions trying to balance the role of Catholicism with that of a university. As I leave office, the dominant issue is affordability.

Q. What has been St. Thomas’ most significant accomplishment during your tenure? Is there any particular accomplishment with which you take personal pride?

A. We put a lot of effort into strengthening our Catholic identity. We are clearer today about the meaning of our commitment to cultivate our Catholic mission. We have a rich, 4,000-year Judeo-Christian wisdom tradition upon which to draw, as well as a vibrant Catholic intellectual and cultural tradition.

I am pleased that we have steadily strengthened our faculty. Many of them come from the best universities in the world. They are productive scholars and they are just incredibly fine teachers. I see master teachers as those who not only educate but also inspire, who are passionate about their disciplines and who change lives. Their fire is burning brightly because they stoke it with research and then come into the classroom and light a fire for others. They have what William Butler Yeats said about the purpose of education being not just one of filling a bucket but lighting a fire.

We also have seen the student body change academically as judged by ACT scores (averages of 23.1 and 25.6 for entering freshmen in 1991 and 2012), and we are more diverse. We were mostly white middle class (4.5 percent students of color in 1991) but today we have higher percentages of students of color (14 percent) and international students (4 percent), and they have enriched the learning environment.

Q. In the essay that you submitted with your application to be president, you listed a priority to strengthen our Catholic character, and in your inauguration address you emphasized the need to avoid “a slippery path to a rather bland secularism.” What does the path look like today?

A. I no longer see that as the threat I saw 22 years ago because the academic environment is much more open to us being Catholic. A Catholic university is built on the  premise that faith and reason are not antithetical but are complementary. One can enrich the other. Science and religion can learn from the other, and I find that fun because my personal interests and background have been on the religion side, but in school I always found science fascinating.

Q. How do programs such as a Center for Catholic Studies and a Rome campus enhance our Catholic character?

A. Our Center for Catholic Studies enriches us as a Catholic university, and in ways we didn’t anticipate when we designed it. It enables students to integrate what they are learning in terms of their faith with a whole variety of other disciplines and perspectives. It traces and explores the Catholic influence in literature, science, philosophy and the arts.

The Rome campus was a bold step for us. It certainly wasn’t going to become a profit center, but the trustees agreed from a mission point of view that it was important. I love  the facility itself, located on the Tiber River just a 15-minute walk to St. Peter’s. We were fortunate to have a dear friend, the late Cardinal Pio Laghi, dedicate the campus, and I still remember him saying, “The city of Rome is a wonderful professor.”

Q. Why do students need a liberal arts education? What does it mean?

A. A liberal arts education is a process; it’s not a product. It’s not a discreet amount of information that you acquire; it’s the result of personal interaction with mentors, with professors. It’s not data; it’s an expansion of students’ horizons and of shaping their awareness and preparing them for lifelong learning. It is truly transformative.

It comes about because of interaction with talented, experienced teachers. Our class sizes are relatively small, which allows for interaction, and the approach that our faculty takes is inquiry based learning. There is an old saying, “Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll understand.” That’s inquiry-based learning.

Q. More and more scholarship and research involves students. Why is that important?

A. It is not that common for faculty in higher education in the United States to involve undergraduate students in their research, but it is common here at St. Thomas. You get a sense of how much this means to students when you attend their poster sessions, such as the ones I have gone to for chemistry. There were so many students presenting research on poster boards. They used to be able to get all of them into the corridors on one floor, but this year there were so many that they had to have two shifts. That’s thrilling because it’s learning at its best.

Q. Another priority you cited before becoming president was a desire for St. Thomas to become a great “urban” university, and you later said that we should not just be in the city, but of the city. Have we taken sufficient steps?

A. When I was rector of the Basilica of St. Mary in downtown Minneapolis, every day people were at the door in need of housing, clothing, food or even bus tickets. People were living under the freeway bridge across the street. That weighed on me, and I thought an urban university would have something to contribute to alleviate the suffering.

The chief way we contribute is through education – by educating first-generation students and by encouraging an organic interaction between the university and the  community. We are not an ivory tower that is self-sufficient, but an urban university that responds to issues and whose students have an opportunity to learn from  community-based projects and supervised, reflective experiences. We always can do more, and I expect we will do more because we have created a culture where people want to be part of the solution.

By “of the city,” I meant that we have a responsibility to the region we serve to provide for its emerging educational needs. We will continue to do that. We are organically part of the city here, and our future will rise or fall with the future of the city.

Q. St. Thomas revised its mission statement in 2004. What does it mean to you when you look at it today?

A. It goes like this: “Inspired by Catholic intellectual tradition, the University of St. Thomas educates students to be morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely and work skillfully to advance the common good.” I love that mission statement because it succinctly captures us and it guides us.

Q. So it boils down to how people need to go out and do the right thing?

A. Absolutely. I have had a stream of students and faculty come through my office excited about projects. Like engineering professor Camille George and her project to dehydrate breadfruit in Haiti to preserve it and meet the nutritional needs of the people there. Or Brian Osende, an engineering student who went back to his remote village in Uganda with solar panels and his knowledge as an engineer, to electrify his village. It dawned on me that I had something in common with the people of that village because that was an electrifying experience for both of us.

Q. Throughout your presidency, you have expressed concern – even frustration – about the rising costs of education and the growing perception among some people that they cannot afford St. Thomas. How do you address that?

A. I tell them, “Don’t be scared off by the sticker price.” We have dramatically increased financial aid. I also point out that our average net cost has not increased in the last 10 years beyond the rate of inflation. The average debt load that an undergraduate student leaves St. Thomas with is around $30,000 – the same as what many new cars cost, and they won’t drive that car for the rest of their life. I believe $30,000 is a reasonable price to pay for an education.

Q. St. Thomas has been successful in raising funds, including $765 million in the Opening Doors and Ever Press Forward capital campaigns. Does the generosity of alumni and friends, even during a serious recession, surprise you?

A. It is astounding in one sense but not in another. People see the kind of institution that St. Thomas is and come to a judgment that we are adding great value to the community. They appreciate the way that we respond to emerging educational needs, and they want to be part of it.

Q. Enrollment growth in the 1970s and 1980s led to crowded conditions and decisions to open a Minneapolis campus and significantly expand the St. Paul campus. But needs remain: Music programs want better facilities, science and engineering programs are out of space and neighbors push for more on-campus housing. Is a university ever done with construction?

