Snapshot / Funding / Julius Lester / Chancellor's Medal / Follow ups
Snapshot / Funding / Julius Lester / Chancellor's Medal / Follow ups
Campaign UMass kicked off with grand occasion
What with searchlights swiveling into the balmy night sky above the Mullins Center, and spiffed-up staff at the ready to welcome guests outside the well-lit entrance, the October 17 gala dinner kicking off Campaign UMass was a surprise and delight from the very beginning.
Not, of course, to those who'd planned it. The black-tie event, like every aspect of the kick-off weekend, had been months in preparation.
The genteel sawing of string quartets during the pre-banquet reception. The temporary red-carpeting of the arena where the banquet was held. The stirring call to salad by university herald Walter Chesnut. The four-course meal for 500, flawlessly catered and served under the direction of sibling-entrepreneurs Linda '82 and Ronnie Skole '80. The apparently effortless dessert-time entertainment of jazz pianist Billy Taylor Ed.D. '75. All were part of preparations directed by Associate Vice Chancellor John Feudo -- as were the name-tag/coat-check/gift-bag brigades who labored discreetly throughout the evening and the series of speakers who added substance to the evening's pleasures.
The speakerly substance was a pleasure in itself. Several who took the podium are first-class raconteurs. UMass system president William Bulger reminiscenced about the old days in Massachusetts politics, when a roaring fire in your office fireplace came in handy in holding a colleague's feet to same -- all the better if said colleague had a wooden leg. "In our day," quipped the former speaker of the state senate, "we'd build you a bridge whether you had a river or not."
Professor of Judaic studies Julius Lester, who hosted the proceedings, read aloud a remarkable sample of student writing which we reprint on page six. Also pleasing the crowd in various ways were Chancellor David K. Scott; attorney and chancellor's council president Barry Weiner '63, and board of trustees chair Robert Karam. Alumni association president Michael Morris '63 brought the crowd to its feet with the surprise announcement of a $1 million gift dedicated to the construction of a new alumni center on campus. (See page 40.) And Provost Patricia Crosson '72 M.Ed. '74 Ed.D deemed it her "delightful job at the moment" to announce the lead gifts which, with the addition of the Alumni Association's committment, brought the campaign total at kick-off time to $25,345,000.
It's 80 degrees, and the concrete plaza surrounding Coolidge Tower looks like an oversupplied refugee camp. Cherokees, Caravans, Windstars and Sierras park everywhere, and for every room in the tower, there are two large heaps of belongings waiting to be moved in. Mob Deep echoes from an upper-floor sound system. There's not an empty set of arms in sight. The freshmen are here.
This is what it looks like: 3,900 nests emptying, another 3,900 being created. Hundreds of relatives of the class of 2,000 are tending to makeshift base-camps of boxes and crates filled with the stuff of dorm life in 1996: soft, over-stuffed bags from Linens `N Things; jumbo Yoffa boxes; Sanyo refrigerators. Computers. Clothes-drying racks. Even record albums.
Some kids are concerncd about a Snapple shortage in Amberst. They've brought cases of it, along with Cheeze-Itz, Poland Spring Water, and Sprite.
Each family has a number, and they're waiting for it to come up so they can load all this into an elevator and move the kids in. Tempers should be running high, but they're not. Instead parents seem to be basking in their flnal moments with their offspring. A strange brew of anxiety and relief hangs in the air. It's Passages Time tor everybody.
Dionis Mesquiga stands in the shade waiting for his son Sam to come back with a number. He's one who's relieved. His kid has made it. The family traveled from Lawrence this morning to bring Sam to Umassthe first in the family to go to college. "In four years, she'll be the second one," says Dionis, pointing to his daughter.
"I just told Sam one thing," Dionis adds. "No partying." Advice that will most certainly be adhered to.
Every few minutes another family arrives, a father lugging the concrete blocks, mom with the pillows, younger siblings carrying a CD player or stuffed poodle. (This generation appears to be very big on stuffed animals.) A Coolidge resident notes the crowd below and thinks they might need something to do. She puts her stereo on the windowsill and cranks it up.
