Projects are scheduled late May through the end of August.

These projects include:

2120 Summit Ave.

• The garage behind 2120 Summit Ave. (Development Office) will be razed to expand the existing parking lot used by the Child Development Center and the Development Office. Work will be begin in early June and will be completed by late July. The area also will be landscaped.

Brady Hall

• Phase two of work on fixing the exterior brick of the upper floors, which have experienced structural issues the past few years, will continue this summer and will be completed by July 19. Phase one occurred last summer and fixed 60 percent of the afflicted areas.

Modern and Classical Languages Department

• All 2,800 square feet of the Modern and Classical Languages offices on the third floor of O’Shaughnessy Educational Center will be renovated.

Murray-Herrick Campus Center

• Renovation of the building, including the second-floor space in Herrick Hall (former dining rooms and office space converted for use by Admissions) will continue this summer and will finish by Aug. 15. When completed the entire Enrollment Services division will be in Murray-Herrick Campus Center. (The Office of Financial Aid moved last year.)

O’Shaughnessy Stadium

• Decorative Mankato Kasota stone will be added to each end and underneath the existing video board in O’Shaughnessy Stadium to make it fit within the context of the stadium, which is walled in the same stone.

Owens Science Hall

• The obsolete fume-hood controls, which exhaust air from the science labs, will be replaced in the fourth-floor teaching labs.

Sculpture garden

• A sculpture garden will be installed in the area between Brady Educational Center and the Binz Refectory. The sculptures include “The Family,” a 3,200-pound copper sculpture by Evelyn Raymond that originally was installed on the Coughlan Field House’s east wall in 1983; “Stephen’s Summer” by John Raimondi, a five-piece, 21-ton sculpture of cor-ten steel donated by Dolly Fiterman, which previously was displayed on the west lawn of Loras Hall; and possibly a third sculpture to be announced.

South Field

• St. Thomas will replace the grass with artificial turf beginning Monday, May 20. The bleachers, scoreboard, fencing and softball dugouts also will be replaced. All of the work, which will cost $2 million, is expected to be completed by early August. More information is available in this Newsroom article.

The supplement will contain a portion of what is featured in the online digital yearbook, including photos of student clubs and organizations and faculty and staff departments; senior portraits; and athletic team photos. To purchase a supplement, stop by Tommie Central in the Anderson Student Center or call (651) 962-6137. The supplement will be available by midsummer.

The fall semester release of the online yearbook is now available at www.aquinasyearbook.com and on Facebook. You can download the yearbook through its free app for Android and Apple devices. The app can be downloaded in the Google Play Store, the Amazon App Store for Android and in the iTunes Store.

Archived versions of Aquinas yearbooks from 1993 to 2011 can be viewed online in UST Libraries’ Digital Collections archives.

For more information, contact Aquinas adviser Kim Rueb.

Speakers and details have been announced for the University of St. Thomas commencement exercises.

A website devoted to commencement can be viewed here. About 2,100 graduate and undergraduate students will participate in the ceremonies.

Graduate

Father Michael O’Connell

The ceremony for nonbusiness graduate students will be held at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, May 25, in the field house of the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex.

Father Michael O’Connell, pastor of the Church of the Ascension in North Minneapolis, will be the commencement speaker. O’Connell has been the pastor of Ascension since 1999. He served as rector of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis from 1991 to 2008. He has a B.A. degree in philosophy from the St. Paul Seminary, an M.A. degree in pastoral studies from the University of St. Thomas, and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minn.

O’Connell serves on several community and foundation boards, including those of the Habitat for Humanity Philanthropic Leadership Council, the Hazelden Foundation, the Jeremiah Program (national), and Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi LLP Foundation for Children.

Undergraduate

The ceremony for St. Thomas undergraduates will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 25, outdoors in O’Shaughnessy Stadium.

Father Dennis Dease

Father Dennis Dease, president of the University of St. Thomas, will be the commencement speaker.

Dease became the 14th president of St. Thomas in 1991.

He recently led the Opening Doors capital campaign, which raised $515 million. It was the largest campaign ever conducted by a private institution of higher learning in the five-state area.

The money raised was more than all previous St. Thomas campaigns combined.

