[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 62 (Wednesday, May 18, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
              TRIBUTE TO THE GAINES CENTER FOR HUMANITIES

 Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the 10th 
anniversary of the Gaines Center for Humanities located on the 
University of Kentucky campus. The building has become both a 
distinctive and special feature of the school and was named in honor of 
Joan and John Gaines--two individuals who generously supported and 
encouraged funding for the humanities building's renovation.
  The Gaines Center stands out as both an attractive and unique part of 
the university. The house itself has no classrooms, but small groups of 
students and faculty meet every day in this informal setting. This 
educational environment lends itself to interdisciplinary seminars and 
experimental workshops that have defined the University of Kentucky's 
humanities program. The center has given students the opportunity to 
directly interact and debate with their teachers and fellow classmates.
  The Gaines Center also awards ten fellowships each year, and a 
special faculty-initiated seminar is held every other year to provide 
10 students with U.K. scholarships. In the coming academic year, the 
center is planning to grant more fellowships, and students will be able 
to receive a minor in the humanities.
  I do not know of any other State university that has such a strong, 
personal, and widely appreciated humanities program. The renovation of 
the Gaines Center has given the University of Kentucky students the 
unique opportunity to receive a strong education in a very intimate and 
personal atmosphere. Only the students and faculty at the University of 
Kentucky can fully appreciate the Gaines Center's unusual qualities, 
yet we can all recognize the honor the center's distinctive academic 
program--particularly now when celebrating the building's 10th 
anniversary.
  Ten years is not, of course, a long time in the life of an 
institution like the University of Kentucky. Nevertheless, the Gaines 
Center has accomplished more in 10 years than many programs accomplish 
in a lifetime. Mr. President, I commend the students and faculty at the 
Gaines Center, and I particularly commend Joan and John Gaines for 
their generous support and dedication to the humanities program at the 
University of Kentucky.
  Please enter my comments, as well as an excerpt from the University 
of Kentucky alumni magazine, into today's Record.
  The article follows:

                [From the Kentucky Alumnus, Summer 1994]

                         (By Raymond F. Betts)

