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2015 INTER RANCISCO W F AN S UNIVERSITY OF MAGAZINE JEREMY SYNDEr ’16 USF’s Indian Student Organization (ISO) celebrates Holi, also known as the festival of color, on Welch Field. 2 INAUGURATION 6 NEWS 34 CLASS NOTES 48 TAKE FIVE FEATURES GINO LUIGI MASCARDO ’16 MASCARDO LUIGI GINO 12 26 RAMONA 2.0 READING, WRITING, BY monIca VILLavIcencIO AND ALL THAT JAZZ A horrible accident left BY garY mcdonaLD Ramona Pierson MA ’03 Celebrated jazz vocalist in a coma for 18 months Margie Baker EdD ’83 and fighting for her life. has traveled the globe Here’s the extraordinary with the Monterey Jazz story of the comeback of Festival. She may be a Silicon Valley CEO. known for her singing, but her passion is education. 16 24 HEALING HANOI PICTURE PERFECT BY samanTHA bronson A USF graduate races to the fin- A USF program is helping change ish line in a 65-foot yacht, part the role of nursing in Vietnam, in of an all-female team trying to an effort to improve the country’s win a nine-month race around struggling health care system. the world. Front cover photo: Matthew Mitchell Gary McDonald Anne Hoglund HAVE AN IDEA? SUGGESTION? Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editors EXEcuTIVE EDITOR SENIOR DESIGNER LETTER TO THE EDITOR? or those of the university. Candice Novak Mario Sosa Contact us: [email protected] Winter 2015, Vol. 22, No. 1 © 2015 University of San Francisco CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Miranda Bague (415) 422-6078 DESIGNERS The papers used for printing this magazine are recyclable and Ed Carpenter Or write: USF Magazine provided by mills that support environmentally appropriate, MAGAZINE STaff WRITER/EDITOR Hanna Hegnell ’15 University of San Francisco socially beneficial and economically viable management of the Gino Mascardo ’16 Monica Villavicencio 2130 Fulton Street, LMR 217 world’s forests. These papers contain a mix Jeremy Snyder ’16 David Macmillan STaff WRITER/EDITOR San Francisco, CA 94117-1080 of pulp that is derived from well managed VICE PRESIDENT FOR Barbara Ries forests, post-consumer paper fibers and COMMUNIcaTIONS AND Dale Johnston CONTRIBUTING other sources. MARKETING SENIOR DESIGNER PHOTOGRAPHERS CLAss NOTES Send to [email protected] USF MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 1 /////////news 2 WINTERwinter 2015 USF MAGAZINE SAN FRANCISO FOGHORN/DANIELLE MAINGOT FOGHORN/DANIELLE FRANCISO SAN University of California President Janet Napolitano congratulates Paul J. Fitzgerald, S.J., on his new presidency. USF MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 3 /////////news “ oday, on All Saints’ Day, we open a new chapter of leadership of this great institution,” said U.S. House Minority Leader TNancy Pelosi, as the University of San Francisco installed its new president, Paul J. Fitzgerald, S.J., at a campus ceremony on Nov. 1. A crowd of dignitaries, elected officials, and members of the university community gathered at St. Ignatius Church to welcome and congratulate Fr. Fitzgerald, who officially became president when USF Board of Trustees Chair Thomas E. Malloy ’61 conferred the appointment. Malloy also presented the new president with the university’s original 1859 charter from the California Board of Education. “He is the right president at the right time,” said Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California and a former classmate of Fr. Fitzgerald’s at Santa Clara University. “Among the providers of higher education in California, USF is a shining star,” Napolitano continued. “I know from professional and personal experience this star will shine even brighter under the leadership of Fr. Paul Fitzgerald.” The former secretary of homeland security also applauded USF’s commitment to California’s diverse population and noted that one-third of USF’s students are the first in their families to attend college and that nearly 30 percent are from low-income families. Other speakers at the inauguration included California’s Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, and San Francisco Auxiliary Bishop Robert McElroy. Fr. Fitzgerald reflected on the university’s role in one of the country’s most diverse cities, with students, faculty, and staff hailing from more than 70 nations. He said we may come from different backgrounds, cultures, and traditions, but everyone shares the university’s Jesuit mission. “All contribute essentially to a project that engages our students— leading them to broaden their horizons, advance their intellectual abilities, and strengthen their confidence and capacity as creative, ethical, and compassionate leaders of a global tomorrow.” The inauguration ceremony capped four days of events that celebrated the new president and USF’s scholarship and research, and also its mission to educate students to change the world for the better. Y Fr. Fitzgerald celebrates Mass P O ll for the USF community in O C L E St. Ignatius Church, one day A H C I before his inauguration as the M university’s new president. The Most Reverend Salvatore J. Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco (right) was present in the santuary. 4 WINTER 2015 USF MAGAZINE RDo ’16 asca IGI M lu GINO ‘Today, on All Saints’ Day, we open a new chapter of leadership of this great institution.’ Nancy Pelosi, U.S. House Minority Leader ‘I believe we actually went to the [college] senior prom together. And I have pictures.’ Y P O ll Janet Napolitano, O C L University of California President E A H C I M Y P O ll O C L E A H C I M ‘FR. FITZ’ eXPLAINS HIS GREATEST chALLENGE ‘Fr. Fitzgerald, thank you for your stewardship, www.usfca.edu/magazine/ 28thpresident for your willingness to step up and step in, in this extraordinary place, in this extraordinary city.’ Gavin Newsom, California Lt. Governor USF MAGAZINE WINTER 2015 5 /////////news muLTI-BILLION DOLLAR VICTORY FOR LAW ALum A USF law graduate who led the government’s case after law, and he also worked on the government’s behalf the largest oil spill in U.S. history says he believes after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and the Cosco “justice has been done.” Busan spill in the San Francisco Bay. He is based in San R. Michael Underhill JD ’82 successfully argued that Francisco but has spent most of the past four years in New British Petroleum Exploration and Production Inc. (B.P.) Orleans, where the B.P. case was being tried. Underhill is liable for “gross negligence” in the deadly disaster oversaw a staff of more than 100 attorneys and paralegals, off the Louisiana coast. A blowout spread across offices in New Orleans of B.P.’s Macondo Well in 2010 and Washington, D.C. destroyed the oil rig Deepwater “The most interesting and reward- Horizon, killing 11 people and ing aspect of large environmental spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico cases is that we can potentially for nearly three months. change behavior, change the way In September, Federal Judge Carl business is done so as to protect the J. Barbier ruled that B.P. was grossly environment, and make sure that negligent and had acted with willful the world we hand off to our kids is misconduct, paving the way for fines a little bit better and maybe even of up to $18 billion. a lot better than the one that was “We’d been working hard on this handed off to us,” Underhill said. case for over four years, so when I “That was my message to others read Judge Barbier’s opinion, it felt the morning the decision came out. IES like justice had been done,” Under- R We should feel good about the win hill said. ARA professionally, as litigators, but the B Underhill was the government’s BAR most rewarding thing that we should lead trial counsel and guided a large take away from cases like this and team of lawyers for the U.S. Depart- what should make us proudest is that we may be able to ment of Justice in this first phase of the trial, which play a part in bringing about long-term changes in safety determined liability for the spill. Other attorneys are and the way the offshore oil business is conducted in handling the second and third phases, which will focus our own country, and maybe even the world. on how much oil spilled and the final amount of the “Maybe that sounds like a speech, but it’s really one civil penalty. that comes from the heart. It’s why many of us do what Underhill is a specialist in maritime environmental we do.” 6 WINTER 2015 USF MAGAZINE First Female Dean at School of Management USF has named Elizabeth B. Davis dean of the USF School of Management (SOM), making her the first woman to lead the school in its 90-year history. Davis is an expert in strategic management, business policy, and organizational dynamics and has more than 25 years experience in higher education. She will lead SOM’s 200 faculty and 54 staff and manage the school’s $26 million budget. She comes to USF from the University of New Haven (UNH) College of Business in Connecticut, where she was dean. Prior to UNH, she was associate professor and chair of the Department of Organizational Sciences and Communication and director of the Women’s Leadership Program at George Washington University. Davis began her career as a researcher at Duke University Medical School and was S RIE later named CEO and COO of the National Disease Research Interchange, a biomedical A A R A research and technology firm in Philadelphia. She earned her PhD from the Wharton RB A B School of the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in strategic management. BY THE NUMBERS Student Elected Interim President of SF Board of Supervisors USF’s rank among universities 106 nationwide by U.S.

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