A. Never! I wish it could be so. But as educational needs continue to change, so must our programs and our facilities, and that entails reimagining and retrofitting the physical campus.

Q. What would you consider the “signature” buildings of your presidency?

A. Each building has been important in meeting critical needs. The Minneapolis campus buildings gave us an opportunity to concentrate many graduate and professional programs there, and each has served its distinct profession well.

In St. Paul, the Frey Science and Engineering Center addressed perhaps our greatest need, and McNeely Hall has made a huge difference to our business faculty. The three Anderson buildings have enriched student life immeasurably: the Athletic and Recreation Complex and the Student Center bring people together and allow the community to come to know itself in ways not previously possible, and you can never have enough parking.

Q. Why is diversity important?

A. I love the diversity I see on campus because it enriches the learning experience for all of our students. It better prepares them for the world in which they will live and work. In practice, when a student from Eden Prairie or New Market or Lake Benton meets a student from the Middle East or China or Africa, that student starts to ask questions about his new friend’s experiences, culture and perspective. In the process, he learns more about the world.

Q. In becoming more diverse, have we become a better reflection of the region’s racial and ethnic makeup?

A. We are definitely more reflective of the community. I can’t recall many Hmong students here 20 years ago, and there are many today. I also am pleased with the recruitment in immigrant communities. Who would have thought that the largest representations today from foreign countries would be Saudi Arabia (99 students last fall) and India (56)?

We had the opportunity a decade ago to provide space for English Language Services, and we brought international students to campus and gave them a chance to look around. The Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission in Washington provides full scholarships, and I began to develop a relationship with those officials. I was concerned about how they might view St. Thomas and they told me, “We love Catholic universities because they respect the role that faith plays in life.” We have had an excellent experience.

Q. Another way that St. Thomas provides greater access for lower-income students is through the Dease Scholarship Program. How did that come about?

A. Greg Roberts, our vice president for student affairs (until 2003) came to me one day and said the number of African-American students had dropped to a critical level. There was a general feeling in that community, he said, that St. Thomas was not a good fit for African-American students. That got my attention. I realized we would need to re-engineer our efforts. And we did.

When I see someone like Laura Lee, who was a Hmong student at St. Thomas, now at the top of her profession as a (television) anchor in Rochester, I can’t find words to express my gratitude that we were able to be there when she was saying, “Educate me, expand my horizons, give me some skills!” It’s humbling and it’s gratifying to be part of this journey.

Q. St. Thomas has largely managed to avoid controversy over the years. There have been some dust-ups and we have come under criticism for positions we have taken on certain issues, but for the most part our alumni and the broader community have stuck with us. Why?

A. It’s because people accept who we are. They may disagree with us, but they respect who we are. They also respect our graduates. I have long believed that the ultimate measure of the quality of a university is the quality of its graduates – and ours are extraordinary.

Q. Have you ever second-guessed any decisions? Or looked back and said, “I should have handled that differently”?

A. I haven’t had time! Seriously, so much has happened here. Maybe I will in retrospect, when I have had the chance to think, but not now. This is such a busy place – when one chapter closes you are already working on the next.

Sure, I have made mistakes along the way, but people are good here. Not a lot of finger pointing goes on. They acknowledge any mistakes and the explanations and say, “Let’s move on.”

Q. You never seem more a priest than when you say Mass and never more a president than when you are handing out diplomas at graduation. How are those special moments to you?

A. When I am holding the host or chalice in my hand, I feel like I am in the presence of Jesus in a way that I can’t even begin to understand or appreciate. I often experience Jesus’ love intensely in those moments, but trying to comprehend it would be like trying to understand the light that comes from the other side of the universe.

When I hand out diplomas, I see the smiles as students come up and cross the stage. They’re just so happy. There’s no finer moment in the life of a university president than when you see students who know that something very good has happened.

Q. What kind of role do you want to have as “president emeritus”?

A. I will try to be of help in whatever way I can – to the university and to Dr. Julie Sullivan, who is a wonderful person and will be an extraordinary leader. I see myself as becoming a goodwill ambassador. I have been blessed with good health, and as long as it holds up I will be active. I’m not yet ready to spend my time watching the daytime soaps or the Weather Channel.

Q. What advice do you have for your successor?

A. I will tell her to enjoy what will likely be the most wonderful job she’s ever had.

Q. In past Q&A interviews for St. Thomas magazine, we closed with the famous John Ireland quote about the need to “ever press forward” because “God intended the present to be better than the past and the future to be better than the present.” How do you relate those words to the mission of St. Thomas?

A. It inspires us to dare to be great, to dive into life, to become part of it, to make tomorrow better than today. We can actively and significantly contribute, and that is what we here at St. Thomas choose to do – to advance the common good.

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

“Uncommon decency,” said Morrison. “He’s a man of uncommon decency.”

Dave Nimmer

That describes the man I know – whether he was setting a policy, writing a note or admitting a mistake.

The mistake was back in 2007 when he decided not to invite Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu to campus to speak as part of the Peace Jam celebration. His reason was that Tutu had made remarks offensive to Jewish people in a 2002 speech about Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.

What I recall is a noon hour several days after he made the decision. Congressional candidate Coleen Rowley, a former FBI whistle blower, was standing on the grass in front of the Arches holding one end of a banner that read “Let Tutu Speak.”

A retired WCCO colleague of mine, Roger Nelson, and I were walking by and paused to talk with Rowley and her husband, telling them we supported their point of view and admired their courage.  At that very moment, Father Dease walked up to the four of us.

“You can take your sign down,” he said. “I have changed my mind.” He went on to tell Rowley that he had made the wrong decision and now “would be proud to extend an invitation to Archbishop Tutu to speak at UST.” He looked them in the eyes, shook their hands and said he was sorry. Nelson later told me how impressed he was by Dease’s sincerity … and humility.

“How often has any official, public or private, done that (admit a mistake) in the recent past?” Tutu’s supporters later wrote. “The action not only sends a much-needed signal on behalf of academic freedom and the cause of justice and peace worldwide, but it’s a rare example of ethics in action.”

Father Dease never changed his mind about the importance of increasing diversity at UST, most especially providing scholarships to students of color. One of those scholarships went to Laura Lee, a Hmong woman from a big family with a husband and two children of her own when she graduated.

