It is a vivid mark of the enormous regard in which Dorothy Frapwell was held, that so many people from so many aspects of her rich and varied life are here to honor her and to celebrate this life, filled as it was, with glittering accomplishments both personal and professional. These are widely known to all here and have appeared in many written tributes and obituaries since her sad passing on April 25 this year. So I will only summarize these briefly, but then relate some personal and professional remembrances from the 26 years I knew her.
Dorothy Frapwell was universally known as Dottie. But of course, in addressing her, the respectful among us – which of course were all of us – would simply call her, with the greatest affection, the Princess. Never was such a name more apposite. Her patrician bearing – and tastes – were a distant reminder of an aristocracy which this country threw out in 1776. Her tastes spoke to the highest level of sophistication and refinement. Dottie, as Churchill said of himself, was easily satisfied with the best.
Dottie graduated with a J.D. from IU’s Maurer School of Law in 1973. And in 1975 she joined IU’s legal staff as Associate University Counsel. She then spent the next 37 years at IU in a variety of positions of the highest importance until her retirement in 2012. She rose to become IU’s chief legal officer in 1990 and was named Vice President and University Counsel in 2006. She served as a close advisor and trusted confidant to four IU presidents until her retirement. In a sense she gave her professional life to IU and served it with the greatest distinction, integrity, and dedication. She was respected and loved by all.
I first met Dottie soon after I arrived at IU in 1997 and would see her nearly weekly at Myles Brand’s cabinet meetings. I had little to do with her for some time. I think she looked upon me with some disdain as an upstart colonial from the Antipodes. But the overwhelming impression I had of Dottie was the respect and regard in which she was held. When Dottie spoke, all went quiet, and all listened. And when she fixed you with that steely blink-less stare over her half-lens reading glasses, even the strongest quaked.
One memory of that first year of which I am especially fond, is Dottie’s birthday celebrations held during one of Myles’ cabinet meetings. Birthday celebrations were held regularly at his cabinet meetings, an unusual moment of levity for someone as serious and business-like as he was. My birthday is a week before Dottie’s, but it came and went unnoticed. But a week later Dottie’s birthday came and was marked at the next cabinet meeting with a level of celebration and splendor that I have likened, with only some exaggeration, as similar to one of Caesar’s triumphs – a description BTW which Dottie thought fully appropriate.
But soon we began working together more and more as the legal issues grew in which my then portfolio was involved. I still remember with some pride, her calling me in Washington in 2000, to tell me that we had just been sued by the paleolithic rock group Metallica because of the work we were doing related to Napster, and so we could discuss options as to how to proceed. What of course emerged from that early tumultuous period was media streaming that soon changed the world. And in a sense, Dottie had been present at the creation for the very earliest of legal fights.
In 2004 Laurie, who by then had become fast friends with Dottie as well, and I travelled with her and also Heidi and Barry Gealt, and Terry and Dave Bear (the latter also sadly deceased) to Italy for about 10 utterly memorable days in that most wonderful of cities, Venice. This was Dottie in excelsis – superb food and wine, sublime art and architecture – and of course shopping! It was a city fit for a princess. It was also the city where I – successfully – proposed to Laurie, though we didn’t at that time tell the rest of our party. Dottie, on hearing this later, took some credit as she said it had demonstrated to Laurie that under her, Dottie’s, patient regal tutelage, I had become moderately civilized.
On July 1, 2007, I became IU president and Dottie and I worked with the greatest closeness together for the next five years. We usually spoke or met, multiple times a week, though there were still occasional opportunities for all of us to indulge together in her regal epicurean tastes and recreations.
It was Dottie who asked to see me urgently just 11 days after I started, to brief me on the Kelvin Sampson situation. I’ll never forget her opening words – “We have a problem." Certainly, the understatement of that year. That began an 18-month period of dealing with an extremely difficult situation in which the legal issues were paramount and publicly prominent, and Dottie’s role in all of this was crucial and central. Together with Mike Sample, Karen Adams, Bill Stephan, Steve Ferguson for the Trustees, and a few others though, Dottie navigated us safely through this infamous period. But at the end of it, less than 18 months later, we had a new scandal-free men’s basketball coach and athletic director. And through all of this, Dottie’s contributions were beyond praise. But the strain and stress of this period took its toll on her health – she had already been diagnosed with cancer – and I am of the view that it sadly hastened her retirement a few years later.
So in the fall of 2011, Dottie came to see me and haltingly and with the greatest of difficulty, told me her health had got to a point where she simply had to retire, but that by so doing, she could expect to live much longer. And thankfully she did for over another 10 years. During that time to the very end, she was able to enjoy and indulge her aristocratic tastes for travel, principally in Europe, where she would regularly regale us with texts at all hours of the day and night, as to Michelin-starred restaurants at which she had just eaten, and fine hotels at which she was staying, all with penetrating critiques – and of course shopping! Laurie has shopped at some of the stores that Dottie recommended in Paris and can attest to their quality – and price.
It is maybe customary to end remarks like these with a claim that the person being eulogized was irreplaceable. But thankfully for IU it proved possible to replace her with a person of comparable legal abilities who served IU superbly and loyally during my term in office. But I am sure Jackie Simmons will agree, that in all other respects, Dottie was irreplaceable.
To all those who took such loving and tender care of Dottie in her last months, Karen Adams, Beth Cate, Kip Drew, Robin Gress, Joe Husk, Jennifer Kincaid and Nicki Mann, to her sister Liz Evans and other family members here today, to all her carers and doctors, we all owe you our deepest gratitude and thanks for all you did for her. She will always be the Princess of our hearts.