By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
More than five years after her death, Dawn Glanz, a professor emeritus of art history, was honored by the Bowling Green State University Faculty Senate.
The senate approved a memorial resolution by an unanimous voice vote Tuesday (Feb. 19). Glanz, a professor emeritus who retired in 2003, was the victim of an unsolved murder in 2013.
And that’s part of the reason the resolution was proposed, said Rebecca Skinner Green.
Green said that Glanz was her colleague, mentor, and friend. “A few of us are following this through, hoping to get a resolution in the case.”
The Glanz cause was picked up by the TV show “Cold Justice.” A crew from the show came to Bowling Green to tape and talk to people who knew Glanz and have some involvement in the case.
That included Green and her husband, Ewart Skinner. They went to her home the day after she was found dead in her home on Kensington Boulevard, on May 9, 2013, to offer their condolences. They spoke to her husband, Robert Brown, before he talked to the detectives. Brown remains a suspect in the case.
On Tuesday, Green said she did not want to get into the details. She’s concerned about “messing up” the ongoing investigation.
The producers of “Cold Justice” told her and her husband that they felt there was enough evidence to go to trial. “The prosecuting attorney (Paul Dobson) wasn’t so sure, and I appreciate that as well,” Green said. “You only get one shot at these things.”
She hopes “if we can get people to bring it forward so people think about it, maybe remember something about it, remember something they saw, somehow get that attention out there so it just doesn’t turn into this cold case that disappears forever.”
Another motivating factor for putting the resolution on the agenda was the ill health of Glanz’ sister, Gail Lincoln. Glanz’ nephew contacted Lynn Whitney, another friend of Glanz in the School of Art, and urged her to get the memorial resolution finalized. The meeting was a second optional senate meeting of the month. The man business was a forum on proposed changes to the university charter.
The sister is the last surviving of three close-knit siblings, Green said.
Green said that the resolution didn’t get passed at the time of Glanz’ death because it was after the spring semester had ended, and senate wasn’t meeting.
The circumstances of the death aside, the resolution outlines a distinguished career, starting with graduating magna cum laude from Ponoma College leading to her career at BGSU from 1978 through 2003. Glanz was highly respected in her field.
Green said that when she joined the BGSU faculty in 1996, Glanz opened up her home to her and let her stay there until she found her own place.
“Dawn was my closest colleague,” Green said.
“She did wonderful things in her classes,” she remembered.
Toward the end of her career she was teaching a seminar in portraiture. The final project was a potluck supper. Students each had to create a meal that reflected who they were. They had to talk about the dishes in relation to themselves using the concepts they’d learned over the course of the semester.
“Then they had this great meal together,” Green said. “She did some really fantastic things.”
