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PATRICK O'MEARA: This is Profiles on WFIU. I am Patrick O'Meara. On Profiles we talk to notable artists, scholars, writers, musicians, political leaders, and others who make things happen. We try to get to know the person behind their work.
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This has been a special year for Indiana University. It's the two hundredth birthday of this great school. And on this program today there are four guests each of whom has played an important role in organizing the bicentennial of Indiana University. We're going to start with Kelly Kish. You ought to get to know Kelly because she has had a remarkable career at IU. She is the deputy chief of staff for the Indiana University President Michael McRobbie. And she is to all intents and purposes the inspiration guide and source of the bicentennial celebration. Kelly, you know, I read something about you. It said one of the unique things about the president's office is that we don't do the same thing two days in a row. Therefore, our jobs are constantly evolving and that's the most enjoyable challenge of the job. And, of course, working for the president never fails to surprise. So, does this apply to the bicentennial?
KELLY KISH: Well, thank you, Patrick. And thank you for that very generous but exaggerated introduction of my role in the bicentennial. It absolutely applies to the bicentennial and has since we began in 2016 really picking up steam. And every day of our program has brought different personalities, different audiences, different projects, and events to the forefront of the discussion. So, it has been really an ever-changing program and it continues to evolve. Our plans have been set for some time, but the execution of those plans changes on a daily basis.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And you've loved it?
KELLY KISH: Every minute.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Jim Capshew. I've known Jim since he was an undergraduate. And he played a very important role in a historic figure's life - in the life of Herman Wells. And I would see Jim because of my close friendship with someone who lived next door to the chancellor. Jim is the university historian and of the historical marker committee. And he leads IU's efforts to coordinate publications of writing related to the history of the bicentennial. So, in many ways he is indeed the university historian. Jim, as the University historian you've also been a significant part of the bicentennial celebration. Tell us what you've actually done.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Well, starting four years ago with Kelly we planned a lot of the bicentennial programs. I'm in charge of the historical marker program. I run a committee - that's the nominations - and then go through the text development and then turn over to the president's office for installation. I also head the council of university historians. We have - each campus has a historian for their campus. And so, we meet every quarter to talk about the bicentennial, about historical projects and issues and challenges and things. I've also written a fair amount in terms of the bicentennial and various courses and publications and the magazine, and this, that, and the other - anything that needs to be done.
PATRICK O'MEARA: It's really an exciting role for a historian because what you've done has really had enormous practical implications. A lot of people have been following everything, so I'm delighted.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Yeah. I've really enjoyed being a public historian for the last couple of years.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah. It's been wonderful.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Yeah.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Gary Dunham is the director of the Indiana University Press and also a digital publishing leader in the field. He's an anthropologist. And, Gary, above all, before coming to IU you worked with the American Speech Language Hearing Association with nearly 200,000 members. So how does that all fit together - anthropology speech and working with the press?
GARY DUNHAM: It's all about giving voice and finding voice. I think that's the most important and that's been - a part of my life's work as well has been able to give voice to those who need to be heard. And that's why I was really excited now to be a publisher because I've been able to, quietly, behind the scenes - been able to make available people's experiences and lives that need to be heard.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And of course for the bicentennial you've published - that are very relevant and we'll come and talk about those in a while...
GARY DUNHAM: Right.
PATRICK O'MEARA: But you played a pivotal role in another way of recording the bicentennial.
GARY DUNHAM: That's absolutely right. When I arrived here, which was six years ago, I felt like in many ways the university was silent. We didn't have a lot of recent history about the university. And I think the series that we have, which is called Well House Books, and working with my good colleagues here has been able to give voice to the past and also those who are here now.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Jeeyea Kim, you are in the school of art and architecture and design and above all you are the winner of the bicentennial medal design. But let's tell people a little bit more about you. You were born in Seoul.
JEEYEA KIM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And then you ended up at UCLA right?
JEEYEA KIM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And what did you do there?
JEEYEA KIM: So, I was born in Seoul. I studied architecture for my bachelor's degree there and I ended up going to exchange student program in Chicago, studied architecture at I.I.T. - Illinois Institute of Technology. And then, I was thinking about - I was really inspired by the city. I was thinking about going to grad school and then I applied architecture master's degree program at UCLA. And that's where I studied.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Right.
JEEYEA KIM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And you've really put a lot of thought into the medal, haven't you?
JEEYEA KIM: I did. Since I saw the poster that open competition of IU bicentennial medal student faculty, even residents of, like, Indiana welcome to design the medal, I've been thinking about my experience of understanding the culture of IU and how I can represent the history of the past and present and the future in one piece of metal.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
JEEYEA KIM: And I've been thinking how to do it. And then I eventually created sort of a - I say it's a three-dimensional diagram of - I use an interconnected system.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And we'll come back to hear more about it.
JEEYEA KIM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: It's an exciting piece of art and recognition.
JEEYEA KIM: I'd be happy to share my experience.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Jim and Kelly, let's go back in time. Let's go back to 1820.
KELLY KISH: I wasn't here. Jim might.
(LAUGHTER)
PATRICK O'MEARA: So, what was it like in your historical thinking? I mean, there it was on Seminary Square - right? - teaching Latin and Greek. Tell us your impressions. You've been immersed in this.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Nothing was happening in 1820 because they basically passed a law that created the Indiana State seminary. And so, it was on paper - IU was there in the beginning of that the nucleus of the institution that we know today.
PATRICK O'MEARA: It didn't become a college till 1828, right?
JAMES CAPSHEW: That's right.
KELLY KISH: Right.
PATRICK O'MEARA: OK.
