The historic house perched next to the Lefton Esplanade at South Lincoln Street on the Kent Campus, which has been home to the Wick Poetry Center since 2014, is now officially the Gaston Prentice House.
The house, at 129 S. Lincoln St., had belonged to May H. Prentice, the first female faculty member of 91ֿ, and was moved to its current location in 2013. Adding Gaston to its name reflects the generous donations by Paul Gaston, Ph.D., former 91ֿ provost and Trustees Professor Emeritus, and his wife Eileen, over many years.
David Hassler, the Bob and Walt Wick Executive Director of the Wick Poetry Center, began the dedication by quoting the words of Polish-American poet Czeslaw Milosz: “The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.”
“Our house is open,” Hassler said, “Welcome to the Gaston Prentice House, our home for poetry.”
Supporting the arts
President Todd Diacon spoke on the importance of the arts in education, and spoke about a new book by Gaston, due to be released in 2025, titled, “Rebuilding Support for Higher Education, Practical Strategies for Principled Leaders.”
Diacon said the book is a guide for university leaders, advising them to serve as their institution’s “storyteller-in-chief.” The president noted the current pressure on university leaders to focus on workforce development and the sciences.
“The sciences are important, engineering is important, nursing is important,” Diacon said. “We graduate around 500 nurses a year at 91ֿ. But so too is the Wick Poetry Center important, so too are the arts.”
Quoting from Gaston’s upcoming book, he read: “Colleges and universities need not limit their stories to patents, products or economic benefits. Creative expressions found in poetry readings, art exhibitions, musical recitals, and dance can also be documented in terms of their economic value but should be prized as well for their less tangible benefits: the entertainment offered by a musical comedy, the intellectual challenges of a piano recital, the kinetic pleasure of dance and the like.”
“To that I say ‘Hear, hear!’,” Diacon said.
‘Confluence’ of Support
Gaston spoke about the recently deceased Boston University Professor Helen Vendler, one of America’s foremost poetry experts, with whom he had studied. He said Vendler taught that great poems were examples of “confluence” – the convergence of talent, skill, perception and environment. The dedication celebration, he said, reminded him of Vendler’s theory.
“What we celebrate this afternoon is not one contribution, but many. Not one individual, but many. Not one moment, but a sustained, multi-faceted commitment emerging through the initiatives and the generosity of many generations,” Gaston said.
He noted the generosity of the Wick Family, whose donations and vision made the poetry center possible. Brothers Bob and Walt Wick first established scholarships in 1984 to support undergraduate poets at the university. Bob was a sculptor and former art department faculty member at 91ֿ, and the scholarships were born out of a desire to honor and memorialize Bob’s son Stan (1962-1980) and Walt’s son Tom (1956-1973), both of whom died in accidents as teenagers on the same day, seven years apart.
After the Gastons lost their son, Tyler, in an accident in 2004, they began to look for ways to memorialize him and, in 2005, endowed a fund to dedicate the Wick Poetry Corner at University Libraries, which houses the Tyler Lee Gaston Collection of 20th- and 21st-century books of poetry. The collection continues to grow each year.
The porch of the Gaston Prentice House is also named in Tyler Gaston’s memory, in recognition of the times he spent participating in Wick Poetry Center activities.
Prentice Legacy
Many descendants of Prentice attended the dedication, including her great-grandniece, Alice Cone, an English instructor at 91ֿ, who reflected on the house’s rich history and the memories it holds for her family.
Cone, who has taught courses in the house, said her feelings are best summed up by words from Prentice herself, from a 1906 Library Journal article that Prentice wrote to describe her course of study on juvenile literature and advocating the use of the library by teachers, “who share the library’s buoyant faith and the blessing which books bring.”
“These advocates work diligently to make their pupils wise and discriminating patrons of the library so that the children of their care and love might have life and have it more abundantly,” Cone said, quoting Prentice.
Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, gave a history of Prentice’s time at the university, detailing her teaching career, which began at age 16 at a one-room schoolhouse in Ashtabula, Ohio, to her role as one of the first faculty members at what was then known as the Kent Normal School in 1912.
In 1913, Prentice was named the director of elementary training, and in 1927, she was made professor of education, teaching English, the history of education and school management until she retired in 1930.
Upon her retirement, alumni from the classes of 1928-1934 dedicated the May H. Prentice Memorial Gate, at the corner of East Main and South Lincoln streets in her honor. The gate was later moved to prevent its damage from road salt, but it remains on the Front Campus today.
A sketch that Gaston made of the finial that sits atop the gate is being used as the graphic mark separating the names Gaston and Prentice on the home’s formal title in printing and signage.
The dedication ceremony kicked off Wick’s 40th anniversary celebration that will culminate in three days of events and a gala Sept. 19-21.