The incoming class of 2014 currently includes 1,522 students and is the largest St. Thomas class ever, which resulted in a few changes in planning for this year’s summer orientation sessions.

One orientation session was added to accommodate larger numbers of students for a total of 10 sessions, and placement and language tests were done ahead of time to reduce the activities students had to do on the actual orientation day, Associate Dean of Students Victoria Svoboda said. In an effort to make sure all incoming students would at least get some of their first-choice classes, the orientation and registration team set aside spots in classes for students in later sessions and registered each incoming freshman for one or two classes in advance.

Students did not spend the night on campus for the second year in a row – a decision Svoboda said helps increase parent participation because parents don’t have to miss as much work.

At orientation, students took part in icebreaker games like the “screaming game,” and watched skits and videos about college life with their families. They also ate lunch on the quad, attended an information fair, registered for fall classes and listened to talks by university staff and faculty members.

Student reactions to the orientation sessions were generally positive.

“I’ve already been on an overnight, so I’m cool with not doing it again,” said incoming freshman Quinn Andreasen. “Orientation’s been a pretty good experience so far.”

Rebekah Frank can be reached at rfrank@stthomas.edu.

Katie Broadwell contributed to this story.

Graduates received their diplomas in an unusual location Saturday. Commencement ceremonies were held at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, due to the construction of the Anderson Athletic and Recreation Complex. The undergraduate ceremony started at 2 p.m. and featured the Rev. Marvin O’Connell, University of Notre Dame emeritus faculty, and Tommie Award recipient Steven Broszko.

Michael Ewen can be reached at mtewen@stthomas.edu.

The softball team held off elimination Sunday with a 6-1 win over Illinois-Wesleyan at the regional tournament in Indianola, Iowa.

Senior Marta Radcliffe threw a complete game and had two RBIs to lead the Tommies. Sophomore Kayla Boward went three-for-four at the plate, tacking on a run and an RBI.

Sunday’s win marks the second victory over Illinois-Wesleyan in three days. St. Thomas ended the Titan’s season and earned itself a rematch with Linfield College.

The Tommies were defeated 9-1 by Linfield Saturday and St. Thomas will need another victory Sunday afternoon over Linfield to keep its season alive.

Because the tournament is double elimination, a win over Linfield would pit St. Thomas against Linfield again Monday for the championship.

Jordan Osterman can be reached at jrosterman@stthomas.edu

The women’s softball team took a throttling from Linfield College to the tune of 9-1 Saturday at the regional tournament in Indianola, Iowa.

The loss forces St. Thomas to win three straight games Sunday and Monday to win the regional and advance in the national tournament. The Tommies will have a rematch with Illinois-Wesleyan Sunday at 11 a.m., who it defeated 3-2 Friday.

Senior Alison Wrights’ base hit in the fourth inning was the sole run scored for a Tommie team that managed just three hits. St. Thomas and Linfield were tied 1-1 after the fourth, but Linfield posted three runs in the fifth inning and four in the final inning to pull away.

First baseman Staci Doucette led Linfield with three hits, four RBIs and two runs scored. Jaydee Baxter also went two-for-three with two RBIs.

Senior Marta Radcliffe took her first loss in 19 games, giving up seven earned runs in just over six innings pitched. St. Thomas’ 19 game winning streak was snapped as well.

Jordan Osterman can be reached at jrosterman@stthomas.edu

The women’s softball team continued its national tournament run Friday with a 3-2 walk-off win over Illinois-Wesleyan University in Indianola, Iowa.

Senior Marta Radcliffe once again led the Tommies on the mound, striking out 11 Titans batters and earning the complete game win. St. Thomas fell behind 2-0 but scored three runs in the final two innings for the win.

Sophomore Kayla Boward went two-for-three for the day with an RBI, but it was Radcliffe’s single in the seventh inning that let St. Thomas walk off the diamond as the winner. Freshman Alyssa Dunrud pinch-ran for Radcliffe and took advantage of three wild pitches to cruise around the bases for the winning run.