KELLY KISH: In 1824 the first building is built on what we now call Seminary Square, 1825, the first classes are offered, the first faculty member - which Jim studied more than anyone else - Baynard Rush Hall. And the first class of graduates in 1830 - four men, interestingly, not from Indiana. There were very few residents of the state at that point prepared for higher education. And so, the first four graduates are actually out-of-state students at the time.
JAMES CAPSHEW: So, it really didn't get started until a little bit later on. But, yeah, it's a very infant institution at that point.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And what was seminary square like - a little muddy place in winter?
JAMES CAPSHEW: Well think about Bloomington at that time. It was basically a forest. And so, they had to cut down trees and then they cut down the campus about 10 acres of land there. And they built a building or two and it was a clearing in the woods. It was a beginning of a civilization outpost. Basically, we were a frontier college. And so, at that point we had 30 or 40 students, right? And it was presided over by Andrew Wylie the first president.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Once we became a college in 1828 the trustees hired Wylie as a college president. And so, then he came in 1829.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And his house is still standing.
JAMES CAPSHEW: It's still standing. In fact, that's the only big piece of the campus that still exists. All the other buildings on the old campus were destroyed over the years.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
JAMES CAPSHEW: And his house now has been preserved as a house museum.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And it was walking distance to Seminary Square.
JAMES CAPSHEW: That's right. It was, like, just a block and a half away.
KELLY KISH: And if you can picture 19th -century Bloomington, College Avenue was the main thoroughfare north south in the town and ended at the college.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Oh, it did?
JAMES CAPSHEW: Yes.
KELLY KISH: So that's why it's called College Avenue. So, if you were driving from the north to the south you would end at the college.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Yeah.
KELLY KISH: And now, of course, that two block development looks quite different than it did in 1820, but for much of the 19th century that was College Avenue. It took you to the college.
PATRICK O'MEARA: So where did the students come from? Who were they?
KELLY KISH: Well...
PATRICK O'MEARA: Well, first you said they were all men.
KELLY KISH: Well, the first 37 classes are all men. The first 37 classes of graduates are all men before our first female graduate in 1867. The very, very early years, as I mentioned - students are from regional communities. So, you can imagine folks living along the river in Cincinnati and Kentucky etc., that came to Bloomington for their then collegiate studies. We actually have a very interesting project with the university registrar's office and our colleagues at the Network Science Institute. They have now mapped together a single data file of all graduates from 1830 to 2019. Of course, we'll add the 2020 graduates in a few months. But from that data set we've learned a lot more about those first - well several decades of students. And the registrar's office will be unveiling a few more projects about those first early graduates.
PATRICK O'MEARA: The first group – Jim, where do they live?
JAMES CAPSHEW: They lived on campus. There was a boarding house there attached to the college. They also - later on they started living with families around town. In fact, the Wylies hosted several students over the years, and stuff. But we didn't have a big dormitory system. It was a tiny little place and tiny little town, tiny little college.
PATRICK O'MEARA: It is amazing when you think back - isn't it? - a few courses, a few students, tiny campus. Two hundred years later what do we have? A major university.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Exactly.
KELLY KISH: Yeah. All over the state, one hundred some thousand students enrolled at any given time, almost 700,000 living alumni approaching probably a million total students. Jim, your estimate is almost 2 million students that have taken courses...
JAMES CAPSHEW: Right.
KELLY KISH: ...At IU at one point or another and of course the new most recent innovation of our online presence so a truly global institution from that original small campus in southwest Bloomington.
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PATRICK O'MEARA: I am Patrick O'Meara. This is Profiles on WFIU. There are four guests on today's program, all of whom have been directly involved in celebrating the great history of Indiana University's 200 years of teaching research and service: Kelly Kish, who is in the president's office and who has been directly responsible for the bicentennial organization; Gary Dunham, who is the director of the IU press; Jim Capshew, the University historian; and Jeeyea Kim, whose imagination resulted in the bicentennial medal. It's our celebration, but I noticed, Kelly, that you wanted to draw in students, staff, alumni, and the general public with exciting programs. Have we succeeded?
KELLY KISH: I think so. It's an ambitious program. From the beginning, we knew that in order to do that - to reach students, faculty, staff, alumni, community members - the higher education community - broadly defined, our donors and others - we knew that we needed a multifaceted program. And that's really part of the reason why we started in 2016 programmatically. So, this is a four-year effort to reach all of those individuals. I will say that, on the balance, one of the things that our original steering committee called for, which was a real diversity of the program, imply that not all of those things were gonna be achieved by our office directly; that departments and schools and campuses were also going to take advantage of the anniversary to program to those various audiences. So, if one could envision a large matrix of all of the programs that have happened across all of the constituents I think we have reached everybody but through very different means.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah. You're a historian, Jim. What does this all mean for the next hundred years? Can you shift gears and think into the future?
JAMES CAPSHEW: Well one of the big takeaways from the bicentennial is to diversify the narrative of Indiana University. That means not taking the top-down approach - really looking for other stories - students, faculty, staff - that have not been told or retold in different ways. And so, we're really trying to sort of make it more of a people's university approach - right? - from the bottom up. And so, that, I think would help a lot in terms of the future; that we're all part of this ongoing enterprise. And even though the regional campuses are not part of the 200 years - right? They didn't go back to 200 years - but they will be part of the third century of IU.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
JAMES CAPSHEW: So that's important to think about that, and how we can pivot from the past to the present into the future about the university.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Kelly and Jim, what about universities without walls in the next hundred years? Do you think we're going to go into a different projectile as we look forward?
KELLY KISH: Well I think it's always dangerous to ask historians to predict the future but...
