The immediate past has been brought into focus by The Independent's articles. The museum, however, is rooted in an exhibition program begun in the 1950s in an improvised hallway gallery that was literally just that, a simple space frame in the hallway in a department with no space to spare. When the department inherited one of the older buildings on campus, a boiler room was found to be just right for conversion into a gallery. It was named the University Gallery of Fine Arts and became a lively part of university life.
In 1959, there was a limited budget for exhibitions of any kind. Fred Daspit, a fine arts faculty member, became gallery director and through his downright heroic efforts kept the gallery operative. Dr. Warren Robison, then director of the school of art and architecture, cooperated by creating a broad-reaching "Art in the South" program that sponsored exhibitions by Southern artists in the gallery.
The art and architecture building, Brown Ayres Hall, burned in 1972, and again there was no exhibition space until Fletcher Hall was completed. Herman Mhire was asked to serve as director. As space was found in the new building, Mhire was able to bring the exhibition program to a point at which it could be developed into a fully functioning university museum. He did that and created an exhibition program of regional significance, award-winning publications and contact with museums and artists here and in Europe. He then ' with the generosity of the Hilliards, others and the initial enthusiastic support of the university ' was able to guide the development of the new museum building through to a successful award-winning finish.
This museum and the hard won success of the dedicated people who made it possible can be all for nothing if the university insists on treating the museum as an expensive "overachievement," instead of the real asset it is for a university engaged in a pursuit of excellence.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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