Insights Spring/Summer 2013 - Saint Martin's University

saint martin’s university 2013
news for alumni and friends
Trailblazing Saints • Tweets, Likes and Hashtags • Leaders for a New Libya
spring/summer
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 1

insights
LAST LOOK
contents
saint martin’s university
spring/summer 2013
8 20
4
14 28
EDITOR
Jennifer Fellinger
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Marki Carson
PRINTING
Capitol City Press
CONTRIBUTORS
Meg Nugent Dwyer
Roy F. Heynderickx, Ph.D.
Kyle Karnofski
Mary Law
Brother Boniface Lazzari, O.S.B.
Rick Noren
Bob Partlow
Deanna Partlow
Greg Scheiderer
Katie Simons
PHOTOGRAPHERS
Aaron Barna
Aric Becker
Steven Herppich
Rebecca Marsh
Dane Gregory Meyer
Insights is the official magazine
of Saint Martin’s University.
© 2013 all rights reserved.
We invite your comments and
suggestions. Please email them
to jfellinger@stmartin.edu.
Please send alumni news
and address changes to:
Institutional Advancement,
5000 Abbey Way SE,
Lacey, WA 98503;
telephone 360-491-4700;
email alumni@stmartin.edu.
Saint Martin’s University is an equal
opportunity educator and employer.
Visit us online at www.stmartin.edu.
4 New Cebula Hall
What makes the University’s newest building ”green”?
6 Mastering the Art of Balance
Joe Skillman MIT’13: teacher, family man, alumnus
8 Social What?
Tweets, likes and hashtags, brought to you by the
Saint Martin’s Social Squad
14 Trailblazing Saints
Women who charted new territory for Saint Martin’s
20 Dreams of Engineering a New Country
Students preparing to be leaders back home in Libya
28 Alumni Profile
Christine Schaller ‘93
DEPARTMENTS
3 President’s Greeting 24 In Their Own Words
30 Abbey News 32 Timeline
36 Campus News and Events 44 Athletics News
48 Alum Notes
2 | www.stmartin.edu

from the office of the president
Here at Saint Martin’s, we often speak of the Rule of Benedict, Saint Benedict’s guidebook for community
living. Written some 1,500 years ago, the Rule certainly has withstood the test of time. Given
its longevity, it’s not surprising that one of its main precepts is “stability.”
For our beloved monks of Saint Martin’s Abbey, the vow of stability is an important part of their Benedictine
commitment. In taking their vows, they dedicate themselves to their monastic community
for life. Many of our monks first came to Saint Martin’s decades ago as boarders or “day scholars,” and
chose their vocation shortly thereafter. For these men, Saint Martin’s is the only workplace they’ve
ever known, even as, over the years, their monastic roles within the community have changed.
It is an interesting contrast to the life of today’s graduates. Studies say that those entering the workforce
today will hold 12 to 15 jobs in their lifetime. On average, they will be changing their work environment
every two to three years. (Thank goodness for our Office of Career Services, which primes
Saints for the job search/interview process!) Our graduates’ lives are defined by technology that can
be rendered obsolete within months of inception and by social media that thrives on the immediacy
of the moment. Prepared for a world where all is indeed flux, the class of 2013 is adaptable, creative
and forward-thinking.
Where does stability fit into all of this?
Graduation season is the perfect opportunity to ask this question. There may be no greater time of
instability than commencement. On May 11, we gathered in Marcus Pavilion to celebrate our newest
alumni, more than 450 in all. For many, this day signaled a time to uproot and move on — to a
new job, a new home, perhaps even a new degree program. And yet, no matter what changes in
these graduates’ lives, Saint Martin’s will always be “home” to them. We hope that their alma mater
will remain, for their lifetime, a place that represents excellence, perseverance, service and stewardship,
and that the values of Saint Martin’s will serve as a “true north,” unchanging even as the world
around them transforms in marvelous ways.
And so, in this issue of Insights, we explore the stories of many inspiring individuals who, in diverse
ways, represent stability. These individuals have overcome obstacles to honor the enduring values of
Saint Martin’s. You’ll read of pioneering women who made their mark at Saint Martin’s, some before
the institution became coeducational. You’ll meet two graduate students who are developing the
skills to bring stability to their home country, and an alumna whose experience as a Saint continues
to influence her professional life on “the bench.” You’ll discover the spirit of our Social Squad, whose
members treat the challenges of social media as an opportunity to build community.
Remarkable things are happening at Saint Martin’s. We have a new award-winning “green” building
that is garnering much attention, three Fulbright Scholars — two faculty and a graduate student —
who reflect the quality of teaching and learning on campus, and a softball team that just finished a
historic season with a top 25 national ranking. You’ll find all of that and more inside.
It’s a good time to be a Saint. But then again, it has been for 118 years!
I hope you enjoy this issue of Insights, and that as you read the following pages, you'll take a moment
to consider how your life has been enriched by the gift of Benedictine stability.
Roy F. Heynderickx, Ph.D.
President
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 3

The building is
constructed
primarily from
prefabricated
framed panels and
joists made from
FSC-certified
sustainable
lumber.
New Cebula Hall
On Earth Day, April 22, 2013, the Saint Martin’s community gathered for the formal dedication
of Fr. Richard Cebula, O.S.B. Hall, new home of The Hal and Inge Marcus School of Engineering.
More than 300 guests were on hand to celebrate the environmentally sustainable structure
designed for LEED Platinum certification. The completion of Cebula Hall represents
an important milestone for the University, which took on no long-term debt to construct the
facility. Built through the generosity of alumni, friends and supporters, Cebula Hall has been
funded in full by people who understand the importance of Saint Martin’s and its graduates
to the world. In January 2013, the Norcliffe Foundation of Seattle awarded a very generous
grant to the Engineering Initiative at Saint Martin’s University. The grant from The Norcliffe
Foundation leveraged a “top-off grant” of $600,000 from the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust to
finish paying for the construction of Cebula Hall.
4 | www.stmartin.edu

Extremely efficient fixtures and equipment
reduce water usage by
48 percent.
Spaces inside and out were organized to
maximize collaborative learning opportunities.
Labs and classrooms are positioned directly
across from a transparent faculty office suite
that is outfitted with a glass writing surface to
support both planned and impromptu study and
research sessions as well as visibility
between spaces.
Projections estimate a 73 percent
energy cost savings due to optimized
energy systems and power produced
from a solar array.
The building displays many engineered systems
as a way of surrounding faculty and students
with real-world examples of the concepts
they study. Many of the building’s structural,
civil and mechanical systems are displayed or
“peeled back” to facilitate dialogue and support
the school’s curriculum.
Much of the furniture and
construction materials are
made from recycled materials —
27 percent overall — including
salvaged plywood used for table
tops and 111 soda bottles used to
create each faculty side chair.
The construction cost was $225 per
square foot, dispelling the notion that
environmentally sustainable buildings cost as
much as 15 percent or more than similar
non-sustainable buildings.
4,600 plants make up Cebula Hall’s
surrounding landscaping.
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 5

6 | www.stmartin.edu
By Greg Scheiderer

Many new graduates breathe a sigh of relief on commencement
day. Please forgive Joe Skillman if his was
deeper and more audible than most May 11, when he
received his Master in Teaching degree and teacher certification
after completing the Secondary Teacher Alternate
Route (STAR) program at Saint Martin’s University.
Consider what Skillman has been up to over the last twoand-a-half
years: He welcomed two sons into the world,
held a teaching job, split a youth-ministry gig, sold a house,
moved in with his in-laws, bought a house, and moved again
— all while maintaining a 4.0 grade-point average in the
academically rigorous STAR program.
“I don’t feel like reading this summer,” Skillman laughed,
recalling the coursework as he bounced seven-month-old
son, Ben, on his knee while we talked on the deck of his
Federal Way home the week before commencement.
Skillman has long had his mind on teaching, but took a bit
of a detour. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology with
a minor in chemistry at Western Washington University,
and was enrolled in the teaching program there. He was
one course and some student teaching away from finishing
when he burned out.
“I want to be passionate about what I’m doing, and I wasn’t
passionate about the education courses I was taking at that
point in time,” Skillman recalled. “I was just done.”
Skillman started classes in June of 2011 and raced through
the program, finishing his written comprehensive exams in
March and orals in April.
Skillman said the program has made him a more reflective
teacher.
“I want my students to have an understanding of science,
because that’s one of my passions, but I also just want them
to have a desire to learn,” he said. “I didn’t really realize
I had that until going through Saint Martin’s. I’ve moved
from being a scientist to being a science teacher.”
Courses about how the brain works appealed to him as a
new dad, too.
“That made it even more interesting, to see how I can apply
some of what I’m learning to parenting, and how I can apply
it to helping my kids learn,” Skillman said.
“I’m glad I chose Saint Martin’s and feel like it prepared me
well,” he said, “but it is not for the faint of heart. It’s a lot of
work in a short amount of time.”
Skillman is looking forward to something he hasn’t enjoyed
in years: a little time off with his family. His most strenuous
plan for the summer is taking two-and-a-half year-old son,
Gus, to the zoo. u
He spent a year on the road with NET Ministries, leading
retreats for Catholic middle- and high-school students, and
worked another year at NET’s headquarters in Minnesota.
“I found a lot of fulfillment serving with NET,” Skillman
said. “I had a lot of fun doing that and growing in my faith.”
He later taught for a year at St. Charles Borromeo School
in St. Anthony, Minnesota, and while there got engaged to
his wife, Anna, also a Northwest native. They soon moved
back to Washington and found work at St. Patrick Catholic
Church and School in Tacoma, where Joe teaches middle
school science and they share the parish’s youth ministry
position.
The catch was that Joe had a conditional teaching certificate
that would last for only two years. He had to figure out
a fast way to get permanent certification while still teaching
at St. Patrick’s.
The STAR program turned out to be a perfect fit. Ann
Gentle, Ph.D., director of the program, helped Skillman
tailor it for his situation. The Archdiocese of Seattle covered
part of the cost.
Joe Skillman is hooded by President Roy F. Heynderickx at the 2013
Master's Hooding Ceremony, which took place in Saint Martin's Abbey
Church the morning of commencement.
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 7

8 | www.stmartin.edu

y Meg Nugent Dwyer
Tweets and retweets. Updates, likes and
comments. #Hashtags and check-ins.
There’s only one way to understand the
language of social media: Lean in, hold
on tight and don’t be afraid to be social.
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 9

Social Squad
#SMUSOCIAL
t Saint Martin’s University, students aren’t the only ones who know
the difference between a tweet and a retweet, a reply and a like, or
the various nuances of hashtags.
When you are checking
out a school as a
potential student, you
want to see what
other students who
are already enrolled there
are saying about it, and
that’s what we bring.
— Matt Hankins
Foursquare campus ambassador
LIKE
These days, Saint Martin's president and members of the administration
are navigating their own Twitter accounts, as are faculty and staff members
who are recognizing the trend that students are much less likely to
communicate via standard emails than they are via tweets, Facebook and
other forms of social media.
“I wanted to start using Twitter because our students don’t always check
the University webpage and they don’t check their email, so, how are
we supposed to be in contact with them?” says Nicole Phillips, executive
assistant to the dean of the University’s School of Business.
“But even though I knew I needed to learn how to use Twitter, I was a little
afraid of it,” she confesses. “That’s why I’m glad the Social Squad is here.”
As envisioned by Saint Martin’s Web Manager Carl Lew, the Social Squad
is a band of savvy students the Office of Marketing and Communications
started employing in 2011 to help strengthen the University’s presence and
brand on social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr
and Foursquare. In recent months, the Social Squad has been reaching
out to the Saint Martin’s community in efforts to educate it about the
how-tos of social media. The students’ goal is to encourage professors,
staff members and administrators to become more comfortable with
social media so they will use it themselves to interact with the student body.
“The Social Squad is cutting-edge among smaller universities
that are getting involved with social media. The fact that most
cabinet members at Saint Martin’s have their own Twitter accounts
says a lot about the willingness to experiment with media and
communication, both from the top down and
the bottom up,” says Chadd Bennett, director of
research and publications for the Independent
Colleges of Washington, an association of 10
private, non-profit colleges in the state. “Some of
our member institutions that are dipping their
toes in social media are asking to be connected
to Saint Martin’s so they can get advice on how to
use social media.”
TWEET
10 | www.stmartin.edu

