Tom McCall Forum end, center to begin
Hailey Hawkins
Issue date: 3/11/10 Section: News
After 25 years of history, Pacific University's Tom McCall Forum is officially over.
However, not willing to allow the spirit of the forum to die, faculty and administrators have set their sight on a new goal: the Tom McCall Center.
"The President announced that there's going to be a Tom McCall Center, as a part of her Vision 2020 program," said politics and government professor James Moore, referring to university president Lesley Hallick's inauguration speech on Thursday, March 4. "The Tom McCall Center would take the ideas and the public goodwill from years of the Tom McCall Forum and turn it into something that would be here on campus, and would be a way for students, faculty and policy-makers in the region to come together."
The Tom McCall Forum began in 1982 as the brainchild of former Pacific professor Russ Dondero. The forum began as a platform for big names in the national and statewide political arena to come to Forest Grove and discuss current, pressing and often controversial issues of the day.
When Dondero retired in 2005, he stayed on board as director of the Forum for two more years. In 2007, he left the program in hopes that it would continue in other hands, but was surprised at what happened next.
"I felt 25 years was enough time to leave and put [the forum] in other hands, to turn it over a new team of people," said Dondero. "I was ready to move on; I left feeling like we had 25 great years and I'd assumed it would continue, not realizing that there would be a break in the tradition, that we'd have now two years of no McCall Forum."
With the departure of the founder and coordinator of the forum, the program came to a standstill in 2008.
"When Russ was around he personally invested so much in it, he kept it going…he was the Tom McCall Forum so his departure was a little bit of a change in intensity," said Moore. "But also, whenever a founder leaves, the institution says, 'okay, what does this really mean?' and explores the options."
However, not willing to allow the spirit of the forum to die, faculty and administrators have set their sight on a new goal: the Tom McCall Center.
"The President announced that there's going to be a Tom McCall Center, as a part of her Vision 2020 program," said politics and government professor James Moore, referring to university president Lesley Hallick's inauguration speech on Thursday, March 4. "The Tom McCall Center would take the ideas and the public goodwill from years of the Tom McCall Forum and turn it into something that would be here on campus, and would be a way for students, faculty and policy-makers in the region to come together."
The Tom McCall Forum began in 1982 as the brainchild of former Pacific professor Russ Dondero. The forum began as a platform for big names in the national and statewide political arena to come to Forest Grove and discuss current, pressing and often controversial issues of the day.
When Dondero retired in 2005, he stayed on board as director of the Forum for two more years. In 2007, he left the program in hopes that it would continue in other hands, but was surprised at what happened next.
"I felt 25 years was enough time to leave and put [the forum] in other hands, to turn it over a new team of people," said Dondero. "I was ready to move on; I left feeling like we had 25 great years and I'd assumed it would continue, not realizing that there would be a break in the tradition, that we'd have now two years of no McCall Forum."
With the departure of the founder and coordinator of the forum, the program came to a standstill in 2008.
"When Russ was around he personally invested so much in it, he kept it going…he was the Tom McCall Forum so his departure was a little bit of a change in intensity," said Moore. "But also, whenever a founder leaves, the institution says, 'okay, what does this really mean?' and explores the options."
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