The Online Reflector

The Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center was host to “Building Heartland Cities,” a panel featuring Former Mayor of  Indianapolis William Hudnut, Mayor of Nashville, Tenn. Karl Dean and Mayor of Columbus, Ohio, Michael Coleman on April 2.
The event started with a few words from President Robert Manuel, who credited Hudnut with helping him decide to come to Indianapolis.
After Manuel spoke,  Interim Director of the Institute for Civic Leadership and Mayoral Archives and Associate Professor of History and Political Science Edward Frantz spoke about the importance of preserving the mayoral archives.
“It’s a story you want to preserve, to protect, to present to local, national and international audiences who might not know as well as the audience here does,” Frantz said.

(From left) Columbus, Ohio, Mayor Michael Coleman and former mayor of Indianapolis William Hudnut respond to questions from moderator Carolyn Coleman, director of federal relations for the National League of Cities and a UIndy trustee, during a recent panel discussion at UIndy. Photo by James Figy

The panel covered city-focused topics such as expansion, taxation and economy, immigration and mass transit. When the subject turned to education, the mayors took a turn discussing what they thought could be changed about the education systems in their respective cities.
Hudnut suggested dividing up the school districts into pie slices to emphasize neighborhood connectivity in the Indianapolis Public Schools.
Dean said that his state did not rank as high in education as it should. He said that Nashville has the most colleges of any city in Tennessee but needs to focus on preparing students to attend them.
Coleman, during his term in Columbus, led a campaign to battle fraud in the schools and said education reform is going to be “the next civil rights battle.”
The panel members ended by sharing what they hope their legacies will be. Hudnut said he thought he would be remembered for bringing the sports industry and the Colts to Indianapolis  but also for caring about people. Dean said he hoped he would simply be remembered kindly, which garnered laughs from the audience. Coleman spoke last and said that he wanted to be remembered as the first African-American mayor, and one of the few Democrats, who “led the transformation of a good city to a great city.”
According to Hudnut, the issues of urban education, city governance and public transportation are some of the most important at this point in time.
“These are some of the big topics that I think are being faced now by people who care and who are trying to think rationally and intelligently about issues that urban America faces and not just reacting with ideological rigidity,” Hudnut said.
According to Hudnut,  UIndy needs to be involved in solving these issues.
“First of all, you [UIndy] are an anchor on the South side of town. That’s very important. Secondly, your president will be involved, undoubtedly, in some of the public-private partnership expressions around here,” Hudnut said. “Thirdly, I think it’s great if students can be involved in the life of this city, maybe as interns, maybe as volunteers who help during big events like the NCAA events that come here. Fourthly, I think, through research and development … all universities are an economic driver.”
Manuel praised the panel as combining the theoretical with the practical.
“They shared with us the struggles and successes in a very honest conversation, how they dealt with some of the most pressing issues such as transportation, balancing between political life and the need to serve … all of those concepts seem relevant to us in Indianapolis and also a very good teaching tool for our students and faculty,” Manuel said.
Assistant Professor of History and Political Science Maryam Stevenson shared her take on the panel afterwards.
“I thought it was really interesting,” Stevenson said. “I thought it was a really nice way to give perspective on what’s going on currently, as well as what’s been going on in the past, in a number of different cities that are relatively the same size as Indianapolis.”