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY KISH: ...We do this every day just for fun. So, I do think some things will change, Patrick, I think for example in our oral history collection we have over twelve hundred interviews. You sat for an interview yourself. We've interviewed faculty, staff, alumni of the university. And many of the stories they tell are grounded in the physical attributes of a campus, are grounded in places that they remember fondly or otherwise from their student years or their work years at the university. But there are equally a large number of stories about the people that they connected with the knowledge and skills that they've left the institution with. So perhaps some of those recollections, as I think about the oral history as one source of how we learn about ourselves, perhaps some of those stories will change as more students engage with Indiana University and higher education in general through online means. But I think some of them are core to what we do in the teaching and research mission of the university, and I don't think those will change at their core.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Let me be a little more specific in another direction that the university will be virtual in many ways.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Well I remember several years ago when the whole idea was that, “oh we can do everything online.”
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
JAMES CAPSHEW: And people have retreated from that; basically, that there is no substitution for human-to-human contact with teaching learning, laboratory work, whatever. You have to have some kind of connection to the real world and to manipulate things in the real world. Online learning - I was very much involved in that 20 years ago and it's a wonderful thing, as an adjunct, to transmit knowledge and to train people and stuff like that. But there's no substitution for that human-to-human contact.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
JAMES CAPSHEW: I'm not worried about...
PATRICK O'MEARA: ...The next hundred years without buildings.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Yeah. Yeah. We'll continue that. But we also will have a very robust virtual presence too which will complement what we do here at the different campuses.
PATRICK O'MEARA: I want to pursue just one other thing with both of you before we widen up for more discussion. You know, every time I look at a marker I say to myself, “I knew them.” It's a little bit disconcerting at this point in my life.
(LAUGHTER)
PATRICK O'MEARA: You know, I can name names. I mean, Lin Ostrom and I shared doctoral committee work and we worked on all kinds of things. And Camilla Williams was this wonderful effervescent presence that was marvelous even just to watch her walk in a room. Tell us about a few others. Who else is getting a marker?
KELLY KISH: Sure. I'll share a few that you may also know, but some, hopefully, that you didn't. For example, at IU Southeast we've dedicated a marker in honor of Lyda Radford who was the first student...
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
KELLY KISH: ...The first known student at that campus...
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
KELLY KISH: ...An African-American woman teacher from Louisville. At IU South Bend, a marker in honor of Gloria Kaufman, a well-known and respected women's studies scholar who really created the program on that campus, but also regionally renowned for her work on women's studies.
PATRICK O'MEARA: I didn't know Ernie Pyle by the way.
KELLY KISH: You didn't know Ernie Pyle. I don't think you knew T.C. Steele. There'll be a marker...
PATRICK O'MEARA: No.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY KISH: ...In the Bloomington campus marking Steele's studio as our first known sort of well-known artist in residence on this campus. And then also events. So, earlier this year we recognized the Hess v. Indiana supreme court case - the only case where Indiana University is a party to a Supreme Court decision. It was a free speech case, a very important free speech case, and that is marked in the Mauer School of Law. So, there are a number of well-known, as you say, the Lin Ostrum and the Camilla Williams perhaps being two of the more prominent figures that our Bridging the Visibility Gap project has focused on telling their stories. But we're also hoping that there are others that will educate a new generation about some of the individuals and events that have happened before their time.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Great. Jim, what does a marker look like?
JAMES CAPSHEW: A marker is a bronze plaque affixed to a limestone boulder that's on the ground. And so, it's almost like a natural thing that grows into the campus. And so, it's very difficult to actually summarize a person's contributions or event and a thousand characters with spaces.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
JAMES CAPSHEW: And so, basically, the idea is that that will get people to think, “oh, well, I need to know more about Lin Ostrom or Gloria Kaufman.” And so, then they would find other sources of information.
PATRICK O'MEARA: It's like walking in London and seeing, “Thackeray lived here.”
JAMES CAPSHEW: Right.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Or going around, “George Washington slept here.”
JAMES CAPSHEW: Right.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Gary.
GARY DUNHAM: Hey.
PATRICK O'MEARA: I'm so delighted that there's a bicentennial publication series.
GARY DUNHAM: Yeah. It's wonderful. And it's the only one of its type in the United States.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Really?
GARY DUNHAM: No one else has done this.
KELLY KISH: Wow.
GARY DUNHAM: And in the first four years we have published 10 books. We have 12 more in the pipeline. Think about that.
KELLY KISH: It's incredible what you have done, Gary.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Yeah.
KELLY KISH: It's really unbelievable.
GARY DUNHAM: Well, we've been working with all of you as well. I think we've worked well as a team.
KELLY KISH: Well, and Gary remembers the beginning of this conversation. Jim and Gary and I sat down and said, “gosh is anybody writing about IU history?”
GARY DUNHAM: Exactly.
KELLY KISH: Do you think anybody wants to? And we had a few books in mind that we knew we wanted to commission and those authors have been working diligently. Some have already been published and others are coming still but, really, I think it shocked and delighted all of us that the general call for publications yielded so much great content. And I think gave Jim and I a great feeling that there were compatriots...
GARY DUNHAM: Yeah.
KELLY KISH: ...Around the university. And, Gary, you and your team have really brought all of those stories to life.
GARY DUNHAM: Well, thank you.
KELLY KISH: And they're absolutely beautifully done.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Yeah.
KELLY KISH: Every single one is unique and absolutely gorgeous.
GARY DUNHAM: It's been wonderful to have that kind of support from the university in a variety of ways. And I think that the fact that so many people want to tell their story, or the story of the campus, means that people have been wanting something like this for a long, long time. And what we're hoping - and we've talked about this from the start - is that this isn't going to stop next year, that we want to see this as a launching point for research and storytelling about IU and experiences at IU that will go far into the future.