       No other state university that I know of has such a 
     program. Ours may even be, as indeed I think it is, the 
     educational environment of the future, with small groups of 
     students and faculty gathered in interdisciplinary seminars 
     and experimental workshops, all the while testing ideas and 
     engaging in debate, presenting and projecting concepts in 
     notebooks and on computer screens. Certainly, the structure 
     and scale of university education have drastically altered 
     since Patterson Office Tower was thrust upward. ``Informal 
     and domestic'' describe the reclaimed campus environment; 
     ``intense and far-ranging'' describe the learning situation. 
     The Gaines Center, celebrating these conditions, has no 
     classrooms. Ours has moveable and arrangeable space, 
     interiors where faculty members can casually say to students: 
     ``Pull up a chair,'' which is the proper greeting in any 
     modern republic of letters.
       My opinion of the unusual qualities of the Center has been 
     confirmed many times over several years. After visiting here 
     in 1991, Dr. W. Robert Connor, director of the National 
     Humanities Center in North Carolina, remarked: ``But the 
     Gaines Center was the surprise. I had little idea of what 
     that phrase meant--`the beauty of the house, the quality of 
     the restoration, the good sense of focusing on students and 
     their needs . . .'''
       Two of our current undergraduate fellows, Irene Hong and 
     Steven Allen, recently offered the following statement: ``In 
     a large university such as UK, the Gaines Center provides a 
     personal and intimate atmosphere. For all members of the UK 
     community with hectic schedules, the Center offers an 
     alternative--a place for reflection.''
       Now, with a well-established and widely appreciated 
     academic program in place, with public service activities 
     that reach across the state in influence, and with three 
     well-appointed buildings that face the community, yet define 
     the north end of campus, the Gaines Center is an 
     exceptionally attractive part of the university. As I 
     approach the buildings each day from the parking lot behind 
     Memorial Coliseum, I think how fortunate I am to be able to 
     enter such a place, to think, talk and write where purpose 
     and proportion are so finely joined.
       When, just over 10 years ago, Joan and John Gaines walked 
     cautiously down the littered staircase of the state-of-ruin 
     building that I hoped would be renovated, I moved along 
     anxiously. The place was, at very best, an unsightly mess, 
     victim of neglect and abuse. ``It's beautiful, isn't it, 
     John?'' Joan remarked. John quickly agreed. I sighed in 
     relief. With that particular vision which allowed the Gaines 
     to imagine the building restored, they had already imagined 
     the value of a special humanities program to the university. 
     Their generous support, matched by large donations from Mary 
     Bingham and Margrite Davis, has allowed the development of a 
     diversified humanities program in what is an ideal academic 
     setting. The Gaines Fellowship program awards 10 fellowships 
     each year. A special faculty-initiated seminar, which 
     provides 10 student scholarships is offered every other year 
     and allows for the appearance on campus of an outstanding 
     scholar whose public lectures are published through a joint 
     venture with the University of Kentucky Press. Each semester, 
     several undergraduate research assistant-ships are available 
     to faculty members, an arrangement that allows the best of 
     faculty-student scholarly engagement possible. This year, we 
     are planning to increase the number of our fellowships, and 
     we are also initiating an undergraduate minor in the 
     humanities that is long overdue.
       Were I given to what might be called ``Scholstats,'' the 
     academic arithmetic which lists statistics as measures of 
     intellectual development, I think that I could prove our 
     program one of the most successful in the university. But 
     what really matters--and does not ``count''--is the 
     intellectual fervor that is generated in a seminar setting. I 
     will never forget that one session when we were preparing to 
     discuss the awesome, yet elusive, outer condition called 
     ``civilization.'' I brought in my favorite and long-enduring 
     teaching ``tool,'' a bag of blocks my older son had been 
     given, many, many years ago. As I dumped the blocks on the 
     table, I commanded the class, with a tenured professor's 
     authority, ``Now build me a civilization.'' For the next hour 
     and a half, the students arranged the blocks which became 
     temple, palace, treasury and monument, public highway and 
     private walk, order, cleanliness and beauty (the last three 
     being Freud's listing of what civilization is all about).
       Nothing was resolved, no grand exclamation of consummatum 
     est or ``hurrah!'' at the end of the allotted seminar time. 
     The seminar was over; however, the subject remained 
     unsettled, to be further considered, to be reconsidered. 
     Without bearing the label, our buildings are houses of 
     provocation, places where the mind is stimulated, where our 
     being, both individual and collective, is pondered. The 
     humanities are profoundly concerned with three tenses of the 
     verb ``to be'' expressed in the third person singular: has 
     been, is, may be. We so tense up in our special fellowship 
     seminar on Tuesday and Thursday between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. 
     each of the two semesters of the course. I cannot measure the 
     success of our program in traditional administrative fashion, 
     but I do know that what we attempt, student and teacher as 
     scholars, is good because it is a serious effort to 
     understand ourselves, to situate ourselves in an ever-
     changing context that is historical, philosophical and 
     environmental.
       One of the outstanding visitors we have had as a program 
     participant at the Gaines Center is the naturalist writer 
     Barry Lopez. In his essays, Lopez frequently states that he 
     has turned, paused and wondered. He is a person not driven 
     recklessly forward. When I stopped at the apartment in the 
     Gaines Center to take him to the place of his lecture, he was 
     standing in the living room and meditating. His was a 
     humanistic stance, thoughtful reflection before presentation, 
     consideration before commitment. How appropriate, I thought, 
     in this place, for this program. I silently rejoiced that 
     structure and purpose were consonant. I still do.
       Ten years is not a long time in the life of an institution 
     like a university, but it is the major mark of individual 
     life: a decade. During this last decade, I have been 
     privileged to serve as director of the Gaines Center. I have 
     delighted in assisting with curricular development. I have 
     been pleased with the well-designed growth of our physical 
     space. I have enjoyed interviewing students for our 
     fellowships and discussing our programs with faculty. None of 
     these fulfilling and worthwhile activities has matched, 
     however, that exceptional quality of intellectual engagement 
     that comes from discussion with bright students seeking 
     meaning.
       Not too long ago, one of our Junior Fellows sent me an 
     electronic mail message. The illuminated screen bore the 
     words: ``I have discovered the many meanings of the word 
     `kin.' It is a beautiful word. What do you think?'' Simple 
     and direct, sincere and anxious, inquisitive and alert, 
     expressive of concern and wonder--that is the way I read the 
     brief message. I pressed the ``quit'' key on our e-mail 
     system. I only ``quit'' the message, not the question. ``What 
     do you think?'' she had electronically inquired. I am still 
     thinking about it. Anyone concerned with form, with memory, 
     with value should continue to think about such a question. 
     Anyone concerned with study of the humanities should. Housed 
     within the three buildings of the Gaines Center for the 
     Humanities are such thoughts and such concerns. They have 
     been for 10 years now, and they will be for the many decades 
     that will follow this, the very first one.

                          ____________________