@SMUNEWS
"The Boss"
@BrookeSMU
@StephenSMU
#SAINTSALIVE
@MattSMU
CHECK-IN
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 11

were able to significantly enhance Saint Martin’s profile by
generating tweets that reached more than 192,000 Twitter
accounts following the squad’s ongoing social media
coverage of the University’s 2012 Gala.
This year's Social Squad included tweeters, bloggers and
videographers.
The Social Squad has been providing a picture of Saint
Martin’s to prospective students by using their own
voices as current students, a perspective the University is
unable to provide through its more traditional marketing
materials, says Lew, who oversees the squad of 12 students,
which has included tweeters, bloggers and, more recently,
videographers.
“It goes to presenting a more genuine view of what it’s like to
be a student here because it’s from the student perspective,”
Lew says. “The Squad provides an alternate way of looking
at SMU and it also provides more of that authentic conversation,
another form of engagement between current students,
as well as prospective students.”
According to Matthew Hankins, a sophomore and squad
member, “When you are checking out a school as a potential
student, you want to see what other students who are already
enrolled there are saying about it, and that’s what we bring.”
“There’s a whole generation of students, say aged 15-25, who
don’t embrace email because they haven’t been in a work
setting yet where they have had to use email, and receiving
anything through snail mail is before their time,” says Alex
Hendricks, a junior and the unofficial “Boss of the Social
Squad,” according to the handwritten sign perched on a
desk in the Old Main office he shares with his fellow squad
members and Lew. “Social media is the preferred medium
for prospective students right now, and communicating with
them in their preferred medium can give Saint Martin’s
an edge.”
Besides, Hendricks adds, “If we’re not on social media, it’s
a mark against us. If a prospective student tries to find Saint
Martin’s via social media and we’re not on Twitter and we
have no Facebook or Instagram account, that student will
think, ‘Social media is the main way I communicate, so why
doesn’t this school have any social media?’”
The squad members have come a long way since their initial
efforts to tweet and blog about their personal experiences
as students at Saint Martin’s. Last fall, for example, they
“A tweet is a very simple thing but you
can reach large numbers of people that
are normally not imaginable for a small
university like ours,” Hendricks says.
Plus, social media is very cost efficient. “It costs nothing,”
says Social Squad member Stephen Mahnken, a sophomore,
“and people using social media are constantly checking it for
updates. As long as Saint Martin’s is on social media, people
are going to be seeing what’s happening at the University.”
Lew is especially proud of the squad’s successful strategy
to fill more seats at a Saints winter basketball game. Within
a few hours of a request from Athletics for help in finding
ways to encourage more students to attend the game,
squad members seized on the idea of organizing a “Harlem
Shake” event for halftime entertainment. They generated
excitement through tweets and Facebook messages that
invited students to take part in Saint Martin’s official version
of the Internet meme. (Enjoy the video at bit.ly/X1RekW.)
“Just a few emails were sent and no fliers were posted anywhere;
it was all communicated through Twitter and Facebook
about when students should show up,” Lew recalls.
“The students arrived, ready to go, in costumes they made
on their own, and the stands were full at halftime — it was
one of the best attended basketball games we’ve had in
a while.”
To maintain this momentum, the Social Squad has been
taking steps to ensure the entire Saint Martin’s community
understands not only the importance of social media as a
marketing tool but as a communication tool they can incorporate
into their daily routine.
“We realized we can’t have a strong social media presence
externally if there’s not a strong social media presence internally,”
says Lew.
To that end, Hendricks and Mahnken have been demystifying
the likes of Twitter and Facebook through a series of
workshops the Social Squad has hosted on the Lacey campus.
So far, they have conducted workshops with University
President Roy F. Heynderickx, Ph.D., and cabinet members,
as well as with some faculty and staff members. Mahnken has
also made presentations about Twitter and other forms of
social media to his business communications class.
12 | www.stmartin.edu

The president says Twitter is a medium he can easily embrace.
“I believe in brevity, and Twitter works with my particular
style because you are limited to 140 characters,” says
Heynderickx. “If you can’t say what you want to say in 140
characters, it’s really not worth saying.”
Hendricks likes to start his workshops by helping attendees
set up their own Twitter or Facebook accounts. “For a lot of
people,” he says, “that’s the biggest hurdle to get over because
it signifies taking that first big step to getting to know
social media.”
Next, he teaches the basics — how to tweet, how to like a person’s
Facebook status, how to retweet, reply or post an image.
The Social Squad has established office hours two days a
week for people to stop by with questions or concerns they
may have about various types of social media. Squad members
are also known to conduct workshops “on the fly” for
learners who feel they need the help.
“We want to foster the idea that the whole school can come
and ask us about social media, not only for professional use,
but for personal use, as well,” Lew says.
In addition, the Social Squad is in the final stages of
producing its “Social Media Starter Packet,” a tutorial for
the Saint Martin’s community that provides step-by-step
guidance on social media use, as well as a glossary of social
media terms.
“During the workshops, there is always so much information
coming at people. It can be overwhelming. With the packet,
they don’t have to worry about forgetting what they have
learned because it’s all written down for them to refer back
to,” says squad member Brooke Sanchez, a sophomore.
“The packet is designed to lower the stress and fear associated
with learning something new.”
The squad hopes the starter packet will help dispel another
misconception about social media, Sanchez says. “People
think social media is a bit trivial or they think of it as the
newest craze that won’t stick around. Well, it’s been around
for several years already and it’s getting bigger all the time.
That’s why it makes sense to learn how to use it.” u
Stay connected with the University
through social media!
Visit www.stmartin.edu/social for a list of
our official social media accounts.
with Hankins’ help
Social Squad member Matthew Hankins was named
a Foursquare “campus ambassador” in October 2012.
At the time, he was one of only 77 students at college
campuses nationwide to receive this distinction.
Foursquare is a location-based, social media service
with the ability to recommend places to visit and
experience based on the user’s activities. With the help
of their cell phones, Foursquare users “check in” at
different places such as restaurants, parks, museums
and stores. In exchange for checking in, Foursquare
awards badges, points and even mayoralties, an honor
bestowed on the person with the most check-ins at a
venue over the past 60 days.
“Having this ambassadorship helps solidify and add
credibility to our goal of becoming a driving force in
social media, both for our students and for the community
around us,” Hankins says. “We have been able to establish
an exceptional presence on Foursquare, as a school, and
to have a complete venue listing, which further spreads the
word about Saint Martin’s.”
“Foursquare as a company has helped further the social
networking abilities of Saint Martin’s by sending me stickers,
badges, buttons, banners and shirts to give away while
doing promotions around campus,” Hankins adds. “Being
an ambassador has forged a connection with the staff at
Foursquare that has been invaluable in our ability to support
events and further establish the social media community
throughout the school.”
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 13

Gladys Dawson Buroker
TRAILBLAZING
by Deanna Partlow
14 | www.stmartin.edu

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome,
dangerous, leading to the most amazing view,”
wrote environmentalist Edward Paul Abbey.
It is those individuals who navigate the most challenging trails — the pathfinders
who venture through uncharted and uncertain terrain — who often remake
their world.
When Saint Martin’s carved its first trails, those involved overcame many obstacles to
establish the young institution and help it thrive. Over the years, the trails deepened
with frequent use, although sometimes a visionary soul would step off the path to
chart a new course.
Among those visionaries were several trailblazing women who helped remake the
landscape of Saint Martin’s history. Here are some of their stories.
Ahead of her time
Gladys Dawson Buroker
The life of Gladys Dawson Buroker reads like an adventure novel.
As a Depression-era teenager in Bellingham, she yearned to fly. Scraping together
enough money for 15 minutes’ worth of flying lessons at a time, she learned to navigate
the skies from World War I pilot Herb Buroker. In 1931, the 17-year-old soloed.
For a time, Gladys parachuted with a barnstorming troop, she wrote in her 1997
book, Wind in My Face: Autobiography of Gladys Dawson Buroker, Pioneer Pilot.
In 1937, she and Herb married. With Olympia airport manager Gwin Hicks, they
gave flying lessons through their business, Buroker-Hicks Flying Service. At the time,
Gladys was the only female flight instructor in the Northwest.
Her history crossed paths with that of Saint Martin’s College when the federal Civil
Aeronautics Act passed in 1938. Anxious about a potential military conflict and the
country’s considerable pilot shortage, Congress passed the act to set up a trial civilian
pilot training program. The initial program gave equal access to young men and
women nationwide.
Although Saint Martin’s was an all-male institution then, it was among those chosen
to help train student-pilots, wrote Father John Scott, O.S.B., in his history, This Place
Called Saint Martin’s. Aviation ground school classes began on campus in summer
1939, taught by the Burokers and Hicks. Gladys became the first female instructor
at Saint Martin’s, and several young women enrolled in the ground school program.
Many ground school grads next took pilot training, which was taught by Herb
Buroker and pilot Jack Mifflin at the airport.
As war loomed, officials expanded the program but dropped women from it,
anticipating that its graduates would be funneled into the all-male military. Gladys
continued ground school classes at the College, Scott recounted.
With the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the entire Saint Martin’s pilot
training operation — instructors, students, planes and equipment — was shifted
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 15

from the vulnerable Pacific Coast inland to Pasco. There, its students spent their
Christmas vacation in training.
A few months later, the Navy appropriated the Pasco field for its own use and the
program was again transplanted, this time to Weeks Field near Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.
The College’s students traveled there on the Saint Martin’s bus, driven by Fathers Gerald
Desmond and Robert Wippel, O.S.B.
In mid-1942, the Saint Martin’s/Buroker-Hicks collaboration ended when the military
revamped the program to train only Navy air recruits. Although the Burokers continued to
prepare pilots, Saint Martin’s early foray into extension programs came to an end. Some 400 pilots
had been trained in three years.
Gladys Buroker left flight training for a time in 1950 when a fire destroyed the couple’s hangar and
business in Coeur d’Alene, according to a Spokane Chronicle article. The Burokers moved to an area farm.
At 53, Gladys enrolled at North Idaho College to become a nurse. But the daredevil in her refused to sit still. She returned
to flight instruction and kept her pilot’s license until she was 80. When Herb died in 1973, she took up hot air ballooning.
Buroker died in 2002 at the age of 88.
An accountant becomes number one
Sirkka Stevens
The hiring of Sirkka Stevens, the first female employee to
work “on the hill” at Saint Martin’s, was neither intentional
nor expected. It was, however, amusing.
In December 1988, Stevens retired after a 34-year career
at Saint Martin’s and recounted the story of her hiring in
Insights magazine.
The story goes that in August 1953, her husband’s cousin,
Ken Stevens, was graduating from Saint Martin’s College
just as her husband, Don Stevens, was beginning his studies
there. Ken told Don he could get Sirrka a job at the school,
and Don told Sirrka.
It was news to the monks, since Ken evidently had consulted
no one. Sirkka arrived unexpectedly at the school to inquire
about her new employment, speaking with either Father
Meinrad Gaul, O.S.B. or Father Bede Ernsdorff, O.S.B., she
said.
Neither was in charge of hiring at the time. Nevertheless,
Father Bede escorted Stevens to Father Walter Hellan,
O.S.B., the Abbey’s business manager.
He wasn’t responsible for hiring, either. Father Bede told
Father Walter: “Put this girl to work. Her husband’s starting
school in September.”
She was instructed to come in the next Monday. The Abbot,
away in Rome, knew nothing of it.
“I guess he figured I could stay until the Abbot got back and
got rid of me,” Stevens said.
Her career began with half-day jobs that shifted between
the bursar’s and registrar’s offices, the bookstore, the
switchboard and the library. The monks still were puzzled
about what to do with her, she recollected.
Over time, she landed in the bursar’s office and accounting,
where she eventually was hired as bursar — Saint Martin’s
financial manager.
Sirkka Stevens (center)
Years later, Father Walter told Stevens he’d been dumbfounded
when she appeared with Father Bede.
16 | www.stmartin.edu

She recalled him saying, “Hiring a woman! It’s probably why
you’re still here. I didn’t know what else to say. I was just
sitting there with my mouth open.”
Don Stevens transferred to the University of Washington to
continue pre-dental studies, explains Stevens’ daughter, Elsa
McDonnell ’82. Before he started, Sirkka developed a serious
case of mumps. He was forced to withdraw, and financially
was unable to return to Saint Martin’s. Don went to work for
the Olympia Brewery, where he’d had earlier summer jobs,
and he remained there for the rest of his career.
Sirkka stayed on at Saint Martin’s. She loved its closeness
and couldn’t imagine being happy working elsewhere, she
said. The Stevens family became Catholic converts, and
Saint Martin’s — the College and Abbey — became part of
the fabric of their lives.
Elda Brophy was hired by then-Saint Martin’s President
Father Michael Feeney, O.S.B. and Dean of Students Father
Kilian Malvey, O.S.B. as the College’s first dean of women.
Brophy was a magna cum laude graduate in English and
education from Eastern Washington State College. She had
earned a master’s degree at Gonzaga and was in the midst of
completing her doctorate at the University of Washington
when she came to Saint Martin’s.
A close 45-year friendship between Brophy and alumnus
Paul Kerber ’68 had its roots at the College, where
Kerber was student body president at the time. In a happy
coincidence, they were also neighbors.
On the job, Sirkka was a meticulous bookkeeper whose job
came to center on student accounts, according to Mary
Law, registrar emeritus and a longtime friend of Stevens.
While her work was mostly behind-the-scenes, Stevens
sometimes worked directly with students and their families
on financial issues.
“When Sirkka did get to connect to students, she really
connected, and she became like a mother to them, especially
to some of the Middle Eastern students who were far away
from home,” Law remembers.
McDonnell says several Saint Martin’s graduates have told
her they couldn’t have completed their education if her
mother had not helped them work out the finances.
Stevens, the first woman to be awarded the University’s
President’s Medal for service to Saint Martin’s, passed away
Nov. 24, 2012. She was 84. A celebration of her life will
take place at 1 p.m. July 20 at the Norman Worthington
Conference Center.
Shepherding our
first female
students
Elda Brophy, Ph.D.
In the fall of 1965, as much of the nation roiled in tumult
over race relations and the Vietnam War, Saint Martin’s
College was undergoing its own radical change — stepping
away from its 70-year-long all-male tradition to become coeducational.
Elda Brophy, Ph.D.
Elda and her husband, Walter, who died in 1986, had a
farm near Elma, and the Kerber family was included in
many events there. He says Brophy became like a second
mother to him and his wife, Sue, and like a grandmother
to their son.
Kerber describes Brophy as a woman with a warm smile who
always had time for people, used words wisely, and loved
kids and education. She also had courage and “piercing
eyes that looked into your soul.”
“She would take on situations that were controversial,
simplify them and make them work — a true innovator,”
he says.
One example is provided by Father Kilian, who also had
a long friendship with the Brophys: “She was very elegant
with a wonderful sense of humor. I remember her response
when the women students were protesting the regulation of
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 17

