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, Filed Under: From the Chair

Save the Date: Spring Meeting in Santa Fe, March 30 – April 1, 2023

Dear Advisory Council and Parents Council members,

We are looking so forward to the COFA Advisory Council meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico this spring and are hopeful you can join us. In place of our traditional spring meetings across Texas, we are delighted to invite you to three days of tours, social events, and of course, a brief meeting in this dynamic cultural community, one that shares many supporters in common with our college.

Below is preliminary information so you can begin your plans. We will have the full itinerary of activities in January, but wanted to give you an idea of the wonderful activities we are planning.

Tentative Schedule
Thursday, March 30
Evening Reception at La Fonda on the Plaza

Friday, March 31
Coffee and Business Meeting at La Fonda on the Plaza
Lunch on your own
Optional tours
Evening reception at a private home

Saturday, April 1
Optional tours
Lunch or Evening Reception at a private home

Accommodations
We have a group rate at La Fonda On the Plaza.
100 E. San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Use this link to reserve your room now.
The block includes several different categories of rooms for you to choose from, including rooms in the newly renovated boutique part of the hotel, The Terrace Inn.
Please contact the hotel directly if you plan to arrive prior to March 30 and/or stay longer than April 2. You can find the full block information including pricing and parking here.

Additional Information
Guests are responsible for their own air and ground travel arrangements.
Flights are available into Santa Fe airport via American Airlines or United Airlines. Flights are available to Albuquerque airport via Southwest Airlines and many more. It is a one hour drive from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. Rental cars, Uber or pre-arranged transportation services are available.

If you have any questions, please reach out to Assistant Director of Development Lauren Cunningham at lauren.cunningham@austin.utexas.edu.

 

In January we will be sending out more details, suggestions for meals and sight-seeing that are not included as well as information how to register for activities. Stay tuned, but please go ahead and book your hotel and flights soon!

Warm Regards,
Caroline Schupbach signature
Caroline Schupbach
Chair

 

, Filed Under: From the Dean

Remembering Bob Freeman

Dear Friends,
 
I write today to share the news that former College of Fine Arts Dean Bob Freeman passed away on Oct. 18. Dean Freeman led the college from 2000 through 2007 and left a lasting legacy here. You can read more about his life and career here.
 
Please join me in extending our condolences to his family, friends and colleagues. Details are still pending for a memorial service, and we’ll share out more information once we receive it.
 
Sincerely,
Ramón H. Rivera-Servera
Dean, College of Fine Arts

, Filed Under: From the Executive Director

Fall 2022 Meeting Recap

Dear Friends,

On behalf of Dean Rivera-Servera and the entire College of Fine Arts, thank you to all who joined us at the 2022 Fine Arts Advisory Council Fall Meeting on October 13-14! We appreciate your attendance to celebrate the various achievements of the college over the past year, engage in the lively round-table discussions, hear about our outstanding fundraising success, and listen to the dean’s report on new faculty hires and new community projects.

Additional thanks to Provost Sharon Wood and our other inspiring presenters on Friday: Nathan Langfitt, Director of Career Services; Kate Dawson, Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance; and the guest performers from the Butler Opera Center. We are especially grateful to Megan and Ryan Zafereo for hosting us in their lovely home for our Thursday evening reception, and the performers, Yebeen Seo and Ellie Sievers, from the violin studio of Professor Brian Lewis.

You can access copies of the meeting handouts here.

Please watch your email for information on upcoming events and save the date for our 2023 Spring Meeting in Santa Fe, New Mexico, March 30-April 1.

Thank you again for all you do for the College of Fine Arts!

Warm Regards,
Sondra Lomax signature
Sondra Lomax
Executive Director of Director of Development

, Filed Under: Development Updates

Fall 2022 Development Report

Sondra Lomax
Executive Director and Assistant Dean for Development

As we move into the new academic year with less threat from COVID-19, the College of Fine Arts continues to raise the bar on excellence in 21st century arts education. To make this possible, we have increased momentum in our fundraising operation with a boost from the public launch of the UT-wide “What Starts Here” capital campaign in March 2022 and with important help from members of our Advisory Council.

