Craig McDaniel and Jean Robertson

Description of the video:

Good afternoon. Hi! I am so glad to see all of you here. My name is Kathy Johnson and I am a Professor of Psychology in the School of Science and I'm currently serving as executive vice chancellor for Academic Affairs and it is truly my honor and pleasure to welcome you to the 11th Annual Last Lecture at IUPUI. One of the best perks of my job is actually this event. It is always so wonderful to see old friends and to learn from the wisdom of our colleagues who are about to retire or sometimes who have just recently retired. It's heartwarming to see so many familiar faces here today; faculty and staff who are the backbone of this campus,students and alumni who inspire us, and members of the community who collaborate with us, and of course Chancellor Paydar, Dean Goggin, other campus leaders who have led our campus and their units so ably. I'm also happy to see so many who have retired from IUPUI who've returned for this event this afternoon. The Last Lecture Series is a very important tradition that is jointly sponsored by the IUPUI Senior Academy, the IUPUI Office of Academic Affairs and the IU Foundation. It was inspired by the bestselling book and lecture delivered by Randy Pausch in 2007 at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr Pausch delivered his lecture shortly after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and it actually had nothing to do with his field of computer science . Rather it was a lecture designed around the wisdom that he wanted to convey to the world based on his personal and his professional lived experience. Members of our Senior Academy took this idea and expanded it in order to honor the outstanding legacies of our retiring or recently retired faculty. Each speaker over the years has responded to the same assignment, that is, if you could only give one final lecture, what would you share with your colleagues and students at this moment in your life given the experiences you have had and the wisdom that you have accrued. The Last Lecture is a signature element of the Senior Academy's efforts to continue to enrich the IUPUI community. I am tremendously grateful to the members of the Senior Academy for their leadership, for their limitless enthusiasm and advocacy in support of IUPUI, and for their friendship. This year is very special in that we're going to double the impact by bringing you two esteemed colleagues that have each had outstanding careers; Craig McDaniel and Jean Robertson from the Herron School of Art and Design. Yet they have travelled together on their career journeys in a way that few of us experience and that many of us who know them have probably envied, and you'll hear more about this shortly. Let me close by once again thanking the members of the IUPUI Senior Academy for their efforts and for translating an idea into a lasting legacy for our campus and to tell you more about the Senior Academy, please join me in welcoming vice president of the IUPUI Senior Academy and former president of the IUPUI Faculty Council, I'll add , Dr. Marianne Wokek. Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the 11th Annual Last Lecture at IUPUI. I am taking the place for the president , Christy Tidwell, who regrets that she cannot join us and preside over this location. The Senior Academy is an independent association of retired faculty and staff whom's members continue to contribute their expertise and experience to support the educational research and service missions of IUPUI. The Last Lecture Series at IUPUI was inspired by the idea of having distinguished senior colleagues share wisdom gleaned from their long and productive careers speaking from their hearts and heads as if this truly were their last lecture. This lecture series was initiated in 2009 by Dr. James East, Professor of Communication Studies, associate dean of the School of the Liberal Arts and former president of Senior Academy. Since its inception, the Academy has taken that leadership in selecting and inviting the guest lecturer. This 11th last lecture , the first one given after IUPUI's 50th Anniversary year will be a fitting continuation of this tradition as it is at the same time breaking with tradition since there will be two lecturers today. It gives me great pleasure to now be able to ask Professor Valerie Eickmeier, immediate past dean of the Heron School of Art and Design, to introduce this year's speakers. It is my great pleasure to introduce my esteemed colleagues for the Last Lecture Series and this is the first time we had Herron professors presenting and the first time that professors presented jointly so trying to pare down the essential information on both of these individuals who have had illustrious careers has been quite interesting. I have looked at their C.V.'s and their long history of accomplishments and individually and together they have had such great success collaborating both individually, together and with other colleagues and had national and international success. Their careers not only collaborated together but they've also exemplified a good partnership through their marriage. Now begin with Dr. Jean Robertson. She earned her PhD. from the University of Pennsylvania with a specialization in contemporary art history. Jean was hired as an assistant professor of Art History at the Herron School of Art and Design in 1995. Prior to her appointment at Indiana University, she served as a faculty member at The Rose Hulman Institute of Technology as well