She’d already been on the job since August 2009, but the inauguaration of Lesley Hallick in March as Pacific’s 17th president formalized the transition with a vintage Pacific ceremony.
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The first lū‘au at Pacific wasn’t very good, according to Hawai‘i Club co-founder Fred Scheller ’43, MA ’54. Fifty years later, not only is it good, it’s one of the biggest and best outside of the Islands.
Jan Shield was walking through the trees on his windswept property on Chehalem Mountain near Newberg, Ore. when he noticed a bird’s nest on the ground. The Pacific art professor had found other nests similarly dislodged and marveled at their structure and materials. Twigs, straw, mud, feathers, twine scavenged by avian architects.
It takes a lot of kŌkuna (cooperation) from parents, students, alumni and friends to stage a Pacific lū‘au—and one special woman to pull it all together.
You’ll find them at weekend health fairs, migrant camps and clinics throughout the area. Pacific’s graduate healthcare students are learning and helping at the same time.
New President Lesley Hallick is a molecular biologist, a noted administrator— and proud owner of a mule named Elvis.
Numerous bird species, from the northernmost population of acorn woodpeckers to the common robin, call Pacific’s Forest Grove campus home.
Yukie Katayama Sumoge is one of the Japanese-American students at Pacific University whose education was disrupted when she was forced into an internment camp during World War II. In this 2007 archive story, she shared her story.