Award-Winning Author to Open Atkinson Lecture Series

Professor Azar Nafisi, author of the national bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, will deliver the fall Atkinson Lecture at Willamette University Tuesday, Nov. 15, in Smith Auditorium at 8 p.m.

Tickets for students, faculty and staff will be available Oct. 25 beginning at 8 a.m. at the Information Desk in University Center. The first ticket is free with a Willamette ID; a second ticket may be purchased for $10. There is a two-ticket per person limit. Alumni and the general public may purchase available tickets beginning Nov. 7 for $10 per ticket also at University Center.

Reading Lolita in Tehran is an incisive exploration of the transformative powers of fiction in a world of tyranny. To date, the book has spent more than 70 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated in 32 languages. The book has also won diverse literary awards including the 2004 Non-fiction Book of the Year Award from Booksense, the Frederic W. Ness Book Award, the 2004 Latifeh Yarsheter Book Award, an achievement award from the American Immigration Law Foundation, as well as being a finalist for the 2004 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Memoir.

Nafisi is currently a visiting professor and the director of the SAIS Dialogue Project at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, where she is a professor of aesthetics, culture, and literature, and teaches courses on the relation between culture and politics.

Nafisi held a fellowship at Oxford University, teaching and conducting a series of lectures on culture and the important role of Western literature and culture in Iran after the revolution in 1979. She taught at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University, and Allameh Tabatabai before her return to the United States in 1997. She was expelled from the University of Tehran for refusing to wear the mandatory Islamic veil in 1981 and did not resume teaching until 1987.

She has conducted workshops in Iran for women students on the relationship between culture and human rights. She has lectured and written extensively in English and Persian on the political implications of literature and culture, as well as the human rights of the Iranian women and girls and the important role they play in the process of change for pluralism and an open society in Iran. The professor has served as a consultant on issues related to Iran and human rights both by the policy makers and various human rights organizations in the US and elsewhere.

Nafisi has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. Her cover story, "The Veiled Threat: The Iranian Revolution's Woman Problem" published in The New Republic (February 22, 1999) has been reprinted into several languages. She is the author of Anti-Terra: A Critical Study of Vladimir Nabokov’s Novels. She is currently working on two books, one tentatively titled The Republic of the Imagination, which is about the power of literature to liberate minds and peoples, and the other, The Pursuit of Happiness, about culture, history, and loss. She lives in Washington, D.C.

[ email this story ]

WU’s Albaugh Forum Speaker

James Albaugh ’72, president and CEO of Boeing Integrated Defense System (IDS), will be the featured speaker, Thursday, Sept. 29, at the Breakfast Forum at Multnomah Athletic Club co-sponsored by Willamette University and the Willamette Professional MBA program.

Albaugh, who earned his BS in math and physics at Willamette, heads IDS, a leader in military defense systems. The company, which employs nearly 80,000 people, is one of the largest suppliers for NASA and the International Space Station.

Coffee is served at 7 a.m.; breakfast at 7:30 a.m. The program adjourns at 8:30 a.m. To register, go to www.willamettealumni.com/events or call 503-375-5304 or 800-551-6794. Tickets are $15 and a corporate table of eight is $100.

[ email this story ]

The Honorable Margaret H. Marshall to Close Annual Lecture Series

The Honorable Margaret H. Marshall, chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, will present the Willamette University College of Law 2005 John C. Paulus Lecture on Monday, October 17, 2005. The subject of her presentation will be “Justice in Jeopardy: Whither Judicial Independence.”

Appointed to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1999, Marshall is the court’s first female chief justice. Born and raised in South Africa, she obtained her B.A. in 1966 from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. She went on to earn a master’s degree in education from Harvard University and law degree from Yale Law School. In 1992, Marshall was appointed vice president and general counsel of Harvard University; she was the first woman to hold the position.

Marshall will speak at 4:00 p.m. in the John C. Paulus Great Hall, room 201, of the award-winning Truman Wesley Collins Legal Center, which houses the College of Law. This event is free and open to the public.

