Fall Semester at CVAD

This is a wonderful time of exploration and expansion in the arts in North Texas. The new Arts District in Dallas with its truly magnificent performing arts venues will open, Denton will be connected with Dallas by rail in December, and Fall 2009 includes significant milestones for CVAD: we graduated our largest class of students during the past academic year and are now welcoming our largest group of new students for the Fall. We will be announcing new scholarships, fellowships, and graduate student support this fall, so it should be a great semester.

To work with our new students, we have a new class of faculty as well. Our college was successful in hiring eight new faculty this year and we are very pleased to welcome:

• Terry Barrett, Associate Professor, Art Education
• Laura Beard, Assistant Professor, Core Design
• Alex Egner, Assistant Professor of Communication Design
• Shane Mecklenburger, Assistant Professor of New Media Art
• Paul Niell, Assistant Professor of Art History
• James Thurman, Assistant Professor, Core Design
• Jenny Vogel, Assistant Professor of New Media Art

This brings our complement up to 52 fulltime tenured and tenure track faculty. We will also be welcoming Rachel Black and Lesli Robertson as fulltime lecturers along with Matthew Sontheimer and Karen Dorff joining us again as visiting Assistant Professors.

CVAD is expanding its curriculum, initiating two new degree programs: The BFA Studio Art concentration in New Media Art and the MFA Design major in Innovation Studies. Over the summer, we have upgraded all of our computer labs and added a new digital output station in photography. The server farm purchased for the design research center will be up and running this fall and we have a new CNC router installed in sculpture installed this summer. We are looking forward this fall to the launch of iARTA, the interdisciplinary Initiative for Advanced Research in Technology and the Arts, a new program linking CVAD faculty and students with colleagues in the College of Music, the College of Engineering, and the Departments of Radio, Television and Film. The iARTA LEAP Symposium, August 27-28, will initiate this program as well as the new school year!

The Fall semester will also include the third annual Priddy Symposium  in Advanced Arts Leadership and workshops and visiting artists sponsored by PRINT, the Print Research Institute of North Texas.

We will be preparing for the fifth annual Medieval Art History Symposium and for a collaboration with faculty in Environmental Philosophy and Environmental Science on a new waterways symposium. And we will be launching a 1% for Art program on campus, the University's new Institute for Advancement of the Arts, and UNT on the Square in Denton.

This summer, the UNTArtGalleries sponsored a wonderful show of early Texas Art from the A.C. and Diane Cook "Hock Shop Collection." The show exemplified UNT and CVAD's roles in the community and in the education of our students. Committed to the people of Texas, diverse in style and theme, and dedicated to the exquisite pursuit of the arts, the collection marked the institution's commitment to make the arts available to the community and the world, and to encourage scholarship and educational opportunities around the visual arts. As a center for art education, art history, studio art and design, CVAD will continue to explore the past, present, and future of the arts.

In 2009, CVAD alum Jesus Moroles received the National Medal of Arts from President George Bush this spring, and CVAD emeritus faculty member Vernon Fisher was selected as a Living Legend in the Arts by the Contemporary Art Center of Dallas. And this fall, CVAD Fashion Design alum Shirin Askari will appear on Project Runway (vote for Shirin!!!). As the semester goes on, you will be able to see the many accomplishments of the faculty, students, and alumni of the College as well as new events at the College in this letter and in the announcements on the website. Please visit the college and the website often to keep in touch. And when you do, think of the ways that you can help our faculty, staff and students in their pursuit of their studies and their creative and scholarly fields. See support CVAD for ways in which you can help, or just call us and ask!      

 Robert Milnes, Dean

College of Visual Arts and Design 
University of North Texas
August, 2009