Are there any “big fish” faculty members whose papers got away?
The great professor of British literature Richard Ellmann, the biographer of James Joyce and William Butler Yeats. I really tried. I was in England in 1987 and he was living at Oxford. I made an appointment to visit him there and give him a pitch. The day I was to meet with him, he died. And his daughters ended up selling his papers to the University of Tulsa…. I have never paid one cent for anything here. It has all been donated. If you could have lunch with one character from Northwestern’s past, who would it be? Henry Wade Rogers, one of the greatest Northwestern presidents. He’s more responsible than anyone else for transforming the University from a loose federation of schools into a modern, progressive university. In order to do this, he had to clip the wings of some very powerful deans of the professional schools. Eventually, he paid the price for it and the Board of Trustees let him go. He became a very distinguished federal judge on the East coast. Are there any secrets you ca
