The bust of John Dewey will officially be moved from the English office to the Pritzker Traubert Family High School Library, and through requests, will be able to move to a new place in the school for a minimum of one week.

The final decision for the new home of Dewey’s bust was a combination of the two qualified submissions.

The team proposing the library included high school librarians Susan Augustine and Shirley Volk, middle school librarian Tad Andracki, U. of C. Professor of Practice in the Arts Rachel Cohen, and U-High students Otto Brown and Mayher Kaur.

In the proposal, the group described the library as a place filled with “gateways to ideas and new worlds.” They wrote that the bust is a reminder of the ideas in which Dewey founded the school, and that these philosophical concepts are best pondered in a meditative area within the school.

Mayher said, “I think the library would be the best place for the sculpture because it has a lot of foot traffic in its daily life, and so the bust would get a little more recognition than in other places.”

The second submission was inspired by the Stanley Cup, and proposed that the bust be positioned on a pedestal and have the ability to move around the school.

This team consisted of kindergarten school teacher Dave Kaleta, middle school teacher Ruthie Williams, high school teacher Brian Wildeman, Development Associate Devin Wildeman, Manager of Special Projects and School Outreach Alexzandra Wallace, U. of C. Executive Director of Student Civic Engagement Initiatives Shaz Rasul, sophomore Marcelo Gutierrez, seventh grader student Ameya Deo and kindergarten students Kiran Masur and Willow Close.

It was written in the proposal, “The bust of John Dewey doesn’t want to be sedentary gathering dust. Like the man himself it wants to be actively inspiring creativity, collaboration and learning by doing.”

Director Charlie Abelmann said, “It’s great that we had two proposals. Both proposals were thoughtful and good and creative.”