The Berlin Wall section in front of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy is now joined by a new oak tree as a symbol of German-American friendship and solidarity from the Goethe-Institut Houston.
To celebrate the German institute’s new Houston location, its secretary general, Johannes Ebert, worked with Kathleen Canning, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of History and dean of the School of Humanities and Arts, and Fatima Baig, lecturer of German language, to organize the event, which occurred Oct. 3 on the 35th anniversary of German reunification. As former secretary of state for President George H.W. Bush, James Baker successfully negotiated and helped the reunification process.
“Rice is small, but there’s Germanists tucked in places besides the German faculty, in the modern and classical languages, literatures and cultures like art historians,” Canning said. “And there happen to be now three of us in the history department. And as a dean, I have certainly really drawn on my German history experience.”
The oak tree is a significant national symbol in Germany, representing strength, wisdom and longevity due to its sacred status in Germanic mythology, Ebert said.