Marshall ’s presentation is the final lecture in the College of Law’s 10th Annual Speaker Series. In addition to Marshall’s talk, the series has included lectures by Bruce Botelho, mayor of Juneau, Alaska, and Edith Brown Weiss, chair of the inspection panel of the World Bank.

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Sally (Grimm) Schaefer ’55
Distinguished Alumni Citation: Community Service

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who has contributed more in the last 40 years to Clark County, Wash., than Sally Schaefer. The former school teacher has given her time and talents to a broad range of causes, from public schools, churches and the arts, to higher education, youth organizations and community social service groups. Named Trustee of the Year in 2000 by the Washington State Trustees Association of Community and Technical Colleges, Schaefer had served on the Clark College Board of Trustees from 1987 to 2000 as an appointee of three different governors. Considered a role model and mentor by women both in higher education and in the community, Schaefer has been named a First Citizen by Clark County for her involvement with organizations like St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Friendship Force, Washington State Ecology Commission, Friends of Hospice, Women in Action and many more. Recently, Schaefer was inducted into the Clark County Rotary clubs’ Hall of Fame for her many contributions to the community. She has devoted particular time and effort to the Foundation for Family Television, an organization dedicated to reducing TV violence. In recent years, she has been very active as a board member of the Southwest Washington Medical Center Foundation. Schaefer has clearly shown that a life of services can be just as fulfilling as collecting a paycheck.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Lisa Murkowski JD’85
Distinguished Alumni Citation: Public Service

Lisa Murkowski is only the 33rd female to serve the United States Senate. Her public service career began in 1998, when she was elected to the Alaska State House of Representatives. She quickly rose to become House Majority Leader before entering the U.S. Senate in 2002. Murkowski’s senate tenure focuses on issues important to all Alaskans, including natural resources, health care, education, economic development, and Alaska Native rights. Yet her public service extends well beyond the Senate floor. She is highly regarded for her community activism with well beyond the Senate floor. She is highly regarded for her community activism with groups like Anchorage Equal Rights Commission, Catholic Social Services, the Mayor’s Taskforce on the Homeless, and Alaskans for Drug-Free Youth. Prior to working in Taskforce on the Homeless, and Alaskans for Drug-Free Youth. Prior to working in government, Murkowski was an attorney in private practice. She holds a bachelor of arts in economics from Georgetown University, and JD from Willamette University College of Law.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Mary Jaeger ’80
Distinguished Alumni Citation: Health Care and Community Service

Mary Jaeger is a leader in advocacy for vulnerable populations in the Portland metropolitan region. In 2000 she was appointed executive director of CASA for Children, a notfor- profit organization operating the Court Appointed Special Advocate program in Washington and Multnomah counties in Oregon (www.casahelpskids.org). CASA provides trained citizen volunteers who advocate for abused children who have been removed from their homes and are under the protection of the court. As the senior executive responsible for CASA, Jaeger coordinates the efforts of more than 350 volunteers serving more than 750 children in Multnomah and Washington counties. She and her husband are also active CASA volunteers, having served as advocates for 11 children on four separate cases during the last five years. Prior to joining CASA, Jaeger dedicated much of her career to the elderly in nursing homes. Mary earned a master’s degree in public administration and a master’s degree in gerontology from the University of Southern California on both the Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., campuses. She obtained her Oregon Nursing Home Administrator’s Washington, D.C., campuses. She obtained her Oregon Nursing Home Administrator’s license and worked as a nursing home administrator before becoming vice president of professional and community services for the Sisters of Mercy of Oregon, then chief operating officer of Franciscan Health System, and finally regional executive director of NCS Healthcare, a public long-term care institutional pharmacy. Her membership on more than 16 boards and committees over the last 20 years demonstrates her genuine commitment to Oregon and issues that affect Oregonians. Over the years Jaeger has also been an active alumna, helping with admissions and career support.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Paul DeMuniz JD’75
Distinguished Alumni Citation: Law