For academic year 2021-2022, the College of Fine Arts received over $44.8 million in gifts and pledges. This accomplishment is the result of dedicated efforts by Advisory Council members, chairs and directors, development staff, alumni, and friends. To each of you, I extend my heartfelt thanks on behalf of the College of Fine Arts and its students.

Most of this $44.8 million is restricted, meaning that funds are designated to specific endowments or purposes. Some are planned gifts that will provide us with transformational funding in the future. But all of these gifts share a common bond: they help the college in its pursuit of excellence so that we can continue to provide the best arts education and creative research opportunities for our students.

Last year’s success was a milestone, heralding the second-largest fundraising total in the history of the college. The largest fundraising year was over $55 million in 2008 with the generous naming gift for the music school by Ernest and Sarah Butler.

This year’s fundraising is off to a great start: Since September 1, 2022, the college has raised over $14.9 million! Our goal for this fiscal year is $15 million, and we are well on our way to exceeding that goal. With your help, we will make it another banner year!

Continue Reading Fall 2022 Development Report

, Filed Under: From the Dean

Welcoming new faculty members to the College of Fine Arts

Photo mosaic with headshots of 13 new faculty members in the College of Fine Arts
Dear Friends,

 

We’ve had a robust season of faculty recruiting and hiring this past year, and I’m excited to introduce our new cohort of career faculty members. This cohort represents a diverse array of cultural and scholarly backgrounds and expands research and creative practice opportunities across the college.

 

Please join me in extending a warm Texas welcome to all of these new colleagues.

 

Tasheka Arceneaux-Sutton, Associate Professor in the Department of Design
Arceneaux’s is the principal at Blacvoice Design, a studio specializing in branding, electronic media, identity, illustration, print, and publication design, for educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and small businesses. Her research focuses on discovering Black people omitted from the graphic design history canon, and she joins us from North Carolina State University.

 

David Arevalo, Assistant Professor in the Department Theatre and Dance
Arevalo is a costume maker, designer and visual artist. A graduate of the UT Department of Theatre and Dance, he joins us from Northwestern University, where he recently completed his M.F.A. He’s worked as a draper/tailor at the Santa Fe Opera, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Fulton Theatre and Merrimack Repertory Theatre, among others, and his work has been featured in American Theatre magazine and in the book, Unbuttoned: The Art and Artists of Theatrical Costume Design. 

 

Andrew Augustin, Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Arts and Entertainment Technologies
Augustin is an award-winning 2D illustrator, game designer and the founder of Notion Games. His gaming portfolio includes designing the characters for The Sims 3 Pets video game, and he created his own line of video games, including Super Ubie Island 1 and Super Ubie Island 2, Up Up Ubie REMIX, Sheep Herder Nay and Team Notion. He’s currently working with Microsoft to bring Super Ubie Island to Xbox. Augustin was listed in Innovators of Gaming and Esports vol 1 (2022), Forbes Magazine’s 30 Under 30 class of 2015 and has been published in various magazines, including Pure Nintendo, Nintendo Force, Black Enterprise, Hollywood Reporter, Screen Rant and Advanced Photoshop magazine

 

Jacqueline “Jacky” Avila, Associate Professor in the Butler School of Music
Avila is a musicologist who specializes in film music studies, sound studies and the intersections of identity, tradition and modernity in the musical cultures and new media of Mexico, Latin America and the Latinx community in the United States. She joins us from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her book, Cinesonidos: Film Music and National Identity in Mexico’s Época de Oro was published in 2019 by Oxford University Press’ Music and Media Series.

 

J.D. Burnett, Assistant Professor and Director of Choral Activities in the Butler School of Music
Burnett is a conductor, singer and educator, and he serves as the artistic director of the Orpheus Chamber Singers. As a professional choral singer, Burnett has performed and recorded with the Stillwater Chamber Singers, Cantare Houston, Fuma Sacra, Robert Shaw Festival Singers, Choir of Trinity Church Wall Street, Oregon Bach Festival Chorus, Santa Fe Desert Chorale and Conspirare. He joins us from the University of Georgia.

