Publications

Connections
A Newsletter for the Viterbo University Community
Vol. 14  No. 19  January 22, 2001

Viterbo to Build $9 Million Center for Ethics, Science, & Technology
At a press conference last Monday, Viterbo President William Medland announced plans for a $9 million Center for Ethics, Science, & Technology on university property located across from the FAC on Ninth Street.
The announcement comes on the heels of nearly 10 years of record student enrollment—growth which has made the Center a high priority for students and faculty.
TCI of La Crosse has been selected for the design phase of the building. The construction process will begin this year and, according to Medland, president of Viterbo University, more than $5 million already has been raised for the building project.
Once completed, the facility will be the central site of activity for a number of Viterbo’s key programs as well as a resource for the community.
University officials are planning for state-of-the-art technology including distance learning, which will allow Viterbo students to connect to worldwide resources.
The Center will also serve as the permanent home for the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership. Known for its innovative programming, the Institute sponsors programs for students as well as delves into ethics-related issues faced by healthcare, education, and business professionals. The Institute operates with a permanent endowment created by friends and associates in honor of the late D.B. Reinhart, a well-known La Crosse businessman and philanthropist.
The Center for Ethics, Science, & Technology is the latest in a series of projects that were identified as part of Viterbo’s strategic plan, Vision 2005: A Renaissance for Living and Learning in the 21st Century.

Register Your Support
In order for the Center for Ethics, Science, & Technology to become a reality, it must first pass through a series of committees until it reaches the La Crosse City Council.
Members of the Viterbo community are welcome to show their support for the project by stopping by City Council Chambers on the first floor of City Hall and registering their support prior to the meetings on the following dates:
Tuesday, Jan. 30
J.A. Committee, 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Feb. 6
Committee of the Whole, 7:30 p.m.

Viterbo Women's Basketbll Climbs to Eighth Nationally
The Viterbo women’s basketball team is ranked eighth nationally in the NAIA Division II ratings which were released last week. The V-Hawks, 17-4, climbed from last week’s 14th place rating on the merits of a 73-63 victory Jan. 10 over St. Ambrose, a team which was ranked seventh at the time.
This season, the V-Hawks have proven to be a team to beat, having defeated four of the top 25 teams (Cardinal Stritch, St. Ambrose, Hastings, and Grandview). Viterbo is also responsible for handing seventh-ranked Cardinal Stritch (18-1) its only loss.
And they keep climbing. The V-Hawk women beat the Iowa Wesleyan Tigers last week 113-56.
Plan to attend a basketball game this week and show your support for the men’s and women’s teams. Both face off against Mount Mercy this week in the SAC. See the “Campus Calendar” on (page 2) for game times.

Correction
The time for Jim Posewitz’s presentation, “The North American Hunting Ethic,” was incorrectly listed as 7 p.m. in the last issue of Connections. Instead, the talk is on Wednesday, Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m. in the FAC Main Theatre.

Sign up for Yoga!
Yoga classes begin Friday, Jan. 26 at noon in the FAC dance studio. To register, stop by the Business Office before classes with a check for $45 payable to Viterbo University. Sign up soon; class size is limited.

Free Tickets
Members of the Viterbo community are invited to attend the Mixed Blood Theatre’s Jackie Robinson performance free as part of the annual Humanities Symposium events. The event is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 8, at 9:30 a.m. and noon.
General seating tickets will be available at the MC reception desk beginning Monday, Jan. 29. There is limited seating as the performances will be shared with area grade and high school students. Faculty requiring entire classes to attend should pick up the tickets in bulk and distribute in class to ensure availability rather than having students pick up the tickets individually.

Attention: Movers and Shakers!
The Student Union is a great place for all Viterbo clubs, organizations, and/or talents to gather. Simply call the Student Union front desk at ext. 3065 or stop by and visit with the friendly desk staff to set up your reservation.

RAs Needed
Members of the Viterbo community are invited to submit names of potential Resident Assistants (RAs) for the 2001-02 school year. Please submit nominations by Tuesday, Jan. 30, to the Residence Life Center. Call Jason Ramaker at ext. 3841 or email jwramaker if you have any questions.

