Oregon Quarterly helps raise the curtain on new residence hall

The newest residence hall at the University of Oregon combines an innovative approach to academic residential communities with dazzling dining facilities and a family welcome center that serve the entire campus.

It’s DeNorval Unthank Jr. Hall, featured in the fall issue of Oregon Quarterly, available now.

Named in honor of the first Black graduate of the architecture program, Unthank Hall represents the new standard in campus housing. With living space and amenities for more than 700 students, it marks the completion of the first phase of a dynamic, multistage plan for replacing some of the UO’s dated housing inventory.

This issue of the university magazine also explores the new Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, a global effort among six founding institutions to promote wellness and peak performance through scientific discovery and innovation. The Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation has pledged $220 million over 10 years to the six institutions and the gift will fund numerous UO projects, known collectively as the Human Performance Alliance at Oregon and based in the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact.

The UO’s recently concluded, $3.24 billion fundraising campaign and the return to in-person instruction are among the key campus developments President Michael Schill addresses in a special Q&A. “The pandemic reaffirmed how important it is to be able to be together as a community,” Schill said. The campaign’s impact is further explored in a special 24-page Inside Oregon inserted into the issue.

Also coming together, just in time for Halloween, folklorists Martha Bayless, Dorothee Ostmeier and Dan Wojcik explore creepy campus ghost stories and the cultural significance behind them. You’ll never walk past Pioneer Cemetery or Mac Court calmly again.

The fall issue features Clark Honors College professor Liska Chan and her class, Invisible Landscapes. Chan, a landscape architect and associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, specializes in unearthing and commemorating the stories, myths and veiled layers of a space, showing why they are important and explaining how we can learn from histories that have been deeply buried.

Also: Kaori Idemaru, professor of Japanese linguistics; alumna Jana Schmieding, Lakota Sioux Native and star of the Peacock network’s hit show “Rutherford Falls”; Lois Youngen, trailblazing pro baseballer and donor; and alumnus Robert Steadward, named a Companion of the Order of Canada for his work on behalf of the disability sport movement.

Capping off the fall OQ, a Duck Tale about a 1970s Halloween prank that involved a creative-and-still- unidentified group of mischievous students, one large replica of a meteorite, and, well, you’ll have to read it to believe it.