as Indiana State University . She also held professorship appointments at the Columbus Museum of Art and the Southern Ohio Museum where she was the co-founding director with Craig McDaniel. Over the past 24 years at IUPUI, Professor Robertson has proven herself to be a consummate faculty member in every way. She was steadily promoted through the academic ranks and was awarded the prestigious title of Chancellor's Professor in 2012. She has received numerous other honors and awards including three Trustee Teaching Awards, Honors Program Research Fellow , Award for Critical Writing, Service Design Association, IUPUI Speech and Debate Team Favorite Professor Award and the Jaguars Favorite Professor Award. Professor Robertson's research interests include topics such as visual art from the 1960 s to the present viewed through a global perspective, art criticism in theory, postcolonial studies, feminism and art history, gender and diversity in art, contemporary approaches to craft media and issues in contemporary art painting and impact of digital technologies on art. So throughout the years, she has developed many courses in a wide range and taught from all levels of Herron students from freshman to graduate students. She has presented her work, her research work, at 14 national conferences and she's been a recipient on her research at 14 , excuse me, 18 competitive fellowships and grants including the IU President of Arts and Humanities Initiative Award, The Creative Renew Fellowship from Arts Council in Indianapolis, several IU New Frontiers in Arts and Humanities and a Writers' Fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center and while at IU, Professor Robertson published five books and three of those were coauthored by Craig McDaniel. So now I'll tell you a few highlights from Craig McDaniel's career. He's a Professor of Fine Arts and has taught primarily in the areas of painting, drawing, and foundation studies. His education, he has a M.F.A. in visual arts from the Ohio State University, a M.F.A. in English from the University of Montana, M.S. in Urban Management at Drexel University, a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining IU, McDaniel held academic appointments at Indiana State University . He was the Director of Programs at the Columbus Museum of Art and he was the co- founding Director of Southern Ohio Museum with Jean, and he was also the curator of performing arts at the Kohler Art Center in Wisconsin. In 1999 I was appointed the dean of Heron School of Art Design and at that time the administrative structure was quite different than it is today and I quickly realized that I needed to change things and I needed help. After a national search Craig McDaniel was hired as the inaugural Department Chair of Fine Arts in 2003. He was an excellent choice for the position at the time and I've been grateful, very grateful for his service ever since. Because Herron was in a period of rapid growth and dramatic change including our pending move to campus, I needed someone dependable that I could rely on to help shape academic initiatives as well as provide support to faculty. Two years later when Herron move to the IUPUI campus, I called upon Craig to serve as the Associate Dean and he held that position from 2005 until 2018. Craig supported the school and me in countless ways during Herron's transformation including navigating the approval process and launch of eight new graduate degree programs and reaccreditation. Craig earned the trust and admiration of the faculty and anytime we needed an interim for anything, Craig was willing to step in. In addition to his administrative leadership, Craig is a well respected teacher, artist, and scholar. He led several study abroad programs with Jean, taking student groups to China, Greece, and London. Craig has had 20 solo exhibitions and his essays in experimental fiction are published widely in journals. He was recently commissioned by the Eli Lilly and Company to create three new works of art for their new research laboratory. A primary focus of McDaniel's career is exploring relationships of visual and verbal modes of expression. Professor McDaniel has also been a recipient of many grants including IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute Grant, Frank C. Springer Award for Research, IU New Frontiers in Arts and Humanities, in the Visual Arts Fellowship in the Indiana Arts Commission. Now about their, a little bit about their collaborative research together Jean and Craig coauthored three books, as was mentioned before. One titled "Painting as Language, Materials, Techniques, Form Content", and it was published with translation into Chinese. This text covers beginning and intermediate painting instruction. Their other book, "Themes of Contemporary Art Visual Art after 1980", was also translated into Chinese and Korean. And this covers six important themes in art over the past few decades including time, place, body, identity, language and spirituality. Their most recent publication is "Spellbound- Rethinking the Alphabet", is a collection of illustrated essays that probe assumptions about language, typography and human communication. In addition to these books they have published and coauthored well over 50 catalogs, articles, essays, reviews, and book chapters . Their work together is extensive and impressive. I am so proud of all that you have accomplished so we're going to... Thank you so much for all that you contributed to Herron School of Art and Design, to the art fields