Bellevue University and its International Programs Department on Saturday, April 25 will host “Global Festival 2009,” a celebration of cultures from around the world that will include a variety of ethnic foods and entertainment.

Dinner will be served at 6 p.m., inside the Margre H. Durham Student Centeron the University’s main campus, 1000 Galvin Road South, Bellevue. Live entertainment – which will include music and dance – begins at 7 p.m., inside the Hitchcock Humanities Center auditorium.

The event is open to the public. Admission for the event is $10, free for children under 12 and current Bellevue University students.

The State of Nebraska will honor Bellevue University’s Student Veterans Organization during a special ceremony April 8 at the State Capitol in Lincoln.

Gov. Dave Heineman has declared April 8 “Student Veterans Organization Day” in Nebraska, which is intended to specifically honor the recently formed Bellevue University SVO – the first in the state. Gov. Heineman will be out of town that day, so Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy will read a proclamation at 10:30 a.m. in the Warner Chamber in the Capitol.

Bellevue University formed its Student Veterans Organization in February. The student-run group, a chapter of the Student Veterans of America, already has 160 members.

Wendy Jane Bantam

Nationally known artist Wendy Jane Bantam will speak at Bellevue University on Wednesday, Feb. 4, about how to think creatively and critically when managing a small business. Bantam’s talk, “The Business of Art: Making Something out of Nothing,” begins at noon inside Hitchcock Humanities Center’s Criss Auditorium.

Bantam will offer guidelines on how to survive as an artist with a dream. With raw wit, she tells stories of her travels to Indonesia and England, as well as throughout middle America. Bantam earned an MFA in Painting; has taught college-level art courses; worked as an artist-in-residence at schools across Nebraska; and has had her artwork exhibited both across the country and abroad.

The talk is intended not only for artists interested in how to make a living through their art, but for any business person or working professional looking to live and work creatively.

Pete Ricketts

Bellevue University Board Member Pete Ricketts and his family are the winning bidders to purchase the Chicago Cubs from the Tribune Co., according to media reports on Thursday.

The Omaha-based Ricketts family is negotiating to buy the team, Wrigley Field and a 25 percent stake in Comcast SportsNet, a regional cable network. The family is in the final stages of negotiating the deal, which then must be approved by 23 of 30 Major League Baseball owners. Sources put the value of the winning bid at $900 million.

The Ricketts family patriarch, Joe Ricketts, stepped down last year as chairman of the board of TD Ameritrade. The successful online brokerage grew out of a securities firm that Ricketts co-founded in 1975.

Pete Ricketts, one of Joe’s sons and also a successful businessman, joined the Bellevue University Board of Directors in 2008.

Two of this year’s six inductees to the Omaha Business Hall of Fame are members of the Bellevue University Board of Directors. Michael Simmonds and Deryl Hamann will officially be inducted April 16 during an event at Qwest Center Omaha.

Simmonds and Hamann are both long-time board members; Simmonds currently serves as chairman. Simmonds is chairman of Simmonds Restaurant Management, which operates more than 75 fast-food restaurants in Nebraska and Iowa, including Burger King and Taco John’s. Hamann is senior counsel with the Baird Holm law firm and a longtime owner of banks in the Nebraska area.

Bellevue University’s Board of Directors has always included a mix of local business and civic leaders, including former U.S. Sen. Charles Hagel, David Sokol, John Kotouc and Allan Lozier.

More than 1,400 Bellevue University students, staff and alumni are currently members of the school’s official LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace groups. Participation during the past six months has grown by nearly 900 percent.

Students are able to use these social networking sites to, among other things, search for a roommate, network for career opportunities, re-connect with old classmates, and learn about campus events.

For more information, go to www.bellevue.edu/connected

Bellevue University has thrown its weight behind the Omaha Creative Institute, an artist-led group that formed more than a year ago with the goal of promoting the creative process in the Omaha area. 

The group will first offer community arts programming, with hands-on art workshops starting this month. The group’s eventual goal is to transform a mostly vacant north downtown Omaha building into a creative center with studios, classrooms, theater space, shops and restaurants.

Bellevue University, along with the Omaha Community Foundation, provided money for a recently completed feasibility study. Longtime Bellevue University Art Professor Les Bruning has spearheaded the Omaha Creative Institute initiative in his role as a founding member of the Hot Shops Art Foundation.

The feasibility study, which surveyed 75 community and business leaders, indicated strong support for the idea.

Art Professor Les Bruning

Les Bruning, a Bellevue University art professor, has been chosen to paint a mural in midtown Omaha’s Dewey Park, a public art project that is part of an overall renewal effort in the neighborhood.