Her mother and father had come to Laura’s December graduation from Missouri and I asked Father Dease whether he could greet them. He not only shook their hands, he spent 15 minutes telling them how proud he was of Laura and how pleased he was to offer aid and assistance.

But his best touch was when he told the Hmong elders that they had done “a fine job” of raising their daughter and St. Thomas was honored to have her as part of its family. Father Dease was both graceful and gracious.

He was also generous with his time and attention to others. They often came in handwritten notes on his office stationery. I got mine two weeks before my surgery for prostate cancer in August 2008.  He’d heard about it from others and wanted me to know I was in his thoughts and prayers.

It was that pastoral touch at the end that defines the man for me. “Please let me know if there’s any way I can be of help,” he wrote.

You have been of help, Padre. You’ve taught me what a good man is and what he does.

Editor’s note: Faculty and staff are invited to attend a celebration for Dease from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday in Woulfe Alumni Hall in the Anderson Student Center. A program will begin at 3:30.

Chelsea Mills (left) and Alex Mathison observe snow monkeys at the Minnesota Zoo as part of their psychology project.

It’s a droll contrast to the indoor viewing area, where a thunderous procession of schoolchildren, hopped up in a frenzy of field-trip fever, press their noses to the windows, beseeching the primates to entertain them.

These Japanese macaques, more commonly known as snow monkeys, are the subject of a study conducted by St. Thomas seniors Paige Peterson, Chelsea Mills and Alex Mathison. The trio recorded six hours of video footage of the monkeys over six days in an effort to study the primates’ play behavior. Specifically, they scrutinized the younger monkeys (under 4 years old) and infants to determine how parental interference influences their play behavior.

One logistical challenge the group faced was dodging the aforementioned packs of children – free from watchful parents’ eyes – gone wild. Apparently, they enjoyed monkeying around with their cameras. “There were so many times when our cameras were blocked by a kid standing in front of them − sometimes done on purpose to wave at the camera − or were bumped into, which moved the camera angle around,” Mills said.

When mommy’s away, the children will play

Dr. Sarah Hankerson, a psychology professor at St. Thomas and adviser for the project, said, “This project represents one of the first attempts to understand why Japanese macaque mothers are so protective of their young. By focusing on the circumstances surrounding intervention, we can generate strong hypotheses on maternal concern. We can also examine the frequency, composition and timing of play bouts.”

Before beginning the study, Peterson, the project’s lead researcher and a psychology major, hypothesized that “there will be very few events of play (chasing, light biting and pulling, etc.) behavior inside a 10-foot circle of the mothers.”

Why? The group expected that the juvenile monkeys, much like humans, would feel less pressure to conform to adult social practices the further away they are from their mothers. They chose 10 feet because it seemed to be the easiest distance when making assessments from afar through videos.

Peterson explained that the social structure of Japanese snow monkeys is considered “despotic” (with the alpha male, beta male and older mothers, in that hierarchical order, ruling the roost) and that, contrary to the popular belief that monkeys swing care-free from tree to tree all day, snow monkeys have low levels of social tolerance.

“Based on previous studies,” she said, “it appears that since mothers don’t have good social bonds with other adults, they are going to be more protective with their offspring. This prevents the young monkeys from having contact with other group members. Babies are overprotected and grow into overprotective parents. It’s a cycle. They’ll try to play, but mothers usually keep one hand on their babies.”

Hankerson explained further that “as a result of strong maternal concern, it is possible that Japanese macaque juveniles need to be ‘sneaky’ in order to engage in play behavior.” She added that of any well-studied primate species, snow monkeys are the top party poopers – a fact that sparked Peterson’s curiosity; likewise, much of primate research investigates the connections between humans and or evolutionary predecessors, and according to past research the team scoured before beginning their study, scientists already have determined that both humans and primates spend much less time playing as they become grown-ups.

According to Hankerson, “Non-human primates can tell us a lot about the basic structure of behavior in group settings. We can look at the rudimentary way individuals handle conflict and affiliation. Being highly social animals, Japanese macaques can serve as models of group dynamics. This study looks at play behavior, which may seem a non-functional activity, but infants (both human and non-human) develop skills, improve physical strength and dexterity, and learn a lot about the world around them and their place in it by engaging in play behavior.”

The students’ research of human children found that the tapering of children’s play behavior coincides with the time period when schools eliminate recess from the children’s school day – roughly at the end of middle school.

Furthermore, Mills and Mathison explained, “In humans, authority figures place pressure on children to stop playing, causing play to become less frequent as they grow older. This pressure may be perceived by children that it’s time to focus on school and conform to a more structured schedule. Seeing this sort of behavioral pattern in snow macaques could suggest that we are not the only species to experience these types of pressures.”

What the group found after reviewing the footage was consistent with their hypothesis, with a small twist. Mills said, “The young monkeys played more often, and for longer periods of time, when they were farther away from the mothers. Chasing play tended to happen even if their mothers were close (less than 10 feet away), but a lot of the wrestling and biting play happened when they were farther away (more than 10 feet ). When the mothers were close and the young monkeys started wrestling, the mothers tended to interrupt their play, too.”

She added that while play behavior lets young monkeys practice certain behaviors on their own (such as how to avoid a predator), it can be troublesome to the group as a whole. “Play behavior tends to draw a lot of attention to the group, making them more noticeable to predators,” Mills noted. ”Along these lines we can kind of understand the role it plays in human behavior, too. While playing for a child is really important in their own individual development, it’s only when they reach the age when play stops that they can really start contributing to society as a whole. I think whether that is a good thing or bad thing just depends on how you look at it and what you consider to be more important.”

Although there are many mysteries still to be solved regarding snow monkey behavior, relatively speaking, much has been discovered, as they are among the world’s most studied animals.

The group hopes that “this research could help give insight into the complicated evolutionary pressures we experience today and the reasons behind why we experience them.”

About snow monkeys

Japanese macaques are the northernmost-living nonhuman primate and are native to Japan. Many inhabit northern Nagano, a mountain town in Japan that hosted the 1998 winter Olympics.

They are one of the few animals that are known, like humans, to wash their food before eating it. Their diet includes insects, soil, leaves, fruit and fish.

They also have been known to roll snowballs and fling them at each other in playful fights.

So why weren’t the monkeys, uh, monkeying around much on that cold day in April? Peterson shrugged and took a guess: “I think they’re a lot like us that way. In this weather they just want to hole up and keep warm.”