During his tenure as president, the university has:

• Established a Minneapolis campus and constructed four buildings.
• Constructed nine major buildings on the St. Paul campus, including a student center, an athletic and recreation complex, a science and engineering center, an undergraduate business building and two new apartment-style residence halls.
• Opened a Rome campus.
• Started academic programs in law, Catholic studies, mechanical and electrical engineering, entrepreneurship and Irish studies, and greatly increased study-abroad participation with semesterlong programs based in London and Rome.
• Tripled, to 14 percent, the student-of-color population.
• Tripled the number of international students who attend St. Thomas.

Dease will retire as president on June 30, upon completion of his 22nd year in office.

In the event that weather does not permit the ceremony to be held in the stadium, an announcement will be posted on the Commencement website, Facebook and by text message (see information below about receiving text messages) by 11:30 a.m. on the day of the ceremony. The rain site is the field house of the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex. Seating in the field house is limited, and rain-plan tickets are required for admission. Open the Undergraduate Commencement pages and then click on Rain Plan for more details.

To receive text messages about conditions for the undergraduate commencement ceremony, text “TASSEL” to 80077. You will receive up to 10 messages pertaining to the ceremony. (Regular rates and conditions will apply based on your carrier agreement.) This is a no-reply text messaging system, and recipients will not receive a response if they reply directly to these messages. For help email ustalumniweb@stthomas.edu.

Graduate business

Randall Hogan

The ceremony for graduate-level business students will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 25, in the field house of the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex. The commencement speaker is Randall Hogan, chairman and CEO of Pentair, a global leader in delivering industry-leading products, services and solutions for its customers’ diverse needs in water and other fluids, thermal management and equipment protection.

He was named Pentair’s CEO in 2001 and appointed chairman in 2002. In 2012, Hogan was named Executive of the Year by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. He received the 2011 Starkey Hearing Foundation Award for Pentair’s contributions to providing clean water solutions in third-world countries and in times of natural disasters.

School of Law

Ceremonies for School of Law graduates were held Saturday, May 11.

Commencement Mass

The annual Commencement Mass will be celebrated at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 24, at the Cathedral of St. Paul, 239 Selby Ave.

The MBEA honors businesses that exemplify high standards of ethical conduct in the workplace, the marketplace and the community. Recipients are recognized in three size categories: small (under 100 employees), medium (100 to 500 employees) and large (more than 500 employees). The 2013 honorees are:

• Small: Cresa Minneapolis/St. Paul
• Medium: Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union
• Large (two firms honored this year): Cummins Power Generation and St. Francis Regional Medical Center

In addition to the engraved MBEA award, each recipient received a letter of congratulations signed by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton.

Keynote speaker Gregg Steinhafel, chairman, president and CEO of Target Corp., shared his company’s belief about ethics in business: “We believe clear rules of the road are essential – not just for Target’s overall performance, but for team members to succeed at our company.” Emphasizing the point, Steinhafel added: “To Target, ethics is integral to disciplined execution. We want to win, but we want to win the right way.”

Finalists for the 2013 awards who were cited for their commitment to ethics in business also included: Douglas Scientific; Latuff Brothers Auto Body; Mintáhoe Catering and Events; and Premier Disability Services LLC. All were saluted as outstanding Minnesota businesses.

Since its inception in 1999, the MBEA has recognized 42 Minnesota-based businesses for embedding ethical standards into their cultures and practices. “Strong ethical cultures don’t happen by accident; they grow out of intentional efforts by leaders who connect values and performance,” according to David Rodbourne, MBEA co-chair.

“Minnesota is fortunate to enjoy a strong reputation for ethical business, and this award helps acknowledge that,” said Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies LLC and MBEA co-chair.

The MBEA is sponsored by the Twin Cities Chapter of the Society of Financial Service Professionals and the Center for Ethical Business Cultures (CEBC) at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. Beginning this year the Minnesota chapter of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors (NAIFA) joined as a co-sponsor.

Past recipients and a form for nominating candidates for the 2014 awards is available at this website.

2013 Orientation and Registration leaders

New first-year domestic students recently were invited to sign up for an Orientation and Registration (O&R) session on one of the following dates:

• Tuesday, July 16
• Thursday, July 18
• Saturday, July 20
• Monday, July 22
• Wednesday, July 24
• Thursday, July 25
• Monday, July 29
• Wednesday, July 31
• Friday, Aug. 2

Prior to O&R, students complete placement exams, learn more about the core curriculum requirements by reading the O&R Guidebook, and submit course preference information. Academic counselors use these preferences to register students for their fall course schedule. An adviser will meet with students individually at O&R to review their schedule. View a tentative program schedule for more details.