Theatre Students Honored at Regional ACT Festival
Three Viterbo theatre majors received honors at this year’s regional American College Theatre Festival (ACTF) in Milwaukee Jan. 9-15.
Senior Barry Moe was the regional winner in make-up and wig design for last year’s Viterbo production of Iolanthe. As a result, he will travel to Washington, D.C. April 23-30 to compete in the National ACTF.
Senior Jason Penix was the regional runner-up in scenic design while sophomore Emily Mark was named a regional finalist for original playwrighting for her play Secrets Don’t Make Friends.
The three were part of a group that included 19 students from Viterbo who entered and attended the competition. The others were:
• Nickolas Rapacz, Keely Wolter, Tony Love, Raisa Thornton, and Joel Powell who all performed a scene from She Stoops to Conquer.
• Keely Wolter and Joel Powell; Leslie Swancutt and Nadia Wahhab; Nickolas Rapacz and Jillian Palmer; Tony Love and Adam Terry who were all Irene Ryan Regional Acting Competition Nominees.
• Jesse Dreikosen, scenic design, and Kimberly Nysse-Gaska (two entries), costume design, entered the National Design Competition.
• Jesse Dreikosen, Joel Powell, Kimberly Nysse-Gaska, Sarah Goldstein, and Rebecca Kaasa entered the Regional Design Competition in costume design.
• Benjamin Minnis entered the National Critics Competition.
The students were accompanied to the event by Viterbo Theatre Arts faculty members Janet McLean, Lisa Newkirk-Reimler, and Dean Yohnk.
The annual festival is a regional competition involving 2,000 graduate and undergraduate participants from Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana.
The aims of the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival are to identify and promote quality in college-level theatre productions. During the past five years, Viterbo theatre productions and students have been awarded a number of regional and national awards in acting, design, playwriting, and directing.

Campus Ministry by Fr. Tom O'Neill

• The Busy Student Retreat will be held Feb. 4-8. It is a retreat experience for students busy with school, work study, extracurricular activities, jobs, families, etc. and who have little time for a whole weekend retreat.
• The retreat allows you to schedule daily prayer time and a meetings with a retreat director into the midst of your regular, schedule. You “go on retreat” in the midst of your busy life.
• The retreat is spread over four days, from Sunday, Feb. 4 at 6:30 p.m., through Thursday, Feb. 8 at 6:30 p.m. On Sunday there will be a brief orientation and an initial meeting with your retreat director to establish your daily meeting times. On the last night there will be a closing meeting with prayer. In between, you will meet daily with your director at a time convenient for you. You will be given a retreat packet with helps to guide you each day and material with talking points for you and your director. You will gather nightly with all who are on retreat for prayer and homemade snacks.
• There will be several experienced directors. Times and meeting places will be worked out between you and your director. For more information, contact Earl Madary, ext. 3707, Sr. Sue Ernster, ext. 3709, or Fr. Tom O’Neill, ext. 3804. An informational meeting is scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 28 at 6:30 p.m. in San Damiano Chapel.
• Calendar: Jan. 22 is the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade; Jan. 25 is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul and the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity; and Jan. 28 is the start of Catholic Schools Week.

Please remember those who have gone to their eternal reward, especially Anne Eriksen, mother-in-law of Jan Eriksen. May she rest in peace.

Award-winning Poet to Visit
Award-winning poet and scholar Claudia Keelan, whose most recent collection of poetry, Utopic, was awarded the national Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Press, will give a poetry reading on Tuesday, Feb. 13, at 7 p.m. in the Viterbo FAC Recital Hall.
Keelan will be a visiting poet at Viterbo that day courtesy of Touchstone, Viterbo’s literary magazine. Her poetry breaks down traditional definitions of self, which work to isolate rather than create community. She has published two other prize-winning collections of poetry: Refinery won the Cleveland State University Poetry Prize in 1994, and The Secularist won in the 1997 Contemporary Poetry Series from the University of Georgia Press. In addition, her poetry has appeared in two anthologies and her criticism has appeared in the 1993 edition of Contemporary Authors.
A professor of English at the University of Nevada?Las Vegas, Keelan is also a visiting faculty member this year at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop.
A booksigning will follow the poetry reading, which is free and open to the public. Keelan’s books will be available for purchase.
For more information, call Bill Stobb, Viterbo assistant professor of English, at ext. 3486 or email westobb.

Visiting Author Wins Honors
Jacqueline Woodson, the young adult author whose April 27 talk at Viterbo will culminate a Young Adult Book Talk series, was awarded the Coretta Scott King Award for young adult literature last week for her novel Miracle’s Boys.
Woodson, who will speak in the Viterbo Recital Hall from 7-8:30 p.m., is also the author of Lena, Last Summer With Maison, From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun, and I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This. She has been a Fellow at the MacDowell Colony and at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass. and has worked as a drama therapist in a New York City residence for runaway and homeless children. She lives in Brooklyn.
The Coretta Scott King Award is one of the most prestigious awards given to the best young adult works each year.
The Book Talk series is funded, in part, by the Wisconsin Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Seating is limited for all talks so reservations are required.
For more information, or to register, contact Grant Smith, English department, at ext. 3485 or email gtsmith.