to IUPUI, Indiana University and beyond. Thank you and congratulations Jean and Craig. Thank you Valerie for that generous introduction and thank you to the Senior Academy for inviting Craig and me to be the Last Lecturers for this year. We're honored to be invited. We also thank the IU Foundation and the Office of Academic Affairs for their support for the Last Lecture Series. We also thank all of you for coming to hear us speak today. Our IUPUI colleagues and students and also friends and family who traveled across town or from out of state to be here. A special shout out to my sister, Edie, and our brother-in-law, Lou, who came from Maryland for this lecture. The instructions we were given for the Last Lecture were to reflect on life lessons we have learned through a long career of life and work. Of course this talk cannot exhaust all the life lessons we've discovered or "borrowed" from people along the way. For example, on this slide we list a handful of life lessons we won't have time to talk about nor can we mention by name all the people and animals who have been so key to the years of our life. Instead we've identified a selection of life lessons to go through briefly. Craig and I are going to take turns speaking so we'll alternate back and forth to share these life lessons with you. We're in a pickle. Watching the news 2019 appears as problematic as 1969 when the Vietnam War was splitting our country apart. Or 1939 as the Great Depression was giving way to global conflict. Writing in 1941, the poet Randall Jarrell claimed "Pain comes from the darkness and we call it wisdom. It is pain, ouch, what can I offer to counter or console us from such a bleak vision?" In a word, "Joyfulness". Our life lesson No. 1 Joy is Underrated. Imagine 80 years ago, 1939 at the start of World War II, The Polish Cavalry rides out on horseback, "horseback" , waving sabers that glitter in the wind. They waved sabers. Sabers, no more helpful than toy swords, to thwart a horde of Nazi tanks bearing down on them racing eastward out of Germany hell bent on invasion and destruction. What can we, should we think of this historical crisis? Here's the thing. At that very moment in the south of France in Nice, Mathias is painting a painting, "la Musique" He's not blind nor deaf to what's occurring a few 100 miles north but he's twisted up his own brand of courage. He's not going to let the devil have everything in spite of the calamity. Mathias is in the Hotel Regime into the blue shine of the Mediterranean skimming across the balcony and he's painting an image of 2 young women serenading. Who? Us! Their silence song is meant to enchant the world so the world in its entirety cannot fall apart. In spite of it all, Mathias paints an image of understated clear-eyed "Joyfulness". Also at this same moment in 1939, 800 miles to the north northwest a U.S. Navy battleship, the New York, is steaming toward Scotland On board, a very young man who isn't yet my dad, but will be, is on deck. A giant wave cascades over the railing arcing 60 feet above sea level. I imagine my father feeling a sense of joy as he's lifted out of the wear and tear of war, the worries about German submarines and torpedoes. He's transfixed, transformed, snapping a photograph, capturing the timeless mirage of beauty. About 10 years ago I decided to paint a painting based on one of his photos, but a painting doesn't do the photograph justice. The photos my father shot are time tunnels, each one records the actual press of light through the lens. It's the result of a real event commemorating itself in chemicals. Paradoxically, its power stems from its intimate 3 by 5 inch size. I'm always amazed holding my dad's battleship in miles of the North Atlantic in my fingertips. It's the reality of the photo that connects me to my bottom. It's the photo that brings me a surprising touch of joy! So what is joy? How do we define it? The author, Christian Wiman, asks, " Is joy merely an intensification of happiness or an altogether other order of experience?" If you're trying to understand why a moment of joy can blast you right out of the life to which it makes you all the more lovingly and tenaciously attached or how in the midst of great grief some fugitive and inexplicable joy might like one tiny flower in a land of ash bloom. Well in these cases the dictionary is useless. Joy is underrated but absolutely invaluable. Mathias is often quoted as having said, "What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter, something like a good armchair." I'm not convinced that Mathias meant this statement as frivolously as it's often taken, as if art's main purpose is to divert us. Indeed as Craig just observed, Mathias achieved something profound in celebrating joy. But in any case, art is a vast subject. It contains multitudes including this sculpture . Craig and I have devoted our professional lives to art, to making it, studying it, writing about it, teaching about it. We're not doing this simply because art is like a good armchair, relaxing or fun or even joyful or beautiful. Even though art often is any and all of these things, we also believe and know that art can make a difference in the world. Artists across time in the globe have used art to express life's deepest mysteries and address humanity's greatest concerns. Our Life Lesson No. 2 Art Matters For instance, one topic Craig and I currently are researching involves artists who make art about what many have named the Anthropocene, our current geological era characterized by the