For more information:

• Orientation – call Tori Svoboda, associate dean of students, (651) 962-6052
• Registration – call Susan Anderson, director of academic counseling, (651) 962-6300

Minnesota Public Radio will broadcast an April 29 lecture given at St. Thomas by National Public Radio psychology and mental-health reporter Alix Spiegel.

The program can be heard at noon Wednesday, May 15, on the “Minnesota Public Radio News Presents” program at 91.1 FM. The program also can be heard via the Internet. Information is available here.

Later in the day, Slate magazine editor David Plotz will speak at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 15, in the auditorium of O’Shaughnessy Educational Center on the university’s St. Paul campus.

The lecture is free, but reservations are required.  Make them by going to this Minnesota Public Radio website.

The programs are part Minnesota Public Radio’s 2012-2013 Broadcast Journalist Series, which is co-sponsored by St. Thomas’ College of Arts and Sciences and its Communication and Journalism Department.

Please look for the following in this second draft:

• NEW – An introduction that provides a brief history of St. Thomas, a summary of improvements made since the last self-study, a description of the self-study process, and an explanation of two overarching themes that help set the context for the rest of the self-study.
• UPDATED – Chapters (1-5) that include additional work by the criterion committees as well as many suggestions offered by members of the community during the comment period last fall.
• NEW – Strengths and opportunities for improvement at the end of each chapter.
• NEW – A structure for the final chapter. Here, you won’t find content; the final chapter is evolving as the other chapters wrap up. In the final chapter, we will focus on big-picture issues, summarizing our institutional strengths and offering broad recommendations related to the themes presented in the introduction and developed in the five criterion chapters.

This draft will be available May 20 – June 3. You can offer feedback through one of three ways:

• Web feedback form
• HLC Mailbox
• Open forums
  • Minneapolis: May 28, 3-4 p.m., MOH 202
  • St. Paul: May 30, 3-4 p.m., ASC 202

As you read, please keep in mind that this is a draft. Because content is still changing, you will see areas where editing for voice, mechanics and style is needed. We will begin the editing process for these issues after feedback for this draft is incorporated. At this time, we are most interested in your feedback on content.

As always, the self-study team appreciates your contributions toward this important effort. After more than two years of work, the deadline for both the self-study (June 30) and the visit from our peer reviewers (November 11-13, 2013) draws ever closer.

The awards celebrate Minnesota businesses that exemplify and promote ethical conduct in the workplace, the marketplace and the community. Keynote speaker for the awards lunch will be Gregg Steinhafel, chairman and CEO of Target Corporation.

Go here to learn more and register.

The MBEA confers awards in in three size categories: small (under 100 employees), medium (100 to 500 employees) and large (more than 500 employees).

The 2013 award recipients will be announced at the May 15 program. The finalists are:

• Small-size category: Cresa Minneapolis/St. Paul;  Douglas Scientific; and  Latuff Brothers Auto Body
• Mid-size category: Affinity Federal Credit Union;  Mintahoe Catering and Events; and  Premier Disability Services LLC
• Large-size category: Cummins Power Generation; and St. Francis Regional Medical Center

Since its inception in 1999, the MBEA has recognized 38 Minnesota-based businesses, ranging in size from less than 10 employees to more than 150,000.

The program is organized by the Twin Cities Chapter of the Society of Financial Service Professionals and the Center for Ethical Business Cultures (CEBC) at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. This year the MBEA welcomes the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors as a co-organizer for the awards.

A list of past MBEA recipients can be viewed at this website.

Gehry is considered one of the world’s greatest living architects and his guest house is described as among the milestones of his career. When completed in 1987 for Mike and Penny Winton, the house won House and Garden magazine’s design award of the year and made Time magazine’s “Best of ’87” design honor roll.

News of its restoration and move to Owatonna has been published internationally in architectural journals, and the video produced about the story, “Moving the Art,” was nominated for a Midwest Emmy Award in 2012. The video was written and narrated by Greg Vandegrift of the St. Thomas Communication and Journalism Department; Brad Jacobsen of Web and Media Services filmed and edited the piece.

Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable of The Washington Post called Gehry “the most staggeringly talented architect since Frank Lloyd Wright.”

His work, found across the globe, includes the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain. Gehry, 84, graduated from the University of Southern California School of Architecture in 1954. He lives in Santa Monica, Calif.

Originally located on Lake Minnetonka west of the Twin Cities, the home was moved by Stubbs Movers, piece by piece, in a relocation and renovation effort that spanned three years.  Reconstruction of the 2,300-square-foot home, comprised of a cluster of six rectangular-, wedge- and cone-shaped segments, was led by Owatonna-based Casey & Groesbeck and the architectural firm Krech, O’Brien, Mueller & Associates, Inver Grove Heights. The project was completed in fall 2011.

The open houses will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the Saturdays of June 22, July 20, Aug. 24, Sept. 21 and Oct. 19. Cost is $7 for adults and $5 for students with ID. The Gainey Center is located just south of Owatonna at 2480 S. County Rd. 45.

Docents will be available during the open houses to answer questions. Exhibits throughout the home tell the story of its original design and construction as well as its relocation; they include blueprints, drawings, photographs, original letters and the video “Moving the Art.”

Private tours of the home can also be arranged for groups of 10 or more. For more information call the Gainey Center at (855) 446-4460, email gehrywinton@stthomas.edu or visit this website.

Dr. Soraya Castro, professor and senior researcher at the Institute for the Study of International Relations in Havana, will discuss “David and Gulliver: Competing Metaphors in the Cuban-U.S. Relationship” at 4 p.m. Wednesday, May 15, in the Luann Dummer Center for Women, Room 103, O’Shaughnessy Educational Center, on the university’s St. Paul campus.

Dr. Soraya Castro

The talk is free and open to the public.

Castro observes that Cuba and the United States have constructed different national narratives about their relationship to one another since 1959. Cuban leaders often characterize the relationship with the metaphor of David and Goliath, with Cuba being a small, valiant defender facing an enormous aggressor. American leaders, on the other hand, invoke images of Gulliver and the Lilliputians, in which the giant is benign, honorable and willing to suffer pin pricks the little people occasionally inflict on him rather than destroy the attackers.

In addition to Cuba-U.S. relations, Castro also specializes in U.S. domestic politics, including elections and Congress. She has visited St. Thomas twice before, in 2002 and 2008.

Castro holds a Ph.D. in law from the University of Havana, a degree in international law from the Institute of Foreign Relations in Moscow, and did post-doctoral studies at the University of Bologna in Italy.

Before her appointment at the Institute for the Study of International Relations in Havana, she was a professor and researcher at Havana University. Over the past 20 years she has taught or held fellowships at Johns Hopkins University, University of California – San Diego, Georgetown University, University of Iowa, American University, Uppsala University in Sweden, Smithsonian Institution, the University of Alabama and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University.

She is the author of many articles and book chapters, and co-author of the 2012 Fifty Years of Revolution: Perspectives on Cuba, the United States, and the World.

In addition to her native Spanish, Castro is fluent in English and Russian.

A UST ID is required to sell books back.

Hours for next week:

• Noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, May 15-16
• Noon to 4 p.m. Friday, May 17

Hours for finals week:

• 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Thursday, May 20-23,
• 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, May 24

The Minneapolis UST Bookstore will have similar hours and times.

About the buyback

Based on national demand, students wishing to sell their books back can receive up to 50 percent of the new cover price if the bookstores have received a firm book adoption for the next semester. Since the bookstores can purchase only limited quantities of some titles and the quotas are filled daily, the bookstores encourage students to sell their books daily after finishing their classes.

If the bookstores meet their quota on the quantities that are to be resold in the UST bookstores, the title most likely will have a wholesale value. In many cases, books not ordered for the next semester also may have a wholesale value. Books purchased wholesale will be shipped to a nationwide used-book distributor that will sell the books to other schools. Last year the UST bookstores purchased more than $650,000 worth of used textbooks back from students.

The UST bookstores also will buy back books that were not purchased at St. Thomas. The bookstores are interested in purchasing back all current and salable books for reuse in the UST bookstores.

As more and more books include CDs, books being sold back must have the CDs with them to receive the best price.

Rented textbooks

Students who rented textbooks must return them at the book buyback counter at the St. Paul Bookstore or to the Minneapolis Bookstore to avoid being charged for them. All rental books must be returned by 4 p.m. Friday, May 24. Rental books also must have the rental stickers on them in order to be returned accurately.