"Oh, no," cries an irritated father. "Not the Macarena!"The day seems hardest on the mothers leaving daughters.
"To me it's just overwhelming. She's my youngest and I'm going to miss her," says Charlotte Doherty of Mansfield, whose daughter Maureen is moving into Coolidge. "But she's eager and happy to be here."
Celeste Mackey has brought her only child, Andrea, from Newark, NJ. Even though it's been a struggle to get her daughter through high school and into college, she says, she still can't quite believe the day is here.
"I'm feeling everything, all the emotions," she says. "I'm crying and dancing at the same time."
Johanna Ruberto and her husband have driven up from Flemington, N.J., in the Jimmy, while daughter Suzanne drove the Camray loaded with four suitcases full of clothes and two crates of food and one of cleaning supplies. The parents and the Jimmy are returning to New Jersey. Suzanne and the Camray are staying. Johanna wells up at the thought of leaving her daughter behind. Then she composes herself.
"I'm glad they had this day to let the freshmen move in by themselves, so there's a camaraderie," Johanna says. "This way the kids will be able to be by themselves to feel all the things they're going to feel tonight once we leave."
Her daughter looks at her, if only to confirm that alien life does indeed walk among us.
"Oh Mom, iccch!" she says, covering her face with her hands.
What UMass collecteth, the state will taketh not away. That signal is the most promising part of a decision taken in Boston last July, when the legislature agreed to match up to $11 million in private fund-raising by public higher education during this fiscal year. The potential gain to the university system is $4.4 million.
"The funds are approved for FY '97, but the program is in place should further funds be provided by the legislature," says director of government relations Dick Conner '81 M.Ed. '85. "We're hopeful that if we show success in raising funds and utilizing the match, that will come about."
As important as the funds themselves, says Conner, is the indication that private fund-raising will increase, not decrease, public support. According to the legislation, the program "shall not result in direct or or indirect reductions in the commonwealth's appropriations for operations or for capital funds."
The following three paragraphs came near the end of remarks by Professor Julius Lester at the Campaign UMass Kick-off October 17.
"One of the pleasures of teaching is the extraordinary writing I am privileged to read in the papers students submit. I want to close by reading a section from a student's paper written in 1991 for a course I teach called 'Religion in Western Literature.' The course entails reading eight works of fiction that focus on the Christian, Jewish, Easter, and Native American religious experiences. The following was written in response to Chaim Potock's?novel, The Chosen, a work about Jewish religious life in Brooklyn in the mid-forties, and the student is seeking to describe how past, present and future cannot be easily separated in Judaism.
"'Whalesong, Judaism is like whalesong. It has been proven that whales communicate with their song. One whale sings a song and the others that hear it pick it up, changing it slightly and sing it themselves and this passes around the community. No song every fully fades. Some note of it is preserved in the upcoming songs. They never restart. They just modify what has come before. New whales add to it as they enter the pool of singers. Songs that are sung in the Arctic have been found, traces of them that is, in the Antarctic. All whales of that species have some part of it in their song. How is the Torah different from their song? It contains some of every whale's creative spirit and mind. It contains hidden in its notes the soul of the entire whale race, the ones living and the ones dead. In this way I think the Torah functions. It contains the Jewish soul.'
"What is remarkable about this is not only the quality of the writing but that it was not written by a Jew. It was written by an Irish Catholic boy from Boston. If you have doubts as to what Campaign UMass is really about, it is about the experience of a student's mind and soul coming to life. It is about giving students the intellectual and spiritual skills that will enable them to make the decisions in their public and private lives that will enhance the lives of us all. This is the everyday wonder of being part of this university."
Nine distinguished alumni or alumni couples, each representing a college or school, received the Chancellor's Medal for "extraordinary and exemplary service to the university" at an October 18 convocation highlighting the three-day kick-off of Campaign UMass.
-Daeje Chin '79 M.S., engineering. Executive vice president, Samsung Electronics.
-Rudolph Crew '73 M.Ed. '78 Ed.D., education, Chancellor of New York City Schools
-Rosemary Crosier '73 '75 M.S., nursing. Board member, Area Health Education Council.
