University of Illinois lobbyists object to eliminating waste and bloat

I got an email from The University of Illinois System (Chicago, Urbana, Springfield) warning me that "Cuts to federal research funding threaten the future of innovation at the University of Illinois System. " That's a bit of a stretch. The message came from the "lobbying for more money system." I had to wade through a lot of gobbledygook to find out where it came from and what was being threatened. I have no problem if colleges and universities want to lobby their own legislature for special perks, but they shouldn't be asking through our federal tax system for people living in New York and Nebraska to pay for Illinois lobbyists.

A new kind of wheelchair--hands free, PURE

My first semester at the University of Illinois in 1958 I noticed the outstanding services for the disabled--buses, ramps, wheelchairs, everything accessible decades before the rest of the country moved in that direction. I can still remember the man with no arms who ate with his feet pushing the wheelchair with the strength of his lower body of the friend with no legs. That's why it's good to see the technology at U. of I.  for hands-free wheelchairs Hands-free wheelchair prototype achieves major milestone | Mechanical Science & Engineering | UIUC (illinois.edu) "Personalized Unique Rolling Experience."

"PURE, Personalized Unique Rolling Experience, [is] a hands-free wheelchair that operates similarly to a Segway where the rider leans in a desired direction. The unique aspect of PURE is that it rolls on a ball or “spherical” wheel. It is based on the concept of a dynamically stable ball-based robot (ballbot) and uses an omniwheel system to drive and control the spherical wheel. PURE automatically transitions between three driving behaviors. Steer and Spin are similar to a typical wheelchair, in which the user can steer forward, backward or spin in place. Slide is unique and allows the user to move laterally, like an office chair. To accommodate for limited torso range of motion of some users, PURE uses sensors to estimate leaning and twisting motions and amplifies these signals to control the ballbot’s direction and speed.

“The development of PURE has been guided by our immutables – that it be lightweight and maintain a small footprint. We want to ensure that the current independence of manual wheelchair users would in no way be limited by PURE. If we were to develop a hands-free device that was so heavy that it prevented users from easily transferring it into and out of their vehicle, or if it was so large that it wouldn’t maneuver around typical living spaces, we would have missed the mark. Any device that compromises current levels of independence just won’t be used during daily life,” Bleakney said."

October by Robert Frost

Since it's October 1, I thought I'd post the October poem by Robert Frost, but some critic spoiled my plan by reminding the reader that Frost was writing about death. It's the crows. When poets write about crows, says the critic, that tells you death is coming. But critics know that, and I didn't.

Poetry Analysis: October, by Robert Frost | The Literary Dragon

So let's just go with face value of the poem. The rows of maples on Henderson and McCoy have just a touch of gold this morning. Always sad to see since we know what coming, but thankful for the beauty.

"Taken at face value, this poem speaks, with a simple elegance, of the unique beauty of a crisp October morning. With an attention to detail that is characteristic of Frost, the poem carefully lays out the scene: just a quiet morning in early October. The air is silent, “hushed” even, but for the distant sound of crows. Multicolored leaves paint the ground in bright colors-red and gold and brown. A simple scene, rendered instantly familiar to any New Englander. Who would think to look any further?"

I checked my blog, and I've written 3 other posts about Robert Frost. I’m old enough to have actually attended a poetry reading by Robert Frost, one of the 20th century’s most famous and favorite poets, when I was a student at the University of Illinois. (He died in 1963.) My date that night was someone I'd met at Chinese Student Club, and I'm not sure if he understood anything, but he was polite and listened carefully. My roommate Dora Lee was Chinese (her family escaped from Communist China) which is why I attended Chinese Student Club.

The poem ends with grapes.  Isn't that nice?   A symbol for communion for Christians, although I doubt Frost of thinking in that direction.