Booksellers can assist charities

Books not being purchased by the bookstores can be donated to Books for Africa. Donated books will be put to good use by students from other countries where even a used out-of-date textbook is a treasured commodity.

Check current wholesale book prices online

Visit the UST Bookstore website, “select your campus,” scroll down to the menus at the bottom of the page, click on “Book Buyback $$ Info” and enter the ISBN located on the back of the book. An image of the book will appear along with the price the bookstore is paying for that title. The prices change hourly once quotas are met, so don’t wait until the last day to sell back your books.

Buyback at the Anderson Student Center

The Bookstore also will buy textbooks in Room 237, Anderson Student Center:

• 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, May 21-23
• 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, May 24

Rogue book buyers

Be aware of rogue book buyers who may be walking through the residence halls. The book buyers will pay only wholesale prices on books and not up to the 50 percent that the UST Bookstore might pay. Books sold by this method will go off campus to be sold at other locations and UST students will not have the opportunity to purchase them in the UST bookstores at a used price.

Book thefts

The end of the semester is a time that book thefts increase substantially. Watch and mark your books so that you can identify them in case they are lost or stolen.

Dr. Adam Kay

Kay, Biology Department, College of Arts and Sciences, received his Ph.D. from the University of Utah in 2001, and has been a faculty member in the UST Biology Department since 2005. His research interests have included the ecology of social behavior, tropical ecosystem ecology, and the evolution of sexual reproduction. The focus of his recent research is on urban agriculture and sustainability.

Kay teaches Biology of Sustainability, Animal Behavior, and Introduction to Field Ecology in Costa Rica. He also is the founder and director of the UST Stewardship Garden and co-founder of Sustain, the UST sustainability blog. He is committed to living a low-resource lifestyle with his daughter, Marike, his wife, Justa, and their two cats.

• Students enrolled in the School of Law or the Full-time Day MBA program who are taking summer courses, studying on campus for the summer, or working full time on campus for the summer.

Permits cost $150 and will be sold to the first 60 students who enroll; the permits will be valid from June 1 through Aug.16.

Students who are looking to enroll for a summer parking permit must register through Murphy Online. Completed registrations must be printed and brought to Parking Services on the Minneapolis campus, located in the School of Law, Room 252.

Permits will be available for purchase from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, beginning May 20.

For more information about the permit stop by Parking and eXpress Card Services, located in the Minneapolis School of Law, Room 252, or call (651) 962-4100.

The program is the next in Minnesota Public Radio’s 2012-13 Broadcast Journalist Series, which is co-sponsored by St. Thomas’ College of Arts and Sciences and its Communication and Journalism Department.

David Plotz

The event is free, but reservations are required. Make them by going to the Minnesota Public Radio website.

Plotz will be interviewed that evening by Eric Ringham, digital Web editor for “The Daily Circuit” on Minnesota Public Radio News. Prior to coming to MPR, Ringham was a commentary editor at the Star Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis.

Plotz joined Slate as a writer when the online magazine was launched in 1996 and has been editor since 2008. Before joining Slate, he was a senior editor and staff writer for the Washington City Paper; he also has written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, GQ, New Republic and The Washington Post.

A 1992 graduate of Harvard University, Plotz won the National Press Club’s Hume Award for Political Reporting in 2000, was a National Magazine Award finalist (for a Harper’s article about South Carolina’s gambling industry) and won an Online Journalism Award for a Slate piece on Enron. He also appears on the weekly Slate Political Gabfest podcast with John Dickerson and Emily Bazelon.

Eric Ringham

Based in the United States, Slate is a current affairs and culture magazine created by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley. Since June 2008, Slate has been managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by The Washington Post Co. to develop and manage Web-only magazines.

Plotz is the author of two books: The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank (2005) and Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible (2009).

Minnesota Public Radio’s Broadcast Journalist Series, now in its 17th year, commissions renowned journalists for a 24-hour residency four times a year. They share insights on their craft and issues that affect our world.

At 3:02 p.m. Sunday, May 5, a UST student reported to Public Safety that they were sexually assaulted at an off-campus residence on Saturday, May 4. The following morning, the victim determined an assault had taken place. The incident was reported to the St. Paul Police Department and is currently under investigation. SPPD does not consider the public at risk at this time.