 

Michael Ray Charles, Professor in the Department of Design and Department of African and African Diaspora Studies
Charles is a contemporary American painter whose work explores historic African American stereotypes from the Antebellum South, appropriating images from advertising and pop culture to expose the underlying racism prevalent in contemporary culture. His work (Forever Free) Ideas, Languages and Conversations, was commissioned by Landmarks in 2015 and is on view in the Gordon-White Building. He joins us from the University of Houston.

 

C. Ondine Chavoya, Professor in the Department of Art and Art History
Chavoya is an art historian with a focus on Chicanx avant-garde art and performance, and he is a leading figure in the field of Latinx art history and visual culture. Chavoya is the author of numerous publications on Chicanx art, including experimental video and performance. His award-winning curatorial projects include Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972–1987, the first museum retrospective to present the wide-ranging work of the performance and conceptual art group Asco with Rita Gonzalez, and Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. He joins us from Williams College.

 

DiMitri Higginbotham, Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Design
Higginbotham is an educator and human-centered design specialist with a background in music education and M.A. in Design and Innovation from Southern Methodist University. He joins us from Good Shepherd Episcopal School in Dallas, where he helped to incorporate maker education and design thinking into the school’s curriculum and facilitated design thinking sprints for the school’s board, faculty and staff as they reimagined collaborative spaces on campus. In his previous role as a senior teaching lab manager and program manager for the Caruth Institute for Engineering Education at Southern Methodist University, he managed a mobile makerspace, helped develop curriculum for the Lyle School Summer Engineering Camps and facilitated professional development opportunities around maker education and design thinking for teachers and school administrators.

 

Raquel Monroe, Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and Associate Dean of Graduate Education and Academic Affairs in the College of Fine Arts
Monroe is an interdisciplinary performance scholar, artist, administrator and mother whose research interests include Black social dance, queer black feminisms, popular culture and the efficacy of collaboration to create social change. Monroe is a performer with Propelled Animals collective, and she recently received the 2022 Mid-Career Award, which recognizes leadership of mid-career scholars in the development of the dance studies field, from the Dance Studies Association. She joins the college from her most recent role at Columbia College Chicago, where she served as the co-director of diversity, equity and inclusion and a professor of dance.

 

Diego Rivera, Associate Professor and Director of Jazz Studies in the Butler School of Music
Rivera is a musician, composer, arranger and educator, known for his muscular tone and unique blend of straight-ahead jazz fused with music inspired by his Latino background and heritage. In addition to touring with his own ensemble, Rivera has also toured both nationally and internationally with Grammy Award-winning vocalist Kurt Elling, JUNO Award-winning Canadian Jazz Vocalist Sophie Milman and The Rodney Whitaker Quintet. He is a member of the The Ulysses Owens Jr. Big Band, the Jazz Orchestra @ The Dr. Phillips Center, The Gathering Orchestra and the SEIKO Summer Jazz Faculty. He’s performed with The Jazz @ Lincoln Center Orchestra, Wynton Marsalis, Ellis Marsalis, Christian McBride, Wycliffe Gordon, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, the Gerald Wilson Big Band and the Lincoln Center Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra. He joins us from Michigan State University.

 

Vic Rodriguez Tang, Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Design
Rodriguez Tang is a Peruvian-Chinese designer and art director originally from Lima, Perú. Their current research focuses on queer design history and the effects of gendering design elements throughout the years, such as typefaces and colors, within the design and advertising industry. They served in the department as a lecturer last year, and join us in a career-track role after completing an M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts last spring.

 

Ivan Trevino, Assistant Professor of Practice in the Butler School of Music
Trevino is a percussionist and composer whose works have been performed on five continents in more than 25 countries. He’s won multiple awards in the Percussive Arts Society’s International Composition Contest and was recently the featured composer and performer on NPR’s Performance Today. Trevino’s newly commissioned works include an etude book for The Juilliard School and a wind symphony piece for The Eastman Wind Ensemble. He’s been serving as a lecturer in the Butler School and joins us in this new career-track role this fall.

