Spring 2001
CLA in words and images
Elaine Tyler May awarded CLA Dean's Medal
American Studies professor Elaine Tyler May is this year's recipient of the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) Dean's Medal, an award created by an anonymous donor to honor each year a member of the CLA faculty noted for his or her excellence in scholarship and/or creative activity.
In awarding the medal, CLA dean Steven Rosenstone praised May for her "sustained and powerful contributions to our understanding of women, culture, and American history." He said, "Her scholarship is internationally recognized for its originality and its compelling and perceptive insights into American culture and society. She is not just a distinguished scholar but a public intellectual who translates her ideas and insights for the broader society and is generous with her time and energy, always taking that extra moment to guide, to reassure, to support students."
Rosenstone also quoted Jean O'Brien, American studies department chair, who said, "Elaine is a deeply loved teacher, colleague, mentor, scholar, and friend. She has served her colleagues, her students, her college, her university, and her profession with grace, dedication, and vision."
May's books include Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness, Great Expectations: Marriage and Divorce in Post-Victorian America, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, and (with Rickie Solinger) Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe V. Wade.
The little showboat that could
Once a University landmark and now a fond memory for many U grads and theater-goers, the Minnesota Centennial Showboat is returning to the Mississippi. None of the melodramas that were performed on that floating stage over its first 34 years could compete with the drama that Lance Brockman has been living for nearly a decade while the dry-docked showboat awaited restoration--and then, one winter night, went up in smoke.
"It seems like the heroine's been tied to the tracks for a very long time, and every time the oncoming train blows its whistle, something has happened to prevent a tragedy," said Brockman, professor and chair of the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance. "Even when the fire last year consumed nearly everything, there was still another act about to be added to the script."
This time the hero turned out to be wearing a captain's hat: Captain William Bowell of the Padelford Packet Boat Company decided that this project just had to happen. "It was such a great theater experience, and bringing it to St. Paul's Harriet Island was such an exciting idea that I couldn't just let it end. We know how to build boats, and we know how to bring audiences to Harriet Island, so I just offered to help out."
Sherry Wagner, managing director for University Theatre, said the calls are already coming in for the 2002 showboat season. "Every week I get calls from groups and alumni wanting to book tickets for the showboat, without even knowing what the show will be," she said.
They won't have to wait long. The showboat is being built now in Mississippi, under the direction of Captain Bowell. With construction expected to be completed by late summer, you can expect to see the new showboat, winterized and available to rent for special events, coming 'round the bend in October.
For showboat information, go to http://cla.umn.edu/theatre/showboat.html.
Photo by Amy Marie Amundson
Tretter collection a treasure trove for GLBT studies
After decades of gathering materials, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter has donated his considerable collection to the University's Special Collections and Rare Books library. One of the largest private collections of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) materials in the world, Tretter's collection is being installed at Andersen Library.
The Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies contains over 10,000 items such as personal papers and first-edition books. It includes items as ancient as Egyptian fertility objects, as campy as gay and lesbian pulp novels from the 1950s, as regional as Minnesota starolite orthorhombic prisms (known as "fairy stones"), and as historically important as a book pulled from the burning of the Hirschfeld library in Berlin in 1933.
"It is very gratifying to realize that now anyone interested in GLBT Studies or research will have to seriously consider the University of Minnesota as the place to go," said Tretter. "No longer will those interested in researching our communities and cultures be restricted to the coastal universities to do work in this field."
Linnea Stenson, program director of the Schochet Center for GLBT Studies, concurs. "The Tretter Collection, in all its depth and breadth, provides the very best kind of resource to accomplish valuable interdisciplinary work: a treasure trove of primary sources," says Stenson. "It is foundational to the work the Schochet Center for GLBT Studies has set about doing.
Ziebarth leaves "Easy" legacy
Photo by Tom Foley
E.W. Ziebarth, CLA dean from 1963 to 1973 and interim University president in 1974, died February 28 at age 90. By all accounts, "E.Z.," or "Easy," as he preferred to be addressed, presided over the college in those tumultuous times with exceptional dignity, grace, and, in the words of one faculty member, "real class."
A graduate of the University's speech-communication program, Ziebarth was an award-winning news editor, foreign correspondent, and CBS broadcaster as well as a 40-year member of CLA's faculty, teaching international and intercultural communication. He cohosted the series "This I Believe" with Edward R. Murrow and won two Peabody Awards, in 1948 and 1972, for his pioneering documentaries.
Impeccable in appearance with integrity to match, Ziebarth championed a liberal arts curriculum that paid homage to the classics while remaining in touch with the times. Described by many who knew him as a true "gentleman," he also approached his leadership role in a truly egalitarian spirit. A former staff member recalls that "he would come around the corner and tip his hat, no matter who was around that corner. He valued everyone who worked for him as a colleague. He was an amazing human being."