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.





 

Mom was right - boys and girls ARE different!



Hoover with a coaster on her head....it was funny at the time

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while but somehow other things kept getting in my way - darn you Tunnel Bob! 

This morning with a cup of coffee on my desk, my husband on location for a shoot and Hoover, my 6-year old Chocolate Lab snoring next to me (wait, didn't she just wake up from sleeping all night?! How do they do it!) I am in a calm place to write about the fun stuff.

The chalkboards in the bathrooms of our facility are cracking me up. What a difference between genders.

All restrooms in the building (save the "Nature Calls" on first and the formal ones in Plenary Hall) have a wall that is just blackboard. Wall to wall, floor to ceiling blackboard. The idea came from a trip to the Merchandise Mart in Chicago about 3 years ago. After a long day of showroom appointments looking at furniture, we (the design team plus me, Robin, Roberto and Angela) had drinks at an uber cool, "we-are-too-old-to-be-here-but-we're-out-of-town-and-will-never-see-these-people-again" bar where we discovered the restroom was planked in chalkboard.

It was spectacular. Visual. Organic. Funny. It was easy to do in our building and we bet the students would love it.

About a month or so after moving into Nancy Nicholas Hall my colleague Bruce Hellmich stopped by and asked what was on the boards of the womens' room. Curious, we each peeked into the others restroom - what a difference.

The women's room chalkboard entries trend towards drawings with lots of color and "TGIF" or encouraging types of material. The men's room is very clearly...shall we say...occupied by boys. Apart from documenting human functions, the chalkboard contributions lean towards cartoons and jokes. "My nose smells" seems to be a favorite.

I can't wait to check again after the students come back this fall.

It's not a dream

Nancy Nicholas Hall photo taken by John Loeffelholz on July 17, 2012

John Loeffelholz, department admin for Human Development and Family Studies took this photo from atop McArdle Lab. This photo was unsolicited - I sure didn't ask him to scale the building but the man must be a ninja to have reached this vantage point.

Just  few hours later the campus was hit with a massive (and much needed) rainstorm. John's photo was taken with a filter and I understand the camera has color correction so while I like to think it's always glorious at Human Ecology we may have had just a wee bit of help.

And what do you see in this picture? I see one kick-#$#@! building, and one helluva staff member to care enough to get this image. John, please accept this huge public thank you!!!

Grateful Dead meets Human Ecology

My husband would be so proud - well truth be told he would be stunned - that I am using a classic Grateful Dead lyric from "Truckin'" to headline this post. Some day I will tell you the story of the only Dead concert I attended. Let's just say I am more of a "Talbots" girl than the tie-dye, twirling peasant skirt type and Purell hadn't been invented yet. 'Nuff said there!

Lately I've been thinking about what might be next. We will welcome a new dean on August 27 and a new crop of undergraduate and graduate students. New memories will be created and fresh ideas will percolate.

Okay while I think of it - percolate reminded me that we do not have agreement (yet!) with the Union to run our cafe. Percolate = coffee = Mama's happy. I've had a ton of questions about the cafe and we are at a standstill on negotiations. Stories best told in person.

Did I tell you about accidentally meeting Dr. Shim our new dean? It was during construction and the building was closed - we were having problems with security and seriously, students were trying to drop off papers. No kidding, we had a student actually scale the construction fence to try and drop off a form for Student Academic Affairs. I don't know what I admire more - the physical agility or the tenacity that no fence is gonna stop them from meeting a deadline!

Any-who...I was up in the cafe area trying to convince my colleagues at the Union that the cafe would be a money-maker when I look up and see a person walking with great purpose through the second floor. I knew she wasn't a contractor, design team member or anyone I had worked with. But darn she was moving fast - by the time I excused myself from my meeting saying "can I help you?"  she had cut down a secondary corridor. Crap, I lost her! Oh well, I tried.

So imagine my surprise when I learn about a month later during her official visit the unregistered visitor was OUR NEW DEAN! Nice move Zwicker, way to make an impression.

Welcome aboard Dr. Shim - I look forward to working with you but expect I will spend a fair amount of time just trying to keep up!

"Sometimes the lights all shinin on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it's been."

Just when you think it can't get any more strange...

I am regretting my last blog post. I am regretting it BIG TIME because I tempted the Fates with the line "....is that all you've got? Bring it on!"

Because they've brought it on, big time. Since we've moved in we have dealt with:

• all three of our elevators being down, at completely unscheduled intervals and sometimes with people inside! It's from overheating hydrolic oil in elevator 2, or something about magnetic tape, or maybe we haven't fed the little hampsters that spin the wheel or perhaps Tom Cruise is filming "Mission Impossible 5: Badger Protocol"
• campus legend "Tunnel Bob" has been sighted multiple times skulking around the building, pressing his face into windows and scaring the bejeezus out of staff - seriously, when the director of technology services comes running up to my office on the second floor at 6:30 pm to report that Tunnel Bob has just pressed his face against his window I am thinking "what the hell? I really need a taser" but externally I say "thanks for letting me know...let's contact campus police"
• the running argument with custodial over who is responsible for providing toilet paper was finally resolved (thank you VC Bazzell for recognizing the absurd nature of the debate) so after week three of being in the building we are fully stocked. I am no longer humiliated by asking "can you spare a square?"
• furniture is still being delivered and will be coming in over the next 2 months - so for instance private offices only have one guest chair because the fabric was backordered. The second guest chair will arrive in about 4 weeks - please go light on entertaining in your office.
• the custom furniture for the Dean's private office and reception is back ordered and expected some time in July. In the mean time we are telling the Dean candidates the private office "is the minimalist look... trust me, it's all the rage in Europe"
• the licensor is inspecting the preschool this morning at 9:00 am, keep your fingers crossed for a positive report. Jill Riley, director of the Preschool and the whole entire staff have blown me away - they closed at 5:00 pm last Friday, moved over the week-end and in 3 days unpacked and set up the entire preschool.
• the card access system is burping about every other day which means on one day my card would work, and the next day I am frosted out of spaces. Soooooo not helpful and sooooo out of our control.
• 80% of the sod that was installed on the project was rejected and had to be ripped up. This week new sod put down and it looked really funny to see the front lawn get rolled up and put onto skids. Of course I knew what was happening but it sure caused a few raised eyebrows among our staff - I couldn't resist a few lines " budget cuts are a bitch" or "we decided to just pave the front lawn to save on maintenance" and "WHAT? Pulling out our sod??? Are you serious? OMG I can't believe this is happening - Robin's gonna kill me"

But every day we just keep laughing. Some days it is more of a maniacal laugh, other days it's just this side of hysteria, but mostly ya just gotta laugh.

Two by Two

Right now I am sitting in my office at home trying to come up with a catchy line about the move back home. Truth be told I am drawing a blank. "Two by two" is all I've got because the title "I'm freaking exhausted" just wouldn't read quite so well.

Dress forms from Design Studies move home

On Monday May 21 we began the move back to 1300 Linden Drive and by Friday May 25 the first phase was complete. All the months of planning, meeting, writing and hand-wringing paid off with a smooth and swift move of occupants and functions from Sterling Hall, Tokay Boulevard, Middleton Building, Mechanical Engineering, Henry Mall and the MSC building into Nancy Nicholas Hall. I am sure I've said this before - the landing at Normandy wasn't this well planned!

The faculty and staff have been in the building nine working days and it's been pretty darned great to have everyone under the same roof. I'm not blowing any smoke, I firmly believe the School is at its best when everyone is together, bumps and all.

And we need to be linking arms because on top of the move we have been hosting candidate visits for the Dean's position. Part of me wants to curl up in the corner of my office and quietly weep (because if I made noise they would find me) and part of me says "Really, is that all you've got? You think you can break us? Bring it on!"

We finished moving from six locations on the Friday before the Memorial Day week-end but the team of Miranda Hofmann (Operations and Facilities Manager), John Hilgers (Director of Technology Services), Andy Wagner (Assitant Director of Technology Services), Julie Anderson, our student workers and Assistant Dean Bruce Hellmich made the impossible happen. At 8:00 am Tuesday morning - with only part of our furniture delivered, untested technology and unpredictable elevator service - we welcomed our first candidate. The hallways had been largely cleared of packing debris, furniture was borrowed from other spaces to fill Plenary Hall, catering arranged, restrooms stocked, card access programmed and technology for the presentations cobbled together from other locations. Two down, one more to go.

Because if you're not living on the edge you are taking up too much room.

This is Human Ecology.

It's all an illusion

Yesterday more than 400 carts and crates were delivered to the six locations where the School of Human Ecology has been living for the past three years. The packing has begun - I poked my head into the ID Resource Room this afternoon and saw a team of students busy sorting and packing material. At the elevator I ran into Professor Shep Zeldin who cheerfully said "I'm packing Zwick" - god luv ya Shep!

The illusion is about space on the carts. I know some of my colleagues are stressed thinking the carts will never hold all their material -but I am here to tell you it's all good.

This afternoon I did my final sort and toss. I've written before that over the past several years I've reduced my file storage to one five-drawer vertical, one two-drawer lateral and one two-drawer ped. Even now I am throwing out copies of sketches from design workshops and I had the pleasure - and I mean real pleasure - of tossing into the recyle bin all the plans and memos related to the first relocation. Oh my gosh I can't tell you how GREAT it feels not to have to look at the Sterling floor plans any more.

Today I packed a cart and the contents on my file cabinets fit nicely on just 2.5 shelves of a four-shelf cart. The trick is to pack them double deep - a shelf of a cart will hold much more than you think.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, five working days to go.

Keys

We know you are all anxious to get keys for your new spaces in Nancy Nicholas Hall.  In order to get your new keys, however, you need to turn in your old ones first, per campus policy.  Anyone who has lost any keys will be responsible for the $75 lost key fee prior to receiving their new keys, checks can be made payable to UW-Madison.  If you have lost a master key, there is a $75 fee per door that the master opens.

Key turn in/pick up will be in 2209 Mech Engr during these times: Thursday, May 17: 1pm – 3pm
Friday, May 18: 9am – 12pm

If you are unable to come during either of these times, you will need to contact Gloria McCord to make alternate arrangements to turn in your old keys and Miranda Hofmann to receive your new keys.  Please note that both Gloria and Miranda’s availability for key collection and distribution will be extremely limited during the week of May 21.  New keys will not be distributed prior to May 17.

We're in the home stretch everyone, we are so grateful for everyone's patience and cooperation as we round the turn for home!