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 Brand |
When you're driving a car, or working at a great university, you should never become so fixated on the road ahead that you fail to take an occasional look in the rear-view mirror.
For us at Indiana University, Founders Day represents an annual opportunity to take that look back. While we recognize the outstanding faculty members who make IU such a vibrant educational institution today, we also honor the vision and dedication of those who planted and nurtured the seeds of this institution.
Some other colleges and universities also hold events to honor their heritage. Few turn it into the major ceremony we observe at IU. I like to think that's because we have an historical legacy that few can match.
Begin with the drafting of the first Indiana state constitution in 1816, with its unique and visionary call "for a general system of education, ascending in a regular gradation from township schools to a state university." Continue with the establishment of the Indiana State Seminary in 1820. Watch the fledgling institution rise out of the ashes of calamitous fires. Follow it through the eras of Andrew Wylie and David Starr Jordan, William Lowe Bryan and Herman B Wells to the brink of a new millennium. IU has survived, persevered, flourished. Its future is aglow with possibilities.
So why look back? Because we learn so much about where we are going by knowing where we have been. The story of IU is a 179-year chronicle of outstanding scholarship, of educators who have been dedicated both to student learning and to innovative research. With the Founders Day awards, we recognize just a few of the IU faculty members who embody that continuing commitment.
IU's first president, Andrew Wylie, might not know what to make of Glenn Gass's course on the History of Rock 'n Roll. He might be surprised at the popularity of David Moller's class on the Sociology of Death and Dying. But I believe he would immediately recognize the wonderful energy that fills a classroom when a gifted professor excites the imagination and intellect of engaged students. That happens in the classrooms where the Founders Day honorees practice their art and in so many classrooms on IU's campuses every day.
These examples of teaching and research excellence are the continuation of a legacy that is worth celebrating. And on Founders Day, we do.
What's on your mind? E-mail President Brand at pres@indiana.edu.
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