UCOL News

Welcoming Remarks at the Taylor Hall Dedication and Renaming Ceremony

William Blomquist
Professor of Political Science and Incoming Dean, School of Liberal Arts

It is indeed a pleasure to welcome all of you on behalf of the School of Liberal Arts, and on behalf of our dean, Robert W. White, who is unable to be here today.

I will be succeeding Dean White, who
succeeded Herman Saatkamp, who
succeeded John Barlow, who
succeeded William Plater, who
succeeded Jim East, who
succeeded Martha Francois, who
succeeded Dr. Joseph T. Taylor, the first dean of the School of Liberal Arts. So, in Liberal Arts at IUPUI, is all started with Joe Taylor.

Those of us who knew Joe Taylor and who have followed in his footsteps know that he was a big man, in stature and in impact. Our current slogan at IUPUI is, “where impact is made.” Joe Taylor made an impact.

The seeds he planted as the first Dean of Liberal Arts at IUPUI have grown, and now bear fruits that would please but not entirely surprise Dean Taylor. The school is now home to approximately 225 full-time faculty in eleven departments, provides courses for thousands of students, offers a dozen graduate degree programs, is the alma mater of tens of thousands of alumni, and just last week graduated its first Ph.D. students.

It was my personal pleasure to know Joe Taylor. We were fifth-floor office neighbors in Cavanaugh Hall during Joe’s quasi-retirement. (I think he may have actually been retired, but with Joe Taylor it was kind of hard to tell!) He was generous and friendly enough to visit me in my office to chat from time to time, although I was merely a junior faculty member.

In those enjoyable conversations, he also furthered my education… about the School of Liberal Arts, and about IUPUI, and about Indianapolis, and about America. He had witnessed, and participated in, the development of all of them.

I recall especially one afternoon when he came to my office with a photocopy of a letter. It had been written to him by one of the parties in the famous case of Sweatt v. Painter, decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1950 as one of a series of cases by which the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Supreme Court chipped away at the old “separate but equal” doctrine, leading a few years later to the renunciation of that doctrine in the decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The people who worked in that long struggle knew Joe Taylor, and he knew them. And decades later, knowing that I was teaching our undergraduate constitutional law course, he brought a copy of that letter to me and talked about it, knowing not only that I would be interested but also that through this kind act he could share with me some further insight into one of the great aspects of America’s development.

Joe Taylor made it real. He did that not just for me, but for all of us.

Getting to know him a little through interactions like that, I also got to know that Joe Taylor was extremely proud of his family. And we are especially proud and honored to have his family here with us today. Please join me in welcoming and showing appreciation for his wife, Hertha, their daughter Judy, and son Hussain.

Again, it is my pleasure to welcome you, and I thank you for the opportunity to participate in this happy event for all of us in the School of Liberal Arts and at IUPUI.