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Upcoming Events
October 23
Lunch Colloquium
Pellom McDaniels, III
November 6 Lunch Colloquium Gene Bianchi, Don Saliers, Holly York
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Contact Other Members
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find out about a travel destination or find other EUEC members who would like to travel with you, send an email to:
Find other members to get together for shared interests, whether it is forming a book club or a photography club, or getting together to take a hike. Send email to the following link to contact member who would like the same activity!
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This issue of our newsletter is sent to members and friends of the Emory University Emeritus College (EUEC). I hope the newsletter will help keep you informed about our activities and help you feel connected with our members throughout the U.S. On the left are links to our website and links to contact either me or the EUEC office.
With best wishes,
Gray
Gray F. Crouse Director, EUEC
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 Message from the Director
We had a fascinating Lunch Colloquium last week, and our webcast set what I think is a record--one of our members connected into the live webcast from Lagos, Portugal. In the "It's a Small World" division, it turns out that Rick Tigner, Chair of the Spivey Hall Friends Council who introduced Sam Dixon, graduated from Duke the same year I did. Not only that, but we lived in the same dorm for three years and so reconnected for the first time since graduation!
Our next Lunch Colloquium also promises to be a special one. I first got to know Pellom McDaniels several years ago when we served on a committee together and have followed his career since then. The late EUEC Member Dana White was on his thesis committee and they worked together as curators in what is now the Rose Library. I really regret that Dana will not get to hear his protégé speak. I hope you have a chance to read some of the material below about Pellom and will be able to come to the Lunch Colloquium (or join via webcast). Note also that the exhibition curated by Pellom is opening this evening, October 16, with a talk and book signing; detailed information on the event is given below.
We have already gotten a number of good suggestions from those of you who filled out the survey sent last month. There were comments that members would like more information about new members as they join, and so I have begun asking new members who are willing to write a few brief sentences about their career (acknowledging that none of us can really summarize all we have done in a few sentences!). We welcome faculty to join EUEC even before retirement as a step in transitioning to retirement, and they are acknowledged as New Members in transition. However, completing the retirement step is certainly worthy of acknowledgement, and so our New Members listing will also include members who are "newly retired."
Another comment that several people made on the survey was that they would like to hear more about members' accomplishments. I absolutely agree, but we can only publish information that we know about, and in general we don't know what you have done unless you tell us!
I am very grateful to John Bugge, Herb Benario, and Gretchen Schulz for help with proofing and editing.
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Lunch Colloquium Monday October 23
A Question of Manhood: African Americans and WWI
The Luce Center
Room 130
11:30-1:00
Pellom McDaniels III, Curator of African American Collections, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library |
Lunch Colloquium Tuesday, October 10
The Courage to Think Small: Emilie Spivey's Creation of Spivey Hall
Sam Dixon, Executive and Artistic Director, Spivey Hall
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Faculty Activities
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New Members
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Some of you are either serving as a caregiver, or know others who are. Mary Ellen Eady, of the Emory Caregiver Support Program, invites EUEC Members to attend the following expo on caregiving resources.
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We note the passing of Jane "Janou" Llaurensou Celler.
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Construction on the new Campus Life Center, replacing the DUC, proceeds. At this point, the front of the Alumni Memorial University Center is exposed for the first time since the DUC was built. Although it will not be covered up again, there will be only a small plaza between it and the new building, so the view today will soon disappear.