News You'll Notice by Grant Smith, English Department
Four Viterbo faculty members have been awarded Faculty Development Grants in January.

• Jean Saladino, music, was awarded $1000 to fund a workshop by Dr. Frances Nobert from Whittier College March 30 through April 4 at Viterbo University. Nobert will work with members of the music department to increase the faculty’s awareness of “overlooked composers,” increase their knowledge of new choral and solo vocal music literature, and assist in a choral concert   April 4 at the First Presbyterian Church.
• Pat Zander, nursing, received $1000 to attend the Creative Teaching for Nursing Educators 27th Annual Workshop sponsored by the University of Memphis College of Education in Memphis, Tenn. March 17-20.
• Phyllis Blackstone, education, received a $500 grant to attend the Wisconsin State Reading Association in Milwaukee, Feb. 8-10.
• Lyon Evans, English, received $1000 to return to the Luoyang Institute of Technology in Luoyang, China to continue his study of Chinese culture and literature. Evans will also teach as a visiting professor of English at the Luoyang Institute for several weeks in May.

To date, the Faculty Development Committee has awarded $15,247.50 to 22 faculty members.

The Faculty Development Committee is sponsoring two Breakfast Book Chats? Jan. 31 and Feb. 1. On Jan. 31, Marlene Fisher will lead a discussion of The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football by Mariah Burton Nelson.  On Feb. 1, Grant Smith will lead a discussion of Embracing Victory also by Burton Nelson. Burton Nelson is the keynote speaker at the Humanities Symposium Feb. 5-8. Both Breakfast Book Chats will be held in MC 402A from 7-8 a.m.

On January 30, the Faculty Development Committee and Mary Hassinger, Dean of the School of Letters and Sciences, will conduct a one-hour workshop on promotion and tenure for new tenure-track faculty at 3:30 p.m. in MC 402. A second workshop on developing a college syllabus is being scheduled for new faculty later this spring.

The Seventh-Day Discussions will continue this semester beginning Tuesday, Jan. 30, with Keith Knutson from the history department leading an informal discussion on “Election 2000: What Did We Learn?” The Seventh-Day Discussions are held from noon to 1 p.m. in the Science and Math Lounge, MC 419C. All faculty and students are invited to attend and participate.

Talk Focuses on Spirituality in Health and Illness
On Monday, Jan. 29, Christina Puchalski, M.D. will lead a free talk on “The Role of Spirituality in Health and Illness” at 7 p.m. in Franciscan Skemp’s Marycrest Auditorium.
A wide range of studies has shown that spirituality plays a significant role in improving patient outcomes during recovery from surgery and such illnesses as heart disease, cancer, depression, and substance abuse. In fact, it helps patients find meaning in their suffering and helps them cope with the pains and frustrations associated with illness. In this talk, Dr. Puchalski explores the benefits of spirituality and the important role healthcare providers must play in addressing patients’ spiritual concerns.
Dr. Puchalski is an assistant professor in the Division of Aging, Department of Medicine, at George Washington University. She is also the director of education for the National Institute for Healthcare Research.

Out & About
La Crosse Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Virginia Strauss will be the featured soloist at the “Gems of Harmony” concerts Feb. 9 and 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Viterbo Main Theatre. Another highlight will be the familiar sounds of Spring and Summer from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Call 783-2121 for ticket availability.

The Splendors of Europe Tour
Join Fr. Tom O'Neill, Viterbo University chaplain, on a two-week tour of the splendors of Europe:  Vienna, Budapest, Moravia, Prague, Bavarian Alps, Munich, Lichtenstein, Zurich, and the Swiss Alps. The tour includes round-trip air from La Crosse, hotel accommodation for 12 nights?with private bath at four-star first-class hotels, continental breakfast and dinner daily, guided sightseeing by private motorcoach, and more. Per person cost is $2,935. For a detailed itinerary, please contact Fr. Tom at ext. 3804 or email tmoneill.

Human Resources
Please extend a warm Viterbo University welcome to two new part-time faculty members:
Laura O’Flaherty, nursing
Stacy Boehm, nursing

Tune in/Turn on!
There’s currently quite a bit of media coverage scheduled surrounding this year’s Humanities Symposium, “The Sporting Life: Gender, Race, and Ethics in American Sports.”
Be sure to check out the following:

• Thursday, Jan. 25: La Crosse Tribune interview with Jim Posewitz regarding the ethics of hunting? check the Outdoors page.
• Wednesday, Jan. 31: Tune in to WKTY-AM 580 Talkin’ Tribune Outdoors from 4-5 p.m. The La Crosse Tribune’s Jerry Davis and Bob Lamb will interview Jim Posewitz.
• Thursday, Feb. 1: WXOW-TV 19’s Live at 5 program will feature an interview with Tom Thibodeau, religious studies, about the symposium events.
• Friday, Feb. 2: WIZM’s La Crosse Talk at 7:15 a.m. will feature an interview with Thibodeau about the symposium events.
• Monday, Feb. 5: WKBT-TV 8’s noon Contact show will feature an interview with Thibodeau about the symposium events.

