Geography Department, The University of Tennessee

From: Henri D Grissino-Mayer

Date: Thu, Oct 30, 2014
Subject: Your visit last October 23rdTo: Graham Arader
Cc: Michelle Geller, Jefferson Chapman, Stacy Palado

Hello again Graham,

My duties at the university caught up with me and I couldn't immediately get back to you to convey to you my sincerest thanks and appreciation for your time and consideration when you visited the University of Tennessee and the Department of Geography last October 22-23. I am now more committed than ever to making this very generous donation of yours a reality and I honestly cannot wait until the walls of Burchfiel are graced by your incredible maps. I learned a great deal just listening to your suggestions: for example, I never would have thought of placing artwork in the stairwells on each end of the building, but obviously you saw potential that I did not! I learned, for example, that a few well-placed maps with signage on one wall is better than crowded artwork and crowded signage. I'm excited about the framing we discussed. I'm excited about the transformation of Burchfiel from a simple building housing students and teachers to a building with colorful palettes and canvasses on its walls, now housing more engaged, enlightened, and captivated students, teachers, and visitors who can learn as much from our walls as from our excellent instructors.

And thank you so much for introducing Will Fontanez to your colleague at the Wall Street Journal!

As promised, I'm attaching the floor plans for the Burchfiel Geography Building and on these four floor plans I have added red blocks to highlight walls which have space for hanging of framed maps. If you need better/larger versions, I can print these out on a large-scale printer in the Cart Lab and mail them to you. Just let me know. Some of these walls, as you remember, may have a thermostat or fire alarm and we can't move those, but we have plenty of walls that are completely blank. You will also see the western stairwell which extends on all four floors, as well as the eastern stairwell which extends only to the 3rd and 4th floors. If needed, I can easily take digital photos of any wall on any floor and send them to you. I would also like to learn more about how the framing is secured firmly to the walls so I can convey this information to our faculty (some faculty think this will never happen -- I wish to prove them wrong). I will also soon be contacting the relatives of the family that donated the money to build our building to alert them of your kind offer and the changes that could be in store for the Burchfiel Geography Building.

All for now, Graham. I look forward to hearing from you and hope soon to pay you a visit in NYC!

P.S. If you would like to learn more about what I do in my research with trees, you can visit my Science of Tree Rings website here: http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/, 

as well as my lab's website here:http://ltrs.utk.edu/.

All the best,

Dr. Henri D. Grissino-Mayer

Professor of Geography

Associate Department Head

Department of Geography

The University of Tennessee-Knoxville

Knoxville, Tennessee 37996




Sent: Monday, October 27, 2014
To: Lucette Lagnado (Wall Street Journal); Henri D. Grissino-Mayer
Subject: Fwd: UCI Arader Salon and NYC trip

This should sum up what I do Lucette.  If you listen to the video that is at the end of this e mail, you will see how my vision works at the University of California at Irvine.

Best,
Graham

Forwarded message:

Hope you get a chance to view the video below. It tells how my gift of maps is being used at UC Irvine.  I plan to do better for you!

Thank you,
Graham

From: Graham Arader

Hi Henri,

Lucette Lagnado of the WSJ is doing a story on people who make maps. Amazing because you introduced me to the amazing man in your map department who STILL makes maps today for everyone who wants on in the state of Tennessee.  I am embarrassed to say that I have forgotten his name. Would you please e mail Lucette his contact information so that she can contact him for the story that she is writing about people who still make paper maps today.

Also, I wanted to let you know that I am going to be in NYC for the next two days, and a bit of Wednesday morning doing some alumni outreach activities. I would be thrilled to meet you in person should you be available at all. Please let me know either way.

From: Marijana Lekousis
Date: Sun, Oct 26, 2014 at 9:42 PM
Subject: UCI Arader Salon and NYC trip
To: Graham Arader
Cc: Nicole Balsamo 

Hello Graham,

I hope this email finds you well.

On behalf of the dean and the School of Humanities, we wanted to express our gratitude once again for providing us with the exquisite collections of artwork.  As you know, we held our first Humanities Dean's Salon on October 8th, and it was a smashing success.  With over 50 guests in attendance, we were able to provide a walking tour environment for easy viewing of the artwork set to the music of a live lutenist and guitarist.  All of our guests had overwhelmingly positive comments about their impressions of the artwork and marveled over the collection being available to students.  After brief remarks from Vice Chancellor for Advancement, Gregory Leet, Dean Van Den Abbeele was able to speak to our guests about the impact of a collection of this size and talk about plans for future use.  The dean also unveiled the new name of the space where the art collection is house, Humanities AR&T Studio.

We invite you to visit a series of pictures from the delightful evening, please visit the following link here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uri27a5neshxo6i/AADMPnpSo6x0xZlysmmzk

Additionally, here is a video of the evening's remarks:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0JczkG7juZFdGpVYUxyMmwyVHM/view?

If you have any issues at all accessing the photos or video, please do let me know.

Kindest Regards,

Marijana

Marijana Lekousis
Associate Director of Development
UCI Humanities