Serendipity trivia:  While I was looking for a photo of Frost at the U. of I. on the internet, I took my 1959 Illio (yearbook) off the shelf.  It didn't have a good table of contents or index for special events so I started leafing through it.  I saw a photo of students at the first football game packed in like sardines, and there were two women from my house, McKinley Hall, Sandra McArthur and Mary Jo Brodd.  I also attended that game (got sick which is why I remember), so I studied it pretty carefully to see if we might have had a block of tickets, but I didn't see me.

Tribute to Dmytro Shtohryn

 https://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/endowment-in-honor-of-dmytro-shtohryn-established-at-u-of-illinois/

https://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/dmytro-shtohryn-librarian-initiator-of-ukrainian-studies-at-the-university-of-illinois-at-urbana-champaign-95/

When we lived in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, I was a Slavic Librarian at the University of Illinois where I worked with a number of Ukrainians and other emigres from the Baltics and Russia.  One I remember well was Dmytro Shtohryn.  I learned a lot about cataloging, librarianship, Ukraine, and WWII from him. He was also kind and generous--a good boss.  With all the recent news about Ukraine and Russia I decided to look him up.  He died in 2019 at age 95.  A life well lived. His obituary mentions Ralph T. Fisher who died in 2015, and he was my boss when I  worked in the Russian Language Area Center which is how I ended up being a Slavic Librarian.

University of Illinois record enrollment

Congratulations on the record breaking enrollment at U. of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.  https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/802663?  Enrollment was about 20,000 when I started in 1958, and I think the cost was about $1,000 year. It was about a 4 hour drive for my parents who lived in Mt. Morris, and it was up to me to get a ride home for holidays.

I lived in a private dorm owned by the Y right in the middle of the action, McKinley Hall on Wright St.   https://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2003/10/54-how-to-find-roommate-who-doesnt.html   I found a website for the YWCA in C-U down the street from the old McKinley Hall, but now it's just bogged down in day to day SJW missions and intersectional causes. It's actually where I met my cousin Chuck Ballard when we got together so he could give me a ride home. I think he was a senior--and incredibly handsome.

William B. McKinley was an Illinois millionaire, business owner and politician (not the president of the U.S.) and I went to a McKinley Presbyterian church down the street (visited website of the foundation--same SJW), and was sick in the McKinley Hospital now a health center, taught Spanish at Urbana high school that had McKinley Field, and walked on McKinley Avenue. https://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2003/11/67-ghost-of-william-b.html

Like the wealth of many 19th and 20th century millionaires which built so many schools, churches, colleges, orphanages, funded orchestras, etc., today the source is ignored and they don't even mention his name, or capitalism, on their websites

Inside a fabulous library of 65 years ago.

Be still my heart. A librarian's stroll down memory lane, a bibliophile's paradise, a film made in 1956 of la Bibliothèque nationale de France (the National Library of France) in Paris. Much of it looks like the inside of the library at the University of Illinois where I worked as an undergrad, graduate student and a professional librarian (in Slavic studies). I can almost hear the creak of the elevator, smell the dust and mold, and feel my shoulders ache from lifting heavy volumes. And yes, librarians did wear high heels and dresses in those days. We wore lab coats to go into the bowels of the beast to look at the latest arrivals from Russia and Europe. If you've ever worked in a large, magnificent library you must see this film.

https://aeon.co/videos/a-bibliophiles-paradise-the-national-library-of-france-in-a-classic-documentary-from-1956  (21 minutes)

The racism on today’s college campuses

I saw this in a closed Facebook group, so I'll only share parts. A parent posted (with the texts) that his college student son (enrolled at Berkeley I believe) was studying Chinese with a classmate. His son is white, the classmate a member of a "protected" minority, but they are friends. The friend told his son that they probably couldn't study at his dorm because whites were not allowed to be in the building although blacks, Latinos and Asians were, and he'd check, but he thought if he did come there he would have to sign some sort of form. So the 2 of them were looking for a different study space.

