I hope this isn't too long. If so, my excuse is it's hard letting go in the case of such a valued colleague. I have to remember a summer day back in the Animal House era when I was thirsty and underage, going into a Cape Cod taproom, the cutest waitress in Massachusetts coming to my table and me handing her a fake ID. JoAnne gave it her full scholarly attention and was finally willing to suspend her disbelief, which is a good thing, I guess, 'cause as it turned out there was a long history hanging on that decision. JoAnne and I have been housemates, co-parents, friends and colleagues for over forty years and I can't express what it will mean to me to have her absent from this campus to which she has given so much.

When we look around at this exhibit, we see fine art seamlessly blending in with the emergent natural aesthetics of spring and the Earth Day message. A COA visitor came up to me the other day and said "Art is in the college's DNA, isn't it?” But I had to say it wasn't. Literature and anthropology, biology and law were officially sanctioned by the founders, but fine art was only granted a handful of courses in the early years. But JoAnne's classes were instantly popular, her courses grew in attendance and reputation, and she became the only COA teacher to work "up from the ranks” to a full time appointment on the strength of her contribution and dedication.

COA was hardly more than the zygote of a college in those early days, but people believed in it, and I know of no one who gave herself more completely to this small and needful institution than JoAnne. She prepared for every lecture as for what she would call an existential encounter. Her whole life went into those classes, not just intellect and training, but heart and emotion. She set a standard for us all. On the humanities side, she showed how learning and theory and history could be joined with practice: the hands-on experience that was supposed to be the heart of education at COA. She proved that art truly was at the heart's core of Human Ecology, but it was latent, and it took JoAnne's dedication and persistence to make us realize that human creativity was not on the decorative fringe but an integral part of nature and at the center of the endeavor we all share.

JoAnne has been an impeccable colleague these thirty-six years. Of all the committees and discussions and decisions she has participated in over that time, I have never seen her make a statement or cast a vote out of self-interest. Her dedication to the college has been amazing. The faculty is always talking about workload. When Carl Ketchum (former faculty member in mathematics) made the first workload survey as chair of the Personnel Committee, he studied everyone's hours off campus and on, and when the hours were tallied, JoAnne was at the top. She was an absolute inspiration to those of us who worked closely with her. Her classes seemed spontaneous but she prepared for hours. She took the questions of her field back to the Renaissance roots, their classical roots, their Mesopotamian roots, their mythological roots, and ultimately into the human psyche where she knew it all arose. I had the privilege of co-teaching with JoAnne from the beginning. We taught Maine Coast History on our little sloop Puffin till the IRS called me in for a tax audit for deducting a yacht. We taught "The Fifties” until the students started saying, "Hey, my grandparents came from the fifties,” and for the last nine years the unholy trinity of JoAnne, John Anderson and I have taught "Turn of the Century” against all odds and reason. From a colleague's point of view she was one of the most inspiring figures on the faculty, because - against the grain and tradition of academia - she does not separate thought from feeling and therefore heals the old wound of human alienation with every idea she puts forth. She is truly interdisciplinary. Art has no boundaries for her, it cross-pollinates history and mythology, politics and psychology. COA art students never have to know how split the arts and humanities are between scholars and practitioners. In her life and teaching, JoAnne was able to model both, an art historian whose range extended from cave art to Damien Hirst. She has become a drop-dead painter whose stunning canvases subtly incorporate art history from the high renaissance like Paolo di Francesca to alienated modernists like Balthus.

In the COA magazine there are pages of quotes from students appreciating JoAnne's work. I would just add to all these student tributes a colleague's deep respect for her endless self-generating energy, her constant questioning, her passionate intensity across a staggering range of subject matter, her insistence on an all-out honesty of approach, and her humility before the words, images, ideas and reality of the world we share. What I'll remember in my own nursing home years will be those classes with John and JoAnne in the lecture hall, three teachers and a classroom fully engaged, everyone piling in, JoAnne right at home. I was taken back to her own household, her Greek communist father and his right-wing relatives all talking at once over the Easter lamb.

Some of us get by with being awake some of the time but for the most part relaxed. JoAnne is on all the time. She gave herself to the college on every level and it shows in this room. Anyone witnessing the faculty's attempts to draft a job description for her replacement will know what she meant to this place. We started with one description, then realized it would take two, then realized even then that half what she offered still wouldn't be there. It became clear to all of us that she was truly irreplaceable, for her students and her colleagues. As she was an intellectual and artistic leader, she's a leader in retirement - the first faculty to leave the mother ship and scout the post-COA territory. JoAnne was present at the first graduation in 1974 and now in a way she's the first faculty graduate. She was willing to take the risk and adventure of an embryonic college in 1972; now it's grown to adolescence - a thirty-five-year-old adolescent - and JoAnne can move into the even larger adventure of the creative life. I guess it's like a person who's served a long sentence and is standing at the door with a bus ticket and civilian clothes. We hope she's been rehabilitated, and that COA will serve as background preparation for both art and life on the outside. Please write back, JoAnne, and tell us what it's like.