Never give up

I note with great sadness that we must move forward without one of our very best faculty members – Dr. Philip Shaw Paludan, the great human being and great Lincoln historian who died just two weeks ago.

What Phil Paludan did for all of us and how he did it sets the standard and lays the foundation for what UIS is becoming. I am thinking in particular of two speeches that he gave for the UIS community. In the first, he was honored as the recipient of the first UIS distinguished chair when we conducted the investiture ceremony in 2001.

Phil's speech that day offered a great insight into why he appreciated Lincoln so much. He described Lincoln as a man of great civility, a president who endured great criticism and yet did not consider his adversaries to be demons or scoundrels. Instead, Lincoln did his extraordinary work "with malice toward none." Dr. Paludan modeled that kind of civility himself in his six years at UIS.

Then last year at commencement, Phil advised our graduates to seek their goals persistently yet humbly. He concluded his speech this way with that soft, passionate tone of his:

"Never give up.
"Try to understand things.
"Try to be good to each other."

So as we begin this year and continue implementing our strategic plan, let us honor Dr. Philip Shaw Paludan by vigorously raising our standards of excellence, by humbly going about our work, and by being good to each other. For that is what Dr. Paludan did; it is how he lived; it is what he modeled for us.