As a justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, Paul DeMuniz makes decisions that affect the lives of every Oregonian. His election to the Supreme Court in 2000 marked another step in a distinguished legal career that included 10 years as presiding judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals and 15 years as both a public and private attorney. In private law practice, DeMuniz focused on complex civil and criminal cases at both the state and federal level. In 1998 he was appointed to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services by then Secretary of Defense William Cohen. DeMuniz was part of a task force that visited military installations William Cohen. DeMuniz was part of a task force that visited military installations around the world to report to the Defense Department on issues affecting women in the military. He also dedicates many hours to his community and the legal profession. In 1997 he was named Mentor of the Year at WU College of Law. DeMuniz has authored a number of articles on judicial elections, and his work in that regard has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court. He has been active in promoting the rule-of-law in Russia. In May 2005 he taught American and Russian criminal procedure as a visiting professor at Khabarovsk State University, Khabarovsk, Russia. He also teaches criminal procedure at the College of Law and recently authored a book on Oregon criminal procedure. He continues to serve Oregon in ways that bring honor and distinction to his high office.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Charles Carter ’55
Distinguished Alumni Citation: Medicine and International Service

No one more clearly embodies Willamette’s motto, “Not unto ourselves alone are we born,” than Charles Carter. A practicing opthamologist for more than 32 years, Carter has dedicated his life to helping others in his community and around the world. While he was working, for 25 years he trained volunteers in Vancouver, Wash., schools to screen children for early signs of eye diseases. Carter has taken one month off for each of the past 10 years to provide volunteer medical and surgical support to indigent natives in the rural areas of Haiti. He also helped raise supplies and funds to create the first-ever medical clinic in one of the country’s most remote mountainous regions. He has also advised Eastern European ophthalmologists on innovative surgical techniques, volunteered for clinics in Sierra Leone, West Africa, and has been an instrumental figure for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Carter’s commitment to helping those in greatest need demonstrates that he has put his medical skills to their highest and best uses.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

John Jelderks ’60, JD’64
Leslie J. Sparks Medallion

John has maintained connections with both the undergraduate and law schools over the years. He has been a member of the College of Law Board of Visitors since 1987 and has served as its chair. He was the Alumni Association representative on the Board of Trustees from 1999 to 2002. John served as guest speaker for the Law Heritage luncheon in 2003, has been part of the Career Network since 1998 and has participated in numerous other alumni events, including Career Mentor Day, the Willamette Forum and the Portland Holiday Parties. He received the Distinguished Alumni Citation in 1995. John has been involved in many ways with the Sigma Chi fraternity over the years, and currently chairs the Sigma Chi Advisory Board at Willamette.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Elizabeth Geiger Hartman ’80
Leslie J. Sparks Medallion

Liz has been a reliable and enthusiastic volunteer for her class and Willamette University. She has played many different roles, including regional event organization, class agent, past reunion committees and the Career Network. Liz served on the Alumni Board of Directors from 1983 to 1988, and was its president from 1984 to 1986. She also served as the Alumni Association representative on the Board of Trustees from 1984 to 1987. Currently Liz is chairing the 25th reunion for the Class of 1980.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Edward “Nick” Allis ’70
Leslie J. Sparks Medallion

Nick has quietly done much for his alma mater. He served on the Alumni Board of Directors from 1989 to 1994. He served on the Board of Trustees from 1998 to 2004. Over the years he has been a class agent for the Class of ’70, and is a member of the Founder’s Circle of the Lausanne Giving Society. Nick has established endowed scholarships for his father, Charles D. Allis, and his former boss, John Gray. He also established the Allis-Gray Scholarship at the Atkinson Graduate School of Management. Nick volunteered a great deal of time in 2003-04 as the project coordinator for the Art Building renovation and the renovation of Eaton Hall’s fourth floor. His efforts saved both time and hundreds of thousands of dollars for Willamette during these construction projects.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Jennifer Miller ’97, MBA/JD’01
Young Alumni Leadership Award