Anyone with information regarding this crime is urged to call Public Safety at (651) 962-5100 or the St. Paul Police Department at (651) 291-1111.

Report crime confidentially or anonymously by e-mailing PSTIPS@stthomas.edu, or calling (651) 962-TIPS.

Sexual violence resources:

• Ramsey County Sexual Offense Services (SOS) 24-Hour Hotline (651) 643-3006
• UST Counseling and Psychological Services (651) 962-6780

Public Safety reminds all community members that escorts are available from Public Safety 24 hours a day. Escorts are provided to and from campus within an approximate six-block radius.

For more information, see Public Safety’s May 6 Alert. Other recent alerts, advisories and bulletins, as well as crime prevention and safety tips, also are posted on the St. Thomas Public Safety website.

More than 3,000 people have completed the survey, which is designed to identify strengths and new initiatives that St. Thomas might undertake over the next five years. Results will be helpful to Sullivan and the St. Thomas community in discussions about the university’s mission, vision and convictions.

All responses to the 5- to 10-minute online survey will be strictly confidential. A secure link to the survey was sent again to St. Thomas email addresses last week.

If you have questions about the survey, contact Dr. Michael Cogan, (651) 962-6657.

Alexander Ssengendo

Ssengendo came to St. Thomas in 2009 and found it challenging to be educated in a different language and through a new education system. “In America we do group projects, and we don’t do that in Uganda,” he said. Throughout his time at St. Thomas, he has had three host families and has made many American and other international friends; however, he was ready for a new experience and always had wanted to travel to Asia.

In summer 2012, Ssengendo studied in Japan through the Intercultural Communications course. He had taken this course previously but loved it and insisted on spending time in Japan. “Japanese businesses are coming into Uganda,” he said, “and I want to start my own business, so I hope to work with Japanese people. That’s why I went to Japan – to learn about its culture and business practices.”

Japan impressed Ssengendo so much that, if he had a chance to live in an area for an extended period of time, he would live in Japan. “Japan was the best experience I’ve had in all my life,” he said, “and I would take any chance to go back there.” He will graduate in May with the class of 2013 and hopes to apply for internships in Japan.

The application deadline to study abroad for January Term and spring semester 2014 is Oct. 1.

Visit the Study Abroad website for more information.

The University of St. Thomas Minneapolis Health Services, located in Suite 110, Terrence Murphy Hall, will close effective Thursday, May 16, due to decreasing demand.

The Minneapolis Counseling and Psychological Services office will move across the lobby to Suite 100, Room S. Dr. Miriam Gerber will continue to offer counseling appointments to graduate students Monday through Friday.

Appointments can be scheduled with Counseling and Psychological Services staff by phone:

• In Minneapolis call (651) 962-4750.
• In St. Paul call (651) 962-6780.

Health Services and Counseling and Psychological Services remain committed to providing high quality care to UST students.

Undergraduate, graduate, law, professional students, faculty and staff previously seen at Minneapolis Health Services can continue their care at the St. Paul clinic. All medical and travel clinic appointments will be made with St. Paul Health Services, beginning on May 16, by calling (651) 962-6750 or signing up online at MyHealthPortal.

Derreck Kayongo.

Derreck Kayongo, whose family fled Uganda during the Idi Amin era and is now a U.S. citizen, will talk on “Tapping Your Power to Create Social Change” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 13, in Woulfe Alumni Hall North of Anderson Student Center, located on the university’s St. Paul campus.

His talk, free and open to the public, is sponsored by the University Lectures Committee at St. Thomas.

Kayongo came up with the idea for his Atlanta-based Global Soap Program in the early 1990s when he first arrived in the United States and stayed in a Philadelphia hotel. Puzzled by the new bar of soap left in his bathroom each day, he tried to return it to the concierge because he thought he was being charged for it. “When I was told it was just hotel policy to provide new soap every day, I couldn’t believe it.”

He told the story to his dad, a former soap maker in Uganda.

“My dad said people in America can afford to throw it away. But I just started to think, ‘What if we took some of this soap and recycled it, made brand new soap from it and then sent it home to people who couldn’t afford soap?’” he told CNN, which two years ago named him one of its Top 10 CNN Heroes.