‘no trousers or slacks for women in the classroom or dining
hall.’ After several intense meetings with the students, Elda
finally gave in with the words (I’ve never forgotten them),
‘My dear young ladies, you may wear trousers only if they
ride well’.”
Along with guiding young co-eds through their college years,
Elda continued her professional activities as an educator.
She taught courses in primary education as a faculty
member at Saint Martin's, and she later became president
of the Northwest Association for Teacher Educators.
When Brophy retired from Saint Martin’s, the couple
raised horses, including one that won a championship in a
national miniature horse competition. Elda also indulged
her creative bent, churning out numerous pieces of
art. And, at 78, she decided to learn Hebrew, her eighth
language.
She never lost her love of teaching and children, says
Shawna Brophy Martin, Brophy’s granddaughter. Brophy
was a parent educator for Grays Harbor College through
much of the ’90s.
Brophy was 100 when she died in February this year.
A petite woman who favored tailored suits, Cady was
known for a style that was as direct as her gaze.
As head of Saint Martin’s Education Department,
Cady’s knack for handling problems of all kinds with
intelligence and resolution caught the eye of then-
President David R. Spangler. When the post of vice
president for academic affairs (VPAA) came open, he
tapped her for the job.
“She was the most professional, objective administrator
I have ever seen,” he says of Cady. “She handled
everyone fairly and evenly. She expected competence
of herself and everyone around her, and she earned
their respect.”
“Did you ever have a boss you’d do anything for?” asks
Mary Law, retired registrar. “Lillian was that boss, and
I never questioned what she asked me to do. She’s the
most amazing woman I’ve
ever known — truly.”
The educator who
couldn’t retire
Lillian V. Cady, Ph.D.
When Lillian V. Cady, Ph.D. met a student
or employee at Saint Martin’s, she made a
strong impression — an impression that
often elicited descriptions like “stern” and
“no-nonsense.”
Cady, now 82 and a resident of Seattle,
came to Saint Martin’s in the early 1980s
to head the College’s education program.
When she was younger, she served with the
U.S. Naval intelligence during the Korean
War.
Just prior to her arrival at Saint Martin’s,
Cady had retired from one of several
positions she had held at Washington’s Office of
Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). There,
she’d already made her mark nationally through her
work on teacher education issues.
Lillian V. Cady, Ph.D.
Law tells a story of a potential
transfer student who came
by Saint Martin’s one day
when Cady was still in the
Education Department. She
was sitting at her desk with
the office door open, so he
walked right in, asking, “Why
should I go here instead of
to some other education
program?” She thoroughly
peppered him with reasons,
and he wasted no time in
going downstairs to enroll,
Law says.
Despite her no-nonsense
exterior, Cady has a funloving
side that has helped
her build friendships across
the country, Spangler says.
She loves the WSU Cougars, the arts and baseball,
especially the Seattle Mariners.
She also adores Peeps, the marshmallowy Easter candy,
and likes them best frozen, Law recalls. When Cady
was at Saint Martin’s, spring often came with Cady’s
gifts of the little fellows.
18 | www.stmartin.edu

Cady first retired from Saint Martin’s in
the mid-1980s. She did further work at
OSPI and also began a term on the Saint
Martin’s Board of Trustees. Twice more, she
returned to the College as interim VPAA
while the College conducted nationwide
searches to fill the post, Spangler says.
“I hired Lillian three times as VPAA,
and she just kept coming back for more
punishment,” he laughs. “She always did a
bang-up job, and I never hesitated to ask
her to come back.”
Cady is one of a select few to be awarded the Saint Martin’s
President’s Medal for service to the University.
A Saint through
and through
Randi Johnson ’83
At 29, Randi Johnson harbored a desire to learn that
brought her across the threshold of Saint Martin’s College,
initiating a relationship that lasted a lifetime.
Johnson died of cancer last November, but the alumna’s
passion for her alma mater lives on in some of Saint Martin’s
best-loved traditions.
Kurt Kageler ’91 MBA’97 spoke at the service celebrating
Johnson’s life and legacy, held at Saint Martin’s on
Dec. 15., 2013. He remembered Johnson’s kind, compassionate,
gentle spirit and ability to inspire people with her
attitude. “She always placed the needs of others above her
own,” said Kageler. “Randi was a great volunteer but an
even better friend.”
When she arrived as a student in the late ’70s, Johnson
already had a full life as a mother and breadwinner. But
with characteristic enthusiasm, she told then-registrar Mary
Law that she wanted to be a “real student.”
She immediately accomplished her goal. When Johnson
wasn’t in class, she was planning or participating in one
activity or another. Her trademark laughter often revealed
her whereabouts. She had a knack for organization and a
clear vision of what steps were needed to make an event or
activity a success.
“She never wanted to be student president or anything — it
wasn’t about that for her,” says Law.
Randi Johnson
“But she’d get involved and,
pretty soon, her leadership skills
would make her the leader.”
Johnson was tirelessly dedicated
to causes dear to her heart,
remembers Law. “Whenever
animals or kids were in trouble,
she was there,” she says.
Fortunately for so many students
who followed her, Saint
Martin’s became one of Johnson’s
causes.
After earning her community service degree in 1983, part of
Randi went to work for the Washington State Department
of Revenue and another part rolled up her sleeves for Saint
Martin’s.
With a handful of other alumni, she helped breathe life
back into the Saint Martin’s Alumni Association.
“Everybody respected Randi,” says David R. Spangler, Ph.D.,
president emeritus of Saint Martin’s. “She was never in it
for herself, but just wanted to make things better,”
Johnson remained on a quest to champion Saint Martin’s
students. She helped found the association’s Capital Food
and Wine Festival, a highly successful scholarship fundraiser
which celebrated its 24th year this spring, and served as
chairwoman for several years. Other fundraisers supporting
the association’s scholarship endowment usually included
Johnson.
At commencement, her congratulations and warm handshake
were often the association’s first official welcome to
new alums.
According to Spangler, Johnson always remained a positive
force, even when her illness made it more difficult to take
part.
“A lot of people looked to her to do things, and she always
stepped up to the task,” he says.
Law puts it another way: “If you knew Randi, you were
blessed.” u
What memories do you have of
trailblazing women at Saint Martin’s?
Email your memories to jfellinger@stmartin.edu or
tweet them using the hashtag #SMUwomen.
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 19

Dreams of engineering a new country
by Bob Partlow
20 | www.stmartin.edu

Mustafa Zaaid,
Master of Engineering
Management Program
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 21

s the people of Libya seek to rebuild their
country after 42 years of dictatorship, Saint Martin’s
University students Zahreddin Massud and Mustafa
Zaaid embrace a strong desire to lead the way.
22 | www.stmartin.edu
Zahreddin Massud,
Master of Engineering
Management Program

Massud, 31, is finishing his first year of a two-year Master
of Engineering Management (MEM) program at Saint
Martin’s, after which he will return to his home country
with the academic foundation to become a project manager
in the oil and gas industry. Zaaid, 32, is finishing his first
semester in the same program and shares Massud’s goal of
returning home to help.
“In Libya, you don’t find a lot of management engineers,”
Massud says. “That is why I came to the U.S., to get this
experience. My country did not teach us how to be a
manager or how to be a leader. To be a good manager, you
need to see the big picture.”
Massud’s passion sends a clear message: He will be there to
help Libya draw its own “big picture” as the country charts
its future.
Massud, who was named a Fulbright Scholar in 2011, has
remained committed to this goal, even when the political
upheaval in Libya forced him to defer his prestigious
scholarship a year. Interested in the Seattle area, he decided
on Saint Martin’s after hearing it had “one of the best
engineering schools in Washington.” But instead of starting
the MEM program in fall 2011 as originally planned,
he started in fall 2012. One year into the program, his
enthusiasm has not waned.
In fact, it was Massud’s enthusiasm — for management, for
leadership and for Saint Martin’s — that inspired Zaaid to
enroll in the MEM program.
Reflecting on the challenges Libya faces, Zaaid says, “We are
beginning from zero. We are making a new government. I
will go back to build my country. We were dying for 42 years.
Now at least we can stop dying.”
Many more potential leaders are expected to follow Massud’s
and Zaaid’s path. The new Libyan government plans to
send 50,000 students abroad during the next five years to
complete the education necessary to create the human
infrastructure of a new society. According to Zaaid, Saint
Martin’s provides the ideal education to begin that process.
“It’s an amazing program,” he says. “It’s the best place for an
education.”
Both men have overcome much to get where they are
today. They lived all their lives under a brutal dictatorship,
struggling to advance themselves in a public education
system that did not teach English. Their families had to
find ways to survive financially. Finally, there was the bloody
revolution that allowed Libyans to reclaim their country and
their future.
Massud was born in Jadu, a mountain town in western Libya,
and grew up in Tripoli. While his mother, Aisha, stayed
home with the four children, Massud’s father, Saleh, taught
elementary school, a job that paid about $300 a month —
not enough to send his children to private schools where
they could learn English. So, to help fund his children’s
education, Selah worked on the side as a businessman. He
wanted his boys to be engineers, a goal that Massud pursued.
After studying five years at the University of Tripoli, Massud
earned his undergraduate degree. His studies were “tough,”
he says, and knowledge was gained in a difficult political
environment. “There was no freedom at that time,” he
explains. “If you said something, you were in trouble.”
But he persevered, and beginning in 2006, began working
as a testing engineer for the Halliburton Company, helping
determine the quality and quantity of oil at various drilling
sites. In 2008, he began working for Schlumberger, a multinational
energy company, which gave him job experience,
both inside Libya and in three other countries. When he
wanted to advance his career and education, the company
also gave him a long leave of absence and a job waiting for
him when he returns.
Zaaid was born in Benghazi, the youngest of six children.
“I came from a poor family,” he says. But he studied hard
and his oldest sister taught him English. He graduated
from the University of Benghazi and also began working for
Halliburton. As a pump engineer, he was responsible for the
process of transferring cement and water into oil-drilling
rig holes.
Zaaid’s education at Saint Martin’s is being provided through
a scholarship from Libya’s Ministry of Higher Education.
His master’s degree will enable him to take the next steps in
his career and will also help supply Libya with the leadership
and stability it needs to grow in a time of transition, when
the rules of a new society are still being determined.
Both young men love the learning environment and sense
of community that are part of Saint Martin’s.
Zaaid commends the University for its acceptance and
support of people of all faiths, and says he aims to encourage
more students to choose Saint Martin’s. “I am trying to find
ways to get scholarships for others,” he remarks.
“I have lots of friends,” Massud says. “The international
office and my professors are always trying to help me and
provide the support that I might need. It is a community to
me, not just place to get a certificate.”
“I am really proud of being here.” u
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 23

in their own
{WORDS
by Rick Noren
One would think that, after coaching 20 years at the collegiate level, losing the final game of
a season would become easier to accept, especially when reflecting upon all the success our
team enjoyed this year. Yet, there is nothing quite like facing the reality of having no more games
to play or practices to plan.
For the 2013 Saint Martin’s softball team, it has been a record-setting season that began not long
after the first day of class in September. It was difficult to imagine improving upon the previous
season, which saw our program go from nine wins in 2011 to 33 wins in 2012 — one of the greatest
win-loss improvements in NCAA Division II softball history. But, every new season allows each
coach and player to dream of greater things to come.
24 | www.stmartin.edu

#SAINTSALIVE
Our 2013 season began with great hope on the big island
of Hawaii at the Kona Classic Softball Tournament.
It was truly a struggle to play in paradise. We won only
two of six games, then headed over to Oahu and played
slightly better, winning both games of a double header
against BYU-Hawaii. Little did we know that, following
this inauspicious start, our team would come together
and succeed beyond anyone’s imagination.
The players had worked hard preparing themselves
physically for success. As any great team will tell you,
however, it is not the physical preparation but the faith
you have in yourself and those around you that leads
to excellence. When I took over the softball program
in 2011, the team had more than enough talent to win
games, but it took a new level of belief by a few key players
to turn a team with little expectation of winning into
one that could see greatness in themselves and their
teammates. This newfound belief emerged at the Best
in the West tournament in Turlock, California, last year,
as we played our way into the championship round for
the first time in Saint Martin’s history.
By early April 2013, when this year’s team headed south
to the same tournament, our play had definitely improved.
Still, no one could have anticipated the results
that were to come. We won five straight pool play games,
including an upset of highly ranked Humboldt State
University and a semi-final win over Chaminade, then
found ourselves playing for the tournament championship
on Sunday. Although it ended in a difficult loss,
finishing second was another first in our program and a
building block toward our ultimate goal of excellence.
Our success in California led to a fantastic month. We
ended April with a 16-3 record, clinching the Great
Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) championship
at home against Central Washington on the final day
of league play. Although it was extremely rewarding
and the first championship in program history, it didn’t
guarantee a spot in post-season play. For the first time,
the GNAC’s automatic berth to post-season was going
to be awarded to the winner of the conference tournament
the following weekend.
I believe it was our experience of playing into the championship
game a month earlier that allowed the team to
overcome any anxiety to win the tournament and earn
a spot into the NCAA Regionals.
As the season climaxed, every member of the team felt
a great amount of support from both the local and campus
communities as we prepared for the trip to NCAA
Regionals. It was a blessing for the players to have professors
and administrators who understood the importance
of this opportunity. Whether it was moving a final
exam to accommodate a player’s schedule or allowing
a later checkout from the residence halls, the support
from everyone was sincerely appreciated.
It was a difficult championship game loss to Humboldt
State that ended our season and sent us on the long
bus ride back to the SMU campus and back to reality,
sad and frustrated, yet full of memories that will last a
lifetime.
Each of us will have our own special memories from
this magical season, whether it was the conference
championship win, our conference tournament victory,
our #17 national ranking in the Division II coaches’
poll, Lacey McGladrey earning First Team All-American
and GNAC Most Valuable Player honors, Sam Munger
being named GNAC Pitcher of the Year, or any one of
the other accolades that the team collected in 2013.
In a season filled with so many firsts, it is impossible to
decide how one compares to another, but I’m not sure
it gets any better than watching your players achieve
excellence under the spotlight of post-season play.
It can be easy for some to question the value of athletics
on a college campus, especially with recent national
headlines that make all of us cringe. But when you’re
involved with a team of players that excel academically,
toil tirelessly in their athletic pursuits, and then work
part-time to help pay for school, it makes you proud to
say that you’re their coach. u
Rick Noren, in his third season as head coach of Saints softball,
earned Coach of the Year honors for the second consecutive
season from the GNAC.
Smart Saints
Not only has the Saints softball team excelled on the
field this season but it has also been a top performer in
the classroom. A total of seven student-athletes earned
Academic All-GNAC honors, the most in the GNAC,
including senior Madi Davis, who had the highest GPA
among GNAC softball players for a third-straight year.
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 25

in their own
{WORDS
Insights posed a question to members of the Class of 2013 shortly before
commencement exercises on Saturday, May 11, in Marcus Pavilion:
What was your best
experience as a student at
Saint Martin’s University?
Here are some of their responses:
#SMUGrads2013
26 | www.stmartin.edu