effects of human activity on the earth. Indeed our colleague, Valerie Eickmeier, has a splendid exhibit at Herron right now of her paintings responding to climate change. Here we show a few other examples. This image shows Ice Watch London by the Danish Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliasson. It's an installation along the Thames River in London in December last year. That's St Paul's Cathedral in the background of the slide. Eliasson installed blocks of ice, fished out of a fiord in Greenland that had broken off from the Greenland ice sheet, the second largest body of ice in the world after Antarctica from which more than a 1000 similar blocks of ice detach every hour. Visitors in London could watch the ice continue to melt releasing fresh water that had been frozen since the last glacial age. Many interacted physically with the chunks. Certainly this art was taking a stand about global warming. This image shows a sculpture by Rebecca Belmore, a First Nations Artist, installed in 2017 in a national park in Canada. Belmore formed 170 pounds of aluminum into the shape of a megaphone. Its' surface is cast from the surrounding rock outcroppings. Visitors are invited to put their ear to the megaphone which amplified distinctive sounds such as crashing waves and the songs of native birds. Surely Belmore hoped these listeners would feel joy but also hear the sounds as a cry for help. Two examples closer to home: This 2017 installation, titled "Quench" by our Herron colleague, Danielle Reedy, comprised screens from deconstructed televisions, tablets, and smartphones that cannot be industrially recycled. Danielle folded the screens to suggest tears and rain pointing to our consumption of technology. To harvest the screens, she worked with Reycleforce, an Indianapolis based nonprofit that provides workforce training to formally incarcerated individuals. This image titled "10,000 Years of Co2" is by another Herron colleague, Stefan Petronek, from his current series , The Future is Broken. Stefan overlays climate change data on to his photographs of american landscapes that are vulnerable to or already shifting from human-caused climate change. When Herron was on the verge of moving to the main campus from our previous home on 16th Street about 15 years ago, IUPUI colleagues often told me how much they were looking forward to Herron's arrival because our faculty and students would bring fun and sparkle to campus. I know they meant well and indeed I hope we have brought fun and sparkle, but the comments also graded. It sounded like those speaking to the artists and designers as decorators, but we are so much more than that. Art matters! Virginia - Maryland - California - Rhode Island - New York - Texas - Pennsylvania - Italy - Maryland I moved 9 times before I was 14 years old. "Change is Inevitable". I have a colleague at Herron, Nance Farrow, who like me grew up in a military family. He grins when we're alone and I give him a smart salute. I like to think this experience has given us a thirst for change, for new experiences. Art itself can be an immersive experience , whisking the viewer on a temporary journey. This is a three-dimensional painting that I made early in my career. The painting is visible only on the interior or a small light illuminates the sea. Our faculty at Herron is composed of people who recognize the transformative value of a journey. Herron's full-time faculty is strengthened by colleagues. We immigrated to the U.S. from Korea, Central Europe, Pakistan, Turkey and Mongolia. Nor is it mere coincidence that our school has one of the highest participation rates by students on campus in study-abroad experiences. Here we show an image from 1999 study-abroad trip to China that Jean and I participated in. The tallest person in the photo was Crystal Horton, a Herron Art Education student. Change, how does it happen? It occurs in two ways. One way is sudden. You're walking in a forest . The world seems filled with silence and seemingly out of nowhere you hear the call of a bird and then in the tree above your head a red winged blackbirds suddenly takes flight. The second form of change is gradual. At first you don't know why and blazes Jean tricked you into coming to pilates. Your body is stiff like a wooden puppet and you plead with the pilates teacher, as wonderful as she is. Please, don't make me. I can't but then weekly episodes accumulate. Your body gains, or should I say regains, just a tiny bit of the lost flexibility of youth. Week by week the tiniest of changes accumulate. Voila. When I was 27, Craig and I took a deep dive into community engagement. We moved in a blizzard from Wisconsin, spent a night in Rensselaer, Indiana after our car broke down, then continued east past Cincinnati on to Portsmouth, a town in Appalachian Ohio on the banks of the Ohio River. There we worked for six years as the founding directors of an art museum and community cultural center housed in an abandoned bank building. Lesson No. 4 Two heads are better than one. More heads or even better. Craig and I were young and brash and eager to make our mark on the world, but one thing we learned early on is that we could not succeed on our own. In Portsmouth, one of the poorest cities in Ohio , we encountered people from all walks of life who found common ground around a love of the arts and were willing to come together as a community to chase a dream. After a few hectic but totally mesmerizing years of building support, developing plans, fundraising and