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Research and Innovation

University Arts Council

Vanderbilt’s University Arts Council will advocate for all of the arts at Vanderbilt including related scholarship, performing arts, visual arts and literary arts. The Council will be responsible for making periodic strategic recommendations to the Provost and Vanderbilt leadership for advancing the arts at Vanderbilt and for enabling the creation, pursuit and engagement of the arts at the university. Such recommendations might also include suggestions for campus groups to develop initiatives or programs to advance the arts on campus and publicly. To that end, they will provide strategic direction for the use of the university’s Art Collections in support of the university’s mission and strategic initiatives.  

In the Council’s first year they will further refine the Council’s charge, composition, mission and purview, and consider the following:

  • Best practices at peer institutions and what would make for a uniquely One Vanderbilt approach to advancing the arts
  • Surveying current campus arts resources and planned programs and initiatives, and consider any areas for enhanced collaboration or resource gaps
  • Identify potential relationships to develop with external partners locally, nationally and globally so as to have on-the-ready engagement strategies

Two subcommittees, the University Art Collections Governance Subcommittee and the Arts & Humanities Micro-Grant Fund Committee, provide governance over the Art Collections and oversight to the Arts & Humanities Micro-Grant Fund.

The council has established four additional subcommittees to focus on specific areas:

University Arts Council members:

Bonnie Dow (chair), professor of communication studies and dean of academic initiatives, College of Arts and Science

Carolyn Huebl (vice-chair), professor of violin, Blair School of Music

Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Fine Arts, College of Arts and Science

Jay Clayton, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English, College of Arts and Science; director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy

Frank Dobson, associate dean of The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons and faculty head of Gillette House

Dwayne Elliott, director of arts and campus events, Office of the Dean of Students

Robert Engelman, doctoral student in philosophy, College of Arts and Science

Julianna Hernandez, economics and English/creative writing major, College of Arts and Science; Vanderbilt Student Government executive committee member

Valerie Hotchkiss, university librarian; professor of English, College of Arts and Science

James Hudnut-Beumler, Distinguished Professor of American Religious History, Divinity School

ChiHee Hwang, senior artist teacher of piano, Blair School of Music

Catherine Kozak, director of strategic projects, Division of Communications

Midori Lockett, community liaison, Division of Government and Community Relations

Chris Loss, associate professor of Public Policy and Higher Education, Peabody College of Education and Human Development

Sankaran Mahadevan, John R. Murray Sr. Professor of Engineering and professor of civil and environmental engineering, School of Engineering

Kevin Murphy, Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities and
professor and chair of History of Art, College of Arts and Science

Foster Swartz, theatre major, College of Arts and Science; VUcept executive board member

Holly Tucker, Mellon Foundation Chair in the Humanities, professor of French, College of Arts and Science; director of the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities

James Moore, university landscape architect, Campus Planning and Construction

Celia Walker, associate university librarian, special collections, engagement, and strategic assessment, acting director, Fine Arts Gallery

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