I attended the national American Chemistry
“
Society’s annual spring meeting for the past three
years — 2011 in Anaheim, 2012 in San Diego, and
2013 in New Orleans. This year, I presented my
senior research thesis, and that determined the
career path I will pursue. ”
— Daniel Mast (B.S., chemistry),
who will be attending University
of Nevada to pursue a Ph.D.
in radiochemistry
The relationships I’ve built here. At Saint
“
Martin’s, the University president
knows your name. Everybody knows
your name. It’s a close-knit place. ”
— Crystal Maria (B.A., political
science), who will be attending
Seattle University School of Law
with the goal of working in
family law
Being in my early forties, I was a non-traditional student
“
while working toward my Bachelor of Social Work. On
my first day at Saint Martin’s, I met Dr. Katya
[Shkurkin] for advising. It was wonderful meeting
somebody on the first day of taking those steps toward
my new life. ”
— Maureen Bailey (B.S.W., social work), who
hopes to “give back to others what everyone at
Saint Martin’s has given to me”
When we were studying city planning, our
“
engineering design class went on a field
trip, going around to examine the boundary
markers between cities and counties. This trip
is typical of the hands-on experience
you get at Saint Martin’s. Here, it’s not
just classroom lectures with 400 students in
attendance. ”
— James Yarton,
(M.E.M., engineering management),
who will be working for
Hargis Engineers Inc. (Seattle)
Completing all of Professor Stout’s stats classes. He’s really
“
tough but we learned a lot! ”
— Steven Suslick (B.A., business administration),
who hopes to “get a job serving my community,
bringing with me my experiences from being at
Saint Martin’s and my experience in the military”
Working with David Hlavsa, my theatre arts professor! Because
“
Saint Martin’s has a small theatre arts program, there were a lot
of opportunities I wouldn’t have had at a larger school.
I directed a full-length play as an undergraduate,
which is pretty remarkable!
”
— Olivia Baumgartner
(B.A., theatre arts/sociology and cultural anthropology),
who has been hired by AmeriCorps to work with at-risk youth
in Baltimore
It’s a tie: leading the last year
“
of Sigma Tau Delta, especially
working on our student-run
literary publication, SMUniverse,
and writing my senior thesis on
Oliver Twist and Harry Potter. It’s
awesome to be able to say, ‘We
made a book from the ground up’
and also ‘I am now a Harry Potter
scholar.’ ”
— Tannia King (B.A., English),
who plans to pursue a master’s
degree in education, teach
middle school and high school,
and continue writing
“
Student life and
campus life. There
was something to do
every day, whether it was
a comedian, a magician,
bingo night, craft night or
something else. And it wasn’t
just the same thing every year.
There was always something
new to do. ”
—Jared Beard
(B.A., history), who hopes
to pursue Division II
coaching at Friends
University in Kansas while
earning a master’s in
education or counseling
The faculty. I absolutely love my professors. I was a
“
math major at Saint Martin’s and a junior officer in training
in the U.S. Army ROTC at Pacific Lutheran University. I
had to maintain a good balance between my military life,
my student life and my civilian life. My professors were very
supportive of what I was doing; they helped me through to
earn my degree and meet my military requirements. It made
my college experience a lot more enjoyable. ”
— Brian Hutton (B.A., mathematics), who is headed
to the Fort Benning Army base in Georgia for
training as an armor officer
Being a veteran means lots of paperwork, and using
“
the VA can be confusing. Ronda Vandergriff in the
registrar’s office did an outstanding job and made
sure everything was clear to me. She was always
there to answer questions about anything I had to
submit. She knew what she was doing. ”
— Caleb Thetford (B.A., psychology), who
plans to pursue a master’s degree in clinical
counseling and work with veterans
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 27

Christine Schaller ’93
by Deanna Partlow
Thurston County Superior Court Judge Christine
Schaller, who ran a successful 2012 election campaign
while balancing professional duties and caring
for two young children, says she owes a great deal to
Saint Martin’s.
When Schaller, a 1993 Saint Martin’s College graduate,
addressed supporters at her campaign kick-off last year at
the Norman Worthington Conference Center, she said, “I
can say with certainty that I would not be standing before
you today as a candidate for judge if not for my excellent
parents and had I not been here about 20 years ago …
being taught by some of the most dedicated and talented
professors. This has been a place of beginnings, transitions
and growth for me.”
Schaller says she discovered who she was at Saint Martin’s.
“The core of who I am is how my parents raised me, but
Saint Martin’s changed my life,” says Schaller. “I came into my
own there and had so many opportunities. At Saint Martin’s,
you could be whatever you wanted.”
Saint Martin’s runs in the family. Schaller is the daughter of
two alumni — Ed Schaller, Jr. HS’62 ’66, who died in 2001,
and Rose Schaller ’74.
Like many students, she looked forward to going away to
college after completing high school locally. Her father,
then a member of Saint Martin’s Alumni Association and
the College’s Board of Trustees, talked her into giving Saint
Martin’s a try. “He was very persuasive,” she laughs.
Schaller soon discovered opportunities for her to make a
difference. She got involved in student government and
became captain of the cheerleading squad. She participated
in the Model Arab League, a competition that helped
students learn about Middle Eastern issues.
28 | www.stmartin.edu

She also found professors who inspired her, beginning with
her first religion class from Father Kilian Malvey, O.S.B. Her
learning continued through courses in history and political
science taught by two professors who played a pivotal role in
her education, Rex Casillas, Ph.D. and Roger Snider, Ph.D.
Having grown up in the shadow of her older sister, Nicky,
“an outstanding athlete and the brain of the family,” Schaller
says Saint Martin’s also taught her that she, too, had her
share of talents, abilities and the drive necessary to succeed.
Succeed she did.
Schaller graduated magna cum laude and enrolled in Gonzaga
University School of Law. In 1996, she completed her
law degree with cum laude honors, then passed her bar exam
that summer.
Along the way, she realized she was a “home” girl, one who
was happiest near her family. So she moved back to Olympia
and joined her father’s law firm, Foster, Foster and Schaller,
as an associate attorney. The firm practiced several different
kinds of law. She found she loved family law.
“You have an opportunity to help people when they’re at one
of the most difficult stages in their lives,” she says. “When I
went to law school, I didn’t understand you could have such
a positive impact on people’s lives by advocating for them.”
Outside the office, she took part in several community activities,
including providing free legal work. She also served
on several boards, the alumni association and the United
Community AIDS Network among them.
In 1999, Schaller married Chris Kradjan in a ceremony performed
by Father Benedict Auer, O.S.B., who later baptized
their daughter. The couple settled in Tacoma, midway between
his CPA consulting job in Seattle and hers with the
Olympia law firm.
That same year, a receptionist at the law firm suggested fielding
a team in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.
Schaller took the first of many walks on the team, named
the “Foster, Foster and Schaller Loopholes” by her dad. Two
months later, this activity took on new meaning when Ed
Schaller was diagnosed with cancer. He died May 21, 2001.
“I was fortunate I was exceptionally close to my dad,” she
says. “He was my dad — but we were also friends and business
partners. It was hard on my sister and me because he
died before we had kids, and we knew our children would
never know him.”
Cancer came yet again into her life in December 2003, when
her mother began the agonizing fight against the disease.
Her mother is now doing well. Schaller looks back on her
parents’ illnesses as her greatest challenge. It deepened her
compassion and empathy for others, something of immeasurable
value when working with the many people she meets
facing adversity.
One day, Schaller was asked by Olympia Municipal Court
Judge Lee Creighton to pro tem — substitute — for him in
his court.
“I’d never thought about doing that,” she recalls. “There’s
a big difference between being an advocate for a client and
being a decision-maker. I really wondered if I could be fair
— but when a judge asks you to do something, you don’t
say no.”
By the end of her first day, she felt reassured and continued
to substitute. Judging a case, she realized, was looking at the
same set of facts from a different perspective. When a post
came open for a court commissioner in the Family and Juvenile
Court in 2005, she was chosen for the job.
Schaller’s professionalism, ethics and respect for those who
come before her in court earned her accolades from the
Thurston County Bar Association, which has given her the
highest ratings among Thurston County judicial officers in
three of its four recent surveys. In 2009, she was named Jurist
of the Year by the Washington State Bar Association’s
Family Law Section.
Her campaign for the Superior Court post drew an impressive
roster of professional endorsements and ultimately
earned her 67 percent of the vote.
Schaller says she brings to the bench important skills she
first learned in her history and political science classes. She
learned to analyze issues and developed writing skills able to
pass muster under the critical eye of her professors.
When she assisted Casillas with an entry-level class once a
week, she began learning to speak to students in a way that
prompted responses.
“That’s an important skill as a judge,” she says. “It helps with
jury selection when people need to be pushed beyond their
comfort level and boundaries.”
Schaller goes forward in her career with a vote of confidence
from those at Saint Martin’s who know her caliber best.
“From the time she first came here, she has been a source of
consistent excellence and never settled for anything but the
best from herself,” Casillas says. “I think she will be a splendid
judge — she has all the earmarks: fairness, reason and a
commitment to justice.” u
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 29

Abbey
News
MONASTIC HAPPENINGS
by Boniface V. Lazzari, O.S.B.
In the northernmost part of Spain, in the province of
Asturias, lies the city of Oviedo. For more than a millennium,
Oviedo has been home to the community of
Benedictine nuns residing in the Monasterio Real de San
Pelayo. The San Pelayo Benedictines are a very hospitable
community, and I have been received as a guest by the
abbess and the community often. When staying at San
Pelayo, I always stay in the “new” monastery, which dates
to the 17th century or thereabouts. San Pelayo has not always
had an easy history. As recent as the mid-20th century,
during the political and social unrest in Asturias during the
1930s, the nuns were forcibly marched out of their cloister
through the Abbey Church. Explosives were detonated. The
interior of the church was destroyed, but the structure undamaged.
The nuns were but temporarily dispersed. Following
the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the San
Pelayo Benedictines returned to their monastery to rebuild
their life in community and their abbey church.
Stability, such as the millennial stability of the San Pelayo
nuns, is characteristic of the Benedictine life, even in adversity.
This summer, the Saint Martin’s Benedictines celebrated
stability when it marked the 60th anniversary of monastic
profession of two of its members. The longest professed
Saint Martin’s monk this year celebrated his 72nd anniversary
of monastic profession. Long-time stability can even be
characteristic of Abbey employees. This winter, the monks
mourned the passing to God of their friend and long-time
accountant, Donna Smith, who, at the time of her death,
had been employed by the Abbey for some two decades.
Our late confrere FATHER RICHARD CEBULA was honored
by the University by having the new all-green engineering
building named for him. FATHER RICHARD, an engineer,
founded the University’s stellar engineering school
over a half a century ago. ABBOT NEAL ROTH blessed the
new Cebula Hall in a special ceremony this spring, the same
afternoon that he blessed the newly designed Abbey Courtyard,
which has been named for FATHER PRIOR ALFRED
HULSCHER in recognition of his many contributions to
the community of Saint Martin’s over the years.
This spring, ABBOT NEAL, in the company of FATHER
PAUL WECKERT and FATHER PETER TYNAN, traveled
to Mount Angel, Oregon, to pay a visit to BROTHER
NICOLAUS WILSON, who is doing theological studies
there. . . FATHER PAUL, beginning July 1, will be assigned
to St. Columban Parish, Yelm, Washington, according to a
recent announcement from the office of the Archbishop of
Seattle. St. Columban has had a long tie to the Abbey.
30 | www.stmartin.edu

Former Benedictine pastors of St. Columban include the late
FATHER TERENCE WAGER, who built the present parish
church, the late FATHER FELIX WIRTH and the later
FATHER WILLIAM MAAT, among others. . . Immediately
after the close of the academic year, FATHER KILIAN
MALVEY traveled to St. Gertrude Convent, Cottonwood,
Idaho, with a group of 10 Saint Martin’s students, the
Benedictine Scholars. The Scholars spent a week in retreat
learning about the St. Gertrude Benedictine community
and things Benedictine. The Cottonwood Benedictines are
part of Saint Martin’s history. For years, several Cottonwood
Benedictines lived in a convent at Saint Martin’s, at the
site of the present Abbey Church, and ran the kitchen
and meal service. They returned to Cottonwood in 1959
. . . BROTHER RAMON NEWELL was once more a
participant in the spring Dragon Boat Races. Before the
beginning of the races, the boats were blessed by FATHER
PETER. . . BROTHER NICOLAS will spend the summer at
the Abbey, as will BROTHER LUKE DEVINE. BROTHER
LUKE is in a doctorate program in theology in Berkeley
and at present is in the midst of preparing for special
comprehensive examinations.
Each year, the monks of the Abbey award a certificate and
a check in the amount of $2,500 to the Staff Member of the
Year and to the Faculty Member of the Year. The awards
are presented to the winners during the annual universitywide
Honors Convocation by ABBOT NEAL. The winners
are nominated by the community at large and selected by
a committee comprised of staff, faculty and one monk.
Each winner is also honored with a personal gift given
at a private luncheon that ABBOT NEAL hosts annually
for the winners. This year’s winners were Jim Overdeep,
technology support specialist, and Brian Barnes, Ph.D.
assistant professor of history.
The Saint Martin’s community has not yet achieved the
millennial stability that marks the San Pelayo community,
though in a few years we will mark a century and a quarter
of presence on this Lacey hilltop and can trace our ancestry
back to ninth century Bavaria and beyond.
Ad multos annos! u
Boniface V. Lazzari, O.S.B.,
writes Abbey News and oversees
the Abbey Concert Series.
ABBEY CHURCH EVENTS
BEGINS A NEW SEASON
In early April 2013, CALMUS, the renowned vocal quintet
from Leipzig, brought the 2012-2013 Abbey Church
Events season to a close. The a capella quintet adeptly
sang polyphonic works dating from the 13th through
16th centuries. It was in CALMUS’ encore that the audience
experienced a radical departure from classical
polyphony when the group sang a very contemporary
piece by Sting.
The 2013-2014 Abbey Church Events season will open
on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013, with an 8 p.m. recital by
pianist ALEXANDRIA LE. This will mark Ms. Le’s second
appearance on the series. She previously appeared
in recital at the Abbey in February 2012.
Alexandria Le was awarded a Bachelor of Music at
Eastman and a master’s at SUNY/Stony Brook, where
she currently is completing her Doctorate of Musical
Arts. In 2011, she was named a winner of the coveted
Pro Musicis International Award and in 2007 was a firstprize
winner of the Brawshaw and Buono International
Piano Competition. For eight years, prior to entering
the university, Ms. Le regularly traveled by plane from
her Nevada home to the San Francisco Bay area for her
piano lessons.
On Friday, Oct. 25, 2013, at 3 p.m., Ms. Le will conduct
master classes for selected students at Kreielsheimer
Hall on the Saint Martin’s campus. Both Saturday’s
recital and Friday’s master classes are open to the
public, though seating is limited for both events.
Abbey Church Events is an annual concert/lecture series
established by the monks of Saint Martin’s Abbey in
1980. The series brings gifted musicians and recognized
academics to the Abbey Church. Abbey Church Events
is funded by the interest on
a small endowment established
by the monks of Saint
Martin’s Abbey, as well as by
free-will donations, bequests
and occasional grants. All
events on the series are free
to the public, though a freewill
donation is suggested.
Alexandria Le
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 31