PATRICK O'MEARA: You know, I was looking at the mandate and it said, “celebrate two centuries of Indiana University history achievements challenges and legacy.”
GARY DUNHAM: That's right.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Do your books do that?
GARY DUNHAM: I think we do that. I would add on as well that the fact is that we personalize history as well. And I think that can be a challenge when you're trying to represent in a single series all facets of this beautiful campus and its history. And its legacy is to find the individual at the heart of it all. And that was something that we talked a lot about because if you advertise in a certain way you can have everyone wanting to tell their story. It's not possible with a limited service to be able to do that. And so, we try to focus on unique individuals who found their way here and have added to the university. We've learned from them as well. So, I believe that we have done that. It's been well-rounded so far. We talk about the range of books that we've been doing from serious scholarship based in history to sports which is also based on history but it has a popular element.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Right.
GARY DUNHAM: But we don't necessarily have any other books as well. So, what we're trying to do here is to reflect something that is evolving still.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Why did you call it the Well House?
GARY DUNHAM: That's a very interesting question, and it's because we were trying to find an icon that would stand for the series that would go back into the history of the university, but also be known to the alums as well. So, we thought of the Rose Well House. And so, we took the arches that frame that was there and we transformed that into the icon for the series itself.
KELLY KISH: And, Gary, I think you know this, but as Jim mentioned earlier about the Wiley House being one of the only remaining true relics of our 19th-century campus, the arches of the well house - the Rose Well House also survived from that 19th-century campus. They were originally affixed to the first university building as called, in some cases, first university building, second college building, and has many names. But those arches were preserved, and are now the walls, if you will, of the Rose Well House.
GARY DUNHAM: Right. And so, that's what we were looking for. We'd actually talked to the press about should we have a representation of the Wylie house, because we were looking for something that stretched as far back as possible; that was a binding aspect of the university that people could recognize and see themselves in. But, ultimately, just in terms of the artwork itself, we felt that the arches were really striking and we could put it on the spine of a book in a much more effective way.
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PATRICK O'MEARA: You're listening to Profiles on WFIU. I am Patrick O'Meara. Our guests are four individuals who have been directly involved in celebrating and planning the Indiana University bicentennial - Kelly Kish, who has been directly responsible for its organization; Jim Capshew, the university historian; Gary Dunham, whose responsibility includes the Indiana University Press, which has published the Well House Series; and Jeeyea Kim, who was the winner of the competition for the design of the bicentennial medal. Let's talk a bit about some of the books.
GARY DUNHAM: Yeah.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Let's start with an interesting book, Charlie Nelms.
GARY DUNHAM: Oh God, I love that man. That man walked in my office. The first time that I met him, I'm, like, this is the most fascinating and wonderful human being that I've met in a long time. He lights up a room when he walks in.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And the book is called From Cotton Fields to University Leadership.
GARY DUNHAM: And it's a classic story of how a man who uses the power of higher ed to be able to move forward in his life and to see new things, experience new things and to give new things back to other people. And it was really interesting from the start. I love to work with authors when they have a raw idea of a book. You know that. I worked with you on a couple of books...
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
GARY DUNHAM: ...as well. We start with an idea. We toss it back and forth and out of it emerges something wonderful.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
GARY DUNHAM: It always does. And we have Charlie. He came in and he had a story ready. And we...
PATRICK O'MEARA: I went to the book signing of the Nelms book.
GARY DUNHAM: Yeah.
PATRICK O'MEARA: It was a remarkable statement...
GARY DUNHAM: It was beautiful.
PATRICK O'MEARA: ...on the diversity of this university. And so, that book is not just a biography, a autobiography. It's a statement on who we are as a university and the diversity of the people who would come to the signing. Didn't you feel that?
GARY DUNHAM: I felt that. I felt it was an important part of what we wanted to do with the Well House series. I felt like his chapters that talked about his experiences as a graduate student here in the '70s was very powerful and revealing. There was a chapter of our university that needed to be talked about. I think that I've had some individuals who know him were surprised about how frank he was in those chapters. But he was who he was, and his voice has got to be heard. And I felt that he did a very good job. I think it was interesting working with Charlie at the beginning, because he came to me with a manuscript that was all done. And he said, “here's my story.” And I looked at it and said, “where are you in this?” Because what he did - as an academic sometimes we have trouble being able to personalize our experiences and talk about ourselves in an intimate way. And if you're writing your story you gotta get there. It's hard. It's challenging. It's painful. And he spoke about this at...
PATRICK O'MEARA: ...the signing.
GARY DUNHAM: ...the signing. And what was missing was his honesty about himself in the early part of his life, because it was painful. And that's something that we do as editors is to sit down, make sure that they understand that they can trust us. And then we go back and forth and talk about how do we take something that's in here, in your heart, in your experiences, put it on paper in a way that makes sense for the audience, but also reveals what you want to review about yourself.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And, actually, there's a second book that did that and that is Gerardo Gonzalez's book which deals with a Cuban refugee’s journey...
GARY DUNHAM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: ...and, again, a statement on Indiana University isn't it?
GARY DUNHAM: Yes, it was. And the books are very similar in the sense that they talked about the power of education, and moving forward to find a different life for yourself. And I love working with him as well. It was a different sort of work relationship, because we met over lunch and he had his manuscript ready. We would talk about it. And I would say to him, “you've got to go back and rewrite it again.” And God bless him. He rewrote it four times. And I think by the end he was completely sick of it. But that's the way it should be. But, in the end, it's a better book and he has a powerful story to tell.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And you know from the people we move to the campus and we look at Terry Clapacs' book. And I'd like to hear from anyone - and Gary you tell us first about…it's really about the buildings and the place.