Killowen continues the story of Hart’s crime-solving pair, American pathologist Nora Gavin and Irish archaeologist Cormac Maguire. Set again in Ireland, Hart’s novel has Gavin and Maguire investigating the puzzling connection between two men, born centuries apart, whose murdered bodies are discovered together in the trunk of a sunken car in a bog.

Hart earned an M.A. in creative writing from the University of Minnesota, a degree she earned attending one evening class every other quarter for eight years. She worked as a freelance arts journalist and theater critic – contributing to the Star Tribune, Minnesota Monthly and Minnesota Public Radio, among others – when she enrolled in graduate school strictly “to keep my brain from shrinking,” she said. Never intending to pursue a career as a novelist, she studied and wrote mainly essays, articles and memoirs.

Literary agents began knocking on her door soon after she won Glimmer Train journal’s Short Story Award for New Writers in 1996 (for the first and only short story she has ever written, “Waterborne”). But she had already decided she would pursue a novel idea that had been percolating since graduate school.

“The day Glimmer Train called me I was in bed with pneumonia, reading mysteries. And when I hung up the phone, I said, ‘I need to write this novel.’ And I did,” Hart remembered. The book became Haunted Ground, published in 2003, based on the real news story she read of a girl’s severed head found perfectly preserved in an Irish bog. It remains her bestselling novel to date.

Her other novels include Lake of Sorrows (which was copy-edited by New York Times bestselling author Tana French, still a freelancer in the publishing world at the time) and False Mermaid.

Hart spent some time away from promoting Killowen to answer questions via email and phone with the Newsroom.

Your career in crime fiction began relatively late in life, in your early 40s. Was it difficult to write your first novel, Haunted Ground, while working full-time? 

I’m not sure I’d describe the process as difficult, but it did take quite a long time! I started thinking about Haunted Ground in 1986, and didn’t begin writing it until 1996. I did spend eight years of those intervening years getting a master’s degree in creative writing, going to school in the evening and working during the day. From the time I started writing, it took about four years until the manuscript was ready to send out to publishers, and another two years before the book was finally launched. The great thing was that I wasn’t under any deadline, so I could really take the time to write the book I wanted to write; the difficulty was squeezing in writing time on evenings and weekends. My husband cooked a lot of dinners while I was out wandering imaginary bogs! Two things kept me going: I didn’t know how the story ended (and wanted to find out), and I figured that the market was good. In other words, if I could manage to write a really absorbing, entertaining, suspenseful mystery, someone would buy it.

Had I known the depth of my own ignorance I may never have started! I was teaching myself how to write  a mystery while I was writing Haunted Ground. I’m a big fan of P.D. James. To me, she’s the master mistress of the genre. I used her work as my textbook for how to write compassionate characters, interesting settings and good psychological motivation. I used A Taste for Death in particular and studied her structure, how she painted characters, etc.

Describe the moment you realized you could make a career of writing fiction for a living. Was it a leap of faith?

In early 1999, I was more than halfway through the manuscript. I had an agent waiting for it, and I guess I experienced a moment of clarity. I remember thinking, “I don’t want to be 85 years old and kicking myself for never finishing this novel.” So I asked for a six-month leave of absence from my job, and at the end of the six months, we were surviving on my freelance income at the time, along with my husband’s income as a professional touring musician. And we still had cable. My husband was a big inspiration, actually. He’d made a living for 20 years playing Irish traditional music on the accordion, and with his support I made the great leap to living as a creative artist before my book was even sold. I won’t lie – it is a challenge to make a living as self-employed artists, but we’ve managed to keep body and soul together thus far, and hope to continue.

How much archaeology, forensics and Irish history research did you do before you began writing Haunted Ground? And do you find you still have to do a lot of research for each successive novel?

Each novel is connected to a different period in history, and the field of archaeology keeps changing with new technology, so I do have to delve pretty deep into research for each new book. I read plenty of history, and I approach archaeology and forensics by reading books and journals, but also by using my journalistic skills (I was a freelance theater critic and feature writer for years), interviewing people who actually work in those specialized fields: archaeologists and antiquities experts, pathologists, police officers, DNA experts and other forensic scientists, whatever the story demands. Some of the same people have helped me for each story in the series. I’ve been so fortunate to have good contacts, and people have been very generous with their time and knowledge. It helps that Ireland is a small island, and everyone I know there is apparently connected to someone I’d like to interview.

Do you feel like an expert on those subjects now?

I don’t feel that I’m a real expert on any of the subjects I write about. But I don’t think that’s really necessary, given the level of detail required in a gripping crime novel. I do take care to read a lot about a subject before interviewing a real expert. One of my biggest fears is that one of the scientists I’ve interviewed will read one of my novels and fling it across the room, so I do try to get the scientific detail down cold. But I have learned so much. It turns out that’s my real reason for writing novels – it’s an excuse to keep learning. I get to dig into so many interesting subjects.

How do you begin a novel (i.e., do you outline; do you just plow right into the writing, chapter by chapter; do you jump between chapters, etc.)?

I tend to write a novel straight through, start to finish, rather than jumping around too much. It helps me to follow a thread, and as I mentioned earlier, I don’t know how the story ends. And I do get stuck. Sometimes it takes a few days (or even weeks) of pacing and plotting before the story takes the correct turn. But writing a novel to me is almost like doing an archaeological excavation. With each chapter I’m digging further down into my characters and into the complex situations in which they find themselves. I don’t know what’s at the bottom of the pit until I get there! Once I’ve worked out how the story ends (usually pretty far into the writing process), I do go back through and make sure that all of the hints and clues and suspenseful bits dovetail neatly.

Has the dwindling influence and sales reach of book publishing changed book promotion since Haunted Ground was published in 2003?

Hart traverses a stile at Dysert O’Dea chapel in County Clare, Ireland, 2012. (Photo by Carey Sidla)

Yes and no. There are a few really bestselling authors who always tour, and the people who get the most support for touring are the people who need it least. All the midlisters like me, we don’t get that. Publishers can’t justify sinking a lot of money into touring because there’s no visible return. I’ve done some national tours in the past at my own expense. Recently I’ve toured some libraries around Minnesota, but I’m waiting to see if I can get some support from my publisher (Scribner) to do more. The whole book universe is shifting, and no one really knows where the ground is any more. The transition between real books and ebooks is a revolution. Everybody’s waiting to see how the dust settles.