What΄s been happening at Saint Martin΄s
January 15:
At long last
The University’s new
engineering building,
Fr. Richard Cebula, O.S.B. Hall,
opens its doors to students
on the first day of spring
semester. Awaiting the
students are state-of-the-art
classrooms and labs in the
innovative, sustainably built
three-story building.
February 2: Focus on leadership
As part of their community leadership summit, SMU
student leaders welcome Father Doug Mullin, O.S.B.
from Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota.
Mullin delivers a keynote address on the role of
Benedictine values in a leader’s work. Later in the day,
University trustees participate in a discussion on the
personal journey of leadership.
January 30: Accreditation affirmed
Saint Martin’s is reaccredited by the
Northwest Commission on Colleges
and Universities, which commends the
University for its forward-thinking strategic
planning, systematic program assessment
of values integration, enhanced student
engagement through community
programming, and robust engagement of
the board of trustees.
February 4: Welcome back, soldiers!
More than 3,000 visitors gather at Marcus
Pavilion for a welcome-home celebration
honoring members of the 3rd Stryker Brigade
Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division.
The event, hosted by the Lacey sub-chapter
of the Association of the United States Army,
recognizes soldiers returning from Afghanistan.
32 | www.stmartin.edu

February 8-10:
Saints come home
Homecoming returns to campus,
drawing more than 100 alumni for a
weekend filled with activities.
February 10:
Generosity at its best
At the annual Scholarship
Luncheon, Saint Martin’s says
“thank you” to benefactors who
invest in students through gifts and
scholarship endowments.
February 15-18:
Golf and sunshine
Friends and alumni
head to Palm Springs,
California, for Saint
Martin’s annual Desert
Rendezvous.
March 10-15: Alternative spring break trip
Ten SMU students and three faculty/staff members travel
to Yakima for a weeklong immersion trip focused on
social justice advocacy. Working in coordination with
Catholic Charities, the students make quilts to be used in
housing communities, participate in a College Night for
high school students, help teach ESL classes, and visit an
orchard, where they meet with farm workers and a farm
manager.
February 9: Take a bow, inductees!
SMU welcomes new inductees into the Hall of Fame/
Hall of Honor, and launches the High School Hall of Fame
to recognize individuals whose achievements are linked
to Saint Martin’s High School.
March 6-9: Hoopin’ it up
For the second consecutive
year, Saint Martin’s hosts the
GNAC men’s and women’s
basketball championship
tournament. Thousands
take to the stands of Marcus
Pavilion over the course of
four days to root their teams
on to victory.
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 33

What΄s been happening at Saint Martin΄s
March 26: The lecture to end all lectures?
Selected by Saint Martin’s students, Father David Pratt, Ph.D., assistant professor of philosophy, delivers
the University’s fourth annual Last Lecture. Sponsored by ASSMU, the Last Lecture program centers
on the question, “If this were your last lecture before a group of students, what would you say?” Pratt’s
topic: “The End of Lecturing.”
March 23: Cheers!
The Saint Martin’s Alumni
Association presents
the 24th Annual Capital
Food and Wine Festival,
showcasing the best
vintners, microbrewers and
restaurateurs of the South
Sound.
April 5-7:
Rolling out Cebula’s
red carpet
Saint Martin’s showcases Cebula
Hall as an event venue, hosting
more than 100 engineers and
engineering students from the
Puget Sound for the Society
of Women Engineers’ regional
conference. Two weeks later,
Cebula holds the regional annual
conference for the American
Society of Mechanical Engineers.
April 18:
Serving Centralia
A partnership that authorizes SMU to offer baccalaureate degree
programs to Centralia College students while they remain on
the Centralia campus is officially renewed at a signing ceremony
attended by the presidents of both institutions. Centralia students
have the option of pursuing bachelor’s degrees from Saint Martin’s in
elementary education, criminal justice and, this fall, accounting.
April 8-12: Break the silence
SMU calls for an end to sexual violence during its fifth
annual Sexual Assault Awareness Week. Urging the campus
and local community to speak out on the issue, the week’s
activities include a self-defense class and a “Take Back the
Night” candlelight march on April 11.
April 22: Two dedications, one great day
The Saint Martin’s community is blessed with a beautiful, sunny
Earth Day for two campus celebrations — the dedication of the
Father Prior Alfred J. Hulscher, O.S.B. Courtyard (pictured), followed
by the dedication of Fr. Richard Cebula, O.S.B. Hall. The events draw
friends and alumni from as far away as Saudi Arabia.
34 | www.stmartin.edu

April 23: Scholars Day
and Honors Convocation
The Saint Martin’s community
celebrates student scholarship
during this day focused on
academic achievement.
May 7: Saints and stewards
The Association of Washington Business (AWB) honors Saint Martin’s with a 2013 Environmental
Excellence Award in Sustainable Communities and Green Building. The award recognizes the University
for its construction of Cebula Hall as a “green” facility. Two SMU representatives — Roy F. Heynderickx,
Ph.D., president, and Zella Kahn-Jetter, Ph.D., P.E., dean of The Hal and Inge Marcus School of Engineering
— are present to accept the honor at AWB’s 21st annual environmental awards in Spokane. “These
award winners are meeting the needs of their customers and taking care of their communities while
showing that environmental sustainability is a smart way to do business,” says Don Brunell, president of
AWB. “Employers like these are making the world a better place and strengthening the economy at the
same time. They are also an excellent example of the fact that Washington is such a great place to live
and do business.”
May 13-23: London calling
Eight SMU students kick off their summer with a
study trip to London and Stratford-upon-Avon.
Led by Stephen Mead, Ph.D., professor of English,
the students see two plays at the
Globe Theatre, take in four West End shows,
and enjoy a backstage tour of the National
Theatre. In the bard’s hometown, they visit the
Royal Shakespeare Company theatre, where
they watch performances of Titus Andronicus
and Hamlet.
April 27: Dragon Boat Festival
Competition heats up on the
water as 32 teams paddle it out
on Budd Bay at the Port of
Olympia. This year marks Saint
Martin’s eighth annual Dragon
Boat Festival, sponsored by the
Office of International Programs
and Development.
©2013, Rebecca Marsh
May 23: Well done, team!
Lacey City Council honors the SMU
women’s softball team for the coaches’
and players’ commitment to excellence
both on the field and in their community.
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 35

Fulbright Scholars plan work abroad
Dan Windisch
This spring, Dan Windisch, Ed.D.,
professor of education, was selected
to be on the Fulbright
roster for five years as an education
and counseling specialist.
The Fulbright Specialist Program
promotes linkages between U.S.
academics and professionals and
their counterparts at host institutions
overseas. As a Fulbright Specialist, Windisch is eligible
for a grant to engage in a short-term collaborative two- to
six-week project at an institution abroad.
Windisch doesn’t have immediate plans for the potential
grant opportunity but anticipates he will use it to support
work in Tanzania he’ll be commencing this summer. The
project comes at the behest of the Archbishop of Songea,
Tanzania, who recently invited Windisch to Songea to provide
advice on “matters concerning guidance and counseling”
for both the college of medicine and education faculty
at Saint Augustine University.
“Currently, Tanzanian universities do not teach Westernstyle
counseling,” explains Windisch, who serves as director
of the Master of Education guidance and school counseling
strand at Saint Martin’s. “Based on talks I’ve had with
Father Hugo, a Tanzanian priest who completed the Master
of Arts in Counseling Psychology program at Saint Martin’s
last year, there is a need to have Western counseling approaches
as part of the college curriculum. I am very honored
and humbled that they have asked for my help.”
Windisch will visit Tanzania June 24 – July 3 to begin exploring
the possibility of establishing a Western-style counseling
program in Songea. In the same trip, he will be accompanying
his wife, Susan Leyster, director of service immersion
programs at Saint Martin’s, to Saint Anne’s Orphanage and
School in Chipole, Tanzania, to set up a month-long service
trip for Saint Martin’s students next summer.
Jeff Birkenstein
Jeff Birkenstein, Ph.D., professor of English, will be teaching
at the Institute of Foreign Languages of Petrozavodsk State
University, formerly known as Karelian State Pedagogical
Academy, thanks to a Fulbright Teaching/Research Award
he received for the fall 2013 semester. KSPA is a school in
northwest Russia that Birkenstein first visited in 2012 with
his English Department colleague, Jamie Olson, Ph.D.
As a Fulbright Scholar, Birkenstein will be teaching advanced
English writing, speaking and oral argumentation classes as
well as literature courses, specifically American and Russian
short stories, at KSPA.
“Nearly all major modern English-language
short story writers
— from James Joyce to Sherwood
Anderson to Gertrude Stein to
Ernest Hemingway to Raymond
Carver and beyond — have been
influenced by Russian writers,” explains
Birkenstein. “Thus, to teach
the modern short story is to teach
the Russian short story as well. If
a deeper understanding of the
genre is the goal, then Russian short stories are inextricable
from the American version of the genre.”
Birkenstein also will use his Fulbright award for research,
which he plans to conduct with Igor Krasnov, a KSPA professor
with whom he connected during his 2012 visit. In
collaboration with Krasnov, Birkenstein will explore best
practices for teaching the history of the modern short story
across cultures and will examine how authors from different
countries have mined the common experience of life
to produce structurally similar, yet culturally distinct, stories.
Specifically, the two professors will focus on how food is used
as a narrative device in the short story.
Part of being a Fulbright Scholar, says Birkenstein, is being
a cultural ambassador. He credits his global outlook to
his family, who cultivated a curiosity about other cultures.
“When I was fourteen, my grandparents took me on a trip
to central Europe, including Hungary, Czechoslovakia (then
both Communist) and Germany,” says Birkenstein. “The
world opened up to me then and I realized that people are
people everywhere and cannot be neatly fit into blocks of
people with simplistic and shared ideologies.” u
36 | www.stmartin.edu

