[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 60 (Friday, March 31, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5021-S5022]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REMEMBERING FATHER MICHAEL LAVELLE
Mr. GLENN. Mr. President, I rise today to sadly note the death
of Father Mike Lavelle, president of John Carroll University in
Cleveland, OH. Father Lavelle was an important leader of our community.
Rev. Michael Joseph Lavelle, S.J. Ph.D., a native of Cleveland,
joined the faculty of John Carroll in 1969 and served as president of
the university since 1988. After collapsing from an attack of cardiac
arrhythmia on February 27, Father Lavelle never regained consciousness
and died last Saturday.
I had the great privilege to work closely with Father Lavelle in a
number of areas affecting higher education. He was a tireless advocate
for programs and services helping students, faculty and John Carroll
University.
Most recently we worked together to establish a Veterans' Teacher
Preparation Program at John Carroll University. Father Lavelle was
instrumental in the development of this program to assist retiring
military personnel to obtain the necessary certification to teach high
school science or mathematics. This program which turns ``Troops to
Teachers'' is just one example of the vision and commitment of Father
Lavelle to help improve Cleveland.
The death of Father Lavelle is a great loss and we will miss him.
Annie and I extend our sympathy to his sister, Helen, and the rest of
his family at John Carroll University and throughout Cleveland.
Mr. President, I ask that an article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer,
March 26, 1995, be printed in the Record.
The article follows:
JCU's Lavelle Dead at 60--Leader in Academia and Jesuit Order
(By Richard M. Peery)
University Heights.--The Rev. Michael J. Lavelle, a Jesuit
priest whose long and distinguished career led him to the
presidency of John Carroll University, died yesterday at the
A.M. McGregor home in East Cleveland.
He never regained consciousness after collapsing Feb. 27
from severe cardiac arrhythmia, while working out at the
university's physical fitness center. He was 60.
``Father Lavelle was a strong visionary, capable president,
and he was also a friend,'' said Frederick F. Travis, acting
JCU president. ``He was very well liked on campus and was a
popular choice for president in 1988 among both faculty and
staff.''
During Lavelle's tenure as the 21st president of John
Carroll, the freshman class enrollment grew from 500 to more
than 700. He was instrumental in having two dormitories built
to house the influx of students.
He also helped initiate the movement of John Carroll's
athletic teams from the President's Athletic Conference to
the Ohio Athletic Conference. The change led to competition
with Baldwin-Wallace, Mount Union, Wooster and Muskingum
colleges.
In 1983, Lavelle was elected to the 33rd General
Congregation of the Society of Jesus, which established the
direction of the worldwide Jesuit order for the last 12
years. He also served as one of a dozen advisers to the
American Catholic Bishops Committee on their pastoral letter
on the economy in the 1980s.
An economist and an expert on Eastern Europe, he traveled
to Soviet bloc countries more than 20 times, expanding his
expertise in Soviet and international economics and working
with this fellow Jesuits in those nations, many of whom had
been driven underground.
The Cleveland native grew up in the Lakeview Terrace
public-housing complex on the West Side. His father worked
for the old Cleveland Transit System for 42 years, 28 of them
on the Detroit Ave. and Clifton Blvd. streetcar lines.
Lavelle, a 1953 graduate of St. Ignatius High School,
distinguished himself as a member of the school's football
team, which won the 1952 West Senate League championship. He
was voted the West Senate Most Valuable Player and was named
to the All-Catholic High School football team. An all-
scholastic offensive guard who also played defense, he
received All-Ohio honorable mention.
Lavelle was a member of the school's track team for four
years, played basketball for one year and played sandlot
baseball in the summer.
He was inducted into the St. Ignatius Athletic Hall of Fame
in 1988.
Several years ago, Lavelle had a quadruple heart bypass
operation, but he could still be found in the gymasium during
many lunch hours playing pickup basketball with faculty
members.
But it was another school activity that made the deepest
impression on Lavelle as a teenager. One holiday, while
delivering food baskets to the needy, he went to the home of
a woman on Scovill Ave. who lived with just a mattress on the
floor, a table and one chair. She cried when she received the
food.
Lavelle said the experience made him decide to go into a
profession where he would help people. The summer after he
graduated from Ignatius, he decided to become a priest.
``Sure, my parents were surprised, and some girlfriends
too,'' he recalled years later.
Lavelle attended Xavier University Cincinnati from 1953 to
1957. He earned degrees from Loyola University of Chicago and
a doctorate at Boston College. He also studied at Harvard
University's Russian Research Center in Boston and at the
Sankt Georgen theology school in Frankfurt, Germany, where he
was ordained in 1968.
He planned to say his first Mass on his father's birthday
in 1969. But Lavelle returned to Cleveland early that year
and delivered his first Mass at his father's funeral in
Ascension Catholic Church.
Lavelle joined the John Carroll faculty in 1969 as an
assistant professor of economics. He became chairman of the
business department in 1973 and served as the dean of the
School of Business from 1975 to 1977.
He left John Carroll to serve for six years as provincial
superior of the Detroit Province of the Society of Jesus. He
was the religious leader of 350 Jesuit priests and brothers
in Michigan and Ohio.
He returned to John Carroll as academic vice president in
1984. Two years later, he took on additional duties as
executive vice president for day-to-day operations. He was
named president in 1988, succeeding the Rev. Thomas P.
O'Malley, who resigned to take a teaching assignment in
Africa.
Lavelle's inaguration was marked by his pledge to increase
the university's commitment to community service and
multicultural development. It was celebrated with a variety
of ethnic foods and entertainment.
The multilingual priest, who was fluent in German and could
read French, Italian, Czech and Russian, was known for his
love of ethnic art, tradition and food. At the start of each
school year, he distributed to new faculty members a list of
local restaurants known for their ethnic cuisine.
An amateur cook, he was known for preparing dishes such as
linguini with red clam sauce. For many years, he volunteered
as a cook for the Friends of Templum House benefit.
Lavelle was a trustee of Boston College, Xavier University
and Magnificat High School. He was a former trustee of
Canisius College, the University of Detroit, Loyola College
in Maryland, St. Joseph's University
[[Page S5022]] in Philadelphia and the Jesuit School of
Theology in Berkeley, Calif.
He is survived by his sister, Helen of Chicago.
Services will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Gesu Catholic
Church, 2470 Miramar Blvd., University Heights.
Schulte & Mahon-Murphy Funeral Home in Lyndhurst is in
charge of arrangements.
____________________