 

Byron Wilson, Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Design
Wilson is the CEO & founder of Empty Set, a design consultancy for leading health care organizations and R&D labs. He brings broad and deep multidisciplinary experience from both academic and professional project work within the scope of technology-based research and development through the creation of value from a strategic design perspective. He was the first design hire by Southern California Permanente Medical Group, where he contributed to regional and national efforts as the senior manager of innovation in Southern California. He joins us from the ArtCenter College of Design.

 

We also have many part-time faculty members joining us this year and supporting our teaching needs in the college in all of our departments. I hope you’ll make them all feel at home here as they join the COFA family.

 

Sincerely,
Ramón H. Rivera-Servera
Dean, College of Fine Arts

, Filed Under: From the Dean

Dean’s Insider: Updating and renovating our spaces
Dear Friends,

I recently celebrated my one-year anniversary as dean of the College of Fine Arts, and as I look ahead, I couldn’t be more excited about what we’re building, both physically and programmatically.

As I walked through our buildings recently, signs of progress are everywhere. Over the summer, we’ve been refurbishing three heavily used Art History classrooms, installing new instrument storage lockers in the Butler School of Music and planning for the Buckman Center, a new immersive media lab set to open next fall.

In the past year, we completed major renovation projects of our photography lab facilities, and the Department of Design moved into a newly renovated Anna Hiss Gymnasium with 10,000 square feet of studio classrooms, meeting spaces and shared faculty offices. Texas Performing Arts also made significant enhancements to Bass Concert Hall while their stages were dark during the pandemic, and returning audiences last year enjoyed improved seating and sightlines.

We still have much to do regarding our facilities, but the excitement around these projects is palpable in our community. As an alumnus of the college, I have great love for the old bones of our buildings, and I’m so proud to see these new projects come to fruition to support our teaching and learning mission in the college.

Sincerely,
Ramón H. Rivera-Servera
Dean, College of Fine Arts

, Filed Under: From the Executive Director

2022 Fall Meeting Registration

Dear Friends,

We are so excited welcome you to campus for the 2022 Advisory Council Fall Meeting on October 13-14! Please register online at this link so we know to expect you.
Please see the schedule of events below to help determine your travel plans, as well as a link to reserve a room at the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center on campus at a special group rate. If you have any questions, please contact Assistant Director of Development Lauren Cunningham at lauren.cunningham@austin.utexas.edu. 

I look forward to seeing you this fall!

Warm regards,
Sondra Lomax signature
Sondra Lomax
Executive Director of Development

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13
Evening Reception
6:30 – 8 PM
Home of Megan Zafereo
11 Niles Road, Austin, TX 78703.
All members and guests are invited to an evening reception to visit with fellow council members and College of Fine Arts leadership.FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14
Breakfast and Conversation
8:30 – 9 AM 
University of Texas Club, President’s Room (6th Floor)*
Gather prior to the business meeting for coffee, breakfast, and conversation with fellow council members and college leadership.Business Meeting and Luncheon
9 AM – 2 PM 
University of Texas Club, President’s Room (6th Floor)*
Featuring faculty presentations, student performances, a development update from Sondra Lomax, and Dean Rivera-Servera’s state of the college address.

*Complimentary parking provided in the Manor garage.
If you require local accommodations, we have a limited block of hotel rooms at the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center on campus. Click the link below to reserve your room.
Reserve your room now

, Filed Under: From the Executive Director

Fall Meeting Hotel Block

Dear Friends,

We are so excited to welcome you back to campus for the 2022 College of Fine Arts Advisory Council fall meeting activities on October 13-14! If you will be traveling to Austin for this meeting, we encourage you to reserve a hotel room at the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center at a special event rate.

Returning members should note that while we have a hotel block at the AT&T Center, the meeting will be held at the University of Texas Club inside DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium.
Please see the meeting schedule below to help determine your travel plans. If you have any questions, please contact Assistant Director of Development Lauren Cunningham at lauren.cunningham@austin.utexas.edu.