Faculty updates
Amanie Abdelmessih, Ph.D., professor of mechanical
engineering, served on a panel, “Graduate Student Funding,”
and presented the article, “Preparing for the Fundamentals
of Engineering Exam,” at the Society of Women
Engineers’ 2013 Region J Conference, held at Saint Martin’s
Cebula Hall. Abdelmessih is a co-track organizer of
Track 10: Heat Transfer in Electronic Equipment for the 2013
Heat Transfer Conference, to be held in July in Minneapolis;
her article, “Steady State Temperature Gradients in the
Non-Blinking Human Eye Prepared for Surgery,” has been
accepted for publication at the same conference. Her article,
“Design and Construction of an Instrumented Instructional
Small Scale Rankine Vapor Power Cycle by and for
Undergraduate Students,” co-authored with five Saint Martin’s
undergraduates, was published in the proceedings of
last year’s Heat Transfer Conference. Another article, “Synchronous
Distance Learning For Undergraduate Thermal
Engineering Courses Trials and Improvements,” which
Abdelmessih co-authored with Irina Gendelman, Ph.D.,
associate professor of communication, was published in the
proceedings of the 2012 American Society for Engineering
Education Conference.
Todd Barosky, Ph.D., assistant professor of English,
presented his paper, “Counterfeiting a Currency, a Character,
and a Calling in the Memoirs of Stephen Burroughs,” at
the 2013 annual conference of the American Society for
Eighteenth Century Studies, held in Cleveland, Ohio, in
April. Barosky’s article, “Legal and Illegal Moneymaking:
Colonial American Counterfeiters and the Novelization of
Eighteenth-Century Crime Literature,” was published in the
winter 2012 edition of the journal Early American Literature.
Jeff Birkenstein, Ph.D., associate professor of English, was
invited to present “How ‘Significant Food’ Makes a Short
Story into a Meal” at the Liminality and the Short Story
International Conference, held in March at the University
of Würzburg, Germany. Birkenstein’s book, The Cinema of
Terry Gilliam: It’s a Mad World, which he co-edited with Anna
Froula and Karen Randell, was published by Columbia
University Press/Wallflower Press in April. His essay, “The
Houses that Alice Munro Built: Community in The Love of a
Good Woman,” was published in Critical Insights: Alice Munro,
edited by Charles E. May, last fall. Another essay, “‘Globals’
and the American Dream: A Survey of Student Aspirations
in an American Studies Course,” co-written with Robert
Hauhart, Ph.D., associate professor of criminal justice,
was published this year in the journal, Perspectives on Global
Development and Technology.
Julia Chavez, Ph.D., assistant professor of English, is one
of 20 faculty members nationwide chosen by the Council of
Independent Colleges and Harvard University’s Center for
Hellenic Studies to participate in an Ancient Greece in the
Modern Classroom seminar on the Iliad. The five-day seminar
will take place in July at the Center for Hellenic Studies
in Washington, DC. In April, Chavez presented her paper,
“Following the Footsteps of the Brontes: Elizabeth Gaskell’s
Animal Stories” at the annual conference of the Victorian
Studies Association of Western Canada in Vancouver, BC.
Radana Dvorak, Ph.D., associate dean of extended learning,
and Zella Kahn-Jetter, Ph.D., P.E., dean of The Hal
and Inge Marcus School of Engineering, headlined “Expanding
Your Horizons,” a math, science and technology
conference for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade girls. The
conference, held at South Puget Sound Community College
in March, featured a discussion by Dvorak about computing
and graphic design gaming and a presentation by Kahn-
Jetter about engineers’ role in making the world a better
place. Saint Martin’s students Christy Castanares, BSCE ’13,
and Mieko Grant, BSCE ’13, also presented their senior capstone
design projects to the attendees.
Aaron Goings, Ph.D., assistant professor of history,
completed his first book, Community in Conflict: A Working-
Class History of the 1913–14 Michigan Copper Strike and the Italian
Hall Tragedy. The book, coauthored with Gary Kaunonen,
Ph.D., will be published by Michigan State University Press
and released in July. The book led to a number of smaller
projects, including an article that ran in the May/June 2013
issue of Michigan History Magazine and another article to be
published this summer in Chronicle, the quarterly magazine
of the Historical Society of Michigan. Goings and Kaunonen
will be starting a blog about the strike at lawcha.org/
wordpress/committee-portal/labor-online. In early June,
Goings will be presenting on his book at the Labor and
Working-Class History Association Conference in New York.
In January, Goings spoke on “Rooted in the Community:
Finnish American Wobblies in Grays Harbor” at the Nordic
Studies Circle. This spring, he presented the lecture, “Wageslaves
and Radicals: Writing a People’s History of the 1913-14
Michigan Copper Strike” at Michigan State University, and
moderated the panel “Anarchists, Socialists, and Utopians
in the Pacific Northwest” at the Pacific Northwest Labor
History Association conference in Portland, Oregon. In
June, he will be delivering the keynote address at the Upper
Peninsula History Conference in Houghton, Michigan.
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 37

Robert Hauhart, Ph.D., J.D., associate professor of criminal
justice, has signed a contract with Jossey-Bass Publishers,
San Francisco, to write a book on developing and teaching
senior seminar capstone courses across the higher education
curriculum. Hauhart and his co-author, Jon E. Grahe
from Pacific Lutheran University, have become nationally
recognized researchers and instructors on capstone pedagogy.
Starting in 2008, Hauhart and Grahe developed a series
of studies, conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications
on the senior seminar in sociology and psychology.
Their 2010 publication in Teaching Sociology, “The Undergraduate
Capstone Course in the Social Sciences: Results
of a Regional Survey,” was selected as one of three finalists
from over 100 articles nominated nationwide for the Maryellen
Weimer Award, supported by Magna Publications, as
the best research publication on teaching in 2011. This year,
Hauhart had articles published in World Review of Political
Economy, International Journal of Critical Cultural Studies, and
Perspectives on Global Development and Technology. In March, he
presented “Toward a Sociology of the American Dream” at
the 84th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association,
in Reno, Nevada.
John Hopkins, associate dean of students and director
of service and diversity initiatives, presented his paper,
“Justice and American Indian Education: A Reconciliation
Approach,” at the Philosophy of Education Society Annual
Conference in Portland, Oregon, in March. The paper will
be published this year as an article in an upcoming issue of
the journal, Philosophy of Education Society. Last year, Hopkins’
article, “Maori Education: The Politics of Reconciliation and
Citizenship,” was published in Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum,
and his article, “Education of Indigenous Populations,” was
published in Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education.
Louise Kaplan, Ph.D., ARNP, FAANP, director of the
RN-to-BSN program, received the 2013 AANP Advocate
State Award for Excellence. This award, given annually by
the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, honors a
dedicated nurse practitioner advocate in each state who has
made a significant contribution toward increasing awareness
and acceptance of the nurse practitioner’s role. Kaplan
will be recognized in June during the AANP’s national conference
in Las Vegas, where she will be co-presenting her
study, “Evaluation of Washington State Health Professionals
Practices for Patients with Chronic Noncancer Pain,” with
Donelle Howell, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Washington
State University College of Nursing. Also in June, Kaplan
will be a guest speaker at the National Tainan Institute of
Nursing’s 60th anniversary celebration in Tainin, Taiwan.
While in Taiwan, she will be meeting with students, faculty
and staff at a local hospital.
Victor Kogan, Ph.D, professor of criminal justice and
sociology, recently presented on the topic, “If We Like to
Live as Greeks, We Have to Live as Germans,” at the 84th
Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association,
in Reno, Nevada, in March. Kogan also presented in the
association’s 2011 and 2012 annual meetings on the topics,
“Multiculturalism? Assimilation? Lessons from Singapore”
and “Case Against Multi-Citizenship,” respectively.
Kathleen McKain, associate professor of French, has been
invited to present at the 25th International Society for Humor
Studies Conference at the College of William and Mary
in July.
Stephen X. Mead, Ph.D., professor of English, presented
a paper on “Desacralizing the Body Politic: The Deposition
Scene of Richard II” at the annual conference of the Renaissance
Society of America held in San Diego in April.
Jeremy Newton, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology,
served as a co-author with his students, Timothy Templin
and Katrina Tuengel, on poster presentations at the Western
Psychology Association (WPA) Convention in Reno, Nevada,
in April. The students’ posters were based on their senior
thesis projects. Newton, Templin and Tuengel will be attending
the American Psychological Association (APA) Convention
in Hawaii this summer, where they will present a poster
on “Attending Holistically Versus Analytically in an Everyday
Environment.” This project is part of continuing research in
the experimental psychology lab looking at individual differences
in how people of different cultures remember scenes
from their environment. A number of other Saint Martin’s
students will be attending, and contributing poster presentations
to, the APA convention as well.
Additionally, Newton is a co-author on a poster presentation,
“Working Memory Capacity as a Moderator in the Processing
of Intrusion,” with Ling-Jun Liu, who was an exchange
student at Saint Martin’s. Liu is pursuing her graduate education
at Chung Shan Medical University in Taiwan, and this
presentation represents work that was started in a class that
she took with Newton at Saint Martin’s.
William “Scott” Norris, adjunct business faculty, received
the 2012 Joint Base Lewis-McChord Distinguished Faculty
Award in February.
38 | www.stmartin.edu

Jamie Olson, Ph.D., assistant professor of English, wrote
book reviews that recently appeared in Berfrois, Translation
Review and The Minneapolis Star Tribune. Last October, he organized
and moderated a roundtable of seasoned translators
under the title “The Routine of Translation: Strategies,
Habits, and Everyday Life” at the annual conference of the
American Literary Translators Association in Rochester, New
York. Olson’s translations of poems by Russian author Timur
Kibirov are forthcoming in TWO LINES Online, a publication
of the Center for the Art of Translation in San Francisco.
David Price, Ph.D., professor of sociology and cultural
anthropology, was a keynote speaker at the annual meeting
of the Swedish Anthropological Association in Uppsala,
Sweden, in April. Price’s address on “Counterinsurgency
by Other Names: Complicating Humanitarian Applied Anthropology
in Current, Former and Future Warzones,” examined
how shifts in American counterinsurgency practices
now threaten the independence of humanitarian aid groups
working in warzones.
Scott Andrew Schulz, Ph.D., dean of enrollment, has
been invited to serve on the College Board National Forum
Program Planning Committee. In September, he will
be presenting the session, “Building for the Future: How to
Construct Underserved Student Pipelines,” at the national
conference of the National Association for College Admissions
Counseling, held in Toronto.
Sarah Weiss, director of admissions, and Michelle
Splinter Ofelt, assistant director of admissions/multicultural
initiatives coordinator, presented the session, “Working
with First Generation College Students — Two Campus
Experiences, One Goal!”, at the Pacific Northwest Association
for College Admissions Counseling Annual Conference
in May. The session included a discussion of Saint Martin’s
admissions and retention programs designed specifically to
help first-generation college students succeed on campus.
A visit from the mayor
On April 24, Olympia Mayor Stephen Buxbaum offered
his expertise to Saint Martin’s students in a governmental
accounting course taught by Michael Cohen, Ph.D.,
assistant professor of accounting.
Buxbaum gave a presentation on budgeting within state
and local governments, and also discussed some of the
fiscal challenges facing Thurston County in light of the
nationwide economic downturn over the past several
years. The mayor encouraged participation and questions
from the audience, which in addition to students included
Richard Beer, Ph.D., dean of the School of Business,
and Paul Patterson, associate professor of business and
economics.
“I was thrilled to have had the mayor speak to our class,” says
Cohen. “It gave the class a real-life government experience
from someone who is fully accountable and responsible for
the fiscal policies of Olympia. While students read about
these issues in a textbook, the mayor’s discussion brought
the entire budgeting process to life.”
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 39

Traditional Chinese Medicine comes to campus
Years before Dr. Heng Li became a medical doctor and Traditional
Chinese Medicine (TCM) physician, he initially had
some doubts about TCM.
“I did not like TCM, in the beginning. I once thought it was
witch doctor’s stuff,” says Li, who spent five weeks as a visiting
professor at Saint Martin’s University this spring.
“I have an uncle, a top authority on acupuncture in China,
who warned me, ‘One day, you’re going to fall in love with
Traditional Chinese Medicine.’ And I did!” recalls Li, a fifthgeneration
TCM physician within his family.
Li is assistant director and associate professor at Shanghai
University’s China Shanghai International Acupuncture
and Moxibustion Training Center. He is also chief doctor
in the Acupuncture and Tuina Department of the Municipal
Clinic Hua Dong Hospital. Li shared his knowledge and
passion for Traditional Chinese Medicine, a 2,000-year-old
discipline, with students enrolled in “Traditional Chinese
Medicine and Evidence-Based Practice,” the introductory
course for students enrolled in Saint Martin’s RN-to-BSN
nursing program.
Li’s visit is the result of a sister-university relationship Saint
Martin’s has shared with the Shanghai University of Traditional
Chinese Medicine since 2008. Students from the
Shanghai school are typically sent to Saint Martin’s for summer
cultural exchange activities, and Li is the second visiting
professor to arrive on the Lacey campus.
For Li, his stint as a guest lecturer is all part of his main mission:
to spread accurate information and knowledge about
Traditional Chinese Medicine to the Western world, and to
more fully integrate TCM with Western medicine. Today,
Traditional Chinese Medicine is practiced alongside Western
medicine in clinics and hospitals throughout China,
and TCM has become a very common practice in the United
States.
“In China,” Li explains, “Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors
are also M.D.s, medical doctors. We first treat a patient
just like an M.D. would. Then, following a consultation and
an examination, we use Traditional Chinese Medicine to
treat their problem.”
TCM practices include: Tuina (pronounced “twee nah”),
a type of body massage; acupuncture; herbal therapy;
dietary therapy; cupping (applying a heated cup to the
skin); moxibustion (burning and applying a raw herb in
conjunction with acupuncture); and Tai Ji and Qi Gong
mind-body therapies.
In addition to serving as a guest lecturer, Li is assisting Saint
Martin’s in planning an exhibit about Traditional Chinese
Medicine. The two universities are cosponsoring the exhibit,
which is scheduled to be held July 18-20 on the Saint Martin’s
campus. For more information about the TCM exhibit,
visit www.stmartin.edu/tcm2013. u
40 | www.stmartin.edu

Unsinkable Saints
A concrete canoe may not sound like a badge of honor
— that is, unless you are an engineering student who sees
the canoe as an opportunity to showcase ingenuity and
determination.
Every spring, college teams across the U.S. participate in
one of 18 conference competitions, all vying for a coveted
spot in the American Society of Civil Engineers’ National
Concrete Canoe Competition. To qualify, teams must place
first in their regional competition. At this year’s Pacific
Northwest conference competition, held at Oregon State
University, Saint Martin’s student team made a remarkable
showing, placing second overall.
In the racing portion of the competition, Saint Martin’s
engineers claimed victory over the eventual first-place
winner, the University of Washington.
Why should student engineers build a concrete canoe? John
Sladek, associate professor of engineering and the team’s
faculty advisor, says the competition is an opportunity for
students to apply engineering principles they learn in the
classroom, plus exercise team and project management
skills.
“This project is totally student-directed, so they lead
themselves,” explains Sladek. “The work is intensive, and
comes on top of the other requirements of spring semester,
yet most of the team put in between 10 and 20 hours on the
project each week, and most of spring break.”
There is far more to the annual competition than building
a concrete canoe that can float. Student teams are judged
on: the engineering design and construction principles
they used; a technical design report detailing the planning,
development, testing and construction of their canoe;
a formal business presentation highlighting the canoe’s
design, construction, racing ability and other innovative
features; and performance of the canoe and the paddlers in
five different race events.
The students on the Saint Martin’s team included Christy
Castanares, Tyler Davis, Alyssa Edwards, Mieko Grant,
Jordan Jones, Chet Kocan, Daniel Lillie, Chris Luzik, Kyle
Mauren, J.G. McCall, Eric Norton, Anne Petrich, Veronica
Raub, Tim Sole and Morgan Watkins.
“These students have built something more than a
canoe,” adds Sladek. “They may not remember a lot of the
assignments they did in class, but 20 years from now, they’ll
remember the concrete canoe competition and the other
students they worked with.” u
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 41