Jennifer Miller is a rare Willamette triple degree holder, graduating from WU in 1997 as a triple major in English, Spanish and rhetoric. She then received her JD and MBA in 2001. She has pursued a career in law as a prosecuting attorney with the King County Prosecutors Office in Seattle, and is already being recognized for her work. She was recently elected to a three-year term to the Board of Trustees for the King County Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Division. She is also serving a two-year term on the Washington State Bar’s subcommittee on media relations. She volunteers weekly at the Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) and monthly at the Seattle Spanish Legal Clinic. She is also serving as the treasurer of the King County Prosecutor Association. At the same time she has continued to be heavily involved with Willamette alumni activities, attending many events in Seattle as well as on campus. She currently serves on the Puget Sound Alumni Board, and has worked on young alumni events as well. She recently attended the Leadership Willamette conference on campus in June.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Jason Hunter ’95
Young Alumni Leadership Award

At a very young age, Jason Hunter has made his mark on his vocational field. Within three years of leaving Willamette, he already had developed many web technologies and become an expert in Java software. He authored the book Java Servlet Programming (selling 140,000 copies) and co-authored Java Enterprise Best Practices. He has become a very well known Java consultant, speaker, instructor and author. His largest audience was 15,000 at a JavaOne conference keynote. Hunter is currently a senior engineer with Mark Logic, a Silicon Valley start-up specializing in large-scale XML content manipulation using XQuery, a new standardized programming language Hunter helped develop. He is also a member and former vice president of the nonprofit Apache Software Foundation, which oversees open source projects including the Apache web server that runs more than two-thirds of all web sites. Hunter has not forgotten his alma mater and has returned to share his real world experience with students. He has helped with admissions support and is available to students and alumni on the Career Network.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Heather C. Dahl ’95
Young Alumni Leadership Award

Heather Dahl is one of public broadcasting’s rising stars. Currently managing editor of “Capitol News Connection with Public Radio International,” Dahl directs congressional coverage for more than 200 public radio stations nationwide. Her previous assignments include producing “The Conversation,” a daily one-hour news/talk program for KUOW Public Radio in Seattle; reporting on foreign affairs and defense issues for “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer”; producing Clinton impeachment and then election coverage for National Public Radio; and serving as deputy press secretary for U.S. Senator Gordon H. Smith. In December, Dahl was selected to serve on the Congressional Radio and TV Correspondents’ Executive Committee. Dahl has traveled the world, interviewed heads of state and covered some of the most important stories of our time, yet she remains very engaged with the alumni community. The former ASWU president is also a dedicated member of the Career Network and has given hours of her time to help alumni network for jobs in broadcasting and radio. Dahl received her bachelor of arts in political science and she holds a master of science in journalism from Columbia University.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Laila J. Cook ’98
Young Alumni Leadership Award

Laila Cook is the manager of development for Make-A-Wish Foundation of Oregon. She is responsible for raising more than a million dollars annually to help fulfill the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions. Cook has also served as director of stewardship and events for the Catlin Gabel School, director of the Children’s Ministry for Vermont Hills United Methodist Church and as the Eastside area coordinator for Willamette University’s residence halls. Cook’s service to Willamette extends into all areas of the University, from fund raising and alumni networking to admissions and event planning. She has served as a class agent for the Willamette Fund, a Career Network volunteer, and is an avid Cardinal and Gold booster. Cook received her bachelor of arts in political science, and she is currently working on a master’s degree in public administration at Portland State University.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Claire (Howell) Bonilla ’95
Young Alumni Leadership Award

As the global director of Microsoft Technology Centers, Claire Bonilla is instrumental in developing Microsoft’s global marketing and customer outreach strategy. She manages 13 worldwide technology centers that deal with Microsoft’s most strategic and complex customers and partners. A Microsoft employee for more than six years, Bonilla has served as a business strategist, group program manager and marketing specialist, helping the company create an integrated and well-defined customer relations strategy. Bonilla has also worked as a consultant for Ernst & Young, LLP, and received a master of science from the London School of Economics, England. Her contributions to Willamette include serving briefly as associate director of the Alumni Association Board of Directors and volunteering for the Career Network. Bonilla received her bachelor of arts in German and economics.