I look forward to seeing you this fall!

Warm regards,
Sondra Lomax signature
Sondra Lomax
Executive Director of Development
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13
 
New Member Orientation & Executive Committee Meeting
Noon start time
On-Campus Location TBD2022-2023 new members and Executive Committee members are invited to a joint lunch followed by a tour of the college for new members and a committee meeting.Evening Reception
6 – 8 PM
Location TBD

All members and guests are invited to an evening reception to visit with fellow council members and College of Fine Arts leadership.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14

Breakfast and Conversation
8:30 – 9 AM 
University of Texas Club, President’s Room (6th Floor)*

Gather prior to the business meeting for coffee, breakfast, and conversation with fellow council members and college leadership.

Business Meeting and Luncheon
9 AM – 2 PM 
University of Texas Club, President’s Room (6th Floor)*

Featuring faculty presentations, student performances, a development update from Sondra Lomax, and Dean Rivera-Servera’s state of the college address.

*Complimentary parking provided in the Manor garage.

, Filed Under: From the Dean

Dean’s Insider: Studying our past, while creating new futures

Dear Friends,

As I near my one-year anniversary as dean of the College of Fine Arts, I’ve had the pleasure of learning about the breadth and depth of research in our college. I’ve been especially impressed with the historical range of research, from the ancient Roman empire and pre-Columbian Mesoamerica to some of the pioneering work we see at the intersection of arts and technologies today.

The arts archive and embody traditions we continue to mine, uphold and reinvent, as well as the new forms that will express our imagination into the future. While we preserve and uphold our history and traditional repertoires, our faculty are also exploring new forms in transmedia and performance, advancing experimentation and innovation in music composition and developing new theatre and dance works. In doing so, they push both at the formal conventions of each medium represented in the college and expand the notion of creativity at the core of an arts education. We look to the past, as we constantly move forward.

We employ cutting-edge technologies to uncover new insights and animate ancient history. The use of LIDAR technologies has helped uncover whole new settlements obscured by thick jungle cover for centuries in Central America. We create 3-D models of excavated Roman villas buried by a volcano eruption in 79 AD. Our faculty conduct archival research for new insights that inform how we think about our disciplines and how to move our practices forward.

And our faculty and students are constantly exploring new ways to adapt new technologies to execute their creative visions. From designing new experiences for virtual and augmented reality to incorporating projection design into an opera set, our community is pushing the boundaries of what technology can do to create narratives.

Our college’s greatest strengths are our scale, size and interdisciplinarity, and I’ve been impressed by the dynamism of our college and its temporal span between the past, present and future. I’m excited to see what’s next as we engage with history and make history for our fields.

Sincerely,
Ramón H. Rivera-Servera
Dean, College of Fine Arts

, Filed Under: From the Executive Director

2022-2023 New Members and save the date for Fall Meeting 2022

Dear Advisory Council Members,

I am pleased to announce that the slate of nominees for membership to the Fine Arts Advisory Council for 2022-2023 have all been approved. A huge thank-you again to our 2021-2022 Nominating Committee members Robin Ward Del Conte, Nancy Ginsburg, Amy Hofland, Aynsley Letzerich, and our outstanding chair Caroline Schupbach!

Please Save-the-Date to welcome our new members in-person at the Fall 2022 Advisory Council meeting on campus October 13-14, 2022, and watch your inbox for venue details and hotel block information coming soon.

As a reminder, our new members are:
Lisa Wynne Alcorn, Fort Worth
Nominated by Lisa Fortson
Lisa currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Kimbell Art Foundation in Fort Worth and spent her early career in various roles at Sotheby’s New York. She holds a B.F.A in Art History from Southern Methodist University.
 