I attended college in the bad old days of residential segregation, employment discrimination and open racism of the 1950s-1960s, but my U. of I. dorm McKinley (owned by the YWCA) had blacks, whites, Asians, and many immigrants (most from Chicago, the daughters of refugees from both Nazis and Communists), and my roommate was Chinese. We had all varieties except boys--they were welcome only on the first floor public area and in the basement serving our meals. What amazing freedom college kids had in those days.

Update: I checked the race and gender page of Berkeley's enrollment information.  21.3% white and 32% Asian.  But to make that look better, each Asian is broken out by country--China, Korea, Japan, etc.--9 categories for Asians, but only one for whites.  Not even immigrant Irish or Swiss or English.  Just White. Like that white blob at the SOTU last Tuesday.

Obama had a great line in that Urbana speech

What was that Mr. Obama--the line about you and the media not having the bad relations of Trump and the media?

"Over the past eight years the [Obama] administration has prosecuted nine cases involving whistle-blowers and leakers, compared with only three by all previous administrations combined. It has repeatedly used the Espionage Act, a relic of World War I-era red-baiting, not to prosecute spies but to go after government officials who talked to journalists." NYT Dec. 30, 2016

Different cultures, similar paths--Friday family photo

In the late 1950's my college roommate Dora and I both dated architectural students named Bob whom we married. They both had taken art lessons as children, then put it aside to practice architecture, then developed a hobby of watercolor later in life, particularly after retiring. Here's her Bob.

http://www.galleryblink.com/robert-hsiung

Together we can change the world

Isn’t that just about the dumbest slogan?  I’ve heard it or seen it many times in many phrases, and it isn’t true, of course.  Get three people in a room with a white board and marker and you have a case for an argument even to state which world you’re referring to. This invitation to change the world just happened to come in an alumni pitch from the University of Illinois. They want my money.  If Illinois graduates were going to change the world, we certainly would have done so by now.

I’ve seen similar slogans about education, about poverty, about child abuse, about suicide, about the opioid epidemic, about trash in the ocean, about trafficking in persons, about friendships with Muslims, about political parties right and left, and any societal or religious problem out there. 

Our church is doing a “launch out” campaign.  Our summer home at Lakeside is non-stop fund raising—sometimes we go to a dinner, sometimes we’re invited to a really nice cottage to listen to a pitch, sometimes they just pass the plate. Right now it’s $3 million for the new swimming pool and wellness center.

UALC—our church--is calling members to celebrate “how God has moved through the last 60 years of our church’s history, give our thanks as He continues to bless and use our church today, and praise Him for the vision He has revealed to us for the future.”  I don’t know what that vision is. In the late 20th century the vision was to expand to the west of the river and have multiple campuses plus a school, but then that didn’t look like a good idea, so the extra land was sold to pay the mortgage. I thought Peter and Paul and the church fathers had the church’s vision pretty well outlined. 

And the U. of I. wants alumni to “come together for our signature event to celebrate the launch of our most ambitious philanthropic campaign ever.” Claims it has a storied past and bold future.  Sounds a lot like my church launch and vision.

Soon I’ll be getting appeals in my e-mail to change a child’s life by buying a backpack with school supplies for a kindergarten student.  Oh, that it were so easy!

Help where you can; be compassionate and kind.  You will definitely not change the world or transform a life, but it will make you a better person.  And that glorifies God.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Anniversary of our first date, 1959, for the St. Pat's Ball at the University of Illinois.  He told me he was going to marry me.  I wore a borrowed dress, red lace (I guess Sally didn't have anything in green) and he wore his grandfather's coat.

My 2017 card from my husband

Salaries for librarians

I received an e-mail newsletter/update from the University of Illinois School of Information Sciences.  Lots of news about minority recruitment.  I wonder about that.  Librarianship (the old name) requires a master's degree.  With school teachers earning anywhere from $56-$60 an hour, much more than librarians, why recruit minorities?  It's possible that median salaries are listed under some other titles.  Another website listed slightly higher salaries--about $35,000, but nothing that would pay off college debt.