renovating, we, a small staff, and a large band of volunteers staged a jubilant celebration as the Southern Ohio Museum opened its doors. Another thing we learned early on is that possessing a solid creative vision along with really well designed stationery could allow us to secure loans from museums across the country; Museum of Modern Art ,Smithsonian; Denver Art Museum, others, were proud of the exhibitions we curated, as well as, the performing arts events and other programs we in the community were able to achieve on a shoestring. We also are proud of the Portsmouth community because 40 years later the Southern Art Museum continues to thrive. The museum now has added a truly unique acrobatic troupe composed of over 100 children and young adults each year from the community. Just last week they staged Hotel California. One aspect of Herron and the IUPUI campus that Craig and I esteem is the strong emphasis placed on public engagement. Students are encouraged to gain real world experience by undertaking projects that involve collaboration and community planning. To describe just one example, in August 2016, we participated in an event entitled "38th and Shine" that was organized by Stephan Eicher and a few other collaborators. Eicher was at the time a student from India, enrolled in the Graduate Visual Art program at Herron. Along with several hundred other residents of Indianapolis, our goal was to set a record for sparklers being lit simultaneously. I think we set the 38th Street record. Maybe not the world record, but 38th Street. And doing so we celebrated the opening of the newly renovated Tarkington Park on 38th Street. The true power of the event that evening was it got us to really look at ourselves and at each other to see a diverse group of people coming together to create an enormous work of art with sparklers, hundreds of them waving a lot. Earlier I described the image of the Polish Cavalry riding out to face the Nazi tanks on horseback. In a splendid poem Jack Gilbert calls into question the marvelous charge of the Poles, but that was not courage, Gilbert wrote. According to Gilbert, the more significant form of courage is not what one does in a moment of passion. True courage takes the commitment of many, many days steady and clear. It is the excellence of long accomplishment. So, Life Lesson No. 5 Creativity Takes Courage and Courage takes Commitment. As Jean and I retire this December, we're honored to depart with two other long time Herron faculty members who also retire, so a shout out to Kathleen O'Connell, a colleague who's offered tremendous support to students in our Students' Illustration Program and to David Morrison who has champion the Printmaking Program for over 30 years. Recently I had the pleasure of sitting down with David to discuss his process of making his astounding drawings, one of which we show here. Yes, that's a drawing in the slide. Looking at one of his drawings, it is as if we see a portion of nature in all its mute splendor. His drawings trigger our own perceptions refreshed by uncanny clarity. We see so deeply. It is as if we see seeing itself. Making a drawing like David's is an act of courage. It takes courage to be all in and to be so passionately committed, not like the Polish Cavalry but like a marriage of many, many years and being all in. Slowly, magically a blank sheet of paper is transform as the mind commands the hand that controls the colored pencil. Commit to go on a journey. Our Life Lesson No. 6 Family and Friends Matter I expect this life lesson is obvious to everyone here because it's a lesson that repeats itself over and over throughout your lifetime. If fortune smiles on you, your family and friends are with you for good times and celebrations and also when you need them badly, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. Craig and I certainly have been lucky that way. Craig told you that he moved a lot growing up, nine times before he was fourteen. He had a relatively small family, his parents and one sister. As you can imagine, Craig and Karen are extremely close, and that bond matters more with each passing year. On a side note, Karen's oldest grandson moved from Maryland five years ago to enroll in IUPUI's Motor Sports Engineering Program. He graduated last spring. Unlike Craig, I grew up in the same town for the first 18 years of my life and my mother continued to live there until she died about 4 years ago, so I went home all the time. I grew up with a brother and 2 sisters, baby boomers born within 5 years of each other. Here are my two sisters and me. We were and are tight knit even though today we live in far flung parts of the country. One thing that's kept us connected as a family is that for the past 31 years we've spent the first week of August together every year, folding in children and eventually their partners. For the first 28 years those reunions were at the same place in West Virginia, a place that's kind of like camp for grownups. There are no amenities like television or air conditioning. Internet connections are sketchy and you spend your days playing board games and cards or games outside or reading a book. It was idyllic for us for many years. The image on the left is me over a quarter century ago with my youngest nephew who became my regular shuffleboard partner. The image on the right is me and the same nephew when after years of trying, we made it to the finals of the tournament. As I said for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. This is my sister, Susan, when