In Memory and Celebration of Beverly Firestone
&
The Firestone Scholarship
Hello darkness my old friend;
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping
left its seeds while I was sleeping;
and the vision that was planted in my brain
still remains,
among the sounds of silence.
-- Paul Simon, as quoted at the beginning of The Forms of Things Unknown, by Beverly Firestone
In September of 1999 we lost Beverly Firestone, longtime Lilly presenter, inspirational colleague and friend--and, to those who knew her dearly, a loved one. We celebrate and honor Beverly's contributions to the Lilly Conference, to teaching and learning, to higher education, to life, and to us.
Beverly said a few years ago that a Lilly Conference was the only place she could let all of her talents show. She felt that the community, openness, and support provided a safe home where she could at last be herself. We benefited from the revelation.
Each year Beverly made two exciting presentations at the conference. These were on aspects of teaching and learning that embraced creativity, personality, collective metaphors, renewal, stories, self-reflection, and imagination. She called upon us to use all of these qualities as we prepared our teaching portfolios -- a creative endeavor. Every year she presented her outstanding workshop, "Learning the Language of Learning: Using the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator to Understand Ourselves and Our Students." The audience was always overflowing. Beverly's last book, The Forms of Things Unknown: Creativity and Renewal in Higher Education, invites us to join her in her life-giving creative quest.
Beverly was talented in every one of Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences. Her presentations and life were laced with color and tactiles. Her home in Oak Park was full of creative art and furniture, and her garden overflowed with bright flowers. We will never forget that Lilly-West preconference shopping excursion to Blue Jay, and the treasure trove of purple jewelry that she found. And the fantastic mind map that Beverly made during the Teaching Portfolio Panels in 1993 and 1994, drawing in vibrant colors the pathways of portfolio development that the panelists revealed. And those Saturday afternoon Michigan vs. Ohio State games that we checked on in her room--the entire Conference was invited to her "Action Seminar Featuring the Bodily Kinesthetic Analysis of a Michigan Win."
Some of our favorite memories of Beverly are around the piano at the Miami Inn, where she led and inspired us each year in the informal conference sing- a-long. Her beautiful soprano voice was enthralling. We will never forget the year she wore the purple boa and sang from atop the piano.
She gave wise counsel to those of us who shared our burdens with her. She listened and reflected with many of us.
And what incredible energy she possessed. At Lilly-West five years ago she learned of the debilitating disease that would take her from us. Yet, even wheelchair bound, she went up that mountain to Lake Arrowhead each year, determined to live. In 1999, she gave the closing plenary at West. As she began, she could not see everyone from her chair. From her reservoir of energy and love, she arose from her wheelchair and led that hour session while walking among the tables, touching us all.
Beverly, we celebrate your life and the gifts you have given us. We promise to follow the instructions you give us in the last paragraph of your book:
So let renewal begin with each of us. Let us make a commitment to encourage and support these individual journeys while we teach and learn together. Let us grow toward renewal from inside the rooted values and beliefs we each hold. Let us celebrate the uniqueness of our spirits and the treasure houses of our minds and memories. And let us enjoy the tapestries of our lives, rainbows of possibility, pain, perspective, vision and vitality that is ours as we move to give "a local habitation and a name to the forms of things unknown," confident that individual and collective creativity will serve us and delight us with what is to come in the next millennium.
The Beverly Firestone Scholarship
We
have established a scholarship in memory and celebration of Beverly Firestone.
We call for your contributions to fund the scholarship.
Each year the Lilly Conference proposal reviewers will review and select the proposal submitted for consideration that best reflects Beverly's work and spirit. The proposer selected will receive a waiver for the conference registration fee. This procedure will stay in place until the funds have been exhausted, but we hope that continuous giving will maintain this support for many years to come.
Please send contributions and scholarship applications to Milton Cox, Lilly Conference on College Teaching, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056. Make your check payable to Miami University, with memo to Firestone/Lilly Fund.
In order to learn about Beverly Firestone's work, please note the titles of her presentations at the Lilly Conference and read her book, The Forms of Things Unknown: Creativity and Renewal in Higher Education.
Presentations Made by Beverly Firestone at the Lilly Conference on College Teaching
Each year from 1991 to 1998, Beverly presented the seminar "Learning the Language of Learning: Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to Understand Ourselves and Our Students."
1998 - Last Rites, Rights, Requests, & Bequests: A Dialogue on Dealing With Dying (with Peter Beidler)
1997 - Celebrating Positive Superlatives: Embracing the EX2 Factor in Creating Life and Learning Tapestries
1996 - Sum Ergo Sum: The Creative Self in Higher Education
1995 - Lunatics, Lovers, and Poets: The Imagination of Teaching
1993-1994 - Panel--The Teaching Portfolio: Recent Developments (Firestone presents a thematic summary using a mind map)
1992-1994 - The Teaching Portfolio: An Individual Creation
1992 - The Teaching Portfolio: A Systematic Model