So I sent the school a note:

"I was reviewing “iSchool at Illinois” and what has obviously been a very successful recruitment of minority and male students. I found the microaggression workshop a bit off-putting, but then that's my age--graduate MLS in 1966. From what I've seen of them they are anti-white, anti-male and divisive. So I checked a website for salaries and see a library researcher is $27,848 annually, same as a linen room attendant and $2,000 less than a parking lot attendant/valet. There was no listing for "librarian." Do you have any current salary figures that would make recruitment of men and minorities a worthwhile effort?"

 

 

The day I told Muhammed I was pregnant

College graduation photo, 1961

After we married in September 1960 we lived in Indianapolis where Bob worked at Ayrshire Collieries as a draftsman and I worked at General Mold and Engineering as a secretary. Neither of us had finished college. And once married, the daughters in our family were the responsibility of their husbands, according to my father.  Forgotten today is that there was a 10 month recession in 1960-1961 and although it hadn't been that difficult to find a job in July, by December when I quit due to sexual harassment, things were looking bleak. So I decided to go back to the University of Illinois, leaving my husband in Indianapolis where he lived not with his parents, but the parents of his best friend, Tom Moir. I found a room to rent with Maude Peters in Urbana, Illinois. Bob drove to Urbana every week-end, and would leave about 3 a.m. on Monday morning to get to work.

I never really had morning sickness when I was pregnant, but within a few weeks of beginning the spring semester I knew something wasn't quite right. I was signed up for a heavy course load, with student teaching scheduled for--gasp, high school Spanish--at Urbana High School, within walking distance of Miss Peter's home.

I had walked out of the main reading room in the university library where I studied (I think I had a ride to campus with Sandy who lived above me in Miss Peters' home) to look for a pay phone to call my mother.  I  ran into Muhammed Mustafa, an Egyptian civil engineering graduate student I'd dated the previous spring.  He was a nice man, lots of fun and he tried to teach me Arabic (or so he said).  One day a girl friend pulled me aside and told me to be careful--Muhammed had bought a new suit.  So? I asked.  Well, when an Egyptian student does that he plans to get married.  I was shocked.  I enjoyed dating many foreign students--Israeli, Russian, Chinese--and was strictly a secular Christian, but marriage to a Muslim was not my intention--just "cultural exchange." So I didn't date him anymore.

Anyway, although details are fuzzy after 56 years, he noticed the sad look on my face, and I told him I thought I was pregnant and we didn't have any money and neither of us had finished school. His face lit up like a Christmas tree.  That's so wonderful, he exclaimed.  What a blessing! I don't remember, but he may have even hugged me. Suddenly, finding just one person who was happy I was pregnant (and it certainly wasn't me) and that new life would be an exciting adventure, changed my whole outlook. I called Mom, who was always her practical, sensible self assuring we would get through this. She told me my sisters were also pregnant and it looked like the babies were all due the same week in the fall.

I've been watching a lot of programs this week (from bed since I've been ill) on EWTN about abortion, women's marches, pro-choice arguments, etc.  And I realize how just a small amount of positive feedback can change a woman's idea about life within her.  It's not that I'd even considered abortion--not sure I even knew what that was in 1961--but I was being flooded with hormones, thoughts of not finishing school and bills piling up. Lucky for me, I ran into a Muslim friend instead of a feminist or pro-choicer (we also didn't have that term then, but they were lurking).

Yes, m’am, women are interested in different things

Yesterday some guy from Apple (I’ve never heard of) got himself into deep do-do by commenting on how women search for music differently than men.  Now he’s been forced to walk it back and apologize!  (It actually made sense to me, having been a young girl thinking about boys at one time.)  Apparently, this angel investor, Christina Brodbeck, co-founder of YouTube which made her fabulously wealthy when she and the other two sold it to Google for for $1.65 billion in stock in 2006, also chooses at least some of her investments based on relationships and “things that interest” her. Really, do you think a guy  (she does have a male co-investor) would have come up with Icebreak, which helps couples increase understanding, excitement, and connection in their relationships.

