Drake University

On Campus - Stories
October 1, 1999 - Vol.52, No. 18

Paul SimonPaul Simon to give Bucksbaum Lecture

Former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois will share his vision of higher education in the new millennium when he gives the Martin Bucksbaum Distinguished Lecture at Drake University on Thursday, Oct. 7.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is titled
"Changing Places: Higher Education's Changing Responsibilities at the Turn of the Millennium." The event will start at 8 p.m. in Sheslow Auditorium in Old Main. Following the lecture, there will be a reception and book-signing in Levitt Hall in Old Main.

Simon is a professor at Southern Illinois University, where he teaches classes in political science and journalism. He also is director of SIU's Public Policy Institute, which he founded in 1997 to "find new ways of solving some very old problems."
Illinois' former senior U.S. senator has enjoyed a long and distinguished political career. Elected to both the state's House and Senate, he also served a term as lieutenant governor. He spent 10 years in the U.S. House before his 1984 Senate election. His wide-ranging policy interests span such diverse topics as the budget, education, disability policy, foreign affairs, labor as well as television violence.
The leading champion of the new direct college loan program enacted in 1991, Simon also wrote education and job-training laws such as the National Literacy Act and School-to-Work Opportunities Act. He retired from the U.S. Senate when his final term expired Jan. 3, 1997.

Simon became the nation's youngest newspaper editor-publisher at age 19 and went on to build a chain of 13 newspapers in southern and central Illinois. He has written 18 books, three with co-authors, including P.S.: The Autobiography of Paul Simon (Senator) and Tapped Out: The Coming World Crisis in Water and What We Can Do About It, both published in 1998.

The Martin Bucksbaum Distinguished Lecture Series, established at Drake in 1996, is made possible by a gift from Melva and the late Martin Bucksbaum, former chairman and president of General Growth Corp. and a longtime member of Drake's governing board.

Drake to celebrate Maxwell's inauguration

Drake University will celebrate the inauguration of David Maxwell with a series of festive and provocative events Oct. 6-10.

"The inauguration isn't about me, it's about Drake," President Maxwell said. "That's why the theme for Inauguration Week is 'The Place of Drake...in Higher Education, in the Community, and in the Lives of Those Who Learn and Serve Here.'"

Inauguration Day festivities will start with a pancake breakfast from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Oct. 9, in Hubbell Field. The Drake Marching Band will play during the breakfast and then lead the crowd over to Drake Stadium for the Homecoming Football Game, which starts at noon. The Bulldogs will take on St. Mary's College of Moraga, Calif.

Following the football game, Dr. Maxwell will be installed as president in a ceremony featuring faculty and delegates from other colleges and universities in full academic regalia. The event will start at 4:30 p.m. in the Drake Knapp Center.

The ceremony will include President Maxwell's inaugural address and a speech by his mentor and friend, Sol Gittleman, senior vice president/provost of Tufts University. In addition, the Drake Symphony Orchestra will perform "Veritas," an inspiring piece composed for the occasion by professor William Dougherty, chair of the music department.

Following the ceremony, there will be an inaugural celebration featuring food, music and fellowship at the Knapp Center. President Maxwell will join in the festivities by playing his guitar with Drake Jazz Ensemble I.

In keeping with the inauguration theme, Drake will hold a forum with a series of frank and open panel discussions, in which the University will explore ways it can best serve the needs of individuals and society. The forum, titled "Serving the Common Good: a Forum on the Place of Drake," will include five sessions on Friday, Oct. 8. Faculty, staff and students are invited to drop in as their schedules permit. Morning and afternoon sessions will be held in Sheslow Auditorium in Old Main. The luncheon session will be held in Parents Hall in Olmsted Center. All but one of the panel discussions will be shown live on cable TV on the College Channel (TCI 98/46). The panels are as follows:
  • Drake in the Public Arena, 8:30 to 10 a.m. Moderator: former Iowa Gov. and former Drake University President Robert D. Ray. Panelists: former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad; Des Moines Mayor Preston Daniels; former U.S. Congressman Neal Smith; and Iowa Gov. Thomas Vilsack.

  • Drake in the Business Community, 10:15 to 11:45 a.m. Moderator: Jack Rehm, retired chairman and chief executive officer of Meredith Corp. Panelists: David Drury, chairman and chief executive officer, The Principal Financial Group; Marcia Hanson, executive vice president for corporate development for the AmerUs Group; Suku Radia, managing partner of the Des Moines office of KPMG Peat Marwick; and Lloyd Ward, chairman and chief executive officer of Maytag Corp.

  • Drake in Higher Education, noon-1:30 p.m. Moderator: Robert Hariman, professor of rhetoric and communication studies and endowment professor of the humanities. Panelists: Judith Allen, associate professor of psychology; Lon Larson, professor of pharmacy administration; Patricia Prijatel, the E.T. Meredith distinguished professor of journalism; and David Skidmore, associate professor of politics and international relations. This panel will not be televised live on the College Channel.

  • Drake in the Community, 1:45 to 3:15 p.m. Moderator: Dennis Ryerson, editor of The Des Moines Register. Panelists: Michael Blouin, chief executive officer of the Greater Des Moines Partnership; Patty Daniels, vice president of the Drake Neighborhood Association; Martha Willits, president of United Way of Central Iowa; and Eric Witherspoon, superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools.

