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Amid Academic Pomp, Dunn Urges YSU's Reinvention
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Randy Dunn urged Youngstown State University to reinvent itself Friday as he was installed -- with pomp and pageantry -- as its eighth president.
“Reinventing the university,” he told trustees, faculty, his administration and delegates from a dozen other universities, “is all about helping others [students] reinvent themselves. … Let us build on [YSU’s] promise,” he urged, “not let others do it for us.”
Raising the percentage of students who enroll going on to graduate must be part of this reinvention, he said.
In ceremonies held at Beeghly Center Gymnasium – the venue was switched from Stambaugh Auditorium in recognition of YSU’s belt-tightening measures, he said – the professors wore their academic robes of many colors to reflect the traditions of their disciplines that date from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance (see below).
To the left of the stage were the banners of the colleges that constitute the university: blue for business administration, red for education, apricot for health and human services, teal for liberal arts and social sciences, bright orange for the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics, purple for the college of creative arts and communication, and green for the school of graduate studies. To the right of the stage were the U.S. flag and the flags of 36 other nations, presumably to represent students from those countries who have studied at Youngstown State.
Also to the left stood Steve Leland from the Youngstown Hearing & Speech Center to sign for the deaf and hearing-impaired.
The university has created its own instruments of pomp and pageantry, from the mace psychology professor Sharon Stringer carried to lead the faculty and trustees into the gymnasium to John R. Jakubek hanging the university medallion around Dunn’s neck just after he took the oath of office.
Jakubek, an anesthesiologist, is vice chairman of the board of trustees.
The pomp included a brass quintet playing “Gabrieli’s Canzona per Sonare No. 2” and Campra’s “Rigaudon Andre” plus the university ROTC presenting the colors and Dana professor Misook Yun leading the “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Dunn wore a sky-blue scarf over his red robes, his robes reflecting his doctorate in education. And he took the oath of office a second time from the secretary to the board of trustees, Franklin S. Bennett, who wore a trustee robe of red with three black stripes on the sleeves.
In his address, Dunn expanded on themes he has been sounding since he first visited the campus as a candidate for president and reinforced since assuming the office last July 14.
Colleges and universities “are all about pageantry and ceremony,” Dunn noted, as he explained his decision to conduct an ceremony rather than scrap the installation as news of the university’s financial situation grew worse and he was forced to announce cutbacks to balance the budget. The reception following would serve “cookies and punch,” he remarked, “not chicken cordon bleu and champagne.”
Pageantry and ceremony reflect the “rich tradition” of learning, he said, and respect for knowledge colleges have transmitted since the first universities arose in northern Italy, Paris and Oxford and Cambridge in England some 700 years ago.
Dunn spoke of “writing a new chapter at YSU” in conjunction with the trustees, faculty, students and the surrounding community. “We must be willing to change what we do and how we do it,” he said. “Our model cannot be sustained without change. … We are still that place where young people can be inspired.”
He traced the 105-year history of the university from the YMCA-school to moving up to Wick Avenue to Youngstown College to Youngstown University to Youngstown State University. He had researched its history and gone through old yearbooks and learned more about the first president, Howard W. Jones (1931-66). “I’m no President Jones,” he said, after reading what was written in the 1963 yearbook about what one of his days was like.
In his four months in office, “I’ve gotten to know all of you a little bit,” the eighth YSU president said, and intends to get to know everyone better.
Dunn intends to take a collegial approach to leading YSU. “Let us admit none of us has a monopoly on good ideas,” he said, and face “the reality of shared governance. Humbleness has a role to play. … We must be the founders of the reinvented university. All of us have a role to play to make Youngstown State a source of hope.”
A footnote:
Academic Attire in Medieval Universities
In Hastings Rashdall’s three-volume history on medieval universities, he touches on academic attire at the early universities. Most education was to prepare candidates for the priesthood until the 1200s and the courses offered reflected his.
As the sons of wealthy families sought a more secular education for the professions – such as law, medicine and music – they still received much of their education through the church.
The black baccalaureate robes graduates wear at commencement today reflect the “cappa” or outer garments the undergraduates wore to class in the early universities. A cappa was to be made of “suitable black stuff” where such attire was expected, Rashdall writes, but students at German universities wore red cappas.
Cappas were plain black and not supposed to be trimmed or lined with ermine or other fur although wealthier students often did.
“At Parisian universities, the sleeved [black] cappa came to be the distinctive dress of bachelors,” Rashdall writes, but “undergraduates [studying all disciplines] could wear black cappas if they chose.”
“There were statutes in abundance against wearing puffed sleeves, pointed shoes, red and green hose, even requiring students when they left their residences to wear boots “unless clad in a garment reaching to the heels.”
Remember, classes were conducted in rooms without heating
The faculty, which consisted of bachelors, masters and doctors, tended to dress more expensively as befit their rank and status. “On state occasions,” Rashdall writes, “doctors of all faculties wore robes of purple and miniver – rectors and professors of scarlet or scarlet and gold.” They wore silk hoods in the summer and heavier material in colder weather.
By the mid 1300s, doctors of the “superior faculties” in the universities in Paris usually wore red or purple robes when they taught.
Copyright 2013 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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