“Christina was on the founding team of YouTube, the company's first UI Designer, and then later went on to lead design for the company's mobile efforts.

Before that, she worked at NASA Ames, MRL Ventures, and Keynote Systems. She's a proud Chicagoland native and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds a master's in Instructional Technologies and Multimedia Design, and is passionate about building technology that makes people happy and improves their everyday lives.

Christina lives in San Francisco.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV2nxO0y78E

Cute t-shirt

Or, the double whammy.

 

Monday Memories—lunch with an old friend

We met in 1958 when we lived in McKinley Hall on Wright St. at the University of Illinois. Saturday we had lunch together at Panera’s and it was like no time had passed. Marie and her husband were passing through Columbus on their way to Florida.  But there's always something new to learn, like her parents were Swedish immigrants and she can speak Swedish. She also told me our old friend Anita, an art teacher in the Chicago suburban area, had died. Praise God for long time friends.

Deanna, Marie and Anita ready for the I.F. Ball, 1959 standing in McKinley Hall.

Balls at the University of Illinois were usually sponsored by a campus wide or large organization and held in more public places like the Armory or the Athletic building; dances were for the individual fraternity, sorority or independent residence. Balls always had a nice dance band or small orchestra; dances usually a combo. But it was always live music.  Balls during that era were St. Pat’s Ball, Sno-Ball, Beaux-Arts Ball, Military Ball, Interfraternity Ball and Panhellenic Ball.

JFK at the U. of I., October 24, 1960

Photos of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kennedy making a campaign stop at the University of Illinois. (U. of I. Archives photo.)  Can't be positive but that looks like McKinley Hall over on the far left in the motorcade photo where I lived in 1960. 801 S. Wright. However, I got married in September and was living and working in Indianapolis.

The American Elms that formed a cathedral arch over the campus walks were gone by then, in fact, I believe they had all been cut even before I got there in 1958.

Update:  looking closer, I think the motorcade is further south, nearer the library.  That’s not McKinley.

Monday memories—no college debt

An article in today’s WSJ reports the average student graduates with $30,000 indebtedness.  I'm surprised the  debt is "only" $30,000. I got married before I finished college, so I had to "borrow" my senior year's tuition from my dad and pay it back, which I did. He was sort of old fashioned and figured once married I was a responsible adult, possibly my husband’s responsibility. Costs at a state university were about $1000/year, so let's say it was $4000 for 4 years in 1961. That's $31,250 in 2013 for inflation.

So why were so many people graduating then without debt? No student loans or grants, and very few scholarships would be my guess. The more money available, the higher the tuition and fees charged by academe.

 http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/05/18/number-of-the-week-class-of-2013-most-indebted-ever/?mod=e2tw

             

1958 Father’s Day, University of Illinois at McKinley Hall (I still have that dress in my “archives.”)

I would never want to be 20 again, but

These photos do bring back some memories.  University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, on the Quad in the Fog. The first photo is the Illini Union, and lived just a few steps away in McKinley Hall (YWCA) on Wright Street.

Yearbooks and Annuals

I don't know what generates the ads on the right side of my screen on Facebook, but this morning noticed one for yearbooks. I have my four high school yearbooks, The Mounder, from Mt. Morris High School in Illinois, two Illios from the University of Illinois (I was married by the time I graduated and couldn't afford one for that year), one from Manchester College, The Aurora,  in Indiana, and three from Mt. Morris College, Life, 1929, 1931 and 1932, my uncle Clare's, my mother's and my father's. The college closed in 1932 and merged with Manchester. We also have my husband's yearbooks, The Arsenal Cannon from Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis, a school that was larger than the town of Mt. Morris, and Tech's memorial yearbook for the first 50 years. One of the best things about yearbooks is reading the crazy stuff people wrote in them!