GARY DUNHAM: Yeah. It's…what I've always said about that book is that it's the first time that the universities spoke when I walked across campus. Because, when I was his editor, Terry and I were into this almost every day, going through photographs. We had 600 photographs, I think, in the book. But what mattered to me was the stories of the building spoke to me for the first time. And so, when I went across campus I would hear his voice in my head. And that made it an intimate experience in a way that I didn't think was going to happen to me. It's a beautiful book. I think that if you want to start anywhere in learning about IU you start there and then you go on and read and all the other fine books.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And, of course, other books - The Lilly Library, Darlene Sadlier's book.
GARY DUNHAM: That's a beautiful book.
PATRICK O'MEARA: You know talk about the campus and the space...
GARY DUNHAM: Yeah.
PATRICK O'MEARA: ...And the collections and certainly...
KELLY KISH: …and your books, Patrick.
GARY DUNHAM: Your book, exactly. I was gonna make him talk about his book.
KELLY KISH: Let's talk about Patrick's book.
GARY DUNHAM: Let's talk about Patrick's book, because...
KELLY KISH: Gary, how did that book come about?
(LAUGHTER)
GARY DUNHAM: What's been - what's very interesting, Kelly, is that Patrick walked into my office with his manuscript, and it was more of a monograph. And he knew that. We were kind of talking about initially framing it as a scholarly work. But what always happens when an author and an editor work well as a team, it evolved into something really wonderful. We started to talk about visuals. There was that turning point when we said this actually is going to be something different. It's going to be striking in terms of the layout. So, we brought in the artist early on to talk to you about this.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And you know, Kelly, I will say this: thanks to the bicentennial it is a beautiful book, because there are color plates. There's beautiful binding. And that's true of all of the books. The Lilly book is a gorgeous book.
KELLY KISH: And Patrick, I think what we were able to do - what Gary and his team were able to do is we found the right people - you and your collaborator Leah Peck...
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yes.
KELLY KISH: ...to write about a unique aspect of our use identity. Darlene Sadler, an expert in Spanish and Portuguese history and film with a unique view and use of the Lilly Library, Terry Clapacs' 50 years at IU on the buildings and grounds. And so what Gary's team has been able to do is find these unique elements in the history of the university, get the right authors and collaborators in the room with these fantastically-talented designers, and each of them tells a very different story of the university in a very effective way.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And Kelly, you know, if you look at Curt Simic's book...
KELLY KISH: Yes. I'm sorry to leave Curt out.
PATRICK O'MEARA: How many are - they really - it's not about fundraising. It's about people.
KELLY KISH: It's about people and how they make choices.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah, and the kind of choices they make.
GARY DUNHAM: It really is, you know, and that's, again - part of the purpose of Well House is to find the human being at the heart of IU.
KELLY KISH: And there's still more to come.
GARY DUNHAM: There's a lot more to come. We have 12 books that are on the horizon that are making their way through - some fascinating ones. One of your books. Do you want to talk about your latest book?
PATRICK O'MEARA: It's a book that is called Windows on Worlds, and it's looking at unusual, unexpected items that you find in collections. And what we're doing with the book is not just looking at as a collection, we're looking at in terms of concepts - power. And we'd like to juxtapose a Cameroonian chief's pipe with a beautiful seal from Queen Elizabeth the First, or a Christian Dior original dress with an African print dress from a market in Ghana. So, it's been a very exciting project. And once again, Gary has been very tolerant of the eccentricities of his authors.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY KISH: And you mentioned in your introduction to the series, Patrick, the question of the criticism and the challenging parts of IU. And some of those good scholarly works are still on the way as well - a history of women volume from Professor Andrea Walton the history of medical education from...
PATRICK O'MEARA: Oh yes.
KELLY KISH: ...IUPUI history professor...
PATRICK O'MEARA: …and the law school is in there?
KELLY KISH: ...Bill Schneider, Linda Harris and Keith Buckley's work on the law school came out this past year…
GARY DUNHAM: Yeah, last fall.
KELLY KISH: …a commissioned piece on history of diversity from IU Northwest Professor Mark MacPhail - so a number of really important contributions that bridge the gap between our existing published history and where we want to be in terms of understanding ourselves.
GARY DUNHAM: And once again we're really hoping that people will be inspired by these books to work on their own, because there's a lot out there still.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Let's not leave books, because there's another audience - and I'm not a great sports fan - but you actually have a book on sports.
KELLY KISH: Two.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Two?
GARY DUNHAM: Yeah, we have two. Got a couple more coming as well. I think what's going to be fascinating for people, we've got a history of the early sports at IU from 1840 up to 1930. So that's going to be quite an interesting look at it. Of course, the sports weren't necessary the same. They didn't play the same role at the time. I found it to be an absolute fascinating book. I don't think that - you can't separate out sports from IU. You can't separate it out from its history. You can't separate it out from the academic side as well, so I'm happy that we were able to find a way, from a historical point of view, to talk about sports.
PATRICK O'MEARA: What about controversies?
GARY DUNHAM: They're there.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Oh, they're there. Good.
GARY DUNHAM: But...
PATRICK O'MEARA: We won't go into it.
GARY DUNHAM: But you're going to have to read the book and buy it.
