Told by Professor Stephen S. Shatz
Professor of Mathematics Emeritus
2015 Courses: MATH114 (Calculus, Part II)
“Some fifteen years ago, when the current Dean of the College, Dr. Dennis DeTurck, was chair of the Math Department, he had occasion to visit me in my office to discuss a departmental matter. I have art in my office, and at the end of our conversation, Dennis proposed that we use some extra funds we had in hand to purchase art for our public walls in DRL. He further proposed that I be a ‘committee of one’ to curate any collection we amassed by this method to be carried out over the years in the future. I responded by suggesting an experiment to see if I was the person to be entrusted with this responsibility. That experiment went over well enough for Dennis to set me in the post of curator.
I have continued buying art using some funds made available to me for the past 15 years (under the different chairs we have had in our system of rotating department chairs) and the department has had the art mounted with security devices on our walls.
I often say that I’ve no difficulty finding appropriate and beautiful things, the problem is always ‘can we afford them.’"
