Preface to the Reprinting

I HAVE CHOSEN THE DEVICE OF A SECOND PREFACE TO NOTE SOME Minor corrections, to record some outward evidences of change in my life, and to reflect a bit on the evolving University around me.

In a recent rereading of Being Lucky I discovered that some printing errors had escaped early detection or been compounded in succeeding printings. These I have sought to correct.

Although I am in my 90th year, I continue to go to the office daily when I am in town and work without interruption for five or six hours. Even then it is difficult for me to keep up with the volume of correspondence that the mails bring and the many appointments scheduled by request of persons seeking advice and counsel, information, an interview, or to convey a message from an individual or group. I shall always be grateful to the University for allowing me to continue to work and for supplying the means by which I can work effectively—that is, an office, an administrative associate, and two secretaries. I try to engage in worthwhile projects by way of recompense.

I also try to do useful work because I have great affection for the University, and I rejoice in its progress. I continue to chair certain University committees, such as the All-University Committee on Names, the Beck Chapel Committee, the Executive Committee of the Indiana University Foundation, and currently the Advisory Committee for the Wendell Willkie Centennial. The University will observe the centennial of Wendell Willkie’s birth with a major publication, a conference examining the relevance of the One World concept to the world of today, and events on each of the University’s eight campuses. Willkie, an alumnus, was a candidate for President of the United States in 1940. In addition, I try to be active as a board member of the Riley Memorial Association (which is, of course, of great interest to the University and its Medical Center), of the Indiana Historical Society (with which the University has had a long and happy relationship), and of the Lilly Endowment (which the Lilly family created for the benefit of society, especially in Indiana).

Since I have no line responsibilities, I am free to accept special assignments from the University and the Indiana University Foundation, anything from being a host to addressing a particular group or maintaining contact with certain important alumni and significant donors. In recent years I have begun to involve younger and more active members of the Foundation staff in my relationships with significant donors. This transfer represents a kind of finale to the Campaign for Indiana, the recent major fund-raising drive by the Indiana University Foundation that exceeded its goal and for which my co-chairman, Danny Danielson, and I each received the University’s most cherished honor, the University Medal, in a surprise ceremony.

The decade since Being Lucky was published was the decade of my eighties. In the early years of that decade, I was still able to continue meeting committee and board responsibilities in Washington, New York, and elsewhere. Also, I was able to visit the eight campuses of the University regularly and to attend important functions in various parts of the state. As the years go on, however, I find travel increasingly onerous, and so my travel now is largely between Bloomington and Indianapolis, with an occasional visit to the other campuses.

In the early years of the decade, I took tremendous pleasure in hearing the great variety of lecturers that came to the Bloomington campus. They often introduced new points of view and usually enlarged my knowledge of many different topics. As the years have gone by, my impaired hearing has curtailed my attendance at lectures, a change I have made reluctantly and not least because I like to give evidence of my interest in the various divisions of the University. With hearing aids, I can still enjoy music, but the theatre is quite impossible.

A more visible impairment, the toll of arthritis on my mobility, has awakened me to the access barriers that confront the handicapped. My inability to attend all major University functions now is a source of great regret for two reasons: I still enjoy them, and I heartily approve of the ceremonial aspects of the University as they are now performed by our dynamic President.

My longevity has made room for new honors, such as the recent presentation of the B’nai B’rith Great American Traditions Award. Alongside that would have to be the creation of the Herman B Wells Pediatric Research Center at the Riley Hospital and the launching of the Herman B Wells Scholars Program, both of these endowed by donors and directed toward ever-widening future benefits. Honors have come from the American Council on Education, the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, the Indiana Humanities Council, and the Indiana Council of Fund Raising Executives, among others. Each and every one of these I appreciate and treasure for the regard of fellow laborers in the vineyard. This partial listing is intended solely as an update of the “Chronology” in the Appendix of Being Lucky.

It is a source of great satisfaction to me that during this past decade the University has continued to make steady progress. This progress has been inspired in part by the extra activity of the closing years of the Ryan administration and the opening years of the Ehrlich administration. It is an additional source of satisfaction to see the deepening of research activity on the Bloomington campus and the rapid development of the newer campuses: Northwest, South Bend, Kokomo, Fort Wayne, Southeast, and East. I am gratified that, under the knowledgeable and experienced leadership of its president, Curt Simic, the Indiana University Foundation has been restructured to better serve the scholars and the goals of the “Eight Front Doors.” I have been especially pleased with the continued integration of the work of the Bloomington campus with that of the Indianapolis campus, to the end that the two campuses will constitute the core campus of the greater University.

The physical beautification of the University at Bloomington and elsewhere is becoming a point of distinction among the other famed attributes of the University. The aesthetic development of the Southeast campus has been especially noteworthy. As time goes on, the expenditure of effort on landscaping at Indianapolis and the rest of the campuses will become more evident.

I have been especially pleased by the decisions made to renovate and modernize while still preserving the Old Crescent buildings on the Bloomington campus, to install the Sample Gates at Kirkwood Avenue, to reconstruct the older brick walks, to develop the University Arboretum, and to extend the limestone walls around the perimeter of the older campus.

I have been pleased, too, by the development of more adequate library facilities for Indianapolis, South Bend, and throughout the system. Also notable has been the movement of Purdue’s school at Indianapolis from 38th Street to the West End Campus so that students will no longer have to divide their class hours between two widely separated locations.

Each of the campuses, in addition to developing academic resources, has attempted to enrich the cultural and aesthetic lives of their respective communities as well as of the state at large.

I am happy that the international outreach of the University has spread apace with Emeritus President Ryan continuing to take active interest in Eastern Europe and the world in general, and with the formation of a new International Council to advise the University on its activities, an initiative undertaken by President Ehrlich.

All in all, there are abundant signs that the University is progressing in a purposeful, guided manner toward the goal of being one of the top twenty research universities in the country in the twenty-first century.