Lisa Cartwright, Chicago, IL
Nominated by Dean Ramón H. Rivera-Servera
Lisa graduated from the College of Fine Arts in 1988 with a B.F.A. in Art History. She began her career at Christie’s Auction House in New York City, and after earning an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School she became a financial analyst. Lisa serves on the College of Fine Arts’ What Starts Here Capital Campaign Committee and her son Ben is a junior in UT’s College of Natural Sciences studying mathematics.Mary Katherine Clarke, Fort Worth
Nominated by Caroline Schupbach
Mary Katherine graduated from UT in 2008 with a B.A. in History/Liberal Arts Honors and Theatre & Dance, and she completed her J.D. at Washington and Lee University in 2012. She currently serves as the Administrative Director of the QuadW Foundation in Dallas.Pat Clubb, Austin
Nominated by Caroline Schupbach
Pat served as UT’s Vice President for University Operations from 2000-2016 where she lead the majority of non-academic functions for the University including HR, Campus Safety, and Capital Projects. Pat was instrumental in helping establish the Landmarks Collection at UT. She holds a B.A. from Texas Tech and and an M.B.A. and Ph.D. from UT.
 
Natalie Erwin, New Orleans, LA
Nominated by Janis Brous
Natalie is a native of Texas and she has been painting for 21 years. She received her B.F.A. in Painting at Texas Christian University and graduated with honors. Natalie’s paintings have an original and unique look to them as she uses a combination of natural elements such as milk paints, wood burning, and creating original stain colors; all enhancing the natural elements and beauty of the wood panels she works on. Natalie is currently working in New Orleans and her paintings are now in public and private collections throughout the world.

Debbie Klein, Dallas
Nominated by Caroline Schupbach
Debbie is a graduate of the College of Fine Arts with a B.F.A. in Studio Art. She also studied fashion design at the Parsons School of Design in New York City and is currently an independent artist specializing in printmaking, ceramics, graphic design, and photography. Her works has been shown in galleries throughout Dallas and New York.

Mary Lipscomb, Fort Worth
Nominated by Nancy Ginsburg
Mary graduated from the University of Texas in 1997 with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. She worked in the media industry in Dallas, New York and Houston before returning to her hometown of Fort Worth, where she lives with her husband, Blake, and their three young sons. Mary currently serves on the board of directors of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra and has co-chaired its gala since 2017. Mary’s mother, Adele Perry Hart, was also a UT alumna and served on the College of Fine Arts Advisory Council for over two decades.

Isabel Lummis, Houston
Nominated by Sissy Alcorn-Roberts
Isabel serves as President of the Brown Foundation, whose mission is focused on building stronger educational, cultural, and civic institutions in Houston and beyond. Isabel and her husband Ransom are involved in the Menil Collection, Asia Society Texas, and Da Camera of Houston. She served as co-chair of the 2022 Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s Another Great Night and is a board member of the Garden Club of Houston. Isabel and Ransom have four daughters, and their youngest Virginia is a sophomore in Art History at COFA.

Meredith Luskey, Fort Worth
Nominated by Janis Brous
Meredith is the Managing Partner of Klamath Property Company and the Luskey Family Partnership, LP which are diversified holding companies with interests in oil & gas, real estate, ranching, and private equity. Meredith attended the UT College of Fine Arts and lives in Fort Worth with her husband Stephen and their two children. Meredith is a member of Texas Women for the Arts, a leading voice for the arts in education, advocacy, and economic impact in Texas.

Richard Mullen, San Francisco, CA
Nominated by Caroline Schupbach
Richard is a graduate of UT with a B.A. in History and a B.F.A in Art History. He received an M.B.A. from Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business and currently works for Cisco as an executive in technical and experiential marketing.

Judi Regal, Palm Beach, FL
Nominated by Robin Ward Del Conte
Judi is an artist who works primarily in oils and watercolors. She received her B.F.A. in Graphic Design and Illustration at the University of Texas in Austin and was selected as one of only seven students to an exclusive Masters Program at the Chicago Art Institute specializing in Interior Architecture. Judi maintains active studios in both Chicago, Illinois and Palm Beach, Florida. Her work is found in many major private collections throughout North America.
Thank you again to all who submitted nominations and to each member for all you do to support the college.

I look forward to seeing you on campus on October 13-14, 2022.

Warm regards,
Sondra Lomax signature
Sondra Lomax
Executive Director of Development
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