Bruin Notes

All that jazz

The first “Julianne Johnson and Friends” concert, hosted in Bauman Auditorium in April, drew 700. The concert was intended to raise awareness for the institution’s Act Six leadership and scholarship program and allowed donors to get to know the Act Six students. Johnson, a singer and actress who has appeared in more than 45 theatrical productions locally and regionally, performed a set of spirituals, jazz, and Motown selections. Among those joining her onstage was Michael Allen Harrison, a producer, composer, arranger, and concert pianist who has sold nearly 1 million albums.

Portland saxophonist Patrick Lamb and the Portland Community Choir participated, and singers Courtney Greenidge and Vanessa Wilkins — two of the Act Six scholars who will join the university this fall — also performed.

Act Six is designed to equip urban student leaders to serve on the college campus and return to their neighborhoods as agents of change. The program’s first cadre of nine students have been admitted and will enroll in George Fox this fall. Plans call for the program to enroll approximately 10 new students each fall thereafter. Portland Central Young Life is teaming with George Fox to provide training for the scholars.

Joel Perez, director of the program at George Fox, says the university plans to bring Johnson back to campus for another fund-raising concert in 2008.

Hoover Academic Building earns industry award

The Hoover Academic Building, renovated in 2006, earned the 2007 Excellence in Construction award from the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors organization. It won in the institutional building category.

A panel of judges reviewed entries in the annual contest, now in its 13th year, considering a project’s challenges, uniqueness, attention to safety, deadlines, scope of work, and hazards, among other criteria.

The $4.3million project included construction of a 15,400-square-foot, two-story addition to the existing building and a major remodeling of the original building, built in 1977.

The job was a homecoming of sorts for project manager David Hoff, a 2003 graduate of George Fox. The Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership designed the building, and Mark Foster served as principal architect.

Don McNichols, 1915-2007

Don McNichols never held the title of president at George Fox, but his role as a leader was undeniable. McNichols, a longtime administrator, professor, and trustee, died in May at age 91. During a leadership crisis at the college in the early 1950s, he headed a three-member administrative committee that served in lieu of a president. Nearly three decades later, in 1982, McNichols chaired a 15-member search committee that selected President Ed Stevens. McNichols, who arrived at George Fox in 1950, taught literature for five years and was dean of the college. He later served on the university’s board of trustees for 24 years, elected and reelected by fellow members eight times. In 1980 he wrote Portrait of a Quaker, the definitive biography of former President Levi Pennington. McNichols, a resident of Warm Beach, Wash., taught at Seattle Pacific University while he continued to serve George Fox as a board member. His wife, Lydia, died last December.