she was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago which is where she met her husband. Susan died in 2016 of glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. Susan loved history and art and one place on her bucket list was the archaeological ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia and what turned out to be one of the final months of her life, Susan's husband and daughter took her there as well as to Thailand including this in this elephant sanctuary . Their journey around the world was incredible. It was the Poles riding out on horseback against the tanks. But honestly, the memories that fill me with joy are what I observed on my own trips to Milwaukee during the final year and a half of Susan's life. Here's a painting by Craig that captures some of the spirit of the magical within the ordinary. Susan's husband and children made sure that every single day she was surrounded by people who loved her and she loved just doing ordinary things like having meals together or sitting by the fire. It's the ordinary that can be most extraordinary. Teaching is a moral equation. Both teacher and students are responsible for bringing one's best self into the classroom or studio every single time . Of course being human, that's never fully possible , but we try. As a teacher, one's relationship with each class, in each student lives in the present. Life Lesson No. 7 Ideas are one thing; What Happens is Another. At Herron, my teaching has often involved graduate students in a class that focuses on collaboration exploring how creativity can involve teamwork, and undergraduate classes that explore the art of drawing. Here I show Herron student work. The real action where the rubber meets the road so to speak, is in the actual handling of materials, how strokes of charcoal or pencil or strips of paper or whatever materials are being used, can be composed into shapes; shapes that make meaning by being particular shapes with particular colors, textures, patterns. There are many lessons involved in artistic creation. In Drawing II, this is a required class usually taken by Herron students in the spring of their first year, we study the figure, the surface, as well as some basics of the an atomic interior. One project which I learned from my friend and colleague, William Potter and that students their family and friends find fascinating, involves the challenge of a self-portrait, in which they peel back the flesh to reveal some portion of the skeletal structure that holds us literally up right. There is something special about gaining new insights into reality and seeing the image take shape is a bit of witchcraft taking place right before one's eyes. Another aspect of art making that bears special attention , the effect of the artwork on the viewer can be quite distinct from the emotional register of the subject matter in and of itself. For instance in this painting entitled, First Night at the Boarding School , that despondent feeling that registers in the boy's face is contradicted in the sheer delight we feel as a viewer as we take in the dancing, beautiful rhythm of graphic patterns that make the overall effect of the artwork such a visual treat. The speed of light is not constant. The sunsets and sunrises can happen faster and faster. It takes effort to slow them down. Craig's and my friend Mark, who is Jewish, talks about a mitzvah. As I understand Mark's meaning, mitzvahs are celebrations and rituals that promote togetherness and reinforce the importance of community and kindness. Our annual family reunion is a mitzvah in this sense. Another similar mitzvah It's a reunion we have held in Seattle with old friends every year for over 25 years. The people in this photo taken it a reunion in the 1990 s, first met in Philadelphia . Mark who talks about a mitzvah is on the left as we look at the picture. Craig and I both knew Don, the person in the wheelchair, separately for several years before we ever met each other. In my case I met Don when we both were freshman. I was all of 17 at the University of Pennsylvania. When he was in his early thirty's, Don was working on an oil rig off the coast of California and had a fall but left him a quadriplegic. The doctors gave him seven and a half years to live. So far he's made it over 35 years. Our Life Lesson No. 8 The Speed of Light is Not Constant To slow it down discover something to celebrate every day. Don has few relatives in touch with and none of them lives near him . Craig and I believe one of the key reasons Don is alive today is because he's been able to create a kind of family around him, through old friends like us who share a spectacular week of fun and frivolity with him each year but much more by delighting in the people he employs to help manage his life and with whom he interacts on a daily basis . For example here we're celebrating Don's birthday with Mel, who's worked for Don for 22 years. She is one of our favorite people on the planet. The explorer John Burrows said, "To learn something new, take the path that you took yesterday. This life lesson might initially strike one is being antithetical to creativity. However it is through practice and then more practice that mastery is gained; mastery that then allows fresh creative insights to blossom. On a fundamental level, this life lesson, take the path you took yesterday , can yield a sense of purpose. Early in the period after his accident Don could be in a wheelchair and move about for the last 15 years or so he has been