There will be a celebration of Dennis on
Sunday, February 14
2 - 4pm
Kanbar Campus Center
Philadelphia University,
4201 Henry Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19144
Please see The Philadelphia Inquirer article
http://www.philly.com/philly/obituaries/83994762.html
Dear friends and family of Dennis Kuronen,
ReplyDeleteI attended the memorial service today and was so inspired by all the stories and anecdotes and I wanted to share some as well.
Dennis was a critically important person in my life and has had such a lasting impact on my professional life. He hired me for my first teaching position. As an energetic, freshly minted, MFA student I came to interview with Dennis in 1995 with a grand plan to create an interdisciplinary class in exhibition design. Dennis was just shaping his amazing program in graphic design and said, “Sure, lets run it.”
My first class only had 3 students (the very first class of GD) and they were exceptional and worked so hard, being inspired by Dennis, his mentorship and encouragement.
Four years later I had to give the class up because I was having my first baby. However, that did not end our relationship. Dennis and I worked on grants together, discussed several different projects and conducted interdisciplinary team efforts, including a prototyping class project for the Aviation exhibition at the Franklin Institute. We kept in professional contact off and on over the 15 years we knew each other.
I have been a full time professor for seven years now and I owe much of it to Dennis, who gave me my start. He taught me patience and persistence with the students, how to push for the best while being thoughtful, empathetic, and all the while not losing one’s sense humor. I can only hope to be half the professor and mentor Dennis was . . .in this I would be blessed.
I know I stand in a very, very long line of people who have felt like they can achieve anything because they have spent time with Dennis. I hold Dennis as the gold standard for my teaching and his gentle, warm, dry witted manner to inspire me as a parent, spouse, and person.
Thank you Dennis . . .thank you. You will be deeply missed.
Polly McKenna-Cress
Chair, Museum Studies
Director, Museum Exhibition
Planning & Design
The University of the Arts
Ithaka
ReplyDeleteAs you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
C.P. Cavafy