Patricia Nelson Limerick, the renowned University of Colorado at Boulder history professor who also serves as the official "University Fool," will put on white face paint and make her annual tour of campus on April 1.
Limerick will begin her tour at 10:30 a.m. in her office at the Center of the American West on the west side of Macky Auditorium, room 229. The tour is expected to last about an hour.
Limerick will be seeking "Sources of Wisdom, especially those with insight on how to keep old institutions fit and flexible." She will be asking members of the campus community their opinions about what traditions the university ought to maintain and those that it should discard.
"If someone wants to recommend the discarding of any particular departments I will be taking notes," Limerick said.
Limerick was named CU-Boulder's official "University Fool" in 1988 by former CU President Gordon Gee, and held similar positions at Harvard and Yale, where she previously taught. She usually takes a tour of campus each April 1 to remind people to lighten up and not take themselves too seriously.
"This is the Fool's job description: to point out folly wherever she sees it and to speak frankly when no one else in the kingdom dares to speak at all," she said.
Limerick is a leading scholar of Western American history. She is a 1995 MacArthur Fellow and author of the landmark book, "The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West."
For more information call Limerick at (303) 735-0104 or (303) 817-9216 (cell phone), or call Peter Caughey in the CU-Boulder Office of News Services at (303) 492-4007.