St. Thomas will play Linfield College at 4 p.m. Saturday.

Jordan Osterman can be reached at jrosterman@stthomas.edu.

PULSE presented Pandemonium Friday, May 14 in the Lower Quad. The performances and displayed art were in celebration of the end of the school year and progress on the new athletic center.

The engineering department held its senior design clinic between 2:30 and 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Owens Science Hall atrium. The projects were made for various companies.

Kelly O’Connor, a 13-year member of the St. Thomas Public Safety department, returned last month from a yearlong military deployment, during which he served with the Minnesota Army National Guard’s 175th Forward Support Co.

Director of Public Safety Michael Barrett said having O’Connor gone for a year was a difficult adjustment, and he is glad to have him back.

“Kelly is very well-known and well-respected in the community,” Barrett said. “Anytime you have that type of connection with the community, in this case the Minneapolis campus, losing a person of that caliber for a year does affect the community. You come to work every day and you see the same people and you expect the same level of service response and the same smile every day, and that’s Kelly’s approach.”

O’Connor’s job while in Kuwait was convoy support. He drove Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Armored Vehicles, which he described as “glorified dump trucks.” The trucks were designed to take the impact of a mine explosion better than a Humvee.

O’Connor joined the military in 1992 after the Gulf War, but because he was still in college for law enforcement he wasn’t shipped to combat.

O'Connor talks in his Minneapolis office about his year of service in Iraq. (John Kruger/TommieMedia)

Initially O’Connor joined the Battle Dress Uniform army, which he said was much different from the Army Combat Uniform.

“The ACU uniform has a lot greater respect,” O’Connor said. “I get a lot of ‘thank you for your service’ compared to the BDU army; we didn’t have that.”

O’Connor was in the service for nine years doing various jobs including fire directions control, military police officer, and later helping to prepare soldiers to ship out.

“After all the shifting and back and forth, and some other things I didn’t believe in the military and decided to get out and work on my degrees,” O’Connor said.

It was after this first stint that O’Connor joined the St. Thomas Public Safety force while working on a bachelor’s degree in real estate. He eventually moved to first shift sergeant, and acquired his master’s degree in police and leadership. Seven years after leaving the military he decided to rejoin.

“It may have been a feeling of being left behind,” O’Connor said. “You become stagnant just being at the same place doing the same thing every day. “

O’Connor was supposed to go to Germany for the summer when he got orders to go to Kuwait.

“I was volun-told,” O’Connor joked.

O’Connor said he had a positive experience while he was in Kuwait and Iraq. He was originally supposed to go with some of his friends who were members of the National Guard’s 34th Infantry Division, which suffered a few casualties.

Some of O’Connor’s friends have been home for about three months now and are just starting to have nightmares. He said he doesn’t think he will have that sort of problem.

“I did get nervous, “ O’Connor said. “The first night I had a couple mortar rounds go over my head and you can hear the launching of it, and it kind of brings in the question of what would happen if it landed somewhere you are sleeping and you realize you are not as safe as you think you are.”

The 175th Forward Support Co. returned with all the soldiers it left with, which O’Connor credits to their training and the military equipment they were provided with.

Parallels between his two positions

O’Connor was a sergeant in both his role as a public safety officer and during his deployment. He was able to apply his master’s in police leadership in dealing with people and soldiers.

“I have learned in the master’s the difference between power position and politics, and there is politics in everything,” O’Connor said. “But I was still able to apply what I learned in my master’s and from the Public Safety department, all those experiences I was able to apply to leadership roles.”

O’Connor has retained his position as the first shift Minneapolis supervisor. When he returned he was retrained and learned the things he missed in the year he was gone. The training manual, which was one of the projects he worked on for his master’s, was finalized while he was gone. He spent the first few weeks going through it to adjust back into the Public Safety setting.

O’Connor said the time overseas has strengthened some of the skills he needs for his job here.

