Minor Myers jr.: A Passion for Books: Reflections on the Presidency of Minor Myers jr. at Illinois Wesleyan University 1989-2003

2019·9.8 MB·English

by  Schnaitter, Roger

Minor Myers jr
A passion for books
h
Reflections on the Presidency of
Minor Myers jr.
at Illinois Wesleyan University
1989-2003
RogeR SchnaitteR
Minor Myers jr
A passion for books
h
Reflections on the Presidency of
Minor Myers jr.
at Illinois Wesleyan University
1989-2003
RogeR SchnaitteR
PRofeSSoR and aSSociate PRovoSt emeRituS
Illinois Wesleyan University Press
303 E. Emerson St.
PO Box 2900
Bloomington, IL 61701
Copyright 2019 by Roger Schnaitter
h
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Kingery Printing
2916 Marshall Ave.
Mattoon, IL 61938
ISBN 978-0-692-19679-3
CONTENTS
Prologue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 1 | Finding a Perfect Harmony . . . . . . .9
Chapter 2 | A Numbers Man. . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Chapter 3 | A Passion for Music . . . . . . . . . . 29
Chapter 4 | Minor’s Multitalented Project . . . . . 43
Chapter 5 | The Pursuit of Excellence . . . . . . . 59
Chapter 6 | Go Forth and Do Good . . . . . . . . 89
Chapter 7 | The University’s Mission and
the Oakbrook Retreat. . . . . . . . . 97
Chapter 8 | Minor’s Personal Library . . . . . . 103
Chapter 9 | Beyond Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Chapter 10 | Planning a New Library . . . . . . . 139
Chapter 11 | Building The Ames Library . . . . . 149
Chapter 12 | The Aftermath. . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Chapter 13 | The Collection Changes Hands. . . 185
Chapter 14 | The Auction. . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Chapter 15 | The Polymath . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Chapter 16 | Final Thoughts and
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . 227
Endnotes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
minoR myeRS jR: a PaSSion foR BookS | 1
Books are primarily for reading but also for looking
through. Art books, thousands of them, and myriad other
sorts of picture books, source books, junk books, magazines,
pamphlets are my archipelago. Books are searched for,
stumbled upon, bought, sold, cut up, thrown away, treasured a
lifetime, forgotten, ignored, new, used, antiquarian, obscure,
very clear, irritating, lost, and a thousand other things . . .
books are for me what trees are for landscape painters.
R B. Kitaj, from Confessions of an Old Jewish Painter,
written in 2001-2 and published posthumously in 2017
2 | minoR myeRS jR: a PaSSion foR BookS
Prologue
Minor Myers jr was midway through his fourteenth year as
President of Illinois Wesleyan University when, in February
2003, it became known that he was suffering from terminal
lung cancer. In a matter of months, he had passed away.
He was sixty years old and appeared to be fit and likely to
live for decades more. Thus, his illness and sudden demise
caught the faculty and staff, the students, and the many
friends of the University by surprise. Following his death, the
conversations began on how to provide a fitting memorial to
his years of service to the University.
More than anything, Minor had concentrated his efforts on
providing a new library for the University. The Ames Library
was the result of his commitment and efforts; it was in fact
the memorial to his presidency that would endure, whether
his name would ever appear associated with it or not. Under
Minor’s direction, a local sculptor had made a life-size statue
of John Wesley Powell, who Minor revered as one of the true
progenitors of the University. Powell’s likeness was seated in
a chair, as if he were leading a discussion with students, in
the center of the library’s first floor rotunda. Influenced by
that earlier work, an early proposal was to commission Rick
Harney, the sculptor, to make a full size likeness of Minor,
to be placed on the entry plaza to The Ames Library. This
project was quickly approved and the resulting bronze figure
minoR myeRS jR: a PaSSion foR BookS | 3
of Minor is now for all who enter the library a permanent
reminder of Minor’s love of books.
That alone did not satisfy the need many felt to memorialize
our departed president. The University had recently reached
an agreement with the area conference of the Methodist
Church to acquire their office building that had stood on Park
Street since the 1950s. The Church was closing the office and
moving its operations to a new building in Springfield, and
they hoped that the University would assume responsibilities
for the building and find a new purpose for it. Indeed we
did have a use, as we were already considering a new facility
for the Career Center, as well as moving the Admissions
Office from Holmes Hall to a larger facility. Although the
site was well positioned for relocating these programs, an
architectural assessment of the existing building was not
encouraging regarding reuse of the Methodist building.
Provost McNew (acting President for the year following
Minor’s death) took the bold step of proposing that we build
an entirely new facility on the site and name it after Minor.
The idea quickly gained University support, and fund raising
began for the Minor Myers Welcome Center. The University’s
next President, Richard Wilson, took over management of
