Launch party scheduled for new UF history book

FINDLAY — The next 3½ decades of the University of Findlay's history has been published, and the new book will be launched today. The event will be held from 7-8:30 p.m. in the Mazza Museum in the Gardner Fine Arts Pavillion. "Rooted in the Past, Reaching Toward the Future: University of Findlay's Growth Beyond Findlay College, 1983-2019" was written by Diana Montague, Ph.D., professor emerita of media and communication, and Sarah Fedirka, Ph.D., senior lead for mission and identity and director of the Watterson Center for Ethical Leadership. The authors will introduce the book, and light refreshments and book signings will follow in the Lape Great Hall outside the museum. Montague said the book picks up where Richard Kern's "Findlay College the First 100 Years" left off in 1982 and covers the history of Findlay College's transition to a university. Doing the book means a change for Montague who is retiring after a 40-year teaching career at UF. So instead of spending time in the classroom this school year, she'll be working as a volunteer in the university archives located on the second floor of Shafer Library. "There hasn't been an archivist on campus, but there have been librarians that have taken care of the archives when they had the opportunity because we haven't had a full-time archivist," Montague said. "But I've spent months and months in the archives gathering information for the book so I know a little bit about it." She said one of her goals will be digitizing a good deal of what they can so it's more accessible online. She'll also be looking into grant opportunities for appropriate equipment to better organize and then disseminate some of the documents that are key aspects of the university's history. "There's lots of interesting information and there's some interesting artifacts," she said. Montague said the archives holds one of the institution's first computers, framed collages and photographs from when the Dalai Lama spoke on campus in 1991, and Coca-Cola cans that feature the UF football team in Fall 1999 to honor Dick Strahm, the Oilers' retired football coach. "It's a cross between a treasure hunt and being a detective," Montague said. From south of Chicago, Montague came to Findlay in 1986 to teach. She was finishing up her master's degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in journalism. Her master's thesis was on Chicago Street Gangs and their Allegiance to Colors and Symbols. She said the position at UF included advising the student newspaper, teaching communication English courses and teaching at the correctional facility in Lima. The idea for the history book goes back about five years when Montague and some of her colleagues would get together for a Christmas Eve dinner. "We'd talk about things that have happened, and they said I should write the history from where Dick Kern left off," she recalled. "They said I was the only one who could do it because I have a journalism background, and I've been here forever and ever." A grant from NetVUE (Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education) provided funds to help with the project. When Montague got the grant, Fedirka said she would be happy to do some research and help as she could. It grew into Fedirka writing the chapter of the book on the history of the university's mission. Meanwhile, an interviewing class taught by Prof. Amy Rogan did oral histories with nine alumni and their experiences on campus. Montague said the main section of the book is arranged topically and chronicles styles of leadership of the three presidents, campus expansion and improvements, academics, budget issues, famous visitors and athletics. Montague included a 16-page center spread of color photos. The second section is a "people's history" which, based on surveys, features memories from long-time university employees, retired employees and long-time employees taken from Kern's 1996-1997 survey responses. There is also an in memoriam section. Fedirka's section examines how well UF has fulfilled its mission statement promise of preparing students for meaningful lives and productive careers, with information from historical documents and reflections from alumni. She and Montague previously worked together on other projects. "Diana is the outgoing university marshal. And she had graciously when I arrived invited me to be an assistant marshal," said Fedirka. "We helped with graduation and other things, then we both worked in the same college. So I got to know her, and I have just tremendous respect for her." Fedirka said the objective wasn't even called the mission in 1983. "It was sort of about the university. It was paragraphs long. Then we kept a lot of paragraphs. We were pretty wordy in the beginning," she said. Despite the way it was written, Federika said all of the elements have continued. "Those threads of who we are have always been articulated in whatever the mission statement looked like," she said. "Over time, by 2001, that's when we adopted 'To equip our students for meaningful lives and productive careers.' That's when that mission got adopted." The women also read 36 years' worth of board of trustees minutes. "Now with the gift of retrospect, watching how the board changed as well as the decisions that they grappled with, that was interesting," said Montague. One of the things they found was the university's property expanded exponentially. "Back in 1998, we found their strategic plan, part handwritten and part typed. They broke the neighborhood into areas, and they had addresses of different properties they wanted to acquire, how much they were willing to pay and which were our primary targets, which were secondary," said Montague. Then she checked the auditor's website and put together a map. "And we drove around, and we're checking to see properties that we purchased. How does it look now," she said. Montague said she decided to stop the book in 2019 so it covers six years as Findlay College and then through 2019 as the University of Findlay. "Thirty-six years sounds like a weird number, but I wasn't going to touch the pandemic because somebody could write a whole book on just how we dealt with that," she laughed. "It wasn't going to be me." Books are $20 and will be available for purchase at the launch party. The first 75 people who purchase a book at the launch will get a free tote bag that features the book cover. After Monday, books will be available for purchase at the Mazza Museum Gift Shop.