Donor Appreciation Lunch

The Art of Giving
by Dan Howard, Professor Emeritus of Art
Text of keynote address given at the College's Donor Appreciation Lunch
on Sept. 29, 2006 We are gathered here today to talk about giving-which puts me in mind of a story-

A missionary was sitting in a restaurant reading a letter from home. As she opened the letter, a crisp, new twenty-dollar bill caught her attention. Needless to say, she was pleasantly surprised, but as she read the letter, her eyes were distracted by the movement of a raggedly dressed man on the sidewalk leaning against a light post in front of the building. She couldn't get his condition and stature off her mind. Thinking he might have greater financial need than her, she slipped the bill into an envelope on which she quickly penned 'persevere.' Leaving the restaurant, she dropped the envelope at the stranger's feet. Turning slowly, he picked it up, read it, watched the woman walk away, and smiled as he tipped his hat and went his way.

The next day walking down the street, the missionary felt a tap on her shoulder. She found the same shabbily-dressed man smiling as he handed her a roll of bills. When she asked what they were for, he replied: 'That's the money you won, lady. Persevere paid twenty to one.'

Or a true story-

It was June 1981. A 67-year-old man stood in front of a graduating class of 61 sixth-grade students in a poverty-stricken Harlem neighborhood in New York. He struggled to maintain the interest and attention of the predominantly African-American and Latino audience. Historically, statistics showed the majority of these students would exit the education system long before they graduated from high school.

'You must dream,' he began. 'Dream about how things could be'what you want your life to be. Don't allow the ghetto to engulf your education and your thinking. Stay in school. Get your high school education, and I will''

I will what? A sense of urgency struck this man who had attended this very school many years earlier. He recalled how graduating from high school he went to work in a restaurant. One night a man at one of his tables asked, 'Why aren't you in college?' The customer was a trustee at Swarthmore College. A meeting was arranged with the Dean of Students and the young man began his college education with a full scholarship. Now a multimillionaire, what could he say to these children that would make a difference in their lives?

'Get your high school education, and I will' I will give you each a college scholarship!'

That man, Eugene Lang, implanted hope in their lives and 90% of that class went on to graduate from high school and enter college. His 'I Have a Dream' program made it possible for kids to make their dreams come true.

Both of these stories-one facetious, the other based on fact-are illustrative of the rewarding nature of giving. All this, of course, is analogous to preaching to the choir.

You donors are here because you're already committed to the worthwhileness of giving in support of programs you believe in and individuals you want to assist in achieving their goals and ambitions.

I believe it was Sir Edmund Hillary who responded to a question as to why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest (the world's tallest mountain). He replied, "Because it's there."

For many of us, we provide for projects and programs-Because we can! We as donors are in a somewhat enviable position of being able to support the things that are meaningful and important to us-and the by-product of that action-the satisfaction of knowing that we have done-are doing- is a worthwhile effort.

I can reflect back on my high school and college days growing up in Iowa City, and recall what a boost I experienced when receiving positive reactions to my art work from not only peers and friends, but especially teachers and faculty. As a beginning art major at the University of Iowa, I was on a "high" for weeks when two of my freshman drawings were selected by faculty, along with one other freshman student, to be exhibited in an all-school drawing show in the Art School Gallery-my first tangible recognition as a fledgling artist.

Years later, when the tables were turned-so to speak-and I embarked on a teaching and professional art career, I did my level-best to encourage and support students to achieve their best efforts.

And the truly meritorious students should have tangible recognition and acknowledgement of their achievements through awards and scholarships to signal institutional identification of their accomplishments-At the same time providing incentives and expectations to non-recipients to encourage them to excel.

Awards that we can provide seem to generate excitement by the students and promote impulses to push themselves to their full potential.

And of course, as both an art student and professor of art, I was well aware of the critical importance of a gallery for the close-by display on a continual basis of art work by undergraduate and graduate art students, as well as by faculty and professionals. So, when the opportunity arose to provide financial support for a new gallery in the Department of Art and Art History, along with our dear friends and my esteemed former colleague-Jim and Dorene Eisentrager-Barbara and I were most pleased to be involved in that project. As I stated in an article in the current issue of the College Alumni Magazine, "An art gallery is as important and critical to the training and development of an art student as a recital hall is to a music student and a theatre is to a theatre major."

What it comes down to is this:  A simple matter of returning the favor-actually the favors bestowed on us through a lifetime's interaction with students and colleagues-knowing what tangible support and incentives have meant-and doing what we can to generate and provide encouragement of art/culture for new and future generations.