-Charles '54 and Mildred '55 Feldberg, food and natural resources. Charles is vice president of health, safety, and quality assurance at CPC International, Mildred a food communications and marketing consultant.
- Ken Feinberg '67, an attorney in Washington, D.C., an endowment in the history department.
- John Flavin '59, management. President, Triangle Supply Company.
-William E. Mahoney '55, natural sciences and mathematics. Recently retired chief operating officer, Witco Corporation.
-Elaine '56 and Paul '57 Marks, social and behavioral sciences. Dual careers incorporating business and public service.
-James Stewart '74, '77 M.S., '92 Ph.D., public health and health sciences. Director of environmental health and safety, Harvard University.
"If our country had come as far as baseball in the last fifty years, I don't think we'd be as worried as we are about racism."
The speaker was Larry Doby, 73, former major league baseball player and the first black player in the American League. The place was Herter Hall and the event was part of a course offered under the auspices of the Jackie Robinson Initiative, an interdisciplinary, interdepartmental commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the breaking the color barrier in baseball, a sport that Doby extolled for "bringing people together."
Doby, who began playing for the Cleveland Indians 11 weeks after Jackie Robinson's first game as a Brooklyn Dodger in 1947, spoke with humor and passion for more than an hour during his campus appearance in late October. A panel of professors moderated his lecture, which triggered many questions from the 270 students who filled the Herter Hall auditorium.
"Did your teammates back you on the field?" asked one student.
"Yes," replied Doby in his firm, mellifluous baritone. "I could be productive [to the team], and I could make money [for the team]."
The students, who are formally enrolled in a course called "Baseball and Modern America," heard nine other guest lecturers during the semester, including National League president Leonard Coleman, Hall of Fame second basemen Joe Leonard Morgan, former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee, Negro League first basemen John Jordon "Buck" O'Neil Jr., Cleveland Indians pitcher "Rapid Robert" Feller, pitcher and Jackie Robinson teammate Don Newcombe, Pittsburgh Pirates and Boston Red Sox pitcher Bob Veale, broadcaster Eugene Kirby, and Branch Rickey III, president of the American Association of Professional Baseball Clubs.
Professor of sport studies Bill Sutton was coordinating faculty member for the fall course. Also involved in the Robinson Initiative are political scientist Jerome Mileur, Afro-American studies professor William Strickland, and historian Ronald Story. A regional academic conference, exhibitions of art and memorabilia, the endowment of a Jackie Robinson Scholar program on campus, and a spring-semester course are also a part of the unique initiative.
"When we're talking about this country I think what we're talking about is diversity," Doby told the students at his lecture. Did he hold grudges against anyone? another student asked. "No, you can't carry hate in you," Doby replied. "It's a disease."
Carl Vigeland M.Ed. '74
Getting Grounded
"My goal is to really make the campus like a park again," says Marc Fournier '76, the crackerjack manager whose adroit handling of UMass' waste-stream we reported in January ["Trashing It," Winter 1996], and who's now been entrusted with UMass' hard-pressed grounds.
In September, Fournier became acting assistant director for grounds managment in the Physical Plant, taking over for 42-year veteran Al Potter, who retires December 31. Fournier has spent the fall inventorying the campus grounds acre by acre and pole by pole, and laying plans to improve and maintain it by the same methodical means.
"About 60 per cent of the cost of a project, over its lifetime, is maintenance," says Fournier. "My goal is to make improvements that both look nicer and are absolutely sustainable."
Fournier is talking mowing practices, delivery routes, benches, picnic tables, bike racks -- all the patterns and furniture of campus life that, in the case of the hardware anyhow, should be integrated in style and have a maintenance plan built into their installation.
A big part of Fournier's philosophy is networking, worker participation, and user-involvement. He's talking with grounds staff, student groups, facilities planning, the landscape architecture department, the Stockbridge School, building monitors -- anyone invested in and capable of contributing to the physical state of the campus.
"We can provide a lot of service with the same labor force," says Fournier. "It's gonna be good."