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Walking the Campus with Dianne
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Lunch Colloquium October 23
A Question of Manhood: African Americans and WWI
Pellom McDaniels III, PhD, Curator of African American Collections, Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Fresh from winning the Center for Research Libraries 2017 Source Award for Research, for curating an Emory exhibition inspired by Natasha Trethewey's book, Native Guard,Pellom turned his attention to an exhibition inspired by the memoir of an African American soldier who served as a valet in WWI, a memoir he just edited for Oxford University Press. In this presentation, Pellom will offer an overview of the materials and major theses of the exhibition (though we're sure our members will want to visit the exhibition itself, available for viewing in the Rose from October 16 on). Here is some of that overview now--by way of a tease. Like most Americans, very few African Americans understood the implications of the First World War (1914-1918) for the course of everyday life in the United States. The war was "over there" somewhere. For a majority of African Americans, their concerns were focused on surviving the brutality of Jim Crow and its machinations against black progress and advancement. In fact, at the beginning of the First World War, nearly ninety percent of all African Americans lived in the southern United States in the shadow of slavery, working the same lands that their forebears once toiled on as human chattels. In their minds, France was a million miles away. In the spring of 1917, the United States entered the European conflict as an ally of France. However, its participation signaled an internal rise in tensions related to the meaning of democracy, and the support and defense of both the human and civil rights of African Americans. How could a country that based its very existence on the principles of freedom, liberty, and justice, defend its systematic and legal abuse of twelve million of its own citizens, while claiming to defend the free world against German Imperialism? President Woodrow Wilson was himself an advocate of the Jim Crow policies that denied African Americans full access to the government that they supported through their loyalty, taxes, and blood sacrifices in times of war and peace. In this so-called "war to end all wars," there were those African American leaders who saw participation as not in the best interest of those constantly fighting for their lives in the country of their birth. Still, there were other leaders within the African American community who felt it imperative to continue to serve as citizen-soldiers in an effort not to lose ground, while simultaneously risking accusations of disloyalty to the nation in its time of need. In the end, African American men gravitated towards the image of the black soldier as a beacon of hope and dignity for the community, as well as a symbol of American manhood realized. About Pellom McDaniels III It is really difficult to try to introduce Pellom in a few short paragraphs. An Emory news article in February, 2013 introducing Pellom as Faculty Curator, began this way: "Pellom McDaniels III has been a professional football player, an inventor, an artist, an author, and a professor. He's still many of these, but his chief title at Emory is faculty curator of the African American collections in the Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library (MARBL), where he has been on staff since July." That article gives a good introduction to some of Pellom's background. More can be found on Wikipedia. An Emory Profile, written in 2006 as he was completing his PhD, helps explain why the Executive Director of the President's Committee for the Arts and Humanities stated that "Pellom is a treasure" and it can be read by clicking here. Pellom started out at Oregon State University as a fine arts major, but changed to a speech communication major when he found out that his scholarship didn't pay for art supplies. He graduated in just three years even while playing defensive lineman for the OSU Beavers. Before coming to Emory for his graduate degrees, he played professional football for the Kansas City Chiefs and the Atlanta Falcons. His Wikipedia entry notes that "While a member of the Kansas City Chiefs Football organization, McDaniels became a voice for Kansas City's children and contributed the resources needed to begin the Arts for Smarts Foundation. Programs like 'Pellom and I Like Art', Wee Art, the 'Fish Out of Water' Writing program, and Smart Starts were designed to help children and young adults recognize and realize the possibilities for their futures." For this and other activities, USA Today named him one of the nation's "Most Caring Athletes" in 2000. In January of 2015, Pellom received the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award, presented to former student-athletes 25 years after the end of their college athletic careers. The award celebrates achievements since graduation. At Emory, he earned an MA and PhD in the Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts with Rudolph Byrd as his advisor; the late EUEC Member Dana White was on his thesis committee and later worked with him in the Rose Library. Pellom has been involved in many projects at the Rose Library. He has involved many students in his work; notable was an exhibit on Hank Aaron, done with three undergraduate varsity baseball players. He has written a biography of the African American jockey Isaac Murphy. (You can also read an article about the book in Emory Magazine.) For that work, he received a key to the city of Lexington from Mayor Jim Gray in October of 2015 and was commissioned a "Kentucky Colonel," the highest honor given to a citizen, by Kentucky Governor Steven Beshear. He curated a major exhibit using material from the Billops-Hatch archives. This year he won the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) 2017 Primary Source Award for Research for his exhibition inspired by Natasha Trethewey's poetry. He appeared three different times at this year's Decatur Book Festival, not including a book signing for his latest book. Click here to return to top |
