Football makes playoffs, faces Monmouth (Ill.)

The Tommies are in.

ESPN News announced at 2:13 p.m. that the St. Thomas football team will face Monmouth College in the first round of the NCAA Division III playoffs. The game will be played at noon Nov. 21, at Monmouth, Ill.

The back room at Davanni’s on Cleveland Avenue was packed with more than 100 players and fans and a roar of shouts rocked the restaurant when St. Thomas’ name appeared on the screen.

H1N1 infection a factor in grad student death

A University of St. Thomas graduate student who had been hospitalized for more than a week with pneumonia and a possible H1N1 infection died Friday morning.

Jill Belde, a student in the St. Thomas and St. Catherine University Master of Social Work program, was admitted to United Hospital in St. Paul on Nov. 3, according to her Caring Bridge Web site.

Solar panels to top Brady Hall Dec. 19

Twenty solar panels will be installed on the edge of the Brady Hall roof while students are away for winter break.

A student group has been working for months to get the panels installed on the roof of a St. Thomas building. Contractors from Innovative Power Systems, who will install the panels, made the final decision to put the panels on Brady Hall.

Big Five: SAC provides link between students, alumni

While Student Alumni Council’s name suggests it may not apply to current students, one of SAC’s main goals is to link students with alumni through alumni-student mentoring programs.

“I think the trickiest part about that is that people hear [the name] and they think, ‘Oh I’m not alumni yet. This doesn’t pertain to me. It doesn’t really matter,’” said senior Sara Hamrick, Student Alumni Council president.

Classes move back into renovated Sitzmann Hall

Sitzmann Hall opened its doors Oct. 29 to the public for the first time since the $4.2 million summer-long renovation began last spring. Don Briel, director of Catholic Studies, said some Catholic Studies classes may be moving back into Sitzmann Hall as early as Nov. 6.

“Well the only delay right now is the technology with the smart room, the seminar room and the classroom,” he said. “And there has to be an adjustment in the location of the camera in the classroom.”

Ech Channa becomes first Muslim to receive Opus Prize

Aïcha Ech Channa, founder and president of a Casablanca, Morocco, organization that provides services for unmarried women with children, won the $1 million 2009 Opus Prize. St. Thomas and the Opus Prize Foundation of Minnetonka presented the award Wednesday night in Minneapolis’ Orchestra Hall. The other two finalists – Sister Valeriana García-Martín of Bogotá, Colombia, and the Rev. Hans Stapel of Guaratinguetá, Brazil – each received $100,000 awards.

Student who collapsed in Scooter’s back on his feet

After going into cardiac arrest during a dance performance Oct. 16 in Scooter’s, freshman Gauthier Biyanga Mubwa has resumed attending St. Thomas.

Since his Oct. 23 release from Regions Hospital, Mubwa has returned to the hospital for checkups and will attend biweekly heart rehabilitation therapy sessions.

“I was really surprised [to collapse],” Mubwa said. “It’s never happened to anyone in my family.”

Voter turnout far below last year’s numbers

Last year on Election Day, a line wrapped around outside of McNeely Hall as voters waited for their turn. This year, election judges sat and waited for voters to file in.

At McNeely Hall, where 4th ward, 6th precinct St. Paul elections were held, 219 people voted. Of the voters, 18 people were new registered voters. Eighty-five to 90 percent of new registered voters were students, said registration judge Richard Simmer.

But in last year’s election, 2,101 people voted at McNeely Hall and 845 people were registered on Election Day.