Dr. J. Larry Allums, Executive Director of the Dallas Institute
2011 marked the Dallas Institute's 30th year, a notable milestone that has given way to another in 2012--a new year, a new decade, a new era. We have bold plans for the next five years: to expand our programs, strengthen our membership and support base, and improve our facilities.
A top priority beginning this year is to raise the regional and national profile of the Louise and Donald Cowan Center for Education. Toward that end, Cowan Center Director Dr. Claudia Allums has instituted new programs for school principals across North Texas and district superintendents throughout the state. By the completion of 2012, the Cowan Center will have conducted its 2nd annual Superintendents Symposium, its 2nd annual Education Forum for citizens and educators, multiple programs for principals and teachers, and its 29th consecutive session of the Sue Rose Summer Institute for Teachers.
Another point of heightened emphasis centers on our members and supporters, who are the lifeblood of any organization like the Institute. The reason for our existence is educational--to discover what the humanities have to offer that will deepen and enrich our lives--and our continual desire is that Institute patrons will experience a sense of insight in every activity we offer. If we can bring the abundance of the humanities fully into the culture of our city program by program, we will have achieved our part in Dallas' attaining the level of greatness for which we believe it is destined.
Our campus is small but in some ways ideal, and people frequently enter with words such as "it feels like home" or "it's good to escape for a while the urgencies of the day." Going forward, however, we'll work to make our facilities better, more easily accessible, more functional, and more enticing for future visits. In 2012, watch for renovations in several key areas, especially the Conference Center.
Like the humanities themselves, the Institute aims at the democratic ideal--the conviction that every citizen of Dallas can without fail not only learn but feel the genuine pleasure that learning brings. In the process of our individual lifelong learning, our city only gets better--deeper and richer in the ways that matter most: intellectually, imaginatively, and spiritually.