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Art Department/Changes

After six years as head, Anna Calluori Holcombe has returned to our faculty ranks. She spent the fall 2000 semester on research leave. In September, she was an artist in residence at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana wgere she planned to re-charge her creative work and get ready to teach full time in the spring 2001 semester.

Looking back over the past six years, there are some evident major improvements in the Art Department, such as; first time accreditation by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. The process allowed us to review where we were as a department and where we wanted to go in the future.

As part of this process, the curriculum was revamped, facilities improved particularly regarding safety issues, and the budget increased.

The faces in the department have changed dramatically as many faculty retired and a couple left for other opportunities. There have been a number of successful new hires that have brought a vitality to the department. The staff has been increased by way of a half time office assistant and a half time shop technician.

A few years ago Anna initiated an Advisory Committee to assist her in fundraising for the department. This group successfully re-instated the Art Scholarship Auction and raised $18,000 in 1997. One of the areas dear to Anna’s heart has been international programming. The student and faculty exchange with the Norwich School of Art and Design was already established when she arrived, but since then she has developed exchanges with Glasgow School of Art and University of Dundee in Scotland and Trier Germany. She has recently visited with the dean and art faculty at Shanghai Teachers University to initiate an exchange in China. Summer pro