(LAUGHTER)
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PATRICK O'MEARA: You're listening to Profiles on WFIU. I'm Patrick O'Meara. And I'm delighted that today we've been joined by four people who are helping Indiana University to celebrate its two-hundredth anniversary. This bicentennial is a great celebration of teaching research and service. And these guests have been instrumental in helping us to take note of the big event. They include Kelly Kish from the IU President's Office, who has been responsible for much of the organization of the celebration; Jim Capshew, the University historian; Gary Dunham, the director of the IU Press, whose books celebrate the 200 years of the university in the Well House series; and Jeeyea Kim, who is a professor of architecture in the new school of architecture at Indiana University, and who is the winner of the design for the IU bicentennial medal. Jeeyea Kim, I'm so delighted you're with us.
JEEYEA KIM: Thank you for having me.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And it's really another dimension of the bicentennial. So, let's ask Kelly to tell us who gets a medal and then we'll talk about your role.
KELLY KISH: Sure. When we created the idea of a new recognition piece for the bicentennial, we were looking for something that could complement the existing university awards that tend to recognize distinction of a rather distinguished level. And we wanted something, instead keeping in mind Jim's comment earlier about the people's university, that we wanted something that could recognize a broader subset of our institutional partners and friends and community for individuals, who, through their work and their life have really broadened the reach of Indiana University around the world. And that may be through professional distinction. It may be through philanthropy. It may be through service to the university in many different forms. So, the original objective was something that could be used quite broadly. And I imagine we'll talk in a second about the source of the medal and other things but that was the idea.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Jim, whose idea was it to get a medal in the first place?
JAMES CAPSHEW: I think it might have been Kelly's maybe or Jeremy's. I really don't remember.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
JAMES CAPSHEW: That's been a while now. A lot of things...
PATRICK O'MEARA: It seems to mean a lot - doesn't it? – to…people to get one.
KELLY KISH: It's very meaningful.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
KELLY KISH: There are not a lot of ways that we as an institution can really stand somebody up and say, “we recognize that they have made an impact in their community. And by doing so they have broadened Indiana University's reach and reputation.” We've had – presidents, vice-presidents, trustees have awarded the medal, and even to the people awarding it it's meaningful to have the opportunity to thank somebody and to hold their life's work up as an example.
PATRICK O'MEARA: The official reason for the medal is to be awarded to organizations and individuals who through personal, professional, artistic, or philanthropic efforts have broadened the reach of Indiana University around the state, the nation, and the world. And it's important, Jeeyea, because the medal is being given overseas. So, let's talk a bit about the design, please.
KELLY KISH: Yeah.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Tell me more.
KELLY KISH: So, when I first came in Bloomington I had no background about IU. My husband's family from Indiana and then their family is all go to IU. They have the full depth of knowledge about it. But when I first came here with my husband I did not have much idea about it. And only thing that I knew is IU Bloomington campus is in Bloomington. And then I started to recognize more of the presence of IU throughout the state. Everywhere the billboard throughout the highway - I go to, like, Fort Wayne or Kokomo - that kind of significance was pretty striking to me. And then I had a chance of teaching at IU a year or two after I came in Bloomington. It really was striking that how it's interconnected. It's not just in Bloomington as a local campus, throughout this whole state, and I wanted to represent that in the medal.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Could I go over some of the details with you?
JEEYEA KIM: Sure.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Do you mind?
JEEYEA KIM: Go ahead.
PATRICK O'MEARA: So, I was reading about it and I was looking at the medal. First of all, the medal manifests two images.
JEEYEA KIM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: A wonderful statement: a rippling effect on the surface of a body of water - the surface on the body of water that represents the strong influences. Tell me why you chose water?
JEEYEA KIM: The water is the organic stuff. It's not just solid. It's always move…there is movement, and once there is a water ripple in it, it kind of moves within itself, and kind of fluctuating. And that kind of movement is all working together as organic body. And I think that's a really strong image in there.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Now what kind of water? Seas? Rivers? Rain?
JEEYEA KIM: I think it's all kinds of water. All kinds of water is interconnected through the biodiversity, in a way, and becomes the ocean, and the river is getting into the ocean, things like that.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And then from water, you move to aviation.
JEEYEA KIM: Yeah. Yeah.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Why did you choose aviation?
JEEYEA KIM: So, it's kind of two distinct images. But, however, I thought of the portals where the campuses are - is like to me is a kind of a portal gateways. And then, through that gateway there is a connectivity through the portals. So, the aviation was more or less interconnected through the portal as a whole system and I wanted to combine those two images together.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Now, with aviation did you mean people coming on planes?
JEEYEA KIM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: People going on planes?
JEEYEA KIM: It's not just a metaphor of the plane. It's about the metaphor of, like, people's movement. I think the water movement is one metaphor and how things are working together and intermingle. And then aviation is also kind of how people are moving, but there is movement.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Gateways.
JEEYEA KIM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Gateways of the world.
JEEYEA KIM: Yes, correct.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Then there are the ideas of circles, and they intersect.
JEEYEA KIM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Why?
JEEYEA KIM: So, intersections - some over the intersection over the medal actually represent the location of IU's campus, like Bloomington is the highest point of the ripple. And then IUPUI and other, like, regional campuses either on the arc of the circle or its intersection of those circles. And those intersection is – basically, it's kind of intending to give that image of a trajectory towards the global connection.
PATRICK O'MEARA: The global connection.
JEEYEA KIM: Correct.
PATRICK O'MEARA: That's very interesting. And then, what's really important is the connection between the students, the campus, and the world, right?
JEEYEA KIM: Yes. Yes definitely.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Let me ask you about the medal itself, the fabrication.
JEEYEA KIM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: First of all, where did the metal come from?
JEEYEA KIM: The metal came from the student building which had a fire in - 1989?
KELLY KISH: 1990.
JEEYEA KIM: 1990. The bells on the student building were ruined by the fire. So, they collected the bells in summer in the IU, and utilized those bells as the alloy of the metal.