Lunch Colloquium October 10
The Courage to Think Small: Emilie Spivey's Creation of Spivey Hall
Sam Dixon, Executive and Artistic Director, Spivey Hall
On Tuesday, October 10 attendees at the third of the Emeritus College Lunch Colloquiums scheduled for this fall enjoyed the long-awaited treat of a presentation by Sam Dixon, Executive and Artistic Director of Clayton State University's wonderful, world-class performance venue, Spivey Hall. (You may remember that Sam was scheduled to speak last spring, but had to postpone his visit when he was called into court to pursue a case against a driver who drove his car right into Sam's living room earlier in the year.)  After a special introduction by his friend and colleague Rick Tigner, Chair of the Spivey Hall Friends Council, Sam took the floor. And we began to discover that his presentation, entitled "The Courage to Think Small: Emilie Spivey's Creation of Spivey Hall," was well worth waiting for. Sam's account of the creation of this extraordinary space was fascinating--tracing it from the time it was no more than a twinkle in Emilie's eye through the processes that made her dream into a reality--the fund-raising, the architectural and acoustical planning, the ground-breaking (shortly after Emilie's death), the construction (of course), and the inaugural events of 1991, with their extraordinary roster of musical super-stars (Itzhak Perlman, Andre Watts, and Samuel Ramey). And then, as Sam told us, and as is reported on the Spivey Hall website, there was the process that served as the culmination of them all, in 1992, when "the final piece of Emilie Spivey's original dream was added. The hall closed for three months early in the year for the addition of the 79-rank, 3-manual, 4,413-pipe Albert Schweitzer Memorial Organ, built and installed by Fratelli Ruffatti of Padua, Italy." The organ has long since been proclaimed a masterpiece--by performers and audiences alike. To quote the Spivey Hall website again, "designed for maximum versatility, the organ's ranks flatter the modest, straightforward tunes of the great Baroque masters, flamboyant colors favored by 19th-century French organists and the subtle shadings of the modern repertoire." Since the dedicatory concerts that followed its installation, with renowned organists Gillian Weir and Norman Mackenzie (who appeared with Robert Shaw and his Festival Singers), most of the best organists in the world have played at Spivey (with three more of them scheduled for this very year). "In 1998, when The Royal Bank Calgary International Organ Festival & Competition chose Spivey Hall as the site for its North American Selection Rounds, Spivey's stature in the organ world came fully into prominence. The event was a great success, so much so that the quadrennial event returned to Spivey Hall in May of 2002." Those of us able to attend Sam's presentation were delighted to discover that it included a screening of a prize-winning video about the Schweitzer organ--and about organs in general--that Spivey Hall and Clayton State produced in honor of the 25th anniversary of their organ's installation. Although the target audience for "The King of Instruments: History, Science, and Music of the Pipe Organ" was (and is) fourth-grade students, I can attest that the Colloquium audience, who average six to seven decades older than those students, enjoyed it enormously--and learned a lot from it, too. (Maybe everyone else has always known what "pulling out all the stops" means, but that was one of many much-appreciated take-aways for me.) And by the way, should any of you wish to see the video again--or share it with others--Google is the way to go. Or go to our Emeritus College website and access the webcast of the whole of the Lunch Colloquium soon to be available in our Colloquium archives. Of course, much of what Sam had to share--both before and after the video--had to do with the wide variety of musical programming available at Spivey Hall. Besides the Organ Series they offer each year, there are the Piano Series, the Strings Series, the Jazz Series, the Vocal Series, and the at-least-occasional-appearances-of-artists-who-make-great-music-in-almost-any-way-you-can-name. There is something for everyone every year, for sure, and in fact many somethings that make driving "all the way down to Clayton State" well worthwhile. After all, when one's destination is a venue where the much-acclaimed acoustics (that experts have ranked "well above the best") enhance performances by artists themselves among the best, one can hardly complain about the minimal expenditure of gas and time involved. Indeed, several of us in the room observed that it takes us as much or more effort to get to Symphony Hall for a program there. Moreover, all of us who have attended programs at Spivey (and that was most of us there) agreed that we know what Robert Shaw meant when he (famously) said, "Spivey Hall is to music what light is to painting." After a brief address from Hap Bliss, another representative of the Spivey Hall Friends Council, who spoke about ways in which Spivey serves Clayton State University and others in the Clayton community (and beyond) and about ways volunteers can engage in all that Spivey does, Sam stepped forward again to conclude the Colloquium by choosing the winner of the "door prize" he and the Spivey contingent had brought with them--a pair of tickets to any concert in the 2017-2018 schedule. Susan Socolow won the drawing. But we all were sent away with some "freebies," including the handsome and substantive program for the year and a CD of the superb men's a cappella group Chanticleer, recorded at Spivey when they visited in 2014. Some extra copies of both are left for Colloquium attendees to pick up next time we meet. THANK YOU SAM, et al. --Gretchen Schulz |
New Members
New members are the lifeblood of any organization. Please make a special effort to welcome them to EUEC!
