Rotary File - October 29, 2013
GUESTS AND VISITING ROTARIANS: George Ekhacker, Keokuk Rotary; Karin Franklin and Kermit Sheker, Iowa City Noon.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Month Opener will be Monday, Nov 4 at 5:15 pm at Donnelley’s as usual.
Nut sales have approached the 50% participation mark and should raise around $1200 to use for youth activities such as sponsoring RYLA participation.
WHAT JAZZES YOU UP?
Toby Hyde was in the hot seat to tell us a little bit about his life. One of the big influences in Toby’s life was his mother who taught him to always be kind to other people. Prior to working in appliance retail Toby had a number of jobs, including a stint as a lumberjack in Oregon. He bought Foster Appliance several years ago after years of working for Slager Appliance. The flood of 2008 turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Because of it Foster Appliance was able to do a more extensive remodel than they would have done otherwise.
SPEAKER
Chuck Swanson filled the group in on the status of Hancher Auditorium. He covered 3 areas: the focus on meeting the 3 pillars common to all University of Iowa programs; the season highlights; and the focus on the new building.
Hancher strongly aligns with the 3 pillars of the University mission: learning, discovery and engagement. It focuses on enriching the experience of students at the university level, K12 programs around the state, and lifelong learners through the many collaborations Hancher has fostered recently with other academic programs. For example, Hancher is working with the Center for Macular Degeneration, the College of Writing, and the Doris Duke Foundation to create a theater piece about what it means to lose sight in order particularly to help doctors to gain more compassion and insight into the process of site loss. Swanson also mentioned a collaboration in progress with the public schools to create a performance piece about cyberbullying.
With the mission pillar of discovery Hancher is working with Working Group Theater, the Colleges of Public Health and Social Work and many local groups serving the elderly to create and put on a performance piece about dealing with a parent with Alzheimer’s. Hancher has commissioned over 100 musical and theater performance pieces over the years.
In the area of public engagement Swanson mentioned a collaboration with the Engineering Department to put on an institute to develop curriculum for 7th and 8th graders on dealing with floods and recovering from them. They have also sponsored performances of the Preservation Jazz Band from New Orleans to appear at several STEM festivals in several of the communities in Iowa that suffered flooding in 2008.
This season includes Hancher’s typically diverse programming. There is always an emphasis on quality and diversity and this season is no exception. There is a particular emphasis on a mentoring program for African American youth in the community. For example, Wycliffe Gordon was scheduled to give a program and have discussions with young people at Grant Wood Elementary School.
The demolition of old Hancher recently started and the new building will soon begin to surface from the ground just up the hill and to the north of the old building. The new building will be several feet above the 500 year flood plain. The architects are Pelli Clark Pelli in New Haven, CT and locally OPN in Cedar Rapids. The new music building, in downtown Iowa City, has already begun construction. The architects on that project are LMN, Seattle, WA and Neumann Monson. New Hancher should be completed at the end of 2015 and the new music building is scheduled to be completed in summer of 2016. Both will be world-class facilities and will dramatically impact the arts scene regionally and for downtown Iowa City in particular.
Liz Nichols
Notetaker