It's a wonderful day in the neighborhood for Morris MN. It's graduation day at UMM! The weather is pleasant enough for mid-May, certainly better than the miserable conditions we had for March and April.
Alas, today's weather is not good enough to have the graduation outside. I don't take notes on this but my memory says UMM has been challenged, jinxed maybe, with its efforts to have graduation under a glorious early summer sky. Seems the event has had to be moved indoors in many years.
There have been notable exceptions like the year Bob Bruininks came here to speak. Proud that I can still remember how to type his last name. Pronounced "Brunix."
Al Franken when he had the glory of being a U.S. senator spoke inside. I still remember the term "UMM P.E. Center." I have to wonder if even "UMM" is precise anymore, what with the frequent "UMN" reference. "UMN" in and of itself does not specify Morris. In UMM's seminal days it was an institutional priority to get the name "Morris" out there. My late father wrote his UMM Hymn and UMM fight song with that priority most certainly exercised.
The institution eventually adopted the "U of M Rouser" because, I was told, the priority was to emphasize we are in fact "University of Minnesota." Logical move? A problem with the Rouser is that it became such an "old turnip" through the years. Consider all the high schools that adopted it. I was at a tournament basketball event once where we heard a pep band launch into the Rouser for a repeated time, and we actually laughed!
Be that as it may, the world certainly knows about how the U is represented here in. . .Morris.
Without the U we wouldn't be anything like a cultural bastion, I suppose. There, that sentence would set a few people up for smart remarks. I was at the old Hardee's Restaurant once, sitting close to a UMM faculty acquaintance of mine who was with an obvious academic friend who I did not recognize. The friend started going on about Morris' alleged cultural shortcomings, and it got so bad I almost got up to go over and confront him. Discretion was the better part of valor.
This was so long ago, we weren't even thinking about the Internet yet.
The Internet and all the new tech has been such a tremendous equalizer. It has smashed boredom to bits. It has made the selling job for liberal arts institutions harder. We are not nearly so dependent on bricks and mortar institutions for the dispensing of knowledge. It's at everyone's fingertips. And human beings really do seek enrichment.
A lot of it might be foolishness. The same was said of comic books when I was a kid. But I built my literacy a great deal consuming such fare, more than professional educators would care to admit. Really truly. Comic books were once a flashpoint in our culture. Today there's a wide raft of debatable stuff. People tap into that for dealing with boredom. What we might overlook is that people really do develop meaningful enrichment from it too.
I only need point out that when I was a kid, only a small percentage of the population learned typing skills and it was considered a feminine skill. Remember "white out?" Maybe you don't. "Typing" was nothing like word processors of today.
Nice food fare
I attended the brunch for the 2023 UMM Homecoming. Very pleasant event at the dining hall on campus. They should have had a senior price. Just kidding! Boy I sure got my money's worth ($12). I remembered the late Allen Anderson.
You might know that the Williams family has made gestures to remain relevant to both UMM and the high school. Rewarding as that is, it is superseded by the simple experience of being around UMM students, as I was this afternoon. It doesn't get more enjoyable than that.
I was surprised and flattered to be recognized by a UMM staff person who I had met only once previously, quite some time ago in fact. This individual noticed that I had made a gesture to the public school music program, of acquiring jazz band "fronts" for onstage. Great feeling to have done that, but it's an even better feeling to be at the concert hall and to hear the kids perform under director Wanda Dagen.
"Jazz band" was called "stage band" when I was in high school. "Jazz" must have been a culturally edgy word or concept back then. Associated with non-white people? Shame on us if we thought that in a prejudicial way.
My father had the credentials to present jazz in UMM's earliest years. Our culture wasn't ready for this on college campuses. Remember that we did not even have women's athletics at the start of UMM. Amazing!
I can proudly say I was at UMM's first-ever commencement in 1964. U of M President O. Meredith Wilson was the special visiting guest. Imagine having the U of M president here in Morris! UMM was an awfully fresh institution at the time. We had to fight southern Minnesota interests to get the U here. Southern Minnesota eventually got the "consolation prize" of Southwest State (what my father always called "Little Marshall," sorry Vicki Dalager).
My mom was with me when Senator Franken spoke at UMM. Again we were proud having such an important person here. Why did us Minnesotans allow the likes of Kirsten Gillibrand of New York state to pressure our senator into resigning? I mean, Trump's misbehavior with women which has now been legally adjudicated appears to be no obstacle at all for him advancing politically. The audience at the infamous "CNN Town Hall" seemed only to be amused or to side with Trump.
I mean, why not? It's just the continuation of the pattern of Trump surviving everything. It's a cult. But we lost Franken as our senator. The seventh complaint against him was the one that seemed to break the camel's back, just based on volume, and what was the content of that complaint? That he put his hand on a woman's shoulder?
We were privileged to have Sen. Franken come to our humble community for UMM graduation. I remember he talked informally with a great many people at Oyate after the ceremony. Always spicy to have a professional comedian around!
Whither UMM in the year 2023? Good question. Is the institution adjusting properly to all the changes in our environment? We have to wonder. What's up with enrollment? I communicated with a friend via email this past week. Pessimism is not hard to come by. Nevertheless this friend filled me in on how there's a "steering committee" set up at UMM to try to boost numbers.
My friend said "essentially every four-year college in Minnesota is suffering from declining enrollment." He is concerned that liberal arts might not be a promising foundation.
For the time being, let's try to celebrate everything associated with UMM!
Addendum: The UMM staff person who befriended me so nicely this afternoon was Doug Reed. I just refreshed myself on his position: director, Morris Challenge. I remember we talked baseball when I first met him which was at Common Cup. I forget the occasion. He has his office at the Welcome Center. His educational background includes Southern Illinois University and University of Virginia. I hope he's happy putting down his stakes here in the Upper Midwest.
He introduced me to his wife Britany too.
Congratulations to all the UMM graduates of 2023. It's a little bittersweet because all these young people are now moving beyond our little universe of Morris MN.
Ahem, one final thought: any time UMM wishes to dust off my father's "UMM Hymn" for performance at graduation, I think it would be neat. It really does sound majestic and inspiring IMHO. John Stanley Ross once wrote an arrangement for both band and choir. Is that still in the library out there? Holy cow, might give you goosebumps. I hope new Chancellor Janet Ericksen is familiar with it.
There, I spelled "Ericksen" with the "e" in the last syllable!
Doug Reed of "Morris Challenge" (live wide open image)
Addendum #2: I'm typing this addendum having just gotten back from campus where I observed the commencement opening. A main reason I wanted to go there was to pick up a program. Well, we're in the year 2023, so no paper programs! In the first two years after Mom's death, I placed the paper program on her bed to help seal her connection to UMM. She managed the campus post office. Me? I was her chauffeur. She never drove.
Time marches on. So, no paper programs any more. I was told I could access something with my "smartphone." But I'm not smart enough to use a smartphone. Life goes on.
So now "Pomp and Circumstance" is played as a recording, not by UMM student musicians? Lordy Lordy. I do have a hard time accepting this. UMM musicians normally have special features during the program too.
My family has worked to help keep UMM music viable. I have told my main contact person at UMM that if the department ever ceases to exist, our family fund could go toward the Twin Cities campus, where my father invested much of his life. I'd be happy either way.
Dad was a founding faculty member at UMM, one of the "original 13," and he was the sole music person in the institution's first year. A trailblazer. His founding status is on our family memorial at Summit Cemetery. It's a bench monument, black in color, in new portion of cemetery. Feel free to stop by and sit a spell anytime.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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