Twente Hall Memories: Why the Cold Duck?
"In 1974, the news release announcing the dedication of Twente Hall in the memory of the founder of social work education at KU listed Esther Twente's many accomplishments.
However, to three junior faculty members who had been mentored by Esther (Mary Wylie, Shirley Patterson and me), the resume summary failed to capture her warmth, energy, sense of humor, and especially her genuine humbleness to the point of embarrassment about the accolades associated with the naming of Twente Hall. The agenda for the naming event appeared to be rather stodgy and out of character for Esther's delightful personality.
As associate chair of the department and director of the undergraduate program, I was offered the opportunity to make a few remarks about Esther at the dedication. Mary, Shirley and I decided we should liven up the ceremony by treating this as the inauguration of a ship and breaking a bottle of champagne over the bow of the building.
Then, we concluded that Esther would have felt that champagne would be far too ritzy and that a less expensive drink, Cold Duck, would be an appropriate message about her commitment to the poor and disadvantaged. I used my time on the program to make this point, and, to the surprise of the audience, I pulled a bottle of Cold Duck from under the podium and smashed it over a corner of the building.
The picture of the exploding bottle of Cold Duck made the front page of the University Daily Kansan and 50 years later appears in the materials announcing the move from Twente Hall to Green Hall."
Bradford Sheafor was associate dean of the KU School of Social Welfare when the school moved into Twente Hall in 1974. Sheafor earned an MSW from KU in 1961.
Read more Twente Hall Memories.
The School of Social Welfare will move out of Twente Hall, the school's longtime home on the KU Lawrence Campus, at the end of the fall 2024 semester. The School will move into a renovated space on the third floor of Green Hall. Read more about our Farewell to Twente Hall.