David G. Kleinbaum, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health
Clark Lemons, PhD, Professor Emeritus of English, Oxford College
Richard Rubinson, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Emory College of Arts and Sciences
Theodosia Wade, MACT, Professor Emerita of Pedagogy in Biology, Oxford College
In the spring of 1983, I had the opportunity to teach my first college course at the College of Charleston where I filled in for a professor on sabbatical leave. I was hooked on teaching from the very first day. Moving around, raising three boys and being a preacher's spouse kept me busy, but in the fall of 1988, Dr. Homer Sharp, representing the Oxford College Biology Department, hired me as the first Biology Lab Coordinator for the department where I would also serve as a Biology Instructor. I have taught a number of courses over the years including a Biology for non-majors course, Anatomy and Physiology, Zoology, and Environmental Science. In addition, I continue to teach a course in the Advanced Training for Environmental Education of Georgia Certification Program through the Environmental Education Alliance of GA organization. After a thirty-year career at Oxford, I began to feel other things calling my name: grandchildren, my family, my church, and my community. I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to serve as a mentor to several of the new Oxford College faculty this first year of retirement, so I have been able to stay connected to Oxford in a small but rewarding way. My interests are in the areas of biology, environmental science, environmental education, and sustainability, which I hope to blend with my interests in faith and community in some meaningful ways in my retirement. MACT in Zoology, Auburn University 1980, and BS in Biology, Presbyterian College, 1976 Click here to return to top |
Faculty Activities
Lucas Carpenter
C.H. Candler Professor Emeritus of English
One of EUEC Member Lucas Carpenter's essays in the Chicago Quarterly Review, "Byron's Pistols," was selected as a Notable Essay of the Year in The Best American Essays of 2017.
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In Memoriam
Jane "Janou" Llaurensou Celler passed away peacefully at home on Thursday, September 7, 2017. Born in Maisons-Laffitte, France, near Paris, in 1926, Janou met her loving and devoted husband, Morton, during his service for the United States in World War II, while Morton was stationed in Paris. They fell deeply in love and were together for over 65 years. As a professor at Emory for decades, she enthusiastically imparted her passion for French history, art, and culture to thousands of Emory students. Janou never lost her love for France, typically catching up on French news by reading the newspaper Le Figaro and other French periodicals. Morton and Janou travelled the world together immersing themselves in various traditions and cultures. Janou never turned down an opportunity to attend concerts at Spivey Hall or the Atlanta Symphony. She used her quick wit to discuss politics, and had a smile that warmed the entire room. She especially enjoyed French white Burgundy and red Bordeaux wines, as well as fine food such a foie gras, duck, and tripe. Her hospitality was unmatched, and she often hosted five-course meals, complete with fine wines, sweetbreads, cheeses, and French fine food for friends, former students, and godchildren. Published in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Oct. 4, 2017 EUEC Member Holly York offered this remembrance: If memory serves, she retired in the 1980s. She taught advanced writing and French culture courses and established the Summer Study in Paris Program, which Carol Herron took over, then I directed just before I retired. I remember her as one of the French Ladies Who Lunch, whose ritual was like clockwork, with Annick Davies, Marie-France Schmutzler, Emilia Navarro (Professor of Spanish), and Francesca Raggi (Annick retired as a Senior Lecturer a few years before I and Marie-France and Francesca retired as administrators in French and Classics, respectively.) All were known for their sparkle and wry sense of humor.
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Walking the Campus with Dianne
Our last photo was, as I mentioned, a place not amid the hustle and bustle of campus. The building in question is located on the Briarcliff Campus. It's the Library Service Center created by Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology to house a shared collection amassing millions of books and other materials from the two schools. The facility is open to faculty, staff, and students at both universities. According to the articles I've linked below, it is an amazing, state-of-the-art facility. Sounds like a great place to explore!
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Emory University Emeritus College The Luce Center
825 Houston Mill Road NE #206 Atlanta, GA 30329 |
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