| • Praise for Paula
In the latest issue of CUA Magazine, I read the article by Paula Quinn, B.A. 1985. I taught her in English 331 and 332 and have photocopies of her “A” papers. I’d like to tell her how much I was inspired by her devotion to her husband and children. How well she has used her writing skills since “Junior Tutorial”!
Sister Anne O’Donnell, S.N.D.
Professor of English
The Catholic University of America
I just finished reading the Summer 2005 issue and liked it very much, as usual. I graduated in 1970 with a B.A. in psychology but went on to work in marine biology and chemistry.
I absolutely enjoyed the alumni essay by Paula Quinn Smaldone. She is a remarkable woman. She is right-on about how valuable her “fuzzy” English major was, not only in the career sense but, more importantly, in the life sense.
I have always appreciated the liberal arts background I got at CUA. We all look at the same world, but what matters, and what can make life rich, are the lenses that we see it through. Ben Goggins
Tybee Island, Ga.
• Making a List
It was a great pleasure to review the Summer 2005 issue, to read and let the Power of Place take over.
Achievements for Catholic University:
1. Acreage in the midst of the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.
2. Value of the land, 193 acres
3. Historical buildings on the campus
4. Basilica
5. Pope Benedict XVI’s attitude toward CUA
6. The 2006 Alumni Grant Program: “Do It All,” excellent to read
7. Envisioning the future of CUA
8. There is a great deal of talk these days about Pride of Place
• Words and thoughts are powerful —
• Should we substitute (or add) power instead of pride?
9. Our South Dakota diocese now has a foundation for financing students’ tuition to Catholic University, plus a small, loyal group of graduates
10. We shall hope that the Powers of both Pride and Place will become
11. The Power of Peace
12. In order to reach Catholic University’s best achievements
13. And that Guardian Angels are watching out for this school
14. I have always been well pleased with the education I received, and the months spent at Catholic University are among my best memories.
P.S. I graduated in nursing in 1939. Up to that time I was a registered nurse, 32 years old, and had some college education but not a degree. I am now 98.
Sarah Jane O’Rourk Hewett
Rapid City, S.D.
• A Visit to Our Youth
We carry pieces of our experience from CUA throughout our life. More than 20 years have passed, but pleasant old memories revive easily. I had the grandest pleasure this evening of having dinner with John Ahlgren, one of my roommates who graduated with the Class of 1981.
And unlike our school days, a complete evening passed without the mention of studies, tests, classes or the other challenges of academic life. That was all well past us and, like a lot of what we learned at CUA, long forgotten.
How refreshing to breathe life back into those times before jobs, bills and hernias began filling our middle-age days. We summoned up the memories of CUA friends who have passed away during the last decade. Then we brought them back to life and assembled them with the images of those still living who were on second-floor Spalding in 1977–1978 and in our small corner of Gibbons in 1979 — creating an alumni trip back to our version of Walton’s Mountain.
The CUA landscape has changed much in that time and we hardly recognize it today. For alumni, it is unaltered. It endures as we left it, a never-changing image, so we can revisit it with a welcome familiarity that keeps us attached to this place that shaped our young lives. How fortunate John and I were to have the chance to visit there again while sitting together at a café table. Although hundreds of miles away from CUA, we were there again tonight. As alumni we defeated the rules of physics, crossed the boundaries of space and time, and for just a few hours our friends were all together again. John Hargenrader
B.E.E. 1984
Brighton, Mich.
• Correction
Monsignor John F. Wippel, CUA's Theodore B. Basselin Professor of Philosophy, was mentioned in the Summer 2005 issue with an incorrect reference to his doctoral work. After earning three degrees from CUA — his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy and his licentiate degree in sacred theology — he earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Louvain, Belgium, in 1965. He was awarded the prestigious post-doctoral degree Maître-Agrégé from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve in 1981.
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