Lionel Chambers, Xavier University |
Kameer Nelson, St. Joseph's University
March Madness
While a Jesuit showdown of Saint Joseph's University vs. Xavier University for the NCAA Division I men's basketball championship was not to be, both teams shone, making it to the Elite 8. Saint Joseph's University (whose point guard Jameer Nelson, below, also appeared on a Sports Illustrated cover) suffered a heartbreaking two-point loss to Oklahoma, ending an amazing season. The team was undefeated in their regular season. Nelson received every national player of the year award, and coach Phil Martelli was named Coach of the Year by the Associated Press.
Xavier too, had a great season. The team handed St. Joseph's its only other loss all year during the Atlantic-10 Conference tournament, won by Xavier, just before the NCAA tournament. Then they progressed to the Elite 8 for the first time in school history, where they lost to Duke, 66–63.
The men's teams from Boston College and Gonzaga University also made the tournament. In women's basketball, Boston College, Marquette University, and Loyola Marymount University played in the Division I tournament.
Jesuit Heads to Los Alamos
Fr. Cyril Opeil, SJ, became the first Jesuit physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, having accepted a two-year appointment at the famed New Mexico atomic lab after defending his doctoral dissertation at Boston College this spring.
Today's researchers at Los Alamos, home of the Manhattan Project in the '40s, map chromosomes as well as the national power grid. Fr. Opeil's efforts will be directed toward shedding light on the properties of uranium.
"My work is pure science," says Fr. Opeil, one of a handful of American Jesuit physicists. "The aim is a better understanding of the nature of surface electrons in single crystal uranium and its oxides."
That Los Alamos will be getting a priest as well as a physicist was evident during the Jesuit's interview trip last July, when Fr. Opeil was asked by a nearby parish to say mass and give the last rites to a hospital patient.
—Mark Sullivan, Boston College Chronicle
Seattle University Science Camp
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Ashley Morrow and Ashley Couture were two of the 30 eighth-grade girls who took part in Science Splash, a program at Seattle University (SU) that has been giving girls a chance to dive into science for over ten years. According to a 2001 study by the National Council for Research on Women, girls are more successful in math and science when they participate in programs that incorporate a cooperative, hands-on approach. The university's twelfth annual Science Splash runs for four weeks in July, during which girls participate in activities in environmental engineering, aerodynamics, mathematics, and computer technology. They conduct research on streams and then analyze the data in SU's science labs and do a variety of physics experiments under the guidance of SU faculty and Boeing engineers, along with other activities. "It is heartening to see the influence the Splash program has had," says Sr. Kathleen Sullivan, the program's director and SU associate director of mathematics (also the sister of Fr. William Sullivan, SJ, Seattle University's chancellor and past president). "We recently surveyed former Splash students and 80 percent indicated they had career goals in nontraditional fields such as math, science, engineering, and medicine." Participant Felicia Colon-Barnes received a first-place award at a national science fair in Washington, D.C., last summer. Asked if she planned to become an engineer, Felicia answered, "I now know that I can be if I want to." For more information visit www.seattleu.edu/splash |
St. John's Jesuit Expanding
St. John's Jesuit High in Toledo, Ohio, will open an academy for seventh- and eighth-grade boys this fall, reports school president Fr. Don Vettese, SJ.
"The academy is envisioned to be academically challenging, socially responsive, and developmentally appropriate. Academy enrollment will be smaller than the high school. This restricted size enables these young adolescents to know their teachers and fellow classmates well. It will ensure personal attention and individual support and create a sense of stability crucial in the lives of young adolescents," says Fr. Vettese.
Web sites of interest
Australian Jesuit Prayer Website
www.pray.com.au
Two Australian Jesuits, Frs. Ian Dillon and Norbert Olsen, are providing spiritual guidance online at this interactive website developed by Fr. Michael Kelly, SJ, and his organization, Church Resources.
By clicking on the icon inviting spiritual guidance, anyone can raise an issue or ask for help and Frs. Dillon and Olsen will reply. Other features of the site include daily reflections, guided prayer formats for classroom use, and a selection of articles on spirituality topics from around the world as well as the option of subscribing and receiving all the material via e-mail each day.
Jesuit Artifact Helps Anthropologist
This hide painting, formerly in the hands of an 18th-century Jesuit missionary to Mexico, Fr. Philipp von Segesser, helped University of Colorado anthropology student Mark Mitchell realize the significance of some 18th-century rock art he recently discovered in Colorado. According to Mitchell, the rock art depicts Comanches riding horses protected by leather "skirts," an interpretation that receives support from this hide painting acquired by Fr. Segesser that depicts an attack on Apaches by Pueblo Indians mounted on horses protected by similar skirts.
Fr. Segesser came across this and another hide painting (perhaps the work of indigenous New Mexicans) possibly through contact with a prominent family in what is now New Mexico and northern Mexico, where Fr. Segesser worked. He sent both paintings to his family in Switzerland in the 1750s, and they were purchased in the 1980s by the Palace of the Governors, a museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they are now on display.
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New PresidentFr. Kevin Wildes, SJ, has been appointed the president of Loyola University New Orleans. Fr. Wildes, an expert in medical ethics, taught and did research at Loyola College, University of Houston, and Georgetown University, where he also served as associate dean of Georgetown College, associate professor of philosophy, and assistant professor at the medical school. He was also a senior research scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown. He succeeds Fr. William Byron, SJ, interim president since October 2003. |
Smiles
Br. Dick Witzofsky, SJ, joined the Jesuits in '56 after serving in Korea as a military policeman and started working in maintenance at Saint Louis University High School (SLUH) in '71. He died last fall, but his legacy lives on at the school and in St. Louis at large. Head of the school's rec room, he charged students 5¢ each time a pool ball or a cue stick hit the floor. Brian Kane, editor of Prep News at SLUH, says that over the years the charge never increased, but Br. Witz would always get it, one year pulling in $300 that he spent on the rec room. SLUH alumnus Jeff Rombach ('98), who worked in the rec room with Br. Witz for four years, says, "You can go to any bar or pool hall in St. Louis and hear 'Nickel!' shouted when a ball hits the floor—you know there's an SLUH alumnus nearby." |
At the WW II Memorial Dedication
Fr. John McBride, SJ, was in Washington, D.C., for the recent dedication of the World War II Memorial, with good reason. He was with the 75th Infantry at the Battle of the Bulge and remembers celebrating the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1945 in a German town, unloading his rifle before stepping up for Communion. The troop ship that brought him back to New York was met by actress Marlene Dietrich. When Fr. McBride's mother saw in the local paper a photo of her son, surrounded by fellow GIs, with Marlene perched on his shoulder, she knew he was stateside, safe, and coming home.
He was scheduled to go with the 2nd Infantry for the invasion of Japan, but the war ended before he disembarked. He served in Korea with the 7th Cavalry and was wounded at Pyong Yang. Fr. McBride joined the Society in 1952 and began his long Jesuit career as high school teacher, pastor, and hospital and prison chaplain.
"I couldn't believe the crowd at the dedication," says Fr. McBride, now at Loyola Jesuit Center in Portland. "But what struck me most was the number of grown children who accompanied their veteran fathers, some in wheelchairs. The event was very historic, touching in every way."
Graduation 2004Commencement speakers at Jesuit colleges and universities this spring included: | ||
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