PATRICK O'MEARA: So, let's be dramatic. There's the wonderful student building. The bells are held up with wood - wooden trellises. The fire burns the wood and what happens to the bells?
JEEYEA KIM: It falls down.
PATRICK O'MEARA: They fall down, and some of them are OK and some of them are not. Now, when did you first meet the metal?
JEEYEA KIM: So, we met the metal craftsmen right after the first meeting of when they announced that I was the winner. We had an internal meeting about it and then I got to go to the metal craft shop with Jeremy Hackerd, and then we got to talk about the process a little more.
PATRICK O'MEARA: How did they make them?
JEEYEA KIM: My understanding is that they had several processes. First, I give them a 3D model of the - in the one-to-one scale, the model and 3D model. And they transfer that into metal die, they say. And then using the metal die, which is back and forth, they produce the wax model. And then, from wax model they cast a clay model which is the opposite of negative and positive. And they through the ceramic clay mold they cast the metal. And what I heard is, the metal - actually bell metal has a different ratio of metal components. They have to really scrutinize the ratio of the metal. They had to add a little bit of a different metal to make sure to have a same consistency of the metal.
PATRICK O'MEARA: What did you give - a drawing?
JEEYEA KIM: No. I actually gave them 3D model.
PATRICK O'MEARA: A 3D model?
JEEYEA KIM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: How did you make it?
JEEYEA KIM: It's a digital model.
PATRICK O'MEARA: A digital model?
JEEYEA KIM: Correct. So, I do a lot of stuff digitally. I mean, of course I sketch it in through a sketch book and I visualize it through 3D modeling program software. And then I gave them 3D model - digital model.
PATRICK O'MEARA: So, tell me Jim and Kelly, about the selection process. Who did it and how?
KELLY KISH: So, the medal is a great example of how many of the Bicentennial signature projects have come to fruition. So, the steering committee that was chaired in 2016 by Steve Watt and Kathy Johnson, that committee - comprised of students, faculty, staff, alumni - gathered hundreds and hundreds of ideas for what we should do during the bicentennial, one of which was a new recognition piece. We then decided that would be a medal. And we created a medal design selection committee chaired by trustee Mary Ellen Bishop. The committee consisted of students, faculty, staff, alumni (laughter) in the arts community throughout the university, all campuses represented. They evaluated a series of public submissions. I think you can tell from Jeeyea's description that her theoretical framework was what drew them in to her design - the interconnectedness of the campuses, the visual representation of that identity and, in particular, that it is beyond Indiana. The medal depicts the state of Indiana, the outline of the state, with the campuses sort of elevated as - highlighted in the circles that Jeeyea was describing. And so, the committees selected Jeeyea's design, and then Jeeyea worked with Indiana Metal Craft - a local artisan local company in Bloomington, Indiana, which again is a way that we've been engaging the community in these projects. They've been fabricating them over the last year, and President McRobbie awarded the first metal to Governor Holcomb on July 1 last summer, 2019, as a way of kicking off the public recognition phase of this project. And we will recognize hundreds and hundreds of students, faculty, staff, alumni and donors, and community members and leaders with this recognition. So, from sort of start to finish we've hit many of the constituents that we wanted to engage, in this case, with an artistic representation of a recognition piece.
PATRICK O'MEARA: One of them went internationally to the first woman to be president of Trinity College Oxford.
KELLY KISH: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Professor Boulding.
KELLY KISH: Hilary Boulding.
PATRICK O'MEARA: She was of the first to receive the medal.
JEEYEA KIM: I did not know that.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
KELLY KISH: And, again, an opportunity for us to look as an institution, who are these colleagues and peers around the world? Patrick, you've been involved in many of those relationships yourself, developing partnerships. So institutions where we have a 50-year relationship as an organization - we've been exchanging students and scholars and research and other things for 50 years - an opportunity for Indiana University at this moment in our history to say, “these are the partners around the world that have been meaningful in helping us achieve our objectives.”
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PATRICK O'MEARA: I am Patrick O'Meara. This is Profiles on WFIU. There are four guests on today's program, all of whom have been directly involved in celebrating the great history of Indiana University's 200 years of teaching research and service: Kelly Kish, who is in the president's office and who has been directly responsible for the bicentennial organization; Gary Dunham, who is the director of the IU press; Jim Capshew, the University historian; and Jeeyea Kim, whose imagination resulted in the bicentennial medal. Jim, what do you know about the Carillon.
JAMES CAPSHEW: I need to do a little extra on the medal.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yes.
JAMES CAPSHEW: The medal – yes, it's a beautiful thing - but it's also actually a piece of IU history, because of the actual metal that was involved. And so, I think that's part of the reason that it's so meaningful to people who get it, because it came from the campus. You know, it's the recycling of something that was very meaningful as a bell, but now it's a medal. And so, I think it's important to think about that the physicality of that and I just wanted to add...
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
JAMES CAPSHEW: ...that little...
PATRICK O'MEARA: And, by the way, some of the bells are in the new Carillon.
JEEYEA KIM: Wow.
JAMES CAPSHEW: That's right. The ones that were there before.
PATRICK O'MEARA: ...that survived.
KELLY KISH: No.
PATRICK O'MEARA: No? Am I wrong?
KELLY KISH: No, the Carillon bells are from the original Metz Carillon - two different sets of bells.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Oh, two different sets of bells.
KELLY KISH: Yeah.
JEEYEA KIM: Oh.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Oh, good.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Yeah. Yeah.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah. So, all the bells from the student building...
KELLY KISH: Are in store - the ones that...
PATRICK O'MEARA: ...still alive.
KELLY KISH: They're still alive somewhere.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Right.
