Meetings

Dear Advisory Council members,

Please join us for our third Fine Arts Advisory Council virtual fall meeting on Wednesday, November 18, from 1:00 to 2:30 p.m.

Dean Doug Dempster will be in conversation with our Fine Arts Student Council President Yessmeen Moharram, and Assistant Dean Doreen Lorenzo — along with Design Chair Kate Canales and AET Interim Chair Michael Baker — will give an in-depth look at what’s new in the School of Design and Creative Technologies, including the new M.A. in Design in Health program that launched this fall in partnership with the Dell Medical School.

We will send out more details next week, but until then, please send any questions to me or to Natalie Schuessler. I hope you will join us, and as always, don’t forget to RSVP to cofarsvp@austin.utexas.edu so we know to expect you.

Warm Regards,

Sondra Lomax
Executive Director of Development

Hello members of the College of Fine Arts Advisory Council!

I’m looking forward to seeing you again on Thursday, October 22 at 10:30 a.m. CST.

In this age of COVID-19 and Zoom, we’ve exchanged our convivial in-person Advisory Council meetings for more frequent Zoom sessions. The disadvantages of not being together a few times a year is clear enough, but video conferencing lets us share more views into the college more frequently. And we’re going to make the most of that silver lining in this pandemic cloud.

The really great, encouraging thing that I want you to know is that teaching and learning and creative invention and discovery and debate and collaboration are going on still every day. In short, education and creativity carry on! We just have to zoom in a little closer to find it.

And we’re going to make this as educational and as interesting for you as we can. If we do this right, each of our council meetings should be a little slice of college life for you to share in—at least virtually.

So, to prepare you for our meeting on the 22nd, I’ve included the following links for your homework! (And no, you won’t be quizzed or graded!)

In addition to my usual scintillating updates on what’s happening in the college, you’re going to learn about the creative and production challenges of mounting a dance performance in the age of COVID by choreographer and faculty member, Charles Anderson, head of our Dance program. Professor Anderson’s choreography is “Afro-contemporary” or “Afrocentric,” which makes his work especially timely in a period when we as a campus and nation are once again coming to grips with issues of race.

Professor Anderson’s piece, (Re)current Unrest, is in socially distanced rehearsal right now, as I write you, on the stage of Bass Concert Hall—with financial and operational support from Texas Performing Arts—in preparation for a live-streaming performance this coming Friday and Saturday (Oct. 16/17) at 7:30 p.m. CST.

Your first homework assignment is to watch the streamed performance if you can. To watch, go to this link on either evening and enter the password 2020TAD_Recurrent. Your “tickets” are free, as we will underwrite your attendance from Advisory Council dues.

Next Thursday, during our council meeting you’ll get to meet and ask questions of Professor Anderson and, I hope, one or more of his dancers. They’ll be interviewed by Robert Ramirez, chair of Theatre and Dance.

And if you’d like to do some extra-credit homework, I’ll suggest you read this article from SMU’s DataArts called “Choreographing the Future: How Dance Companies are Turning Crisis into Opportunity,” which focuses coincidentally on how the famed Dallas Black Dance Theater is responding to the pandemic.

And if you can’t do your homework, come to the Advisory Council meeting anyway and be part of the conversation.

Looking forward to seeing you! Excelsior!

Doug Dempster
Dean

Dear Advisory Council members,

What is exciting about gathering online, for our students and faculty, but also for the council, is that it provides the opportunity to explore new and interesting ways of engaging with each other using this technology.

Thanks to those of you who offered your feedback after the Sept. 25 fall meeting and the Oct. 5 spotlight session. We will continue to offer surveys following each of our meetings, which I hope you will complete, to help us make these events as interesting and productive as possible.

With that in mind, I invite you to join us for our second virtual fall meeting on Thursday, Oct. 22, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. CST, and I am looking forward to introducing some new features to this meeting, including more time to interact with your fellow members via small breakout discussions.

Additionally, we have all wished for the opportunity to return to college and classroom learning, so I hope you’ll also indulge me in assigning a little bit of homework before Oct. 22. Look for more details in an upcoming email.

Finally, don’t forget to RSVP to cofarsvp@austin.utexas.edu so we know to expect you, and feel free to contact Sondra Lomax or Natalie Schuessler with any questions.

See you Oct. 22, and thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm.

Excelsior!

Doug Dempster
Dean

Dear Advisory Council Members,

Thank you again to those of you who joined us Friday for our first fall virtual meeting of the season. As I mentioned on the call, to supplement those meetings, we are introducing a new Spotlight Series for this academic year, with each session highlighting one of the college’s departments or programs.

I am pleased to invite you to the first session on Monday, October 5, at 10:30 a.m. CST, which will feature Chair Susan Rather of the Department of Art and Art History.

As you know, the Department of Art and Art History is one of the largest and most diverse in the country, with programs in Studio Art, Art History, and Art Education, as well as projects like the internationally renowned Mesoamerica Center and the popular long-running Learning Tuscany summer program. Susan Rather has served for nearly three decades on the Art History faculty and was named chair this February. Some of our San Antonio members had a chance to meet her this spring and hear about her vision for the department as well as her own research.

As always, we appreciate your RSVP to cofarsvp@austin.utexas.edu so we know to expect you. Please also send any questions you may have for Susan.

I hope you will join us for this special opportunity to learn more about the Department of Art and Art History, its programs, and its faculty.

Warm Regards,

Sondra Lomax
Executive Director of Development