May 20, 2020, Filed Under: MeetingsMay 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 Continue Reading May 20 Virtual Meeting Recap
May 15, 2020, Filed Under: Development UpdatesSpring 2020 Update from Sondra Lomax Dear Friends, I hope you are staying safe and well during these unprecedented and challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since our campus was closed on March 13th, the COFA development team has been working hard—albeit from our homes—to continue reaching out to our alumni and friends to check on their well-being and to continue conversations regarding their philanthropy to support our academic mission. Due to the amazing loyalty and dedication of the Longhorn Nation and our COFA friends, we have been able to help the university raise over $1.3 million for UT’s Student Emergency Fund. In addition, fundraising for the college has increased by $500,000 during the past two months. We have surpassed our fundraising goal of $15 million for this fiscal year and are on track for even more donations. For all these gifts, we are extremely grateful. Continue Reading Spring 2020 Update from Sondra Lomax
May 15, 2020, Filed Under: From the ChairAnnouncing Next Year’s Chair: Caroline Schupbach Dean Doug Dempster, Vicki Bartholow, Caroline Schupbach and Sondra Lomax at the 2017 fall meeting / Photo by Lawrence Peart We are proud to announce that Caroline Schupbach of San Antonio will become chair of the Fine Arts Advisory Council beginning in 2020-2021. Lisa Thurmond nominated Caroline to join the council in 2015, and in 2017, Caroline received the council’s Fedora Award for Advocacy (pictured above) for spearheading the creation of the Fine Arts Parents Council and her service on the Executive Committee. She and her husband Robert are both UT graduates, and their daughter Margaret will be a senior next year in the Moody College of Communication. Caroline also serves on the Executive Board of Directors for the Charity Ball Association and is involved with numerous arts organizations in San Antonio and Santa Fe. “I am delighted to be leading the Fine Arts Advisory Council this year,” Caroline says. “It has been such a pleasure to watch the sea-change in COFA led by Dean Dempster over the last several years. He has poised the college to be ready for the challenges that we are facing right now as well as prepared the college to turn the page to a new chapter of leadership.”
May 14, 2020, Filed Under: From the ChairSpring 2020 Message from Sara Hallam Dear Members, This spring has not been like any other, and I hope this message finds you and your families well. While we were unfortunately not able to gather for our typical regional meetings this spring, I am glad so many were able to join us for our first ever virtual council meeting in April, and I hope to see you all again on the May 20 call next week. This new online format opens up many possibilities to stay connected and informed between meetings, and I look forward to regularly hearing from Dean Dempster and amazing faculty members like Julie Schell and Robert Ramirez. Also, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many Fine Arts students have had their in-person internships canceled this spring and for the summer, so I’m calling on the council to help the college find new placements for these bright and talented students, either for the summer or this fall. If you work with an arts organization that has virtual internships or might be interested in transitioning their in-person internships online, please email Natalie so she can pass that information along to the Fine Arts Career Services team. Continue Reading Spring 2020 Message from Sara Hallam
April 28, 2020, Filed Under: From the DeanAnnouncing Robert Ramirez as Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance Dear Advisory Council members, I write to share the happy news that Professor Robert Ramirez is now the chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, effective immediately. He will be holder of the Z.T. Scott Family Chair in Drama and the Susan Menefee Ragan Regents Professorship in Fine Arts. Leading a department as complex as Theatre and Dance is never a small challenge. Doing that as an interim is extra challenging. Being interim chair during a pandemic when the world has been turned upside down and we’re asked to reinvent our pedagogical practices virtually overnight is something none of us could have anticipated and is surely nothing Robert ever signed up for in advance. Continue Reading Announcing Robert Ramirez as Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance
April 14, 2020, Filed Under: MeetingsApril 14 Virtual Meeting Recap Dear Advisory Council members, Once again, thank you to everyone who joined last week’s Zoom call. For those of you who weren’t able to attend here is a quick recap of what we discussed. I started the call sporting a hat gifted to me by Byron LeFlore (thank you, Byron) and a mask made by artist and faculty member, Beili Liu. The mask is made out of a prayer flag from the art installation THIRST that Professor Liu created at Lady Bird Lake in 2013, which featured 14,000 of these flags. Professor Liu is converting 1,000 of the flags into masks to distribute – just one example of the creative and innovative ways our Fine Arts community is responding to the COVID-19 crisis. My thanks to our members who have given generously to the University’s Student Emergency Fund. For the many students who were already financially insecure, this pandemic has pushed them over the edge. The fund has already distributed more than $1 million, but continues to receive more than 100 applications a day, so we’re extremely grateful for everyone’s help. Some of you have contacted us about giving directly to COFA students, in addition to the UT Student Emergency Fund, and for those donations, I ask that you consider a gift to The Doty Society, our college’s unrestricted student support fund. Continue Reading April 14 Virtual Meeting Recap
February 18, 2020, Filed Under: From the DeanAnnouncing Susan Rather as Chair of the Department of Art and Art History Dear Advisory Council members, I am pleased to announce that, effective immediately, Professor Susan Rather is now the department chair and Meredith and Cornelia Long Chair of Art and Art History in the Department of Art and Art History. She is the first woman chair in the department’s history and first art historian chair in many decades. I am grateful to Susan for her able leadership as interim chair during the transition period this past year; she’s garnered my support and that of faculty. I’m also grateful to the search committee for their excellent work in evaluating internal candidates for this role. Continue Reading Announcing Susan Rather as Chair of the Department of Art and Art History
December 19, 2019, Filed Under: Development UpdatesWinter 2019 Update from Sondra Lomax Dear Friends, This past September, we held one of our best Advisory Council fall meetings to date! Thank you to all who were able to attend and enjoyed the presentations by Dean Doug Dempster, our outstanding faculty, and our talented students. Since that meeting, the development officers have been busy meeting with council members, alumni, and friends across the country, and their hard work has paid off. I am pleased to announce that as of December 6th, the College of Fine Arts has raised over $8.7 million to support our students, faculty, programs, and facilities. We are well on our way towards our goal of $15 million for 2019-2020, and we could not do it without the support of YOU as Advisory Council members! Continue Reading Winter 2019 Update from Sondra Lomax
December 16, 2019, Filed Under: From the ChairWinter 2019 Message from Sara Hallam Dear Members, By now, you have seen Doug’s official announcement that he will be retiring as dean by the end of the 2020-2021 academic year. This is bittersweet news, but I am grateful that we as a council still have more than a year to help him realize his goals for the college. For more than a decade, Doug has worked tirelessly to expand the College of Fine Arts and build an arts college of the 21st century. However, he would remind us that there is still plenty of work to be done. As he told us at the fall meeting, the college must never stop evolving to meet the demands of an ever-changing world. Continue Reading Winter 2019 Message from Sara Hallam
December 10, 2019, Filed Under: From the DeanAn Update on My Retirement as Dean Dear Advisory Council members, I write to let you know that I will be stepping down as dean of the College of Fine Arts by the end of the 2020–2021 academic year. The provost will soon be making a public announcement, but I wanted you to hear from me directly. As I told you at the fall meeting, I plan to return to my long-deferred research and teaching interests after a long administrative career. Serving as dean has been a great honor. It’s been the most gratifying good fortune to work alongside such a dedicated, smart and generous advisory council. My admiration for you is greater today than it was my first day as interim dean many years ago, and I admired you all enormously then. We’ve been through a period of tremendous challenge, change and growth during the last ten years. I’m proud enough to believe that the college is among the very best public university arts colleges in the country, populist in our access, venerable in our traditions, but also admired for our progressiveness. I’m hugely optimistic about the college’s future as well as the future of arts education in this country. The provost will be forming a search committee and launching a national search for the college’s next dean. In the meantime, there’s much still to be accomplished over the next year. Excelsior! Doug Dempster Dean