KELLY KISH: And many of them are beyond use as bells.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
KELLY KISH: And several of them - after we finish this project there's been a request, of course, to keep a couple of them for archival purposes, which we will. The IU Alumni Association would like to have one for display. But, to put this in context, Patrick, the smallest of the bells weigh about 400 pounds. So, small is a relative term.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY KISH: And preserving things of that size is not exactly easy to do.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Right.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Jim, are you in any way involved with the Big Red Bus, which had historical records in it?
JAMES CAPSHEW: I wasn't really much involved with that, other than the planning of it.
PATRICK O'MEARA: That's what I...
JAMES CAPSHEW: The idea of that - having basically a traveling exhibit that would go around to every county in the state to show physical objects and information about IU and how it's affected every part of the state. And so that's been part of the mission of the traveling exhibit.
PATRICK O'MEARA: What's in the time capsule?
JAMES CAPSHEW: That's something that I'm not much aware.
KELLY KISH: I can talk a little bit about it.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Yeah you do that (laughter).
PATRICK O'MEARA: Did you find the previous time capsule?
KELLY KISH: Well, there are a number of time capsules hidden around Indiana University. We had a wonderful series of student interns that looked into the history of time capsules at IU. Much attention has been given to the centennial time capsule which is buried somewhere under Kroger on seminary square in Bloomington.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY KISH: But there are time capsules in many, many hidden places around the university. We will not be digging up the one under Seminary Square as part of this series of events. In the bicentennial time capsules, each campus has been asked to create a bicentennial time capsule that captures how it really wants to be preserved at this moment in time. Some campuses have interpreted that to mean the history of their campus. Others are placing a time capsule that is representative of 2020 culture. And so, each is slightly different. And what we will do - what we have committed to do which our predecessors one hundred years ago did not do is we will keep a list of what's in it and exactly where it is located so that it doesn't end up under the frozen food section.
(LAUGHTER)
PATRICK O'MEARA: Gary, what would you like to see in a time capsule?
GARY DUNHAM: You know, it's interesting, because we talked about it at the library, as well. So, we had donated to it a copy of - I think it was your book, actually, the first one, Indiana University in The World. And we also put a seasonal catalog from the press as well in there. I think that a time capsule can reflect history. It has to be now, because that's what people a hundred years from now want to know what it was like to...
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
GARY DUNHAM: ...live and experience and what's going on.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
GARY DUNHAM: And so, for us it was find a great story that's being told and save it.
PATRICK O'MEARA: So...
JEEYEA KIM: Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: ...Memories. What memory do you have that you want to leave the audience with of working on the medal? What's your strongest memory?
JEEYEA KIM: I say it was really strong memory of visiting the Metal Craft because I never really dealt with the metal before.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Yeah.
JEEYEA KIM: And then, you know, seeing the different kind of a material quality that I've never...
PATRICK O'MEARA: It was exciting.
JEEYEA KIM: Yeah. It was really exciting, and it was new territory to me.
PATRICK O'MEARA: And you're also breaking a new territory because you're teaching architecture...
JEEYEA KIM: Yes. Correct. Start this semester...
PATRICK O'MEARA: ...which is new for the university.
JEEYEA KIM: Yes. Yes. Yes.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Gary, what memories?
GARY DUNHAM: I would say it was probably after about a year and a half of working on the Well House series. There was one day I realized that I had fallen in love with Indiana University. That doesn't happen to me. It's usually a place to work. And so, we went out and we bought a house for the first time. I've never owned a house until working here.
JEEYEA KIM: Wow.
PATRICK O'MEARA: All right. Jim.
JAMES CAPSHEW: My memory is about the statewide system of campuses; that I've been able to go to all the campuses multiple times, meet people - leadership, the faculty, the students - and to see the role of the regional campuses and IUPI and Bloomington in new ways - that they do provide a huge lift to their communities. They provide education opportunities and that's a point of pride with the whole IU system that that's really important to think about the whole system of campuses. We are one university but we do have several campuses.
PATRICK O'MEARA: Kelly? Happy memories?
KELLY KISH: Absolutely. There's just so much going on that it's hard to sort of pause every now and then and think about where we've been and what we've been trying to achieve. I think, for me, now, at being an administrator for the last 15 years, it's hard to get a lot of historical work done in my own scholarship. So the opportunities that I've had to do little dips of research and then to talk to audiences around the country, alumni predominantly, and to try and challenge some of their assumptions and perceived ideas about the history of the university, those are the most enjoyable interactions that we have when we can help an audience think about this institution in a new way, think about new models, perhaps new icons that they should be learning about and knowing more about. And so, those are the dialogues and the conversations I think that will have the most meaning for me, long term.
PATRICK O'MEARA: This is Profiles on WFIU. I am Patrick O'Meara. Our guests today have been Kelly Kish, who has worked on the administration of the bicentennial; Jim Capshew, who's the university historian, and who has worked on the historical dimensions of the bicentennial; Gary Dunham, who is the director of the Indiana University Press, whose series has been significant in recording some of the history and future of the university; and Jeeyea Kim, who had the remarkable vision to design a beautiful bicentennial medal. Thank you.
JEEYEA KIM: Thank you.
JAMES CAPSHEW: Thank you.
KELLY KISH: Thanks Patrick.
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MARK CHILLA: Copies of this and other programs can be obtained by calling 812-855-1357. Information about Profiles, including archives of past shows, can be found at our website: wfiu.org. Profiles is a production of WFIU and comes from the studios of Indiana University. The producer is Aaron Cain. The studio engineer and radio audio director is Michael Paskash. The executive producer is John Bailey. Please join us next week for another edition of Profiles.
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