Psalms shine in newly
acquired manuscript
A copy of the Great Canterbury Psalter, also called the
Anglo-Catalan Psalter, an illuminated medieval manuscript
of the Book of Psalms, recently arrived at
Saint Martin’s University from the Spanish publishing
house Moleiro. The artists and bookbinders at
Moleiro produced an exact copy of the Psalter —
so exact that it even includes thumb smudges seen
on the original pages. The manuscript is a gift of
the Father Benedict Auer Poetry Endowment.
Crafted by Benedictine monks more than 800
years ago, the original Psalter was intended to
be a copy of the famous Utrecht Psalter, which was
created in the ninth century and acquired by the
monks of Canterbury around the year 1000. In the
Utrecht Psalter, each one of the 150 Psalms is accompanied by
an illumination depicting a passage from the Psalm. Work
on the Great Canterbury Psalter began in Canterbury around
the year 1180, but the manuscript was left unfinished. In the
year 1200, it was taken to Catalonia in northeastern Spain,
perhaps as gift. In the mid-1300s, the illumination of the
Psalter was completed by Catalan artists, possibly working
out of Barcelona.
The final Psalter produced in Catalonia includes three parallel
columns of texts written in Latin, Hebrew and Catalan.
The gifted Catalan artists also added illuminated scenes
from the Old and New Testaments at the beginning of the
Psalter. Measuring 20" x 14", the manuscript has 356 pages
with 140 miniatures embellished with gold, and includes
190 ornamental letters upon gold backgrounds.
Top spots • • •
• In its evaluation of general education requirements at
1,070 colleges and universities across the country, the
American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gave
Saint Martin’s the highest grade of any college or university
in the state of Washington — a “B” — for its core of
courses. Saint Martin’s was the only institution in Washington
to receive a “B” grade, holding the top spot above 16
other schools. ACTA, an independent, non-profit organization
that works with alumni, donors, trustees and education
leaders across the United States to support liberal
arts education, issued the grades in its report, What Will
They Learn? Unlike other college rankings, ACTA does not
consider an institution’s wealth, prestige or popularity in
its grading system. Rather, ACTA rates institutions on what
courses all students in a school’s B.A. and B.S. degree programs
are required to take.
• Earlier this year, Saint Martin’s was named a “College of
Distinction” for its student engagement, great teaching, vibrant
communities and successful outcomes. Colleges and
universities are nominated for participation in the “Colleges
of Distinction” program by high school college counselors,
and selection is based on information gleaned from
college admission experts around the country, as well as
site visits and interviews with staff and faculty, high school
counselors, and administrators at other institutions. In receiving
this honor, Saint Martin’s is identified as having
some of the most exciting classrooms and most innovative
programs in the country.
• Saint Martin’s ranks in the top 10 percent of colleges and
universities nationwide for return on investment, according
to PayScale’s 2013 College Education ROI Rankings.
PayScale.com ranked more than 1,500 higher education
institutions in the U.S., including private, public and forprofit
schools, to determine the potential financial return
of attending each school given the cost of tuition and the
payoff in median lifetime earnings associated with each
school. Saint Martin’s was ranked 116th, one spot ahead of
the University of Washington.
42 | www.stmartin.edu

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Traditional Chinese Medicine Exhibit
Thursday, July 18-Saturday, July 20
Cebula Hall
Saint Martin’s University presents a three-day event featuring
presentations by students and faculty from Shanghai University
of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Take a fascinating look at
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a form of holistic health care
that has been in continuous practice for thousands of years.
For more information, visit www.stmartin.edu/tcm2013.
30th Annual Golf Tournament
Friday, Aug. 3
Capitol City Golf Club
Celebrate three decades of “teeing off for Saints Athletics”! Join
friends and fellow alumni for Saint Martin’s 30th Annual Golf
Tournament, benefiting the University’s athletic programs. The
deadline for declaring foursomes is July 20. To learn more or to
register online, please visit www.stmartin.edu/golftournament.
Robert A. Harvie Social Justice Lecture
Friday, Sept. 27, 4 p.m.
Harned Hall
Jeff Torlina, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at Utah Valley
University, will kick off the 2013-14 series with his lecture,
“Peace and Justice in Northern Ireland: A Model Peace and Justice
Studies Program.” For more details, contact Robert Hauhart, Ph.D.,
associate professor of criminal justice, at 360-438-4525 or
rhauhart@stmartin.edu.
Inaugural Benedictine Institute Lecture:
Eboo Patel, Author of Acts of Faith
Thursday, Oct. 3, time TBD
Marcus Pavilion
Named by US News & World Report as one of “America’s Best
Leaders,” Eboo Patel is the founder and president of Interfaith
Youth Core, based in Chicago. Rooted in the belief that religion
is a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division, Patel
has written two books about interfaith cooperation, Acts of Faith
and Sacred Ground. Saint Martin’s is honored to welcome Patel
to campus for the inaugural Benedictine Institute Lecture, an
evening event focused on faith, service and leadership. For more
details, contact Sarah Holdener, director of event services, at
sholdener@stmartin.edu or 360-438-4403.
Saint Martin’s University Pacific Northwest
Social Action Lecture
Wednesday, Oct. 30, noon
Harned Hall
Richard Burton, political action coordinator for the Washington
State Nurses Association, will be the second featured lecturer
in this new speaker series presented by Saint Martin’s History
and Political Science Department. For more information,
contact Aaron Goings, Ph.D., assistant professor of history, at
360-438-4406 or agoings@stmartin.edu.
Saint Martin’s Gala
Saturday, Nov. 2, 7 p.m.
Marcus Pavilion
Lift your forks and raise your wine glasses — Chef Michael
Symon is coming to the Saint Martin’s Gala! From the on-stage
Viking kitchen, Symon will deliver his unique brand of epicurean
entertainment, preparing a signature gourmet dinner from a
menu created exclusively for the scholarship fundraiser. Guests
will enjoy a delicious celebration featuring specially selected
wine and an exciting live auction. For more information, please
visit www.stmartin.edu/gala or contact Bianca Galam in the
Office of Institutional Advancement, 360-486-8885 or
gala@stmartin.edu.
Jingle Bell Run
Saturday, Dec. 7, 10 a.m.
Marcus Pavilion
Run, walk or stroll the 5K route on Saint Martin’s beautiful
wooded campus and enjoy the sights and sounds of the holiday
season along the way. Afterwards, recharge with Christmas cookies
and a cup of cocoa, and have your photo taken with Santa.
Registration opens Oct. 1. Visit www.stmartin.edu/jinglebellrun
to learn more. Thanks to: Presenting Sponsor Puget Sound
Energy; Gold Bell Sponsors Olympia Federal Savings Bank and
Hanson Subaru; and In-Kind Sponsor L&E Bottling Company.
Want to know what’s happening
on campus?
Visit the University’s online calendar of events!
Go to www.stmartin.edu and click on
“SMU Events Calendar.”
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 43

y Kyle Karnofski
Jumping a bar nearly as tall as the average female wasn’t
anything new for the 5'8" senior from Renton, Washington.
Going into college, Tesch had a career personal best jump
of 5'5", which she cleared as a high school freshman.
It wasn’t a matter of if, but when for Laura Tesch. There
had always been the potential for greatness, but a few
factors seemed to keep holding her back. That is, until
this year.
The problem was, she was never able to break that personal
record — not in high school, and not during her first two
years at Humboldt State, the Division II school she attended
in California. At Humboldt, Tesch reached 5'4¼" — good
enough for second best in school history, but still a disappointment
for the competitive athlete.
44 | www.stmartin.edu

Saint Martin’s
Saint Martin’s
“ Saint Martin ’ s was a great fit for me,” Tesch says.
“I ’ m glad that I came here.”
“I just missed home so much,” Tesch recalls. Aside from
homesickness, she faced the frustration of repeated knee
injuries, which kept her from competing at the level she
knew she was capable of.
But was she still capable? Despite her impressive past
performance, Tesch battled doubts. Her personal best had
been so long ago; she wondered if she would ever break her
mark again.
In fall of 2011, Tesch transferred to Saint Martin’s with
enough time to train and compete in a few track and field
meets that year. Something clicked. By the following spring,
she had broken the school record in outdoor track and
field and placed seventh in the Great Northwest Athletic
Conference (GNAC) Championships.
Going into her senior season, Tesch and track and field
coach Chad Colwell decided to take a different approach
to training. She rested more. During the summer, she went
to physical therapy. And, while she focused on healing her
body, she also concentrated on event-specific training to
maximize her high jump.
“I ran a lot of hills and stairs over the summer,” Tesch says
with a laugh.
As Tesch rebuilt her strength, Colwell made a bold decision
for his leading jumper: He changed her technique. Rather
than having Tesch use her normal 10-step approach, he
altered it to an eight-step.
“Having a more consistent approach, along with being
healthier, allows for the ability to improve,” Colwell says.
“Laura is incredibly talented. We just needed to train the
approach first in order to make it more consistent.”
The formula worked. At the first indoor meet of the season
at Boise State, Tesch broke her own school record with a
jump of 5'3". At a University of Washington meet, she oneupped
herself again with a new personal best of 5'5¾". In
the third meet of the year, she smashed her own record
with an amazing jump of 5'6½".
Heading into the GNAC finals last February, Tesch — a twotime
Red Lion GNAC Athlete of the Week — was ranked
13th in the nation and first in the GNAC in women’s high
jump. She placed second at the GNAC Championships,
jumping 5'5¼". In fact, she equaled the eventual champion’s
mark; her second-place honors came only by virtue of a
tiebreaker, based on missed attempts.
Tesch’s provisional mark of 5'6½" was enough to earn
the athlete a trip to Alabama for the national indoor
championship on March 9. Her achievement also landed
her in the books at Saint Martin’s, where she now stands as
the only female in the school’s history to compete in the
indoor championship.
Tesch, the lone Saint Martin’s participant in the
championship and one of only 18 female high-jumpers
selected to compete in her event, wasn’t fazed by the level
of competition, thanks in part to some advice Coldwell gave
her. Emphasizing consistency, he told her that, no matter
what happened, it was going to be a “normal competition.”
He also encouraged Tesch to “enjoy it as much as you can
while being focused” because only a few athletes get such
an opportunity.
“I definitely wanted to keep everything the same and keep
my routine and steps consistent to what I had been doing
all year,” she says. “I did my best to stay calm and treat it like
a normal event.”
Tesch earned a 15th place finish, nearly achieving a new
personal best.
After clearing 5'3" and 5'5" on her first two attempts, she
tried something she had never before accomplished: a
jump of 5'7". In her three tries at the height, she nearly did
clear it.
“I got really close,” Tesch says.
Tesch graduated in May, the proud owner of two school
records — one for indoor high jump, and the other for
outdoor.
“Saint Martin’s was a great fit for me,” she says. “I’m glad that
I came here.” u
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 45

As a sophomore, Patrick recorded three top-ten finishes,
improving his stroke average by nearly three strokes
between his freshman and sophomore season. The brothers
combined for seven top-ten finishes together the last two
seasons.
Teammates for life
by Kyle Karnofski
Jack Whealdon
Most coaches consider it a luxury to have brothers on the
same team for a year; having brothers as teammates for
multiple years is the stuff of dreams.
Jack and Patrick may share brotherly love off the green, but
on the course, they are as competitive as it gets.
“In high school, we were pretty competitive,” notes Patrick.
“We went at each other pretty hard for that number-one
spot.”
Still, Jack admits that he loves seeing Patrick do well.
“You’re out there as an individual, but if the team does well,
that’s even better,” says Jack. “If one of those guys on the
team is your younger brother, well, then that’s just a bonus.”
For the second year in a row, that dream has been a reality
for the men’s golf team, thanks to sibling-Saints Jack and
Patrick Whealdon.
The Whealdon brothers hail from Ilwaco, a small fishing
community on the Washington coast. With its cool, rainy
weather, Ilwaco may not be a hot golfing destination, but it
is home to one of the most successful boys’ golf traditions
in the state.
As students at Ilwaco High School, the Whealdons played
a prominent role in that tradition. At state, their teams
combined to finish first four times, second twice, and fourth
twice; individually, they boasted several top-ten finishes.
The Whealdon brothers also competed in the Washington
Junior Golf Association, which, both Jack and Patrick say,
prepared them to play in college.
Jack made the decision to attend Saint Martin’s and, as a
freshman, quickly launched a successful college career. In
his first year, he competed at the NCAA Division II Regional
Tournament and was named the 2010 GNAC Freshman of
the Year.
After completing two years of college golf, Jack talked
Patrick into continuing their golf careers together at Saint
Martin’s. Even with offers from other universities on the
table, Patrick decided that SMU was the best fit for him.
This year, the two have enjoyed joint success. Jack finished
tied for 11th at this year’s GNAC Championships,
his best-ever finish at the conference championships.
Patrick Whealdon
In May, Jack graduated with a degree in business administration.
Patrick will return to the golf team in 2013-14 as a
junior — minus his brother.
This won’t be the end of their golfing journey together,
though, says Jack.
“I know Patrick and I will get the opportunity to play together
many more times in tournaments down the road,”
he says. “But just knowing that, no matter what happens,
this won’t be the last time we’re together is reassuring.” u
46 | www.stmartin.edu

