Eating the Elephant

It's an old joke:

How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.

Today is a milestone day for the project as we begin moving the more than 13,000 objects that comprise the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection back home. Years of planning rolled into design, construction, temperature and humidity data collection and analysis and passion to create a space that is second to none, anywhere in the United States.

But before any of that happened the collection needed to be packed and moved to secure offsite storage for the nearly three years it took to reach today. Remember, this is easily the largest University-held collection in the nation and it most of it had never seen the light of day, let alone get packed and moved out then moved back again.

It is worth sharing again the spectacular blog (http://hlatc.blogspot.com/) created by Diana Zlatanovski the associate curator of the Collection, that documented the process of moving the objects out of the building. Please take a moment and start at the bottom of her blog - she did a wonderful job photo documenting the space where the collection used to live and how we actually moved it out. I still remember the large rolled textiles being hand-carried down 4 flights of stairs with people on either end trying to keep it level. Now that's commitment.

Once again it is the caring hands of dozens of people who have come together to make this move possible - from the hands of the dozens of volunteers who cut muslin, coroplast and scrubbed the cabinets clean, to the hands of the people from Coakley who moved our collection out of the building over the semester break December/January 2009-10, and now back again, the elephant has come full circle.

But I most want to thank:

Erin Hamilton, Maggie Ordon, Barbara Bradley, Ericka Knapp and Lynn Mecklenburg

who confronted the elephant named "moving back home", stared it down and very precisely ate it all, one bite at a time.

Bon Appetit!

Modern Family

I started this blog writing a fairy tale but after 2 days of trying to make it work, I've just scratched the whole thing.  My daughter and I have been on a marathon of funny TV shows - everything from "Arrested Development" to "Modern Family." In my opinion some of the best comedy writing today lives on the small screen.
 
Here's my interpretation of Human Ecology as a family comedy (sing along to the popular theme songs):



School of Human Ecology building, 1928

  The Beverly Hillbilies

"Come and listen to a story 'bout our favorite Dean

Their building was old but they sure did keep it clean

Until one day with students on the stairs

Robin looked up and said "It just ain't fair"

Space that is.. class-rooms...teaching labs"



The Brady Bunch



Associate Vice Chancellor Alan Fish



"Here's the story, of a lovely lady

Who was planning a building of their own

She presented, to Campus Planning

But she was all alone.

.

'till the one day when the lady met this fellow

they shook hands and pledged to work hard on the deal

That the Dean would somehow raise her monies

That's how Nancy Nicholas Hall became so real."

 

Theme song to Mary Tyler Moore Show

(little known fact - at the end of the clip where MTM spins and throws her hat into the air? That's a Zwicker Knit hat!)

"Who can raise a building with her wiles? 

Who can take the faculty and carefully make them all walk the miles?

Well it's you Dean, and you should know it

With each step and every single donor you show it


Space is our big need we cannot waste it
You can raised the funds, why don't you take it


You're gonna build it after all
You're gonna build it after all"


Rawhide Theme Song ( I only changed 2-3 words, it just seemed to work)

 "Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Campus keep on movin',
Though they're disapprovin',

Keep them planners movin' Rawhide!

Don't try to understand 'em,
Just rope and throw and grab 'em,
Soon we'll be living high and wide."

 

This past Wednesday we had a party to honor Robin, thank her for the last almost eleven years leading this School. The party was a fairly informal affair, just cake, ice cream and a wee bit of champagne. Robin has made the School a family - and in that spirit we welcome Dean Soyeon Shim. Please pull up a chair to our table - we are not the formal "eat in the dining room with the proper flatware" kind of family, we are the "pass the potatoes, stop hitting your sister, no texting at the table and how-was-your-day" kind of family. 

We are a modern family. But no giving the dog your lima beans....I can see that.