Bruning’s mural will cover the outer east-facing wall of the park’s handball court, a 40-feet-by-20-feet concrete canvas. His design will be a 3-D version of a handball court, featuring a large hand and a ball optically radiating through the space. Bruning said he expects the mural to take about a month to complete, with painting scheduled to begin in April.

Bruning was chosen by a selection committee that included representatives from the Leavenworth Neighborhood Association, the Omaha Public Art Commission and the Omaha Parks & Recreation Department. The committee chose Bruning after reviewing 21 submissions and interviewing four finalists.

Dewey Park is located along Turner Boulevard, within a block of the Midtown Crossing at Turner Park development, which is adacent to Mutal of Omaha. 

Bruning is chair of Bellevue University’s Art program area and a founding member of the Market North Hot Shops Art Center in downtown Omaha.

Bellevue University has acquired two additional buildings and adjacent land near its main campus in Bellevue. With the acquisition, the school adds nearly seven acres to its 38-acre main campus. The university will use both buildings for administrative office space, while the vacant piece of property allows for future expansion to support the school’s continued growth.

The two new buildings are located at 2108 and 2104 Harvell Circle, accessible from Herman Drive and across the street from the university’s Educational Services Building, also located on Herman Drive. Herman Drive is located off Harvell Drive, one of Bellevue’s main thoroughfares.

One building, at 2108 Harvell Circle, is 5,686 square feet and is currently occupied by QLI as a medical clinic. QLI is scheduled to move out of the property by Sept. 1. The second building, at 10,162 square feet, is vacant and was most recently used as a computer/data center. In addition, the university acquired 4.57 acres of vacant property located directly to the north and west of the two buildings. Bellevue University’s main campus property now extends west from Galvin Road nearly all the way to Fort Crook Road.

The University hopes to move into the former data/comptuer building by the end of September. No timeline has been set for moving into the QLI building, nor for any future construction on the vacant land.

The university acquired the two buildings and vacant property for approximately $3.1 million, with $900,000 of that price coming from an anonymous donor, therefore lowering the price for the university to just over $2 million.  

Nearly 8,000 students attend Bellevue University, making it the largest private university in the state. The school’s enrollment has tripled since 1996, when that number stood at 2,600.

Kathryn and Morris F. "Moe" Miller

Bellevue University recently received a $500,000 gift from Union Pacific Corp., which will be used to establish the Morris F. Miller Business Leadership Fund at the school.

The fund is named in honor of the late Morris F. “Moe” Miller, a long-time Omaha business leader. In 1990, as a retired member of the Union Pacific Board of Directors, Miller designated Bellevue University as beneficiary of the gift through the company’s Board of Directors Charitable Plan. Union Pacific created the Board of Directors’ Charitable Plan to recognize the interest of the company and its board members in supporting worthy charitable and educational institutions. Under the plan, donations are paid no later than 10 years following the death of the board member’s death. Miller died in 1998. The gift will become part of the University’s permanent endowment and endowment income used to underwrite educational initiatives for employees and businesses.

Bellevue University President John Muller said the Miller Business Leadership Fund will provide important seed money to benefit not only companies but their employees and the communities where they operate.

“At Bellevue University, we believe that higher education has a responsibility to help people have more successful and fulfilling lives and careers, and help American businesses compete and grow in an increasingly competitive and dynamic global economy,” Muller said. “Bellevue University is extremely fortunate and grateful, both to Moe Miller, for his endorsement well over a decade ago, and to Union Pacific Corporation, for its generosity and foresight in establishing the Board of Directors’ Charitable Plan. This gift will enable the university to take a more active role and have more impact.”

Miller’s wife, Kathryn, who served eight years on the Bellevue University Foundation Board of Directors from 1993 to 2001, said his primary reason for selecting Bellevue University as beneficiary of the gift was the university’s commitment to members of the military.

“Moe appreciated the University’s involvement in adult education, especially its relationship with the Strategic Air Command (now Stratcom) and Air Force personnel stationed at Offutt Air Force Base,” she said. “Moe served in the Army himself, and he believed those who sacrifice and serve our country deserve our support. He felt that the University did a good job of keeping tuition affordable and enabling servicemen and women to transfer their accumulated academic credits in order to complete their degrees.”

An Omaha native, Miller served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. After the war, he began his banking career as a 27-year-old teller in a Gering, Neb., bank. He eventually became chairman and chief executive officer of Omaha National Bank (now part of U.S. Bancorp), which at the time was Nebraska’s largest commercial bank. Bellevue University presented Miller an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1989.