“Taking me out of the environment so I can have a fresh look to come back in, I have experienced that already,” O’Connor said. “I have been able to apply that towards the officer, taking out some the negativity and focus towards our main goal.”

Brian Matthews can be reached at bsmatthews@stthomas.edu.

Masked workers are removing caulking containing asbestos from the greenhouse near the John Roach Center to help prepare extra greenhouse and lab spaces for the growing biology department.

Construction on the greenhouse will officially begin May 24 and is expected to be completed by the time school resumes in the fall. In addition to a renovated greenhouse, the biology department will also gain two new botanical labs on the first floor and lower level of JRC and two first-floor offices.

“They’re removing the greenhouse glass, and the caulking between the glass contains asbestos,” said Jim Hoffman, physical plant assistant director. “The only issue is when they’re removing it, so they have to remove it in a safe manner.”

Greenhouse manager Steve Trost said the greenhouse was built in 1960 and glass from that time period “can break into big shards and stab you” if it happens to fall, so they are installing new glass. He said the JRC greenhouse has sat vacant for 13 years since the biology department moved the plants and botanical labs to the Owens Science Hall greenhouse.

“At one time it was going to be torn down, but the Rev. Dennis Dease said it was too historical and needed to be kept,” Trost said. “They also considered putting a coffee shop in it, the coffee shop that’s now in the library, but that was too expensive.”

He said the renovated greenhouse will be a “mini Como Park conservatory.”

“Because there are so many students using the OWS greenhouse for research and biology projects, we’re going to turn the JRC greenhouse into an educational conservatory,” Trost said. “It will be full of educational plants used for botany classes, starter plants for the community garden once we get it, and the tropical plants.”

He said the greenhouse will have a cooling and misting system to simulate a tropical rainforest environment, and it will have high-pressure sodium lights “to keep the plants happy.”

Trost said the additional greenhouse and lab spaces are needed due to increases in biology enrollment and a lack of greenhouse bench space for lab classes.

Katie Broadwell can be reached at klbroadwell@stthomas.edu.

Seniors Dima Koshevy and Kyle Smisek earned second place in the finals when the St. Thomas crew raced at the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta.

The Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta was held May 7 and 8 in Philadelphia. The event is the largest collegiate regatta in the nation, and for St. Thomas, it’s the race the team trains for all season.

The team entered four boats in the regatta. St. Thomas sent a men’s varsity pair, a women’s heavyweight four, a men’s novice four and a women’s novice four.

The men’s varsity pair earned a silver medal at the regatta. The event had 34 crews entered in the race.

After taking first in the heat and semifinals, the varsity pair took second overall beating out Fairfield, Colgate, Pittsburg and Penn State. Drexel won first place in the event.

Smisek said he counts the medal as a huge achievement for his rowing career.

“It shows myself and Dima’s dedication, as well the dedication from everyone who supported us,” Smisek said.

Koshevy and Smisek are Dad Vail veterans, both racing at the regatta all four years on the team. They took first place at Dad Vail in the 2008 men’s varsity four.

Smisek is proud to end his collegiate rowing career with two Dad Vail medals.

“What else is it besides amazing, really?” he said.

The women’s varsity four reached the semifinals but were out-raced by Buffalo, University of Massachusetts, Delaware and the United States Military Academy. The boat included Kristi Kruppiak, Mary Hammer, Gina Foschi, Brianna Peters and coxswain Sarah Hansen.

The men’s novice four raced well, earning third in their heat, but did not move out of the first round. The novice four included Todd Gleason, Sean Kern, Austin Weyant, Eric Beise and coxswain Andrew O’Brien.

The women’s novice four included first year rowers Kailey Fargo, Julie Rech, Cassandra Hytjan, Niki Willie and coxswain Kayla Grothaus. The women raced hard in the heat against top crews but did not advance to the semifinals.

Gina Dolski can be reached at grdolski@stthomas.edu.