May 20 Virtual Meeting Recap

Dear Advisory Council members,

We are facing difficult challenges created by COVID-19, but I’m finding that there are also silver linings. Just a few months ago, the Fine Arts Advisory Council had never held a virtual meeting, and now, we’ve completed our second Zoom meeting where we once again had nearly a third of our council join us. I think the days of only connecting with you once or twice a year at meetings are gone, and that is a change I can embrace enthusiastically.

For those of you unable to attend, I hope you’ll take some time to watch the recording of the meeting, especially the presentations by Robert Ramirez, our chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, and Julie Schell, our assistant dean for instructional continuity and innovation. The surprise video message from Renee Fleming to our opera students is not to be missed, and here are links to the other student work we featured:

• The Butler School’s Mariachi Ensemble performs together online
• Dance students find creative places to perform when the studios close
• The 2020 B.F.A. Design exhibition went virtual, with stunning results

A few other highlights from the meeting …

• The college’s first-ever virtual commencement ceremony was Saturday, and my thanks to Advisory Council member Sammetria Goodson of Dallas, an Art History alumna, who did an excellent job as the commencement speaker for this untraditional ceremony.

• We are still planning for multiple contingencies for the fall semester, but I’m happy to report that we have not seen any drop-off in enrollment, and we have some immensely talented freshmen recruits joining the community in August.

• We also have about a dozen new faculty joining us in the fall, including Billy Hunter, who some of you might have met in 2015 when we honored him with the E. William Doty Young Alumnus Award. Billy graduated from the Butler School in 1997 and for many years has been Principal Trumpet for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York City. Billy will now teach in the same role as his mentor, Ray Crisara.

• Finally, thanks to friends like you, the university’s Student Emergency Fund has been hugely successful. In a matter of weeks, the university has been able to distribute $3.7 million to students who are in financial distress because of the pandemic. I’m appreciative to those of you who gave.