bedridden. When Jean and I visit him from one year to the next, he will have spent pretty much the entire year in the same room in bed with only perhaps a couple of trips to a doctor. His life requires the form of true courage that the poet wrote about. To us Don's life is a touchstone of resilience and deep commitment. His life remains rich because of his intellectual curiosity, a keen sense of humor, and a capacity for relishing in sharing with those around him moments of joy that can if we let them surface in the course of everyday living. A life lesson embedded in almost all the lessons we've presented today is: there is richness in constancy in repetition as well as novelty. Indeed one aspect that Jean and I will miss most about our lives at Herron is the every day unremarkable events, eating lunch in the faculty office with whoever else happens to be there, stopping to talk to a student or colleague we pass in the hall, finding a parking spot after circling the lot, well that could be extraordinary. We will miss the every day sharing of communal work and effort among people we enjoy and respect. We will miss being surprised and uplifted so often by those we find around us, the courage of students in finding their own paths in the world, the commitment everyone it Herron makes to the act of creativity in the discovery of new knowledge, in the visionary support our entire campus provides for making a difference at whatever scale one can; the global, the national, the state, the community, the individual. Among the many emotions that are overwhelming Craig and me as we approach retirement from Herron is gratitude. We feel gratitude to our mentors over the years. we felt We feel to the institutions that put their faith in us by giving us meaningful jobs. We feel gratitude to our students and our colleagues and so we want to conclude by saying thank you. (clapping) (clapping) (clapping) (clapping) Thank you so much. (clapping) I think we're supposed to ask if there's a question or two. We have time but I don't know and if not, we certainly are happy to move on. I think we're going to be watching a lot of impeachment hearings. Taking some trips and working on some writing projects together, and making some art, and hopefully remaining in touch with Herron and our good colleagues. Thank you so much. (clapping) . Thank you for the wonderful reflections. At this time I ask Jean and Craig to remain on stage and invite Pete Hunter to the stage. Pete Hunter serves as the director of development for the Indiana University Foundation in support of IUPUI. Since 2012 Pete has taken on several roles for the IU Foundation on the IUPUI campus. Carrying a major and principal gift portfolio, administering the IUPUI Campus Campaign for faculty staff and retirees, and advising the IUPUI Student Foundation. Pete holds three degrees from IUPUI. through the Kelly School of Business and the Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Please help me welcome Pete Hunter to the stage for a special presentation. (clapping) Thank you Marianne. Good afternoon. It is truly a pleasure and privilege to be here. Professor Robertson, Professor McDaniel, your reflections today have truly captured the spirit and the essence of The Last Lecture Series. Your presentation, "Our journey So Far: Field Notes" is both insightful and provides a unique perspective for all of us. Your shared life lessons regarding the power of visual communication were deeply impactful. Your interweaving of community engagement in this space is to be commended. Thank you for your dedication, your energy, and your authenticity which have played a vital role in making IUPUI what it is today. Your leadership and instruction in the Herron School of Art and Design have touched the lives of countless students, faculty, and staff throughout your careers on the IUPUI campus. Thank you so much for that. The Indiana University Foundation has been proud to support the IUPUI Last Lecture Series for the past 10 years. On behalf of the IU Foundation, I am honored to recognize this prestigious occasion with this honorarium. Congratulations. Thank You. (clapping) We do like pictures so thank you. (clapping) (clapping) (laughter) At this time I would ask Marianne Wokeck to join professors Robertson and McDaniel on stage for a special recognition from the IUPUI Senior Academy, thank you. As you know, but as the audience does not, not all of your family could attend. They asked me however, to share the following: sadly we're not able to reciprocate with a photo bomb on this wonderful day for the two of you and thought about flowers but then settled on planting a beautiful photo. Congratulations Jean and Craig. I don't know if you can see it, but it's a beautiful picture. This picture can stay on the screen and you can get another look into this life . The picture as it stands on the screen, while I thank the Office of Academic Affairs and the IU Foundation for they support and participation in this gathering. As most of you know, organizing such an event takes time and effort by those who work behind the proverbial scene> Please join me to recognize and thank them for their role in making this Last Lecture a success. Furthermore I want to thank all of you retirees, active faculty and staff, students, and guests who have come and been an attentive and gracious audience. I hope that all of you can join the lecturers and all members of the audience for conversation and refreshments in the atrium on the on this theatre floor. Thank you very much.