From the Library by Nancy Steinhoff, Library
Online Databases from Bell & Howell: The Online Database page at the library has a new face this semester. We have simplified its look and added new, full-text article databases. Three of our newest additions are subscriptions sold by Bell & Howell under its Proquest line. CINAHL, Proquest Nursing Journals, and Proquest Education Complete join Proquest Newspapers.

You can access them from the library home page, www.viterbo.edu/library, by clicking on Online Databases and selecting them by name or through any Proquest link. Each database allows basic and advanced (guided) searching. All, except Newspapers, allow searching limited to peer-reviewed journals. All are available off campus. Call ext. 3270 for the password.

CINAHL is the leading database for research in nursing and allied health. It indexes more than 1,200 journals and about four percent of these include full-text articles. Access this database by clicking on the blue word CINAHL. Proquest Nursing Journals, a separate choice, allows searching only the full-text articles found in 250+ journals indexed by CINAHL. The search screens are also less detailed than the CINAHL search screens.

Proquest Education Complete indexes education articles in more than 550 journals. More than 300 of these journal titles include full-text articles. This database complements the full-text ERIC documents available from E*Subscribe (1996-) and increases access to educational research for our distant education students.

Proquest Newspapers is our original Proquest database. It provides full-text access to 27 major national newspapers. There are also such regional newspapers as the Star Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and Wisconsin Newstand.

Kudos to…
Wendy Wegner, nursing, who conducted a workshop for nurses from FSH-Mayo system at the Radisson Hotel on Jan. 16 and will conduct another on Jan. 23. Both workshops are entitled “Critical Thinking: Making Clinical Judgment Visible.”

Out & About
La Crosse Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Virginia Strauss will be the featured soloist at the “Gems of Harmony” concerts Feb. 9 and 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Viterbo Main Theatre. Another highlight will be the familiar sounds of Spring and Summer from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. Call 783-2121 for ticket availability.

The Splendors of Europe Tour
Join Fr. Tom O'Neill, Viterbo University chaplain, on a two-week tour of the splendors of Europe:  Vienna, Budapest, Moravia, Prague, Bavarian Alps, Munich, Lichtenstein, Zurich, and the Swiss Alps. The tour includes round-trip air from La Crosse, hotel accommodation for 12 nights­with private bath at four-star first-class hotels, continental breakfast and dinner daily, guided sightseeing by private motorcoach, and more. Per person cost is $2,935. For a detailed itinerary, please contact Fr. Tom at ext. 3804 or email tmoneill.

Human Resources
Please extend a warm Viterbo University welcome to two new part-time faculty members:
Laura O’Flaherty, nursing
Stacy Boehm, nursing

Steerage Party Band from Hit Movie "Titanic" to Play at Viterbo
Experience the infectious flavor of traditional Irish music, fun, and dance with Gaelic Storm, the steerage party band from the movie Titanic, on Friday, Feb. 2, at 7:30 p.m. in the Viterbo FAC Main Theatre.
Their first album remained on the charts for more than 30 weeks, and their second, Herding Cats, released in fall 1999, received even more enthusiastic reviews. Celebtalk magazine said Gaelic Storm is “non-stop music and laughs…an energy so powerful you can’t do anything but join in the fun.”
The group is comprised of Patrick Murphy, Cork City, Ireland; Steve Wehmeyer, Olean, N.Y.; Steve Twigger, Coventry, England; Shep Lonsdale, London; and Kathleen Keane, Chicago. Gaelic Storm has drawn record-breaking crowds at Milwaukee’s famed IrishFest for two years running, Celtic-Fest Chicago, the Dublin Ohio Irish Festival, and the Pittsburgh Irish Festival as well as Festival Interceltique in Lorient, France (the largest Celtic festival in the world). The band has likewise played to capacity crowds at countless clubs and theatres across the country. Nominated as the “Performers of the Year” in 1999 and 2000 by the National Association of Campus Activities, Gaelic Storm has garnered a huge following among college students from Hawaii to New Hampshire. A mini-documentary about the band airs regularly on Cinemax, and the band has appeared numerous times on national TV.
Gaelic Storm’s performance is part of the Viterbo NexStar Season and is sponsored by CenturyTel. It is supported, in part, by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin.
Tickets are $21 and $15. To order, please contact the Box Office at ext. 3100.

Return to Viterbo University Home Page