Campus - Landscape 1

Built in 1891, West Hall served the short-lived Portland University (1891-1899) and was purchased along with the 25 acres of the bluff campus by Archbishop Alexander Christie in 1901 as a Catholic college (Columbia University renamed University of Portland in 1935) under the direction of the Congregation of Holy Cross. As the only structure at our beginning, West Hall contained the entire new University: becoming classrooms, dormitory, library, dining hall, Chapel, and offices. Naturally library, dormitory, dining hall and Chapel later migrate as new facilities appear. Today West Hall/Waldschmidt Hall houses student services and administrative offices. 

In 1977, during the University’s Diamond Anniversary celebration, West Hall was named a historic building and placed on the National Register of Historic Places. At its century mark (1991-92), an extensive renovation brought an elevator, light, the grand-staircase, and more to the old bones. At a rededication ceremony thirty years ago on October 17, 1992, West Hall was renamed as Waldschmidt Hall in honor of the University’s 15^th president (1962-1978), Bishop Paul Waldschmidt, C.S.C. 

As the University’s longest-serving building, Waldschmidt Hall has welcomed all University presidents from the first, Rev. Edward P. Murphy who rang the opening bell on September 5, 1901, to the University’s 21^st president, Dr. Robert Kelly. 

For more pictures and history of West/Waldschmidt Hall visit the Clark Library’s Digital University Buildings Collection, displaying images of photographs and objects held by the University Archives and Museum (with descriptions from the Archives and Museum).

Related Posts:
In the Beginning: Cornerstone West Hall

In the Beginning: Day One

Dr. Robert Butler, Emeritus Professor in Environmental Sciences, arrived on the Bluff in 2004, and immediately saw that the physical Bluff itself—our green campus overhanging the Willamette River—could be an object-lesson in his science classes. 

But, how to create a learning-module about our patch of land?  In his first days on the Bluff, Dr. Butler visited the Archives and came away with a “treasure chest that I used in my teaching of Earth Science courses from 2004 through 2016!” Pulling some 25 or more historical photos of the campus that could be used as classroom and lecture exhibits. “To the eyes of a geologist, these photos demonstrate landscape changes, some natural but most from alterations by humans.”  

Dr. Butler selected these three photos to illustrate.

1) The 1914 aerial photo shows landslides/erosion on the edge of the Bluff east of Waldschmidt.  This land subsidence / rapid erosion was almost certainly precipitated by an oversteepening of the slope by construction of the road leading down to the rail line at the base of the slope.  

2) The comparison of Swan Island between 1922 and 1935 is a case study in major landscape modification by humans.  Prior to dredging, the main channel of the Willamette River passed along the north bank of what is now Swan Island.  On the south side of Swan Island and down-stream toward the city center, the river was impassible to large vessels.  When the main channel was opened by dredging, the dredge spoils created a landfill all-but closing the Swan Island channel. 

3) The 1969 aerial photo shows surface landfill into the gulch on the slope of the bluff below Mehling Hall. This landfill was an attempt to stop that gulch from advancing northwards and further eroding the upper campus. The current Physical Plant building rests on the landfill area. 

Dr. Butler recently sent us word about how these primary-source images “mined out of the Archives became critical resources in my teaching of Earth Science on the Bluff.  Students were quite engaged by these views of the campus over the past century.” 

Readers, do you have an Archives or Museum success story?  We invite you to share your own experiences using Archives and Museum resources.   Drop us a note at archives@up.edu and museum@up.edu about your discoveries in the Archives and Museum.

For additional historical views of the campus property see the Clark Library Digital Collection through this link, which provides more information about the 1964 aerial view accompanying this post on our home page.

Springtime on the Bluff is a colorful season. Sunshine. Students repurposing freshly cut lawns for study. Flowering trees blossoming across campus!

For about three or four weeks each spring, a vibrant canopy display of flowering cherry trees decorates the campus – bursting forth from Waldschmidt to Tyson, Orrico to Shipstad Halls.

A visitor might think these cherry trees formed UP’s landscape since its beginnings (we welcome many, many admissions visitors in the spring), each visitor greeted at the University’s entrance with a splash of color and seeing the same pink blossoms forming a natural boundary for the Quad. The first picture we’ve found is given as a detail of campus life in the 1960 Log. There is a reference in Dr. James Covert’s, A Point of Pride: The University of Portland Story, to the flowering trees adorning the new main drive at the time of Shipstad Hall’s construction (1967). The back cover of the Spring 1996 Portland Magazine claims 1965 for the planting of these trees.

The flowering trees at the statuary group by the performing arts building likely arrived around 1973 or 1974 with the completion of Mago Hunt Center. The Campus Gardens: A Self-Guided Tour of the University of Portland Collections lists Kwanzan cherry trees at just Mago Hunt Center and the main entrance by Shipstad Hall in 1989.

But then in 1995 we commit to cherry trees in a big way, with an August 31 Beacon article about the landscaping plan for the Academic Quad announcing rows of cherry trees along the sidewalks framing the lawn from Franz Hall to the Chapel, the Commons to the Library.

These flowering trees, carefully maintained by dedicated grounds crew, appear to the delight of viewers after winter months, and most especially this year, in the midst of a pandemic.

In the 1940s and 1950s many Humanities majors harbored Law School ASPIRATIONS. Liberal Arts universities can suffer out-sized ambitions too. In the years immediately following World War II, as response and answer to the needs of returned Veterans, surging enrollment had the University of Portland dreaming big dreams. The 1949 State of the University Address promised both a Law School and a School of Engineering. Fr. Bob Sweeney, C.S.C., who in the next year was to become the 12th University President, proposed how it would only cost $5 million to right-size the campus. Taking that 70-year old Five-Year Plan as a Wish-List / Check-List, there is still no Law School.

The Engineering Building did in fact open in 1949 (it was already under construction as these promises were made); and we got the free-standing library in 1959– no football program though. More recently, the ‘Aged Building’ housing Engineering received a 2009 face-lift, and today in 2019, the University of Portland Shiley School of Engineering is ranked 26th in the nation by U.S. News and World Report. The University of Portland keeping the promise and the vision by providing innovative programs and facilities to meet the needs and challenge the minds of the current 4000+ student body (a total larger than the 1950 alumni mailing list!)

Additional links:
UP Press Release, September 10, 2019

The Quadrant, 1949 – Engineering Building Dedication Issue

Related Museum blog post “Founding Visions”

Museum blog post: End of Football

The classic timepiece with hour and minute-hand worn around the wrist has all but disappeared. Replaced by multi-function cell phones, activity trackers, and smart watches that not only tell time but record steps, spent calories, heart-rate, and more. And while subjective-time differs according to setting and activity (crushing a weight machine in the Beauchamp or walking the mind through a series of axioms in Calculus), on the UP campus, standard, objective, shared time is announced by the digital reader board at the corner of the Chiles Center, by the six-foot clock adorning the new Dundon-Berchtold Hall, and the resonant notes of the Bell Tower carillon standing proud beside the Chapel of Christ the Teacher. With fourteen bells — each named and baptized and with its own distinct musical voice– The Bell Tower chimes the hour and quarter-hours from 9 to 9 and sounds a call to prayer for Sunday and the daily noon Masses. Observing a ten-year anniversary, dedicated September 18, 2009, the Bell Tower is our tallest structure at 106 ft.; a landmark at a crossroads where faith, academics, and student life intersect.

Related post:
https://sites-dev.up.edu/museum/hours-and-bases/

Also, Clark Library Digital Collections