November 2008
Viking Thanksgiving
The table was wrapped in tin foil and decorated with food — turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie — and no utensils.
We used just our hands during the Christmas on Campus committee second annual Viking Thanksgiving.
After hands were washed, 20 students crowded around the table. We said a prayer and prepared ourselves for the thousands of calories we would consume. We then attacked the food and tried not to lick our fingers too much. "This is so good," said one member of the yams glazed in brown sugar and topped with melted marshmallows.
My bursting belly told me we did not need to eat again until the real Thanksgiving.
My Old House: 221 Irving Ave.
This remodeled house is home to six men, just as it was back in Mike Vitullo ’68’s day. Back then there were black walls, a bulls-eyed ceiling and a bathtub – no shower. See how things have changed.
Pas de deux
When you think of robots, forget the tin-can clunkers from ’60s sci-fi. Instead, think "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy."
During Friday's dedication and blessing of the Motoman Robotics Lab in Kettering Laboratories room 232, two sleek, gray robots danced to music from the Nutcracker while a muscle-bound robot in blue and white directed the show. It was a demonstration of the precision of these tools and the ingenuity of their programmers.
The robots, a gift from Motoman, will soon be augmented with appendages thanks to SAS Automation. Next year, pirouettes?
Going green
The Crest is clearly going green. The dining hall ordered 13,600 fewer disposable cups this year than it did last year by switching to reusable tumblers — a clear plastic alternative for those who are keeping their drinks in-house.
First-year student Lindsie MacPherson gestured to her tumbler, saying, “It’s what I always use — saves a cup.” Joining her at the table was Rachel Janicik, who opted for the disposable cup. She said she likes to take her drink with her, something you can’t do with the new tumblers.
But numbers say the students are choosing the washable cups more and more — a trend that Sheryl Rhodes, a dining hall employee, is happy about. “It’s better if we can save a tree,” she said, adding with a laugh, “I don’t work in dishes, so it’s no extra work for me.”
‘When you enjoy what you’re doing …’
Engineering technology professor Bob Wolff blames his heritage for his 50-plus-year commitment to his work, his family and the University.
“I’m German,” he said. “I’ve got a good work ethic.”
Friends toast his loyalty, wit and sense of duty at a reception at 3 p.m. Friday in the Innovation Center of Kettering Laboratories.
Wolff’s history at UD is much longer than his faculty appointment. He grew up in the 1942 house his parents built at 1912 Trinity Ave. He walked to Holy Angels for school, and when lunchtime came, he hopped on a passing freight car and rode it the quarter-mile or so home along the tracks that ran between campus and the NCR neighborhood. On the Saturdays of Flyer football games, Wolff and his friends ran through the storm sewers and snuck into Baujan Field through a manhole.
Today, he’s not as mischievous, but he’s every bit as industrious. Read about Wolff’s UD career on the Campus Report site.
Philosophical smackdown
At UD Wednesday, Nov. 19, two respected religious scholars — who 30 years ago were teacher and student — will go head-to-head on the question of belief.
At first glance, it's a scholarly dialogue. But look a little further, and you see it's as close as you can get in academia to a philosophical smackdown.
The student, UD religious studies professor Dennis Doyle, and the teacher, William Shea, Doyle's adviser for three years at Catholic University of America, share an intellectual mentor in the philosopher-theologian Father Bernard Lonergan, S.J. But they don't always see eye-to-eye on what the Jesuit thinker said about belief and knowledge.
So when the student criticized the teacher's interpretation of belief and knowledge in a volume of essays, the teacher, who recently retired as director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross, declared publicly — though politely — that it was time to set the record straight. It was necessary, he said, but it had to be done properly, with enough time in a forum sufficient to spell it out, once and for all.
Doyle answered the challenge.
At 3 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 19, in the Sears Recital Hall, the two come face-to-face.
It is so polite, so sophisticated, so respectful, so intellectual a challenge that one almost doesn't notice it's the academic version of trash talk.
Basically, Shea said, "Anytime, anywhere."
Doyle's response, basically: "Bring it on."
Listen to Doyle talk smack: "In terms of engaging contemporary pluralist culture, there are some who find it more important to stress the difference between belief and knowledge," Doyle said. "He stresses, from a philosophical starting point, the contrasts between belief and knowledge; my own approach wants to stress belief as a form of knowledge."
When Doyle brings up the d-word, the gloves are bound to come off:
"Shea's intellectual enemy is dogmatism," he said. "He thinks that if you start equating belief with knowledge, it will lead you to be dogmatic. ... My fear of Shea's position is that it would be pulling the rug out from beneath people's faith commitments, starting with the contention that belief is not as humanly critical and relevant as other forms of human knowledge. I think it hinders people from having an appropriate level of confidence in their basic religious faith. With that as a starting point, it puts inappropriate limits on people."
Though their discussion promises to be spirited, Doyle doesn't predict a holy war with his former teacher, who is also a close friend and a mentor. On the contrary, he said, their core is the same: "Both of us want to encourage religious believing, and both of us want to avoid dogmatism."
Good thing it's not for a grade.
The essay in question, "Lonergan and Shea on Belief and Knowledge: Positions, Counter-Positions, and Contexts," will appear in Tradition and Pluralism: Essays in Honor of William M. Shea (University Press of America), set for release in January.
Christmas comes early
Christmas music boomed through campus at the noon hour Tuesday. In front of Kennedy Union, open fires crackled and several jolly Santas mixed with the growing crowd, all to draw students to the Christmas on Campus fundraiser and 
activity tables. One had sign-ups for Saturday’s 5K Reindeer Trot, while another sold T-shirts and hats near a blow-up Twister game. But the one getting most of the attention, with lines leading back to the union doors, was the adopt-a-child table.
Since the 1970s, the university has brought children from area schools to be paired with a university student the evening of Christmas on Campus. Students can request a boy or a girl and can take their child to activities like the kids’ festival in RecPlex or the lighting of the Christmas tree, now in Humanities Plaza.
For those who missed the fun Tuesday, the tables will be set up in Kennedy Union through Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
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