I’ve been pretty busy latey, but I must interrupt my industrious silence to complain a little about a recent injustice visited upon poor Mark Van Doren.  Van Doren, who grew up in Urbana and (contra the NYRB) received his BA and MA from UIUC, was a Pulitzer-prize winning poet (and teacher of Allan Ginsberg and Thomas Merton), and one of the big mid-century public intellectuals.  Paul Scofield played him as a latter-day Thomas More in Robert Redford’s 1994 Quiz Show.  He’s got a street and a dorm (I think) named after him here in town.

But none of that was enough to save his picture from getting pulled down from the Illini Union’s Hall of Distinguished Alumni and put into storage to make room for pictures of more recent—and more financially generous—distinguished alumni.  I noticed it was removed from its place lately, just after some pictures of Roger Ebert and a few others were put up.

So, today I was walking through the union and double-checked this absence, and called the Alumni Association.  They told me that, yes, they had indeed taken down some pictures recently.  Older ones to make room for newer ones, the representative said.  These older images would eventually be viewable on an internet kiosk put somewhere in the union (or on the web “from anywhere”).

I’m writing now from downtown Urbana, but when I take the bus back to Champaign, I think I’ll stop by the Union to see just how systematic the removal of old pictures has been.  If they’re removing pictures chronologically, then I should not be able to find in the hallway a picture of, for example, Arnold Beckman, who was awarded his place on the wall four years earlier than Van Doren.

Alright then. I’m off to see about that.

[Update: Of course Mr. Beckman’s portrait is still there, accompanied by pictures of other luminaries, such as Robert L. Latzer, Chairman of the Pet Milk Company in 1960.] 

This entry was posted on Friday, June 16th, 2006 at 4:12 pm and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.