[ return to main article ]

[ email this story ]

Willamette Announces Alumni Award Winners

Willamette University will honor 13 of its best and brightest at the annual Alumni Award Banquet to be held Saturday September 24, at the Grand Phoenix Hotel in Salem, Ore.

Five alumni will receive Young Alumni Leadership Awards that recognize graduates from the last 10 years who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in their vocation, community service and/or service to the university. They are Claire (Howell) Bonilla ’95, the global director of Microsoft Technology Centers in Redmond, Wash.; Laila J. Cook ’98, manager of development for Make-A-Wish Foundation of Oregon in Portland, Ore.; Heather C. Dahl ’95, managing editor of the Capitol Hill Bureau from Public Radio International in Washington D.C.; Jason Hunter ’95, a senior engineer with Mark Logic in San Mateo, Calif., and publisher of Servlets.com and XQUERY.com; and Jennifer Miller ’97, MBA/JD’01, prosecuting attorney with the King County Prosecutors Office in Seattle.

Three outstanding alumni have been tapped to receive the Leslie J. Sparks Medallion, which recognizes graduates whose loyalty and service to the university best reflects the ideals of Leslie J. Sparks ’19, one of the university’s most devoted alumni. The honorees include Edward “Nick” Allis ‘70, Elizabeth Geiger Hartman ’80 and John Jelderks ’60/D’64.

The Distinguished Alumni Citations honor graduates who, in professional achievement and service to their communities, reflect the highest ideals of Willamette University. This year’s Distinguished Alumni include Charles Carter ’55, a practicing ophthalmologist for more than 32 years; Paul DeMuniz JD’75, Oregon Supreme Court Justice; Mary Jaeger ’80, child advocate and executive director of CASA, a not-for-profit organization that provides community volunteers who advocate for children removed from abusive homes; Lisa Murkowski JD’85, U.S. Senator from Alaska and only the 33rd female to serve the United States Senate; and Sally Grimm Schaefer ’55, a former school teacher who has given her time and talents over the past 40 years to a broad range of causes, from public schools, churches and the arts, to higher education, youth organizations and community social service groups.

Click on the name of honorees for more information.

[ email this story ]

Willamette Welcomes ACE Fellow

Dr. Julie Filizetti, associate provost for academic affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., has joined the Willamette University community as an ACE Fellow for the coming academic year.

“We are pleased to welcome Dr. Filizetti to our community,” said University President M. Lee Pelton. “ACE Fellows are nominated by the presidents or chancellors of their institutions and are selected in a national competition. Her leadership skills and her administrative experience in strategic planning and assessment will serve us well.”

At Willamette, Filizetti will work primarily with the newly appointed 15-member Commission on Academic Excellence created by President Pelton in August. The commission is to identify academic activities or centers of excellence that strengthen the academic mission of Willamette. The centers, interdisciplinary in their design, will increase opportunities for faculty development, research and scholarship.

“Academic excellence is what defines Willamette University,” said Pelton. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement or increased efficiencies. The charge of the commission and Dr. Filizetti is to update the roadmap we will consult when making decisions that impact the intellectual life of this campus.”

Commission members include Professors Robert Dash, Karen Hamlin, Karen Holman, Roger Hull, Ortwin Knorr, Jerry Gray, Peter Letsou, Fred Thompson, Trustee Joan McNamara, Dean Robert Hawkinson, Vice President Kristen Grainger and four students not yet selected. Professor Dash and Trustee McNamara will serve as co-chairs.

Filizetti joined the NPS faculty in 1991 and has held various roles in administration including institutional advancement, strategic planning and assessment. She is also widely recognized as a leader in the Navy’s world-class education system. She is a graduate of the Executive Doctorate in Higher Education Management at the University of Pennsylvania. This program, designed and taught by some of the nation’s foremost education leaders, focuses on developing senior leaders in higher education.

The ACE Fellow also spent 12 years as a naval officer, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. She is a member of the Santa Clara University Board of Regents.