Publishers will do the traditional publicity they’ve always done – sending out copies for review, but even that’s tough. The New York Times is now the only paper to print a separate section for book reviews. High-exposure, respected outlets have really dwindled. Publishing houses are just starting to get into online marketing, and a lot of the promotion now is up to the writers. I’m in charge of keeping up my own website, and social media is expected of authors now. I enjoy Facebook and I have a Pinterest account, but I’m still getting the hang of Twitter. I thought at first I’d have nothing to say, but I enjoy posting about writing, Sisters in Crime, publishing, archaeology, cool places in Ireland … .

After J.K. Rowling “killed” Dumbledore, she said she needed a private moment to cry and mourn his death. Now that you have written four books with the crime-solving duo Nora Gavin and Cormac Maguire, have you become similarly attached to and familiar with them?

Cormac and Nora have become like old friends – although I haven’t finished with them yet, not by a long shot. I know that there are things about each of them I’ve yet to discover. And I’m probably just as attached to some of the supporting players as well. I remember my agent suggesting that I get rid of Garrett Devaney, the Garda detective in Haunted Ground, and I thought, “I can’t get rid of him – I have to know how he’s going to get on with the wife, and teaching his daughter to play the fiddle.” So Devaney actually returns in False Mermaid, the third book in the series. And fortunately, things keep turning up in Irish bogs, so I’ll never run out of material. One of the advantages to having an archaeologist as a main character is that I can dip into any period in history.

If your books were made into films, which actors would you choose to play Nora and Cormac?

Hard question! I have my own mental pictures of Cormac and Nora, and they’re not quite like any of the actors who might be chosen to play their parts. So I usually leave it up to readers. But if forced to choose… It’s been so long since I started writing the series that some of the actors I first imagined – Gabriel Byrne, Aidan Quinn – are now a little old for Cormac. So maybe Colin Farrell or Michael Fassbender, or even Jeremy Northam? And I’ve always seen someone with particularly Irish features for Nora – like Maura Tierney, or perhaps Anna Friel. Whoever the actors are, they’ve got to have a bit of chemistry!

How did your life change once you devoted your career fully to writing novels?

Hart (right) with her agent, Sally Wofford-Girand, at the book launch for Haunted Ground, November 2003. (Photo by Susan Van Baerle)

I’d say there’s a much greater flexibility in my life that I really enjoy. And a greater solitude as well, working alone so much of the time. But I really enjoy that. And the writing part of being a writer is not actually full time. About half the time, I’m doing a lot of what I used to do at my old communications job, i.e., publicity, marketing and promotion, things that are required of all writers nowadays. One of the lovely perks has been taking a tour group to Ireland – I’ve led a tour for the past three years, visiting many of the locations in my books – museums, castles, bogs, pubs. We’re taking a break this year, but I hope to do another tour in 2014.

Are you a night owl or morning person as far as writing style?

Definitely a morning person. I can’t work much at night, or even in the late afternoon! I like to work in the quiet mornings, with pen and paper, staring out the window and pretending that I’m in Ireland.

How often do you write? (Are you structured and write at a certain time for a certain length of time a certain number of days a week, or not?) And why does this work for you?

I’m afraid I’m completely undisciplined. I’d love to have a set ritual, but I don’t. But when I’m working on a book, I try to write at least three pages a day. For a long time it feels as if you’re not making any progress, but eventually those pages add up to a few chapters, and before you know it, half the book is written.

How do you celebrate the completion of a novel?

Paddy (my husband) and I usually treat ourselves to a lovely dinner out to celebrate any big project being finished at last. In addition to his music CDs, my husband has undertaken a huge documentary project, The Paddy O’Brien Tune Collection (so far containing 1,000 tunes from his repertoire of traditional music), and he has also written a book, a memoir called The Road From Castlebarnagh, about growing up playing traditional music in rural Ireland in the 1950s and 60s. It’s great – and yes, I am totally biased, but others agree!

From the inception of St. Thomas, we have had pre-eminent designers complete buildings that are important to the history of American architecture, including Clarence Johnston’s Chapel of St. Mary (1905), Emmanuel Masqueray’s Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas (1918), and Edwin Lundie’s Gainey House (1954-1957). But, perhaps the most notable work completed for St. Thomas was done by turn-of-the-20th-century architect Cass Gilbert.

The year is 1890. The high school, college and seminary of St. Thomas Aquinas, founded by Archbishop John Ireland, have been holding classes for five years in a single, Second Empire style building located on the site of the present day north campus. The time had come to consider a more elaborate setting, given the expanding interest in religious training at the seminary.

Ireland had the land, 60 acres donated by Irish immigrant William Finn. He needed an architect and patron to create and finance his vision. The patron? None other than railroad baron James J. Hill, who would contribute $500,000 to the project in honor of his devout Roman Catholic wife, Mary.

As historian Mary L. Wingerd noted in Claiming the City: Politics, Faith and the Power of Place in St. Paul (2003), Hill had a vested interest in the seminary for business reasons as well. Archbishop Ireland was committed to the Americanization of Minnesota’s culturally diverse Catholics, and his goal was to establish a seminary that would train priests to impart American Catholic principles to their parishioners. Since most of Hill’s employees were Catholics, it served his purposes to support the education of priests who would Americanize his workforce. It also served Hill’s purposes to recommend a capable designer to the archbishop.

On Oct. 22, 1891, James J. Hill summoned Cass Gilbert to his imposing new residence on Summit Avenue. Gilbert, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Ecole des Beaux-Arts based architecture program, had worked in the office of the most important architecture firm in late 19th century America, McKim, Mead and White, before returning to St. Paul in 1882. A six-year partnership with James Knox Taylor dissolved about the time of this particular meeting.

Cass Gilbert. (Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society)

Gilbert’s career was taking off and Hill had been the benefactor of his success in Gilbert’s designs for several depots for his Great Northern Railway. When Gilbert arrived at Hill’s mansion, he found Archbishop John Ireland and Father Louis Caillet (Mary Hill’s confessor) there with his host. The purpose of their meeting was to discuss the design of new buildings for the expanding seminary. The next day, Gilbert and Archbishop Ireland drove out to see the land Ireland had selected: forty wooded acres sloping toward the east bank of the Mississippi River at the end of Summit Avenue.

