[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.
     

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