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James W. Schmotter, President
President's Focus
Two years ago, WestConn created a new School of Visual and Performing Arts, the only such school in the Connecticut State University System. By combining the departments of Art, Music and Theatre Arts, we not only recognized our long history of distinction in these fields, but also reaffirmed WestConn’s place as the “University of the Arts” in the CSU System.
This place was even more emphatically confirmed on May 15, when Governor M. Jodi Rell visited campus to announce the awarding of $12.2 million in planning funds to begin construction of our new Visual and Performing Arts Instructional Facility. This 169,000-square-foot building will house all of the school’s academic programs. It will provide performance space including an 800-seat concert hall, a 500-seat proscenium theatre, a 200-seat studio theatre and a 200-seat recital hall as well as studio and gallery space. The funding for this exciting new facility is part of CSUS 2020, a $1.2 billion decade-long capital expansion program for the Connecticut State University System that Governor Rell signed into law in November 2007. We are justly delighted and excited about what this new academic facility will mean for WCSU and for the state.
Still, we are not waiting for this construction to expand our programs and outreach in the fine arts. Even in the more constrained and limited space of White and Berkshire halls, the early results of the organization of our new School of Visual and Performing Arts have not disappointed. Under the leadership of its founding dean, Dr. Carol Hawkes, the faculty and students of the school have been accomplishing wonderful things. Here are a few examples.
For students in Art, we opened a new 2,000-square-foot gallery in Higgins Hall. This provides much needed, and very attractive, exhibition space for student artists. Our Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Illustration program continues to attract students from around the nation. Under the tutelage of our faculty and noted artists from the region, these students regularly exhibit their work in venues in Manhattan as well as at the Weir Farm Art Center and Hunt Hill Farm here in Connecticut. Our faculty also continue to place their work in prominent venues, for example, Professor Marjorie Portnow’s recent exhibition at The National Academy of Design in New York.
Our Theatre students in 2007 once again performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland, as well as on campus and in New York. WestConn’s production of “The Cherry Orchard” was voted the Best Associate Production of Region 1 in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Such success is no small credit to our talented students and the dedicated faculty who teach both the theory and practice of that craft. Typical of this combination is the work of Associate Professor of Theatre Elizabeth Popiel, who in 2007 won an Emmy for her set design on “Good Morning America, Weekend Edition.”
WestConn’s Music faculty and students continue to excel. Five classical musicians studying at WCSU performed last summer in the Rome Festival Orchestra, a prestigious ensemble of upperclassmen and professional musicians from all over the world. Martin Sather, a Jazz Studies major, won “Outstanding Performance” in the Best Jazz Soloist Category in Downbeat magazine’s annual competition. Two WCSU sopranos, Jennifer Caraluzzi and Victoria Chiera, were selected from hundreds of students auditioning nationwide to perform in the Operafestival di Roma. Such student achievements reflect the accomplishments of our Music faculty, who bring their own professional performance experiences into our practice studios and stages every day. Especially notable examples of such experience are Professor Eric Lewis, who appears in venues around the world with the Manhattan String Quartet, and Music Department Chair Dan Goble, who performed in February with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on its historic trip to North Korea.
Each year, these talented and dedicated artists share their gifts with the WestConn community in a seemingly never-ending array of concerts, recitals, productions and gallery shows. All are open to the public; a few have nominal admission fees; most are free of charge. We welcome and encourage everyone to partake of the rich menu that the School of Visual and Performing Arts creates. Nearly every week, you will find exciting opportunities to enjoy the arts. Just check out the university’s Web site at (www.wcsu.edu). See you at a future show!
James W. Schmotter