Archbishop Ireland contributed to the seminary’s design as much as he could, but Hill left no doubt that he was the one who was fully in charge. Gilbert historian Geoffrey Blodgett described their encounter in Cass Gilbert: The Early Years (2001): Hill “fixed his intimidating one-eyed glare on the young architect and told him that he was answerable to Hill, not the archbishop, on all issues touching design, construction, and cost.”

Hill’s continuous intervention into the minutia of everything from heating systems to door locks must have challenged Gilbert. He regularly gave the architect a dressing-down if the slightest changes were made without his approval; and he even threatened to find someone else to work with or to stop work altogether.

Gilbert seriously considered withdrawing from the project more than once, but he saw it through to the end.

Despite the power struggle with Hill, Gilbert succeeded in producing an environment that supported Ireland’s goals: a place for the education of American priests with a  campus that engaged with its natural environment and developing residential area around it.

Gilbert designed six buildings for the seminary: an administration building, a classroom building, two dormitories, a refectory and a gymnasium. The original plans called for a chapel as well, but this was put on hold until later. Hill wanted the buildings to be plain but dignified. Gilbert responded with a pared-down aesthetic similar to the Great Northern depots he had already designed for Hill in Willmar, Grand Forks and Anoka, a safe choice since their design had already weathered Hill’s exacting scrutiny.

As Hill kept pushing Gilbert to reduce costs, the architect drew together Renaissance inspired elements to produce well-proportioned buildings with smooth brick walls, hipped roofs and arched windows. The north and south wings of the administration building housed, respectively, a private chapel and a library large enough for 20,000 volumes. The three stories of the central portion housed administrative offices, apartments for professors, a common room, parlors and reception rooms. At four stories plus the attic, the north and south dormitories each had a chapel, and together they provided enough space for each of 120 students to have two private rooms. There also were bathrooms with hot and cold water and an infirmary.

The St. Paul Seminary building, now demolished. (Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society)

In the two-story classroom building there were four classrooms, one of which was a “physical” and chemistry laboratory. On the second floor there was a “great hall” (also referred to as the aula maxima) with a platform at the front and seating for as many as 500 people, a space that served the community as well as seminary.

The two-story refectory housed a kitchen and dining hall described by a contemporary writer as having a “lofty ceiling of native woods, broad, old time fire place, plentiful supply of light.”

From the outside, the most notable feature of the gymnasium building that doubled as the school’s heating plant was its smokestack, complete with a Latin cross in brick relief at its uppermost reach. For recreation, the two story structure offered a large gymnasium with open trusswork and four smaller rooms, one of which was used for  reading. Although the 1893 financial panic slowed things down, the buildings were completed in 1894 at a cost of $184,268.13, well under the $200,000 budget, as Gilbert was proud to point out — and even then Gilbert had a hard time getting Hill to pay him in full.

In an article in the April 1895 issue of the Catholic University Bulletin, Father Patrick Danehy, one of the seminary’s professors, described the new buildings as being “in the North Italian style, simple, solid and impressive.” To him, “the solidity of their walls reminds one strongly of the monastic edifices of a bygone age.” For Archbishop Ireland,  on the other hand, the seminary was meant to be contemporary and forward looking, designed to meet the latest needs of the modern, American Catholic Church.

Even with its nod to tradition, the facilities the seminary provided were fully up-to-date,  from a heating plant that was reportedly so advanced that it was written up in the Engineer’s Journal, to a physics and chemistry laboratory designed to make sure the students would be well-informed when questions came up about the relationship between science and religion.

The campus also was decidedly unmonastic. Rather than clustering the buildings tightly around an inward-looking, cloister-like courtyard, Gilbert oriented all of them  northsouth and grouped them loosely, leaving a good bit of space between them. He also oriented them so that they would have a connection with the surrounding community.

Summit Avenue skirted the northern boundary of the site, and the east-west trajectory of Grand Avenue defined the campus’ main axis. This became all the more apparent when a drive – essentially an extension of Grand Avenue – was installed through the center of the court. The campus was thus connected with and open to the community, and it also provided a reason for people to come: the classroom building housed an auditorium that could seat as many as 500 people for public lectures.

Ireland’s decision to place different functions in separate buildings was an unusual choice at a time when most seminaries were housed in a single, large building. Ireland believed that seminary education ought to cultivate the body as well as the mind and spirit, and he contended that exercise should be part of the students’ education.

Ireland may have been responding to growing concerns about seminarians being too stationary and disconnected from the world, as they remained holed up in the large, all-purpose buildings where they lived and typically were educated. And he also may have imbibed the growing taste for “muscular Christianity,” a movement that advocated physical exercise as a means to the production of a form of Christianity that was robust and manly.

Physical education was becoming an increasingly important component of education, as Gilbert would find in designing buildings at the Shattuck School in Faribault, Minn., and Madison Central High School. With the campus-like arrangement Gilbert produced, the students would be compelled to get outdoors to go from building to building,  and they also would have the gymnasium available for more vigorous exercise. Beyond this, there were acres of what Danehy described as “native sward threaded with graveled walks and dotted with flower beds” where the seminarians could stroll.

The result was a campus designed to produce a new, American priesthood, through modern facilities serving a modern educational agenda, encouragement of physical as well as mental exercise, and integration with the community.

Perhaps Gilbert’s most iconic Minnesota design is the state capitol building.

By the time the seminary was ready to build its chapel, Gilbert had extricated himself from the project and moved to New York. He may have been relieved rather than offended when his architect friend Clarence Johnston was tapped to do the chapel’s design. Predictably, the seminary was known, for a time, as the Hill Seminary after its major benefactor, and its resemblance to Hill’s Great Northern railroad buildings was not lost on observers.

What remains of the St. Paul Seminary is now part of the University of St. Thomas’ south campus. Three of the buildings have been demolished and several still serve the  university community. The two dormitories – Cretin and Loras halls – have been remodeled, with the former an undergraduate student residence and the latter an office building. The gymnasiumheating plant survives as the university’s Service Center, although at one point it was considered as a potential dedicated art gallery for exhibitions, a notion that may come to be in a new fine arts building in the coming years.

In To Work for the Whole People: John Ireland’s Seminary in St. Paul (2002), author Sister Mary Christine Athans noted that designing and overseeing the construction of the Minnesota State Capitol (1895-1905) or even the United States Supreme Court Building (1928-1935) in Washington, D.C., probably was an easier task for Gilbert than building the seminary.