this project, which was opened and dedicated in 2008.
These two memorials in Minor’s memory—the Harney
sculpture and the Welcome Center—provided physical
memorials to Minor’s service as University President. His
name would forever be associated with a major University
4 | minoR myeRS jR: a PaSSion foR BookS
building, as various other campus buildings had already been
so named. Although recognizing the significance of these
physical memorials to our late president, I came to feel that
something important was being overlooked.
The University is fortunate to once have had a faculty
member who took an interest in our history. Elmo Watson
joined the University for only three years (1947-1950),
but during that time he wrote a history of the University’s
first 100 years (The Illinois Wesleyan Story 1850-1950),
a volume replete with fact and detail that serves as the
main archival compilation addressing the first century of
Illinois Wesleyan’s history. Following Watson’s volume,
Lloyd Berthoff (fourteenth president) wrote what could be
considered a continuation of Watson’s history (A Personal
Memoir of the Berthoff Years at Illinois Wesleyan University).
Robert Eckley (fifteenth president) also wrote a memoir
(Pictures at an Exhibition), and the current President of the
Board of Trustees George Vinyard, but then newly graduated
from Illinois Wesleyan and working as assistant to the
President for a few years before moving on to law school,
wrote another volume that filled the gap between Watson
and Berthoff (Illlinois Wesleyan University: Growth, Turning
Points and New Directions Since the Second World War). Thus,
we had a more-or-less continuous history of the University
from 1850 to 1986. I began to worry that the chain might
permanently be broken due to Minor’s untimely demise.
I’m sure that Minor would have written his presidential
memoir had he survived into retirement. Someone needed to
minoR myeRS jR: a PaSSion foR BookS | 5
step forward to answer the call he himself could not answer.
Thus, I first began to wonder who might rise to the challenge.
A variety of possibilities occurred to me: Carl Teichman
who coauthored with Minor the 150 year history of Illinois
Wesleyan prepared for the year 2000; Janet McNew who
served as Provost through the majority of his presidency and
served as acting president in the year following his death; the
indispensable Mona Gardner who had become his right hand
in keeping track of the University’s numbers as institutional
research officer in his last years; Sue Stroyan (Anderson) the
University Librarian Minor had hired; and notable members
of the faculty such as Professor Robert Bray of the English
department who has written several poems reflective of his
feelings concerning Minor.
As the years passed and no one seemed to be stepping forward,
I began to consider the possibility that perhaps I had enough
to say to take on such a project myself. Thus began my own
work that led to this volume. In what follows here, however,
we have a personal view rather than a comprehensive chapter
in the history of the University. Although a history seemed
beyond either my talents or ambitions, a more personal set
of reflections on my acquaintance with and impressions of
Minor appeared to be a manageable goal.
I have called this writing “reflections.” I might have used
the term “memoir,” but wanted to avoid the implication
that I am claiming to have written Minor’s own memoir,
which would be impossible. People write their own memoirs,
sometimes even several volumes worth; a memoir about
6 | minoR myeRS jR: a PaSSion foR BookS
another person seems awkward at best, if not something of
a self-contradiction. And although I reviewed the Myers
material in the Ames Library archives and read through
boxes of documents I had saved and brought home when
leaving my campus office for retirement, I don’t pretend to
be a historian either—I have left too many loose ends that a
good historian would have pursued and tied down.
Thus I continue to think of this text as what it claims to
be: reflections, sometimes fragmentary and incomplete,
rather than a comprehensive history. But “reflections” is not
conventionally identified as a non-fiction genre, as “memoir”
is. Though at times it possesses some of the mundane
qualities of Lloyd Berthoff’s and Bob Eckley’s memoirs of
their administrations, I hope this document I have written
possesses a smidgen of the more writerly voice advocated, for
example, in Mary Karr’s guide to the art of memoir. I wanted
to acknowledge the great things Minor accomplished as
President, but as well I wanted to share stories that captured
his altogether human side. In addition to his idealistic goals
for the University, he could be obstinate and occasionally
impetuous, to a degree even childlike1. Out of this amalgam
of Minor’s grand vision for the University’s future seasoned
by some personal foibles emerged what I believe was the
golden age of Illinois Wesleyan University’s first 150 years.
Above all else, that is why this story needs to be told.
At the heart of this personal exploration of the presidency
of Minor Myers jr lie not one but two libraries: to be sure
the new library he built for the campus of Illinois Wesleyan
minoR myeRS jR: a PaSSion foR BookS | 7