Willamette University Campaign Effort Hits $100,000,000

About 650 Willamette University alumni attending reunion weekend events were among the first to hear the news: The University’s Campaign for Willamette had hit the $100 million mark. The gift that made the difference was a check for $1 million presented to University President M. Lee Pelton Saturday evening from members of the Class of 1957.

“We are thrilled with this result,” Pelton said. “Members of the Class of 1957 are to be commended for this outstanding contribution. We are deeply moved by their generosity. Living Willamette alumni number fewer than 17,000. That is a relatively small community to engage in this level of fundraising. Equally important is the participation among our faulty and staff. Since the campaign began in 2002, our own campus community has donated more than $1,670,000. That’s impressive and it speaks to the pride we all feel for this university.”

The campaign has experienced periods of unexpected intensity. In one 13-month period between April 2006 and May 2007, the University raised $25 million.

The $125 million campaign is focused on growing the endowment which stands at approximately $285 million.

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Willamette Community Learns from Renowned Scientist

What will be the state of environmentalism in the next 200 years? How do you conduct scientific research without “selling out” to a major corporation? Why is society so disconnected from nature? How do you encourage environmentalism on a global scale?

These are the burning questions on the minds of Willamette University’s science students. And they had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity this week to get answers — by posing them to Edward O. Wilson, one of the world’s greatest living scientists, while he visited campus to deliver the Biology Centennial Lecture.

“We’re in a very strange situation in the 21st century,” Wilson told the students in an intimate meeting before speaking to a sold-out crowd of 1,300 that evening in Smith Auditorium. “We have Stone Age emotions, we have medieval beliefs and we have god-like technology.

“We have evolved to exploit the planet, and now we’re having trouble slowing down.”

Wilson is considered a leader in the fields of entomology, animal behavior, evolutionary psychology, island biogeography, biodiversity, environmental ethics and the philosophy of knowledge. He is the Pellegrino University Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, and he has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his non-fiction books “The Ants” and “On Human Nature.”

At his evening lecture, he addressed “The Future of Life,” informing the crowd about the immense biodiversity of our planet and the important task of trying to protect it. He had the same message for the students earlier. “The world needs to see that ecology and biodiversity studies are fundamental to the health of the planet,” he said.

He talked about meeting with evangelical leaders, setting aside their different views regarding evolution and focusing on issues they both agreed on. “I told them, ‘Let’s stop talking about issues like abortions and stem cells. Let’s do something important together, which is save the creation. See how we can combine science and religion into a single enterprise … and accomplish something quite extraordinary.’”

Wilson also discussed his work on the Encyclopedia of Life, an online resource launched in May that will include information about every species on the planet (view it at eol.org). “We’ve now reached an advanced state in the information age such that the idea of having everything known and available to everybody is not out of reach.”

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25th Year Reunion Concert at Willamette University

WHAT: 25th Year Anniversary Concert for members of the University Choir and Chamber Choir who performed for Dr. Wallace Long, director of Choral Activities, Willamette University

WHEN: Sunday, Sept. 16, 1:30 p.m.

WHERE: Rogers Music Center, Hudson Hall, Willamette University

COST: Free

Willamette University choral alumni will perform a special concert in celebration of 25 years of service by Wallace Long, director of Choral Activities. The free concert is Sunday, Sept. 16 at 1:30 p.m. in Hudson Hall on campus. Performers will include an 80-voice Alumni Choir and this year’s 40-voice Chamber Choir.

Literature for the Alumni Choir will be chosen from some of Long’s favorites of more than two decades of choral singing at Willamette. The concert will include “Down to the Water to Pray” and “Amen” from the 2004 choir’s tour to South Africa; “Dusk to Dawn” composed by Willamette alumnus, Vijay Singh; “How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place” from Brahm’s “Requiem”; and “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord” by Moses Hogan. The concert will open with a performance by the current 2007–08 Chamber Choir featuring another of Long’s favorite works, “Consecrate the Place and Day” by Lloyd Pfautsch. It will conclude with the Reunion Choir and the Chamber Choir joining to perform what has become known as the signature piece for the group, the “Nunc Dimittis” by Alexander Gretchaninoff.

The choral program at Willamette University has seen significant growth since Long’s arrival in 1983. At the time of his arrival Willamette had one regularly meeting choir, the University Choir, a non-audition ensemble. The Willamette Singers group did not meet on a continuing basis. Within one year the University Choir became an audition group and the reinstated Willamette Singers presented Madrigal Dinners in the fall and studied vocal jazz in the spring.

In the fall of 1984, Long joined with the Lutheran Fine Arts League to create what is now known as the Willamette Master Chorus. By the fall of 1989 the program had grown immensely, and a Chamber Choir was created for advanced students. In the fall of 1989 the University Choir was divided into a choir of male voices and a choir of female voices, now known as Male Ensemble Willamette and Voce Femminille, respectively. During the early 1990s Long directed all five choral ensembles at Willamette in addition to teaching voice and a variety of music education courses.

In the fall of 1995 Willamette hired two adjunct faculty members to take over Male Ensemble Willamette and Voce Femminille. Long turned the Willamette Master Chorus over to Paul Klemme. The choral program has grown to be a healthy and vital part of the music program at Willamette. It is not uncommon for 10 percent of the student body to audition for placement in a Willamette choral ensemble.

The choral program has been acknowledged as one of the strongest in the Northwest. Many requests have been made for honorific performances. Willamette choral groups have performed for American Choral Directors Association Northwest Conventions, the American Choral Directors Association National Convention, and the International Convention of the International Association of Jazz Educators.

In addition to convention performances, Willamette choral ensembles take yearly tours throughout the Northwest. Special tours have gone to Hawaii, Japan and at the request of Bishop Desmond Tutu, a tour to South Africa. In May 2006 the Chamber Choir, Willamette choral alumni and members of the Willamette Master Chorus performed Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Mass in the Time of War” in Carnegie Hall.

Beyond the convention performances and tours, Long’s legacy includes scores of young people who have gone on to make music a permanent part of their lives, as an avocation or a vocation. This 25th anniversary concert will celebrate a musician who has worked with almost 900 students during his tenure at Willamette and has touched countless hearts with passionate, artistic performances of choral music.

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