Even though Gilbert at times was constrained by Hill’s patronage, he stayed true to his classically inspired architectural vision and created at the end of Summit Avenue, the start of our own version of an American architecture, appropriate to the Catholic identity of those creating it.

About the authors: Victoria Young is an associate professor of modern architectural history at St. Thomas. Katherine Solomonson is an associate professor of architectural history in the College of Design at the University of Minnesota, and is working on a book documenting Gilbert’s career.

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

“I try to go off the beaten track when I choose where to take my students,” said George, director of bands, Symphonic Wind Ensemble and string orchestra, and chair of the St. Thomas Music Department. “I want to take them out of their comfort zone and be pushed into a different atmosphere that they wouldn’t be able to experience here.”

This wasn’t George’s first time traveling abroad to work with international composers and music ensembles. His music exchange started 19 years ago when he was invited to Mexico City to lead a weeklong seminar at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His charge was to discuss wind band music, form an experiment ensemble and give a concert.

The trip was such a success that they invited George back and asked him to direct and form what is now the Banda Sinfonica at the Escuela Nacional de Musica of UNAM. George returned to Mexico City two to three times a year to help develop the program until they finally hired a full-time conductor. People heard of the work he did there, and George began to receive invitations to work with other international ensembles.

Listen to the fourth movement of Roger Cichy’s Bugs, a piece commissioned by the Symphonic Wind Ensemble in 1999.

George’s research has taken him around the world to learn about the different ways countries make and perform music. As a conductor, clinician and lecturer he has traveled across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, continental Europe, Ireland and the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, China, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and India. He has worked with professional groups such as the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Great Britain and the Band of the People’s Liberation Army in  China. He also has conducted in prestigious venues such as the Sydney Opera House, the Oriental Arts Center in Shanghai and the National Theatre of Performing Arts as well as the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing.

Perhaps the most meaningful benefit of these shared experiences is that they have allowed George to bring international composers back to St. Thomas to write original music for his students to perform.

“I think the most unique thing we do that most other music programs don’t is to commission new works of composers, particularly from other countries,” George said. In the last 22 years they have commissioned 80 new works for the symphonic wind ensemble, and at least half of those come from international composers.

Students learn more than they anticipate from the international pieces they have performed. Philip Smithley ’15 said that the band members were challenged last fall when they were given a piece of music titled “Desi Jhalak,” meaning “A Peek Into India,” written by Bollywood composer Shamir Tandon. Smithley said there is a “vast difference in the way music is rehearsed and performed in India, where it is not notated but rather improvised after years of studying, compared to Western music where all of our music is written out.”

George smiles as he ends a performance of the String Orchestra in the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas. (Photo by Mark Brown)

Alexandra Gobell ’13 explains that the band members are often out of their “comfort zone” when performing international pieces, but that bringing the composers to St. Thomas allows them to learn about the story behind the pieces and teaches them about the composers’ native countries. Then, when possible, George takes the students to the countries where they perform such pieces as “Desi Jhalak.” Going to India was a way for the students to experience the culture of the music that they perform.

“A very important part of our touring process is the exchange of experiences. I want the students to be able to serve the culture through their music. Instead of going somewhere passively like a tourist, I want them to be immersed in the culture by meeting with their peers and trading stories and experiences of what it’s like to make music in our country, what it’s like in their country and what the differences are,” George said.

This exchange happened between Amber Neid ’14 and composer Tandon. The song was originally sent to the band in an electronic audio format without any sheet music. Neid worked with Tandon to put the song on paper so that the band could read, rehearse and perform the piece.

“That gave us a lot of practice on aural skills rather than just reading music off a piece of paper,” Neid said. “I think that made all of us better musicians. Seeing the composer light up when he heard a ‘western ensemble’ play his traditional Indian music was worth all of the work we put into it. Then, when we played it in India, it was a huge hit because it was music the audiences could relate to, but with instruments they had never seen or heard before.”

George and the students are challenged musically when working with groups of different countries, and because they are working in a new culture.

“Whenever I’m asked to conduct national music of the country I go to, it’s really intimidating because I know everyone knows it, and I’m just now learning it,” George said. “It takes a lot of study, a lot of asking questions, a lot of listening to styles of music so I approach it and seem competent.”

George has experienced many differences between how cultures approach music and rehearse. In Latin America, he learned how musicians approach rhythm differently; “What’s popular to them is highly rhythmic dances. Instead of our Top 40 music, they listen to samba and all kinds of art and dance forms. They feel these rhythms rather than read the music on the printed page.”

There are similar challenges in China where communicating meanings of the same word is expressed by tone, and George says that their music approach also is that way with bending and inflection that our language – and music – do not possess. In England or Australia, learning new terms for familiar musical functions is the challenge. “I have to think about how I’m going to say certain things and as I speak, I have to translate the terms in my brain,” George said. The same translation process happens when he must speak Spanish in Latin America. In countries where George does not know the language, however, a translator is needed, which presents numerous challenges.

Listen to a selection form Chen Qian’s Ambush! From All Sides as played by the Symphonic Wind Ensemble.

“My rehearsals are very fast-paced and to the point,” George said. “When I can’t just deliver what I want to say and I have to use a translator, I must adjust to still make it efficient. And you just hope that what the translator is saying is exactly the message that you’re trying to get across.”

In order to adapt to these situations, a certain kind of personality is needed to not only travel but also to work with people of different cultures. “If you try to force your preconceived notions onto what you’re going to experience, you’re going to be miserable. You have to have a personality that is adaptive,” George said. When he worked in Mexico, he had to get used to starting later; “When we started rehearsals at 10 a.m., we wouldn’t actually start until 11:30 a.m. At first I got upset, but then I just went with it. So, the next time we started at 11:10 a.m., then at 10:30 a.m. and then finally we started at 10 a.m. If I just tried to force it, it wouldn’t have worked.”

Traveling as part of his career was not something George expected. His first time on a plane wasn’t until he was 18 years old. Now his children, who he and his wife often bring on these trips, have seen more of the world than most adults.

“I’ve been extremely fortunate. When I started at St. Thomas I never thought my life would take me in the direction it has taken me in terms of international experiences,” George said. “The best part for me is that when I go places, people native to the culture will take me to where they go, not to where tourists go. It’s a tremendous opportunity and I feel very blessed.”