  • Drake in the Future, 3:30 to 5 p.m. Moderator: David Walker, the Dwight D. Opperman distinguished professor of law. Panelists: Barbara Dietrich Boose, publications director; Neil Hamilton, the Ellis and Nelle Levitt distinguished professor of law and director of the Agricultural Law Center; Doug Hillman, the Aliber distinguished professor of accounting; Robert Hariman; Annette Liggett, professor of education; David Miles, chair of the Drake National Alumni Association; and John Rosen, Drake's student body president. The session will conclude with comments from President Maxwell.

Inauguration Week festivities will start at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 6, with the first "Let's DU Lunch" event in the Younkers Tea Room in downtown Des Moines. President Maxwell will be the featured speaker at the lunch, which is sponsored by the Central Iowa Drake Alumni Chapter and the Greater Des Moines Chamber of Commerce. Tickets, which are $15 per person, are available by calling x3152 before 4:30 p.m. today (Friday, Oct. 1).

Also on Wednesday, Oct. 6, there will be an Inauguration Concert featuring Drake faculty and student soloists and ensembles at 8 p.m. on the Jordan Stage in Sheslow Auditorium in Old Main.

Inauguration Week will conclude on Sunday, Oct. 10, with an interdenominational worship service at 10:30 a.m. at First Christian Church.

ACLU president to speak Friday

Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union and professor of law at New York Law School, will be the keynote speaker at Drake on Friday, Oct. 8, as constitutionalists, civil libertarians, lawyers, school administrators, teachers and students gather to discuss student rights on the 30th anniversary of the case that first brought the issue to the forefront of the nation's conscience.

Strossen's address, which is free and open to the public, is titled "Keeping the Constitution Inside the Schoolhouse Gate." It will begin at 7 p.m. in Sheslow Auditorium in Old Main. The speech will open the 1999 Drake Law School Constitutional Law Symposium, which will look at the events leading up to and following Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District. In that case, parents of three students filed suit after the high schoolers were suspended for wearing black armbands in protest of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In handing down its decision, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas said "that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

Following the address, the public is invited to a reception for Strossen in Cartwright Hall.

The symposium, which is endowed by the Des Moines law firm of Belin Lamson McCormick, Zumbach, continues on Saturday, Oct. 9, as speakers and commentators from across the nation participate in presentations and panel discussions analyzing the law and policies that have emerged since Tinker.
Drake strikes up community band

Are you looking for a creative outlet? The Drake University/Community Concert Band will begin rehearsals at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 11, in Monroe Recital Hall in the Harmon Fine Arts Center. Interested community members may join the concert band without audition by contacting Clarence Padilla at x3101 or Robert Meunier at x3963.
'Seated in Style' opens Sunday

Twenty icons of Modern and contemporary chair design will be on view in Seated in Style: Kirk V. Blunck Collection of 20th Century Chairs at the Anderson Gallery from Oct. 3 through 31. The opening reception will be from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 3. Both the reception and exhibiton are free and open to the public.

Kirk V. Blunck, principal and CEO of the Des Moines architectural firm Herbert/Lewis/Kruse/Blunck Architecture, has had a long-standing interest in avant-garde chair design. He acquired his first chairs - dining chairs by Swiss architect Le Corbusier - in 1979. Since then Blunck has steadily built the collection, acquiring chairs that are deemed the classics of Modernism, such as the Red-and-Blue Chair (1917/18) by Dutch architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld. Constructed of rectilinear pieces of wood painted in primary colors, it is generally considered to be the first truly Modern chair.

Blunck's interest extends to contemporary chair design as well, as exemplified by Danish designer Verner Panton's injection-molded Stacking Chair of 1960-67, and American architect Frank Gehry's laminated cardboard Wiggle chair (of the Easy Edges series) of 1972.

The Anderson Gallery is open from noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday in the Harmon Fine Arts Center.
Drake presents timeless comedy

Three hundred years ago William Congreve, the famous Restoration English playwright and poet, sharpened his quill, dipped it in satirical ink and lifted the lid off London's high society. The result was the comic masterpiece, "The Way of the World," which opens Thursday, Oct. 7, at Drake.

In this timeless comedy, Congreve exposes the vanities, foolishness, fashions and moral ambiguities of the period, and introduces us to characters that we recognize only too well all these years later. "The convoluted plot twists and weaves its way through infidelity, jealousy, deception, intrigue and comic disguise," said director Clive Elliott, visiting Daniel B. Goldberg artist in residence.

The Drake production updates the action to a luxury London hotel in the 1930s, but without changing a word of the original language.

Performances start at 8 p.m. Oct. 7, 8, 9 and 10 in Studio 55 of the Harmon Fine Arts Center. Tickets are $4 for adults, $2 for senior citizens and students, and free with a Drake I.D. Reservations required due to limited seating. Call x3841.
Display features 12 presidents

Photographs and information about Drake's 12 presidents will be display in the lobby of Cowles Library throughout Inauguration Week. The display was developed by Cowles Library staff members.
Concert to honor the Maxwells

The Drake Symphony Orchestra, John Canarina conducting, will open its 1999-2000 season at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 12, on the Jordan Stage in Sheslow Auditorium in Old Main. The concert will be dedicated to President David Maxwell and his wife, Madeleine, and will also observe the forthcoming centennial of the birth of Aaron Copland.

The Suite from Copland's Ballet, "Billy the Kid," will be performed. Also on the program will be "Veritas" by Drake music chair William P. Dougherty, commissioned especially for the inauguration of President Maxwell. Rounding out the program will be Mozart's Symphony No. 36 and Rimsky-Korsakoff's Capriccio Espagnol.

The concert is free and open to the public.

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