Wildermuth could host media for debates

IU’s Ora L. Wildermuth Intramural Center could be getting more national attention if the Commission on Presidential Debates chooses Bloomington to play host to a 2008 U.S. presidential debate.\nTwo delegates from the Commission will tour campus Tuesday to look at several sites that IU and the City of Bloomington hope to use for the event.\nAmong the buildings they will visit is the Wildermuth Center, which will serve as a filing center for some 750 journalists, should IU land the debate, said Rob DeCleene, director of tourism for the Bloomington/Monroe County Convention & Visitors Bureau.\nThe Wildermuth Center gained national attention in April when an Indiana Daily Student columnist wrote about the segregationist views of the building’s namesake, former board of trustees president Ora L. Wildermuth.\nIn a 1945 letter to IU Comptroller Ward G. Biddle, Wildermuth made his views on segregation plain when he wrote, “I am and shall always remain absolutely and utterly opposed to social intermingling of the colored race with the white. ... It always has been the dominant and leading race.”\nWhen then-IU President Herman B Wells asked the board president for funding to build dorms for black female students, Wildermuth balked.\n“So few of them succeed and the average of the race as to intelligence, economic status and industry is so far below the white average that it seems to me futile to build up hope for a great future,” he wrote back.\nThe IDS column sparked calls for a public debate on whether to change the name of the building and condemnation from many in the University community. Then-IU President Adam Herbert told Michael McRobbie, the interim-provost and University president-elect, to begin a “dialogue and develop a proposed presentation to the board as soon as possible.”\nBut for its part, McRobbie’s administration has been publicly mum on the issue. This leaves Andrew Kincannon, the diversity, recruitment and retention coordinator for the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, to which the Wildermuth Center belongs, to wonder whether the issue has fallen by the wayside.\nKincannon called the Wildermuth Center being named after a segregationist “unacceptable” in the IDS column, dated April 10.\nMcRobbie did not respond to an interview request about the Wildermuth Center, which the IDS submitted last week.\nHPER Dean Robert Goodman, who began his term at IU last week, did not return a phone call with a similar request.\nKaren Hanson, who has been appointed to be the new IU provost, said McRobbie formed a task force of three professors June 20 to investigate and recommend whether to rename the building. The task force has not met since its formation, though it is expected to give its recommendation by the end of the summer, she said.\nHanson, who was originally one of the members of the task force, said it would not be proper for her to give an opinion of whether the building should be renamed before the committee makes its decision.\nShe did say, however, that in general, “memorializing segregationism is abhorrent.”\nDeCleene would not comment on whether housing journalists from across the country in a building named after a documented segregationist would reflect poorly on IU and Bloomington. He said the Wildermuth Center was chosen purely from a logistical standpoint, primarily because its large, open space made it an ideal place for reporters to file their stories and it is close to the IU Auditorium, where IU hopes to hold the actual debate.