by Rick Homan
“I’ll be glad to help you. Do the reading on the syllabus. Come by for my office hour on Wednesday, and we’ll talk about it. Maybe next week you can make up a quiz and get back on track.”
He took a deep breath and let it out. “Thanks, Dr. Noonan. I’ll see you on Wednesday.”
Chapter 42
When I walked into the outer office of the administration’s suite, the lady at the desk looked up and said, “Good afternoon, Dr. Noonan.” No five-second stare from her. “President Taylor is expecting you.” She nodded toward the open door to an inner office.
When I appeared in the doorway, Taylor glanced up, smiled, and came around his desk to take my hand. He was very fit and perfectly groomed, but not as tall as he had seemed on stage when he addressed the faculty. “Dr. Noonan, thank you for coming over this afternoon. Please have a seat. Can we get you anything? Coffee? Water?”
“No, thank you.”
We sat in a couple of armchairs by the window. I felt relieved that this was not going to be an across-the-desk conversation.
“Well,” he began, perched on the front of his chair and leaning forward so he could speak softly, “Your first semester at Fuchs has been an unusually eventful one. I want to offer my condolences on the death of your student, Kate Conrad. I didn’t know her personally. I’m sure that was shocking for you.”
“Yes. She was quite a gifted student.”
The president nodded his understanding. “Thank you for handling this the way you have. You’ve shown a lot of grace under pressure.”
“You’re welcome.” Apparently, he hadn’t heard about my frantic barefoot run from the library to Abbie’s Hutch on Friday afternoon.
He sat back and seemed to shift into a more expansive frame of mind. “You’re aware the institution is changing. We’re adding a school of business and becoming a university.”
I nodded.
“We certainly have a lot of work to do, establishing the new school and building its reputation. At the same time, we want to build the quality and reputation of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences. I hope everyone understands it would make no sense to declare ourselves a university and neglect the liberal arts.”
Again, I smiled. “I’m happy to hear you say that.”
“Good. I want to speak to you today because we also face a greater challenge. We have to make Fuchs—or whatever it is to be called—a different kind of institution, more cosmopolitan for one thing. I hope we can begin to recruit students from a wider area and even establish relationships with communities abroad. Our traditional base of students from southern Ohio will be better prepared for the economy of this century if they’ve learned to work with people from around the world.”
“Sounds exciting,” I said.
“Although I have almost no influence on hiring faculty, I have been pleased to see some recent hires from beyond our immediate area: yourself, of course, and for instance do you know Dr. Bell in the modern languages department?”
“Yes, we’ve met,” I said with a straight face.
“Good. Other recently hired faculty have come from Atlanta, Houston, and Seattle. Also, to be perfectly candid, I think it’s better for our students to see some persons of color among the faculty.”
I smiled though I was going to be very disappointed if this was only a thanks-for-the-diversity conversation.
He continued. “Anything we can do to show our students that there’s a wide world for them to explore. That’s why I want to get your ideas about having an art gallery on campus.”
I kept on smiling for a few seconds while my brain caught up with what he was saying. “That sounds exciting. What would be the purpose of this gallery?”
Now it was Taylor’s turn to smile. “I think it could give our students a more cosmopolitan experience, expose them to creative trends in the world. Margaret and I were in Nashville last week, and at the university there they had an exhibit of paintings by contemporary African-American artists. They were amazing—such powerful images, vibrant colors. If we could do something like that here, it would give everyone on campus something to talk about.”
My polite smile widened to a grin. “I agree. How can I help?”
“I’m hoping you would be interested in being the director of the gallery.”
I searched my memory for a conversation with my fellow graduate students about what to say when they offer you your own gallery. Nope, that topic never came up. I resorted to honesty. “I don’t know what to say.”
He smiled. “Say you’ll think about it. This is just the beginning of a conversation. I can think of a couple of rooms on campus that might be converted, but we would need your expertise there. I would need to know the budget for such an operation—something modest to begin with. Of course, we would reduce your teaching load so you would have time to do this, and I think an additional stipend would appropriate. There are a thousand details to work out. What I need today is to know whether you want to do it.”
“President Taylor, there is nothing I would rather do than introduce our students to works of art.”
“Excellent! I’m away next week, so let’s talk again in about two weeks. Meanwhile jot down any ideas you have, any questions, and we’ll start making this happen.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I suppose I should discuss this with my chairman, Frank Rossi.”
“It was his idea.”
I held my breath for a moment. “Really?”
“Yes. Apparently he told the dean we needed works of art on campus so you could teach art history. The two of them cooked up this idea of a gallery and brought it to the academic vice president, who mentioned it to me. Right away, I could see it would also do a lot for the whole campus. Even though it was Frank Rossi’s idea, I wanted to talk to you personally to get the ball rolling.”
Sensing we were done, I stood and walked to the door. He followed me and said to Georgina, “Let’s set Dr. Noonan up for another conference when I get back from Atlanta.”
She smiled. I smiled. He smiled and said, “Thanks again for dropping by.”
I walked along the campus quad, not sure where I was going. I couldn’t go back to my office, and work on quizzes, lessons, or even on my research. My mind was like a rock, rolling down a hillside, bouncing this way and that. I felt like getting in my car and driving around to see the fall color, but there were only a few hours of daylight left. Maybe Lionel would like to drive us and stop somewhere for dinner. I could knock on his door and ask.
When I got to College Avenue, instead of turning left toward Ohio Avenue, I turned right, went to the chapel, and let myself in. As I walked through the slanted rectangles of sunlight, I listened to the sound of my footsteps on the wooden floor. I faced the mural.
Six weeks ago, it had looked like a simple depiction of a community working and worshipping in its newfound Eden. A few weeks later, it had looked like a monument to a charismatic leader, Felix Fuchs. After further study, I had seen in it a record of people presuming to improve their species through selective breeding. And finally I had caught up to Kate’s recognition of a symbol of evil, tucked away, up in the corner.
As I stood there, I couldn’t see the image of the murdered child. The failing light left the top of the mural in darkness. But I would make sure the world saw it and knew that Kate Conrad had discovered it.
Thank you for reading Dark Mural.
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