Saint Martin’s
New faces
The Saint Martin’s University Athletic Department has
welcomed the following new staff members:
Chad Colwell, who in January was
named interim head coach of track and
field and cross country, was elevated to
head coach in April. Prior to his arrival,
Colwell served as head track and field
coach at the University of Great Falls in
Montana.
Kara Peterson came to Saint Martin’s
in February as the new head volleyball
coach. In 15 seasons as coach of Black
Hills High School, she took her
volleyball team to the state tournament
12 times. Peterson played volleyball for
the University of Washington.
Kelly Kavanaugh was named assistant
volleyball coach in the spring. Kavanaugh
comes to Saint Martin’s from the
University of Alaska Anchorage, where
he was an assistant coach. Prior to
that, he coached high school volleyball
and served as director of Alaska ICE
Volleyball and the USA Volleyball High
Performance Program.
Michael Ostlund became the head
men’s basketball coach in April. He
brings 16 years of coaching experience
to Saint Martin’s. Ostlund most recently
served as the head coach at Snow College
in Utah, where, during his final two
seasons, he posted a record of 44-19. Ostlund also served
as an assistant coach at Weber State University and as an
assistant coach at Saint Martin’s from 1997 to 2002.
Dee Dee Montgomery, a former Olympian
athlete, joined the track and field
coaching staff this spring. Montgomery
competed in the 1996 Olympics in
Atlanta and was a national champion at
Louisiana State University. She arrived in
Lacey with head coaching experience at
University of Dayton and Vanderbilt University.
Winter All-GNAC awards
Saint Martin’s
Men’s basketball
Saint Martin’s claimed six Academic All-GNAC selections,
tying a GNAC record for most by a men’s basketball team.
Brady Bomber and Roger O’Neill earned Honorable Mention
All-GNAC honors.
Women’s basketball
Chelsea Haskey was a Second Team All-GNAC pick for the
Saints as she ranked ninth in the GNAC in scoring (14 ppg)
and eighth in rebounding (6.3 rpg).
Keeping up with Kyle
In January, men’s basketball player Kyle Karnofski launched
a blog dedicated to Saints Athletics. In his blog, he shares
special features on athletes, game recaps and athlete player
profiles. “One of my goals is to shed light on what it’s like to
be a student-athlete, balancing athletics and academics,”
says Karnofski.
Hailing from Castle Rock, Washington,
Karnofski lettered in basketball, football
and baseball during all four years of his
high school career. Growing up, he knew
he wanted to play college basketball.
He was given the chance to make that
dream a reality when he joined the
Saints as a walk-on in the fall of 2009.
Karnofski is working toward a degree in secondary education,
in hopes of becoming a coach and teaching high
school English. “I am also intrigued by the idea of becoming
a sports journalist for a newspaper, magazine or website,”
explains Karnofski.
Look for more stories from Karnofski during the 2013-14
school year at smusaints.blogspot.com.
For the Saints’ athletic schedules,
visit www.smusaints.com.
#saintsalive
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 47

NOTES
1960s
Richard J. Vernetti HS’60, ’66 retired April 30, 2013, after
31 years of federal service. At the time of his retirement,
Richard was working for the Department of Defense’s
Missile Defense Agency in a supervisory position. He was
retired by his boss, Maj. Gen. Heidi V. Brown, and was
awarded the Missile Defense Agency Director’s Career
Achievement Award.
1970s
Ralph Osgood ’79, mayor of Tumwater, received The Life
Saving Award from the Olympia Police Department in May
2013. Osgood was honored for helping a woman who tried
to jump off the Capitol Way Bridge onto Interstate 5.
1980s
1 Nasr Al-Sahhaf ’81 traveled from Saudi Arabia to
attend the dedication celebration for the new Cebula
Hall on April 22, 2013. His mentor from the University
of Washington, Dr. James Wise, joined him. Nasr has
been nominated for membership in the prestigious
International Academy of Astronautics in Paris.
Janice McGrath ’81 is employed as a psychiatric nurse
for the Nevada Department of Corrections in Carson City,
Nevada.
E. Richard Patterson ’85 is the associate vice president
of AECOM in Seattle.
Jerry Wilkins MBA ’88 has served the Thurston County
area for 15 years with the Multiple Listing Service, most
recently with the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
Wilkins, who served 32 years in the military, holds
leadership roles in numerous community organizations,
including treasurer of the Gateway Rotary Club, chairman
of the Gateway Rotary Foundation and commissioner of
the City of Lacey’s Civil Service Commission.
Andrew Oczkewicz ’89 is the manager of the USO
Northwest Shali Center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord,
which recently was honored as the Top Domestic Large
Installation Center. Having served more than 53,000
guests in 2012, the Shali Center was selected from over
100 other USO centers nationwide.
1990s
Helen Miller ’93 is employed as a SQL database
administrator for the Washington State Office of Attorney
General.
Todd Snider ’94 and his wife, Zahra, welcomed Sameena
Masako Snider into the world on Dec. 12, 2012.
Angie DeAguiar ’95 has been named principal of
Meadows Elementary School in the North Thurston
School District.
Sean Kochaniewicz ’95 and his wife, Carrie, welcomed
daughter Finley Maura on Dec. 13, 2012.
Russell Olsen ’97 was appointed to the Thurston Public
Utility District Commission. Olsen, a Department of
Ecology employee, now holds the PUD’s District 2 seat.
2000s
Julie (Thielan) Wyatt ’00 was named Washington State
Science Teacher of the Year.
Jonathan Sprouffske ’04 and his wife, Shelly, welcomed a
third “WeeSki,” Alexander Xavier, on Dec. 3, 2012.
Zac Vawter ’04 made headlines last fall when he climbed
103 flights of stairs to the top of Chicago’s Willis Tower
with a bionic prosthetic leg. After Vawter, a software
engineer, lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident, he
volunteered to help test a robotic leg designed to respond
to electrical impulses from muscles in the hamstring.
The experimental prosthetic, called the “world’s first
neural-controlled bionic leg,” moves when the brain
sends a signal to the leg. The stair-climb was part the
annual “SkyRise Chicago” charity event hosted by the
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, where Vawter was
receiving treatment. Vawter’s story was featured on several
media outlets, including CNN, NPR and CBS This Morning.
Joe Avalos ’05, MAC’10 welcomed daughter Maya Jae Lucia
on March 30, 2013.
Michelle Ramsaur Muth ’05 and husband, Matthew
Muth, celebrated the arrival of daughter Kinley May on
Oct. 18, 2012.
Mark Stead ’05 is head of molecular biology for the New
York Structural Genomics Research Consortium at the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
48 | www.stmartin.edu

2
3
4
2 Lindsay Ford ’06 married C.J. Stuvland, who played
men’s basketball for Willamette University, on June 25,
2010. They have a son, Kade, who was born Nov. 24, 2010,
and a daughter, Emery, who was born July 13, 2012.
Jill Halvorsen ’06 welcomed the arrival of a son, Baron W.,
on Oct. 5, 2012.
Carrie Ooms ’07 and her husband, Edgar, welcomed
daughter Isabella Johanna on Dec. 13, 2012.
3 Tiffany Stewart ’07 is engaged to Stephon Harris ’07.
Joseph Mortillaro ’08 and Erin Whitesel Jones welcomed a
son, Maximilian Martin, on Feb. 27, 2013.
Man Wah “Mackie” Chan ’09, MAC ’12 is employed as a
mental health counselor at Monroe Correctional Complex
in Monroe, Washington.
Ken Hanson ’09 is engaged to Meaghan Carlson ’11.
Clare Lopez ’09 was selected from a group of 26 applicants
to receive a community scholarship from the Santa Maria
Women’s Network. Lopez is a graduate of The Pacific
Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Santa Maria,
California.
Ryan Pantier ’09, MEM’12 and his wife, Mandee,
welcomed a daughter, Natalee Jo, on March 2, 2013.
1
2010s
Danika Lawson ’10, MBA ’11 is employed as division
coordinator for DaVita.
Zach Vella ’10 went to Cape Town, South Africa, and
worked in the Red Cross Children’s Hospital for about
a month. Vella earned a master’s degree in healthcare
emergency management from Boston University. He is
now preparing to move to Philadelphia to attend the
Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
Christopher Cutler ’11 started working in Bellevue as a
construction engineer for CDM Constructors in February
2013. CDM Constructors is a division of CDM Smith.
4 Lauren Higashino ’11 was recently named deputy
coroner in Lewis County, Washington.
Josh Long ’11 has been promoted to PDC/quality manager
at the Clorox/Kingsford plant in Eugene, Oregon, where
he has worked since January 2012.
Ashley Hamilton ’12 was asked by Horizons Elementary
School to apply for an a.m. kindergarten position this
March. “I have an amazing class and I love the school,”
says Ashley. “I am learning so much and can’t thank Saint
Martin’s enough for providing me with the preparation and
training I needed to become an amazing teacher.”
Chason Yamaguchi ’12 works as a flight attendant with
Hawaiian Airlines.
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 49

In memoriam
1930s
Patrick Callahan HS’38
March 28, 2013
Dale Hojem ’38
Dec. 24, 2012
Richard H. Williams HS’39, ’51
April 18, 2013
1940s
Robert Jacques ’42
Nov. 26, 2012
Oliver Judd ’43
Dec. 7, 2012
1950s
Leonard Piccolo ’51
Nov. 4, 2012
Phillip Mitchell ’52
Oct. 30, 2012
John “Ted” Yearian HS’52, ’56
April 13, 2013
Ray (Buddy) Gagnon HS’55
April 6, 2013
James Dorian HS’57
Nov. 15, 2012
William Rhodes Feeney HS’57, ’62
April 26, 2013
Robert Engle ’58
Jan. 27, 2013
Clifford Goodwin ’59
Oct. 8, 2012
1960s
Robert J. Skelton HS’61
Oct. 30, 2012
Hans Kask ’61
Jan. 11, 2013
Brother Basil Kirsch, O.S.B. HS’63, ’70
Dec. 24, 2012
Clark West ’65
March 30, 2013
Marjorie Bryant ’67
April 28, 2013
Melvin R. Mackay ’69
April 22, 2013
1970s
F. Douglas Metz HS’71
April 11, 2013
Gerald Fijalka ’74
Nov. 26, 2012
John Liddell ’74
March 30, 2013
Adaline Tallman ’75
Nov. 21, 2012
Arnold Johnson ’78
Dec. 16, 2012
Terry Lee ’79
Nov. 14, 2012
1980s
J. Martin O’Connor ’80
Nov. 9, 2012
Richard Hensley ’83
Jan. 5, 2013
Randi Johnson ’83
Nov. 24, 2012
Ronald Sundberg MBA’85
Feb. 28, 2013
Elizabeth Mitchell ’86
Nov. 23, 2012
Donna Jean Smith ’88
March 18, 2013
1990s
Curtis Rogers ’90
April 1, 2013
Cynthia Bendemire ’93
Dec. 8, 2012
Mary Mincher MAC’93
April 1, 2013
Kim Dreher ’98
Dec. 30, 2012
2000s
Joann Davis ’06
Nov. 1, 2012
50 | www.stmartin.edu

Alum News
Saints come home{
In February, Saint Martin’s welcomed back more than 100 alumni for
Homecoming Weekend. Festivities included a class reunion celebration,
an alumni pick-up basketball game, campus tours, an alumni pep
rally and reception, and a women’s/men’s basketball double-header.
Thanks for being a part of the fun! Mark your calendar now for next
year’s Homecoming, taking place Feb. 8-9, 2014. For more information,
contact Anna Bradley, 360-412-6155 or abradley@stmartin.edu.
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 51

Alum News
Hall of Fame / Hall of Honor
On Feb. 9, Saints Athletics celebrated the 2013 inductees
into the Saint Martin’s Hall of Fame/Hall of Honor. Four
alumni were honored as inductees: Andy Prentice ’05,
a two-time indoor track and field All-American; Emily
(Thomas) Shipman ’02, the first Saint Martin’s track and
field athlete to win a conference title; Hugh Antonson ’62,
a three-sport athlete at Saint Martin’s High School in the
early 1960s, competing in baseball, basketball and football;
and Jack Sareault HS’53 ’57 (posthumous), a football,
basketball, and track and field athlete at the high school
who returned to coach the track and field team for two seasons.
Recognition also went to inductees David Spangler,
Ph.D., Saint Martin’s president emeritus who led the Saints’
transition from NAIA to NCAA Division II in 1988-89, and
Adolfo Capestany, who has been “The Voice of the Saints”
at Marcus Pavilion for 28 years. Congratulations to these
fine individuals who have contributed so much of their time
and talent to Saints Athletics!
Movers wanted!
Remember the excitement of moving onto campus as a freshman?
Relive that excitement by helping our newest class of Saints move in to their residence halls. Saint Martin’s alumni are invited
to assist with move-in day for first-year students on Friday, Aug. 23 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Big muscles not required — just a
welcoming spirit! Sign up today by contacting Anna Bradley, 360-412-6155 or abradley@stmartin.edu.
Fun in the sun…and sand
Calling all alumni and friends! Join the Saint Martin’s Alumni
Association team as it continues its tradition of participating in
the 2013 Sand in the City sand-sculpting competition.
The sandbox showdown takes place Friday, Aug. 23 at the new
Hands On Children’s Museum in Olympia. Advanced training is
provided by a master sand sculptor. Don’t miss this fun in the sun!
To sign up, contact Emilie Schnabel at 360-438-4592 or
eschnabel@stmartin.edu.
52 | www.stmartin.edu

’ S
•
3 0 t h
a n n
i v e r s a ry
I N
M A R T
•
I N T
g o l f
S A
•
t o u r n a m e n t
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2013
SAINT MARTIN’S 30 TH ANNIVERSARY
Presenting Sponsor Charles Schwab
Capitol City Golf Club
Register your foursome now or learn more about becoming a tournament sponsor!
www.stmartin.edu/golftournament or call 360-438-4366.
INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 53

LAST LOOK
On May 11, 2013,
Saint Martin’s University
officially became the
alma mater of more than
450 graduates. Prompted
by Tom Barte ’68, president
of the Saint Martin’s
Alumni Association,
members of the Class of
2013 turned their tassels
in unison, sparking
jubilation in Marcus
Pavilion. Family members,
friends, faculty, staff
and trustees “packed
the Pavilion” for the
commencement exercises,
which featured Archbishop
J. Peter Sartain as the
honored speaker. A tented
celebration followed at
the Jan Halliday ’89
Memorial Plaza.
#SMUGrads2013
54 | www.stmartin.edu

INSIGHTS SPRING/SUMMER 2013 | 55

Celebrity Chef
2013 Saint Martin
, s Gala
November 2, 2013
www.stmartin.edu/gala
#SMUGala
56 | www.stmartin.edu