Kayongo started the Global Soap Program in 2009 with his wife, friends and Atlanta-based hotels.  Now 1,100 hotel properties around the country are collecting up to 7,500 pounds of used soap bars weekly that are shipped to an Atlanta warehouse where volunteers clean, reprocess and package the bars.

“We do not mix the soaps because they come with different pH systems, different characters, smells and colors,” he told CNN. “We sanitize them first, then heat them at very high temperatures, chill them and cut them into final bars. It’s a very simple process, but a lot of work.”

The program is producing up to 30,000 new bars of soap per week.  They are distributed for free, along with hygiene education, to refugees, disaster victims, homeless families and people living in extreme poverty in the United States and nearly 30 countries around the world.

While Kayongo has become a U.S. citizen and college graduate, he knows from experience that many refugees, in Africa and elsewhere, lack access to basic sanitation.

Washing hands, he says, is the most effective and inexpensive way to prevent diarrheal and respiratory infections that take the lives of more than 2.4 million children each year.

“Our innovative model means our hotel partners can save money on disposal costs and receive a tax deduction, all while helping people in need around the world,” said Sam Stephens, executive director of the Global Soap Project. “It’s a win-win for the environment, global health and business.”

In addition to his work with soap, Yayongo has worked as a program director for Amnesty International, American Friends Service Committee and CARE International.

More information is available at the Global Soap Project website.

The show starts at 7 p.m. Friday, May 10.

• The High 48s is a traditional bluegrass band from the Twin Cities and winner of the RockyGrass Bluegrass Band Competition.
• The Roe Family Singers is described as a good-time, old-time hillbilly band from the Mississippi-headwaters community of Kirkwood Hollow, Minn. The band blends old-time sound with a rock-and-roll influence.
• Becky Schlegel grew up in little Kimball, S.D., and followed a career in music rather than ranching.  She’s a veteran of The Prairie Home Companion and winner of the Old Time-Bluegrass Artist of the Year Award from the Minnesota Music Academy.

Tickets for the pre-Mother’s Day show are $12 for adults and $8 for moms and students. Kids are free. There are no advance sales.

This year’s menu featured food from all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, Uganda, India, China, Thailand, Korea, France and Brazil. In addition to the diverse food, the event also featured eight different performances including a student-recorded movie, St. Olaf Taiko Drummers, a violinist, bands, Salsa dancers, belly dancers and singers.

The Global Citizenship Awards and International Student Scholarships were awarded at the event, which also featured a special recognition of Dr. Paul Schons, the long-time St. Thomas faculty member and founder of the study abroad program, who died in October.

Globally Minded Student Association board members (photo courtesy of Dat Nguyen)

Dease is retiring on June 30 after serving 22 years as St. Thomas’ president.

A committee of students from many campus organizations worked with Campus Life and Residence Life to plan the event.

More than 700 students signed up to participate. They are invited to pick up a T-shirt at the Campus Life office in Room 325, Anderson Student Center, on Monday. If you didn’t sign up beforehand, extra T-shirts will likely be available at the flag pole on the lower quad just prior to the event. All students are welcome to attend and the more T-shirts the better.

The T-shirts say “Father Dease’s Farewell Crew” on the front and “Thank You Father Dease” on the back.  The “Farewell Crew” recalls the “Father Dease Move-In Crew” which for many years helped freshmen move into their residence hall rooms each fall.

Students, with T-shirts or not, are invited to show up at the flag pole at 11:45 a.m. for instructions on how to participate in the show of thanks.

A program on the plaza will start at 12:10 p.m. Following remarks by senior Mike Orth, outgoing president of the Undergraduate Student Government, and sophomore Jessica Algoo, a member of the thank-you committee, Dease will receive a gift from the university’s international students and a blue beech tree and plaque from all the undergraduate students. The tree will be planted soon in the lower quadrangle near the library.

The University of St. Thomas Festival Choir will contribute a rousing thank-you song to the occasion.

A free lunch as well as ice cream and cupcakes will be served on the plaza.

Hundreds of students have shown their gratitude by signing thank-you banners that will hang in the Anderson Student Center atrium.

The weather looks promising that day; if it’s not, the event will be held in the Woulfe Alumni Hall. If you have questions, contact Margaret Cahill of Campus Life at (651) 962-6131.

