The University of Portland, a leader among its peer institutions in producing Fulbright U.S. Student Program participants, has announced that five students have been named finalists for the 2018 awards to teach English, do research, or attend graduate school abroad.
The University of Portland continues to be one of the top producers of Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards in the nation among master’s level institutions, according to a study released by the Chronicle of Higher Education. In addition to the 2018 finalists, the University has had 64 students participate in the program since 2001.
"This consistent recognition by the Fulbright Program, one of the most distinguished and influential academic awards, highlights the breadth and depth of both our outstanding faculty and our students at the University of Portland,” said University President Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C. “It is particularly gratifying, as a university that places a distinct emphasis on exceptional teaching, that these students will be able to take their commitment to service and learning to communities around the world.”
The 2018 finalists offered English Teaching Assistantships (ETA) include Tsikata Apenyo ’18 (Taiwan); Arran Fagan ’18 and Lauren Jones ’18 (Malaysia); Hannah Robinson ’14 (Spain); and Molly Steiner ’18 (Mexico). Apenyo represents the University of Portland’s first award to Taiwan.
The United States Fulbright program began in 1946 after World War II to “assist in the development of friendly, sympathetic and peaceful relations between the United States and other countries of the world” through the exchange of students, scholars and professionals. The program operates in more than 140 countries worldwide.
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The University of Portland is an independently governed Catholic university guided by the Congregation of Holy Cross. U.S. News & World Report ranks the institution as one of the top ten regional universities in the American West. It is the only school in Oregon to offer a College of Arts & Sciences, a graduate school, and nationally accredited programs in the schools of business, education, engineering, and nursing.
Jessica Murphy Moo has been appointed editor of Portland magazine, the award-winning publication of the University of Portland.
A writer, editor, and teacher, Murphy Moo comes to UP from Seattle, WA, where she has been senior communications manager for the Seattle Opera, as well as an adjunct instructor teaching nonfiction writing for the University of Washington’s Professional and Continuing Education. She was formerly a staff editor at The Atlantic and fiction editor at Memorious, an online literary magazine.
“Jessica brings a robust and diverse literary career to the University of Portland. I am struck by her versatility and creativity,” said Rev. Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C., University president. “She is grounded in her faith and her writing clearly reflects her understanding of Catholic social teachings, but also a thoughtful and critical approach as an editor.”
Murphy Moo, who will begin her role at the University in July, follows the late Brian Doyle as the editor of the magazine, a literary publication that reflects both Catholic tradition and a unique Pacific Northwest aesthetic.
“I am immensely grateful for this opportunity,” said Murphy Moo. “I feel I already know the University of Portland through the magic Brian Doyle brought to Portland magazine. I am humbled to be carrying his torch, and I feel the responsibility of this task.”
In addition to her fiction and nonfiction in various literary journals and magazines, Murphy Moo also profiled a group of Benedictine nuns who live on Washington’s Shaw Island for Portland magazine in 2008. “I became a recipient of Brian’s kind and sound editorial advice, in addition to the affirmation that comes from being acknowledged by a writer you admire.”
Murphy Moo says her top priority when she arrives will be to get to know the people who comprise the UP community and their stories. “In my experience, most people don’t know that their life and their work tell a story. The value of writers resides in our ability to connect the dots between a person’s every day and a person’s heart. In that space, story and mystery abound.”
A writer of both fiction and nonfiction, Murphy Moo’s fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, Image, and Memorious (published before she became fiction editor there), and Signs of Life, an anthology for Seattle-based writers. Her nonfiction has appeared in Portland magazine, Poets & Writers Magazine, ParentMap, The Tablet, Boston College Magazine, and The Atlantic Online, among other publications. In 2006, she earned a nine-month postgraduate writing fellowship from Image magazine, an award given annually to a writer of Christian commitment who is working on a first book.
She is also a librettist and wrote the libretto for An American Dream, an opera composed by Jack Perla, which had its world premiere at Seattle Opera in 2015. The opera was remounted there in 2017 and will be presented at the Chicago Lyric Opera in 2019. She was a 2016 fellow at Tapestry Opera’s Librettist Composer Laboratory Workshop and is currently working on a new libretto for an opera for young audiences.
She earned her B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross and earned an M.F.A. in fiction at Emerson College. She has held teaching positions at Emerson College, Harvard University, Boston University, Seattle Pacific University, University of Washington, and Seattle Opera.
Murphy Moo credits the Catholic Church and its social justice teachings, as well as her Jesuit education, with the awakening of her activism and continuing education in ally work. After college, she was a Jesuit Volunteer at a Jesuit high school on the island of Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia. She has been a member of Seattle Opera’s Equity Task Force and of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a nonpartisan group that works to teach communities about safe gun storage and suicide prevention and to work with legislators for sensible gun laws.
When she isn’t writing, she and her husband can be found chasing after their three children and finding the humor in things.