Though his interest in traveling came later in life, George’s love for music started when he was a young boy in Geneva, N.Y. “It all goes back to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass,” George said. His uncle used to have eight-track  tapes that he and his older cousin would listen to, and the sounds of Herb Alpert’s trumpet playing fascinated him.

When his cousin began to play trumpet, George was inspired to learn to play as well. He played trumpet from elementary school through high school, and then played professionally. But it was in high school when George’s interest in conducting began.

During study hall, George went to the band room to practice. When no one was watching, he stood on the podium and pretended that he was conducting a full band. Without knowing it, George was being watched by his band director. To encourage George’s interest in conducting, the band director let him rehearse a piece that George later conducted at a high school band concert.

“My life ambition was to become a high school band director,” George said. After receiving a B.M. in music education and trumpet performance from Ithaca College, he began teaching high school band in New York.

“I realized that there was more than just teaching music in high school; there’s also hall monitoring and cafeteria duty. I wasn’t interested in doing those things,” George said. So, he earned an M.M. degree in music education from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and a D.M.A. degree in conducting from the University of North Texas. During that time he also performed as a professional trumpet player and taught at the university and privately. George then came to St. Thomas in 1991.

Once a solo conductor in an empty band room, George has conducted some of the best bands and orchestras in the world, and his students are greatly benefiting from his passion and ambition. “Dr. George has been a huge inspiration for me as a future director, teacher and conductor,” Neid said. “Watching him conduct during our rehearsals has taught me a lot that I can’t learn at a desk,” Neid said.

The student musicians in Brady Educational Center practice and rehearse for perfection. But George gives them something more than notes on paper – he introduces them to the world through the music they play.

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

The party will be from 3 to 5 p.m. in Woulfe Alumni Hall in the Anderson Student Center. A program will begin at 3:30 p.m., and will feature remarks by Dease, Father John Malone, vice president for mission, and Archbishop Harry Flynn, chair of the St. Thomas Board of Trustees.

There is no need to R.S.V.P. for the party.

With that fame came a move to commissions of a large scale, such as the 1997 Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, the 2003 Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and across the river in Minneapolis, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, finished in 1993. These projects supplanted Gehry’s need to design domestic space. But in the summer of 2012, a Gehry-designed duplex became owner-occupied in New Orleans, a part of the actor Brad Pitt’s Make it Right Foundation’s project in the Hurricane Katrina-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward.

How do we connect Gehry’s Winton Guest House to the Make it Right House? What has Gehry changed, updated or invented in his domestic architecture in the last 25 years? This is the question I will be examining during my sabbatical next year.

After traveling to New Orleans several times during the last two years to lay the groundwork for this research, I realized that the city was a perfect fit for an architectural history graduate seminar at St. Thomas. And this spring, The Architecture of New Orleans course was born.

New Orleans has been called many things – the Crescent City, The Big Easy, The Birthplace of Jazz, NOLA, the City that Care Forgot. The city’s racial and ethnic makeups have created a variety of architecture found nowhere else in the United States. Settled by the French in the 18th century and controlled by Spain in 1763, New Orleans was also home to a large population of free people of color, as well as slaves.

With the arrival of the 19th century the American element of New Orleans grew with settlers from the Northeast sharing the city with immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Sicily and beyond. Each group has contributed to the architectural legacy of New Orleans in powerful ways, and students in my graduate art history seminar this spring are exploring this variety in their research with topics focusing on cemeteries, voodoo, New Urbanism in housing projects, food markets, public parks, hospitals, sacred spaces (including a contemporary Spanish Baptist church rebuilding after Katrina), colonial plantations, biophilic design, historic preservation, Pitt’s Make it Right Houses, and the connection between Walt Disney and the French Quarter.

The research provides a fabulous overview of the layers of New Orleanian architecture – strata that were made visible on a recent trip our class took to the Crescent City this past spring break.

Students found their own ways to New Orleans early in the week and researched their projects. We all gathered as a group on Thursday, March 28, at Jackson Square in the French Quarter for a walking tour of the Quarter, Central Business District and Warehouse District. I had scoped out the buildings on a previous visit and our tour required that each student present a five-minute on-the-street talk about their building as we progressed through the neighborhoods.

The students were expected to connect their presentations into our classroom discussions and also address the building as an art object. What did they see now that they were standing in front of it? There is no better way to understand the built environment than to be out in it: looking, touching and getting a feel for context and scale. I was thrilled to watch New Orleans come to life for the students.

Saturday morning found us in the Garden District at Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. The cemeteries of New Orleans, with their above ground tombs, are amazingly beautiful, and they clearly reflect the character of the city built largely just a few feet above sea level. After our cemetery visit, a little lagniappe (something extra) found us touring the adjacent neighborhood, stopping by Sandra Bullock and John Goodman’s grand Victorian-era homes.

On Friday, we were fortunate to visit the Lower Ninth Ward with John Williams, the executive architect of Brad Pitt’s Make it Right houses and a longtime New Orleans designer. Supported by funds from the Art History Department, we spent five hours on a bus tour with John. It was one of the greatest architectural experiences I have ever had, and I think my students felt the same.

The area is still, after almost eight years, coming back to life. The Make it Right Foundation hopes to build 150 homes in the neighborhood. But basic services such as grocery stores, schools and the like have not returned to the Lower Ninth. It’s still a very tough go for folks who have returned. Students were able to meet with residents, including John “Smitty” Smith and Ron Lewis at his “House of Dance and Feathers,” and learn their stories of evacuation and survival.

A duplex designed by Frank Gehry in New Orleans. (Photo by John Williams)

And it was here in the Lower Ninth where we encountered Gehry’s work. The pink and purple duplex, its hues selected by the homeowner, recalls the liveliness of New Orleans’ vernacular domestic shotgun houses and Creole cottages. It is built out of environmentally friendly materials and includes solar panels and other sustainable features. The variety of porches encourages engagement with neighbors and passersby.

Gehry believed in Pitt’s vision and wanted to make a house that responded to the “history, vernacular and climate of New Orleans,” as he stated on Make it Right’s blog.

The completion of the house is history in the making – a work by Gehry and a foundation that helped the hardest hit citizens of New Orleans when other entities were slow to do so. And now, the University of St. Thomas has a connection to both.