“It’s great to see so many students applying to study abroad,” said Lauren Viner, study abroad program coordinator. “There has been a lot of interest in popular destinations as well as those more off the beaten path. Everyone should be able to find a program that will both interest them and help them toward graduation.”

Many students are interested in traveling to the Southern Pacific, Italy and England; however, the Study Abroad office also is offering courses in Tanzania, Thailand, Cuba, Brazil and Ecuador.

This was also the first year that the Study Abroad office marketed for its co-sponsored programs’ January Term courses. Almost 30 students are applying for courses through IES Abroad, American Institute for Foreign Study (AIFS), Arcadia University, and the Center for Cross-Cultural Study (CC-CS).

“Many of our students already study abroad through the co-sponsored programs for a semester or year,” said study abroad adviser Sarah Huesing, “so it is wonderful to see the programs beginning to offer J-Term courses as well.”

A complete list of the courses that are full, waitlisted and open will be available on the Study Abroad website in early May. The final deadline is not until Oct. 1; however, while students have time to apply, Viner says not to wait as the courses fill up quickly.

The award is given annually to a select group of graduating seniors demonstrating exceptional scholarship, outstanding accomplishments, leadership and service in the fields of family science and family studies.

Vicky Speake

“I have rarely had the honor myself of learning with a family scholar such as this one,” wrote Family Studies faculty member Dr. Meg Wilkes Karraker in her nomination of Speake. “Ms. Speake is very smart, works very hard, and continually seeks opportunities to challenge herself, to lead and to serve. Capable and articulate, she is also a team player and scrupulously respectful of others. I know of no one more deserving of this honor.”

Director of Family Studies, Dr. Carol Bruess, further notes: “Victoria is one of those superstar students, always going the extra mile and willing to take on the extra challenge. No question, she’s going to head out into the world and make a difference in the lives of many individuals and families. With her passion for understanding family systems and providing support for families and couples, she’s on a mission to create healthier lives and communities, and that’s pretty darn cool.”

Speake’s academic and career goals include getting her M.A. in marriage and family therapy, taking her licensure test, and working in a small private practice.

As a student at UST, Speake already has been committed to making lives and communities better. She has participated in a VISION service trip, mentored members of the YoungLife organization, and worked with a service-based sorority to provide food for those in need. She has membership in four honor societies, works as an education assistant in the Psychology Department and recently has presented research on “Religious Family Values, Family Business Virtues,” which she co-wrote with Karraker, her faculty mentor.

Information was collected on 566 (46 percent) of the graduating class. We found that full-time employment and graduate school enrollment increased and entry-level salaries shifted toward a higher range.

Employment, graduate school enrollment, and salary reports differ by academic program and career path, but here is a selection from the results of the survey:

• Of those responding to the survey, 21.28 percent are enrolled in an advanced degree program. Aside from those already enrolled, 31.74 percent of last year’s class said they plan to enroll within four years of graduation.

• Of those reporting employment, 41 percent secured their jobs more than a month before graduation, almost 12 percent secured jobs about a month before or after graduation, and an additional 30 percent were employed within eight months of graduation. Eleven percent of graduates were not seeking employment, many of whom reported being enrolled in graduate school.

Here is the respondents’ employment status:

• Employed full time – 369 (65.19 percent)
• Employed part time – 88 (15.55 percent)
• Volunteer service – 16 (2.83 percent)
• Military service – 6 (1.06 percent)
• Not employed, currently seeking – 29 (5.12 percent)
• Not employed, not seeking – 58 (10.25 percent)

Fifty-four of the 58 who are not seeking employment are enrolled in graduate school.

The median salary range for the Class of 2012 was $30,001 to $35,000, which included those working part time while going to school or volunteering. Among those employed full time, the overall salary range increases to $35,001 to $40,000. The median salary for each academic program or career path varies.

Median salary ranges for those employed full time or in the military:

• College of Arts and Sciences – $30,001 to $35,000
• Opus College of Business – $40,001 to $45,000
• School of Education – $30,001 to $35,000
• School of Engineering – $55,001 to $60,000
• School of Social Work – $30,001 to $35,000

The complete report, which includes employers, job titles, graduate schools and states of residence, may be viewed on the Career Development Center website. Hard copies of this report as well as previous reports may be requested by contacting the Career Development Center, (651) 962-6761.

The Career Development Center reminds undergraduate students and alumni that the center continues to offer its services even after graduation.