WITH MAJOR SUPPORT from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Lafayette’s vision of infusing the arts throughout the curriculum will become a reality.
The $800,000 grant will support the College’s global arts infusion and visiting artists initiative, further integrating the performing and visual arts throughout the curriculum and in co-curricular activities, creating new programs and enhancing existing ones, and strengthening the College’s connections with artists and arts communities.
“We are immensely grateful to the Mellon Foundation,” says President Daniel H. Weiss. “This support will help ensure that all students have meaningful experiences with artistic creation and expression during their college years.”
The grant will fund special arts programming during the inauguration of new facilities for the College’s theater and film and media studies programs at the Williams Arts Campus planned for fall 2013 on North Third Street at the base of College Hill.
A new faculty-level position, director of the arts, will be added. The director, who will report to Wendy L. Hill, provost and dean of the faculty, will partner with academic department heads, program chairs, and an advisory committee on the arts to enhance the curriculum and create and sustain collaborations among artists, faculty members, and students.
At the heart of the project will be an enhanced visiting-artists program that brings local, national, and international artists to campus.