[ email this story ]

Free Poetry Reading At Willamette University

Carlos Martinez and Kelli Russell Agodon will give the Hallie Ford Poetry Reading Thursday, Sept. 29, beginning at 8 p.m. in the Hatfield Room of the Hatfield Library at Willamette University. The event is free and open to the public.

Carlos Martinez teaches creative writing and literature at Western Washington University. Martinez, who holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles, has published two poetry collections, Unendurable Love and The Cold Music of the Ocean.

He recently held a Jack Straw Foundation Fellowship, is the recipient of an Americas Review poetry prize and was a featured poet in PoetryMagazine.com. His poetry has appeared in national journals including Poet Lore, Verse Daily and Cranky, as well as in the anthologies Vox Populi and The Sound Close In.

Kelli Russell Agodon has had her poetry selected by Garrison Keillor for both Writers Almanac on National Public Radio and his anthology Good Poems For Hard Times. Her book Geography won the Floating Bridge Press Chapbook Competition, and her poems were anthologized in the Pontoon Anthology of Washington State Poets. Her second collection of poetry is titled Small Knots.

She has received the James Hearst Poetry Prize from North American Review, the Carlin Aden Award from the Washington Poets Association, and two Washington Artist Trust grants. She serves as poetry editor of Margin: Modern Magical Realism, and her own work has been published in such journals as Prairie Schooner, American Poetry Journal, and Calyx.

[ email this story ]

Flood Exposes the Most Vulnerable

“Katrina is a striking example of how our inability to live better with nature has had the most severe consequences for those at the social and economic margins of our society, those with the least political clout and the least ability to get out of harm’s way,” said Joe Bowersox, associate professor of politics at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

“It’s clear that certain federal emergency management authorities dropped the ball at some point,” Bowersox said. “Preliminary requests for aid and discussion of worst-case scenarios, including the breaching of levees and flood walls, were submitted to decision makers in Washington by state and local authorities in advance of Katrina’s landfall. Local officers from the Army Corps of Engineers—the federal agency responsible for building and maintaining the levees and floodwalls that had protected New Orleans—communicated their fears. They appear to have been ignored.”

Bowersox advocates approaching the task of reconstruction with a stronger sense of the realities of the geography, and with sensitivity for those who would be most impacted by further storms.

Pointing to lessons learned after the Mississippi floods of the 1990s, Bowersox said, “Katrina should make us reconsider once again whether we want to work against natural forces or learn to live with them. In the wake of those floods, we began to change public policies, to encourage people to stop building in floodplains.

“All human-made structures have their limitations, and under certain conditions they will fail.”

Bowersox said it will be more difficult to change direction in a city with the size and historical significance of New Orleans.

“Nevertheless, it’s certain that storms of this or greater intensity will occur again. We must make this region environmentally sustainable, if we wish it to be sustained economically and culturally.”

Bowersox is a political scientist with research and teaching interests in environmental and natural resources policy and law. He has written extensively on water policy, as well as the relationship between environmental dilemmas, public values and human welfare.

Joe Bowersox is available for interviews. He may be reached at 503-370-6220 or jbowerso@willamette.edu.

[ email this story ]

Willamette University Offers Assistance to Displaced Students, Creates Hurricane Relief Fund

Hurricane Katrina has displaced approximately 75,000 students in three states. Colleges and universities around the country, including Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, are scrambling to offer assistance.

Willamette’s College of Liberal Arts and its professional schools (law, business management and education) have made arrangements to accept displaced students who are in good standing and who express a desire to attend Willamette. Students who have enrolled at institutions now being evacuated may attend Willamette tuition-free for one semester.

Willamette has also created a relief fund. Faculty, students and staff who wish to make a donation will have their contributions fully matched by the university. All donations will be forwarded to the Red Cross.

“There is simply nothing in our lifetime that compares to this,” said Willamette University President M. Lee Pelton. “The needs are overwhelming. We will remain in contact with our colleagues in the Gulf States as they evaluate and prioritize their needs, and we will respond as effectively as possible. In the meantime, we will welcome their students who wish to come to Oregon. It’s simply the right thing to do.”

Undergraduate classes at Willamette University began Aug. 30.

[ email this story ]