IUPUI is Indiana's premier urban research university. The campus enrolls more than 30,000 students in 21 schools and academic units.
Events and Programs on and around the Campus
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University College Renamed After Joseph T. Taylor
Speaker Remarks
Chancellor Charles Bantz
Welcome to this special day in the history of IUPUI.
Today, we honor a man who was instrumental in the founding and development of IUPUI in its early years. When Joe Taylor and his family settled in Indianapolis in 1957, they entered a lifelong partnership with both a city and a university. His devotion to creating opportunities for higher education in this dynamic and diverse city made him one of the visionaries that helped shape what is now considered a model in urban higher education—IUPUI.
As an African American, Dr. Taylor was a pioneer at every stage of his academic career. He infused that perseverance and ability to break new ground into the very core of what has made IUPUI successful today.
One of the great events in Dr. Taylor’s academic life as a young scholar of sociology was his participation in the landmark Carnegie-Myrdal study that resulted in the 1944 publication of The American Dilemma: The Negro Problems and Modern Democracy. The Carnegie-Myrdal study employed the leading black and white social science scholars of the day, including the poet, teacher, and scholar Sterling Brown; Diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Ralph Bunch; and Butler Jones, later of Cleveland State's sociology department, but whose students included Martin Luther King, Jr., when he taught at Atlanta University.
The book that Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal published cast the American race issue in terms of the "moral dilemma" of the white American torn between his belief in the "American creed" of democracy and racial prejudice. Writing a decade before the concept of "cognitive dissonance," Gunnar Myrdal assumed that individuals could not live with moral contradictions, that they would be driven by guilt and anxiety to bring their actions into consonance with their beliefs in equality, democracy, and individual freedom.
Many say, it is that way of viewing the civil rights movement that gave Martin Luther King, Jr., the ability to capture the attention and support of whites. He forced them to face their moral contradictions.
Although Joe Taylor was just among those doing what he called "the leg work" on the Myrdal study, the experience helped shape his views of education and race relations.
In an interview for the Indianapolis Recorder in 1993, he said, it takes "good will, hard work, and luck" to be successful and that education is key to being prepared when luck happens.
In the last Taylor Symposium he attended, the year of his death in 2000, he spoke again of the importance of education when he said:
"We are not accustomed to setting aside time for public discussion of some critical issues unless something comes to a crisis, which rarely results in a true resolution. You can think in a crisis, but you don’t bring enough information to a social issue in a one-night meeting."
Our campus community was faced with a crisis in November 2006 when the Black Student Initiative generated a soul-searching. As Dr. Taylor predicted, we needed time for discussion and information sharing to come to a true resolution of all the issues. One of the things we found we needed to have to promote better understanding in our diverse community was a Multicultural Center. So, it is even more fitting that we name the building that will house the center Taylor Hall, in his honor.
We are delighted that members of the Taylor family are with us today. I'd like to recognize them at this time.
Hertha Taylor
Hussain Taylor
George Taylor
Judy Taylor
Eddie Washington
We are deeply honored to be able to make this commemorative naming in honor of Dr. Joseph Taylor.
