December 1, 2005
Etc.: Campus news & notes
POETIC TRIBUTE: Mary Coventry, a UW staff member for nearly 20 years, died this fall. Her co-workers in the Capital Projects Office, where she most recently worked as a secretary senior, learned that she had written a poem set at the University and asked us to share it with the campus community:
The University is Always There
and Sometimes Visible
By Mary Coventry
Walking through Red Square is not like Harvey Manning’s journey,
He called it Walking the Dead Diamond River and snuck under barb wire fences up the coast,
To Bellingham. Walked all the way in stages, outwitting railroad rights of ways and blockages.
Sumps, swamps, effluents — the whole shamengo.
He, old mountaineer, grieving for places now barred, locked, muddied, deserted, blocked,
En effet, as we say, locales where somehow your prancing foot now required paper to get by.
Now passports to the ineffable? So Harvey thought, recalling childhood’s perfect bliss, forgetting
Lummis, Samish, Tulalips, Suquamish, how,
Thinking of nothing at all you’d put a label to, his, Manning’s folks, had hemmed them in.
Now hemmed, sewn in this maelstrom, Harvey calls in tsunamis to crush this trend,
Waves of the future to blast cottages, the hamburg stands, the fence,
Anathema the fence! Anathema the barrier! Clear us a way to coho,
To silversides, to kings again!
Down by Kane Hall, the Salmon People haven’t come for years,
Don’t see them in their yearly dress, up from the ocean houses.
They had a mirroir state beneath the sea, the natives said.
Diplomacy of watery wiles and kindess. How goes the land, dear cousins?
How the shore?
Somewhere Old Harvey is swearing, and we in August under cloud-shot skies,
Make foot trails on the campus, through Red Square, bricks slick with mist,
Boxed by the buildings:
There’s Kane behind us, guarding lecture halls,
To the right it’s Odegaard, where students read and nap.
To the left, Suzzallo with Gothic piles and books on fish.
Ahead, Admin, low, silent, and to its right, dense Meany, for the arts.
But walking’s our art today, in the land of salmon and raven,
Where all these buildings have put themselves besides the paths.
SHE’S GOT GAME: Kitty Willis, manager of the HUB Games Area, was recently awarded the Association of College Unions International Region 14 Vern Solbach Outstanding Service Award. The award honors a person for “providing significant leadership, volunteer service, and commitment to Region 14.”
WHITE HOUSE INFORMANT: Amy Ai, a School of Social Work associate professor whose research demonstrates the power of spirituality in helping people overcome trying life crises, will participate in a White House Conference on Aging, Dec. 11-14. The conference is the fifth since 1961 to focus on providing presidents with information on policies related to aging.
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