For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jane Turnis
(719)
389-6138
jturnis@ColoradoCollege.edu
COLORADO
COLLEGE AWARDED $3.4 MILLION
FROM
PRIDDY CHARITABLE TRUST
Grant
Will Help Fund and Endow Positions
in Interdisciplinary Arts,
Performance
Studies and Digital Media
Programs
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – June 13, 2005 – The Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust has awarded a grant totaling $3,420,000 to Colorado College to help fund two new positions: an endowed tenure-track faculty member who will teach performance studies and digital media, and an interdisciplinary arts program director who will lead and manage the College’s overall arts program.
“The Priddy grant will enable us to more thoroughly integrate the arts into our curricula and across our campus,” said Colorado College President Richard F. Celeste. “This funding will help us infuse the arts into everything we do. Creating an environment where the arts take center stage in how we teach and learn will dramatically enhance our ability to provide the finest liberal arts education in the country. We are extremely grateful to the Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust for its vision, for its considerable investment, and for its belief in Colorado College.”
An
initial $1.4 million of the grant
covers four years of salary and
benefits, plus startup funds and
overhead, for the two positions. The
remaining $2 million is in the
form of challenge grants; in year
five, Colorado College is to provide
$1 million for each position in
order to endow them. The
Priddy Trust will then provide
matching funds for each endowment.
The
two positions will help Colorado
College in its Cornerstone Arts
Initiative, which is a mission
to d ramatically change how students
define and view the fine arts.
Already, 95 percent of Colorado College students take interdisciplinary courses, and many of them are interdisciplinary within the arts. For example, “Renaissance Culture” studies the emergence of modern culture through discussion of the art, literature, philosophies and science of the Renaissance. “Cultural Astronomy of the Southwest” explores the relationships between astronomy, rock art, ritual, oral narratives, social patterns and belief systems. “Art as Politics/Politics as Art” looks at how artistic expression in its many forms can both reinforce and destabilize political regimes and political power.
The interdisciplinary arts program director will be charged with integrating the fine arts throughout Colorado College’s curriculum. The director will curate interdisciplinary shows and art exhibitions produced on campus; work with faculty to incorporate exhibits and objects into their teaching; commission student and faculty art for display on campus; conduct public outreach; direct fine arts internships for students; and teach arts administration and museum studies classes.
The professor of performance studies and digital media will meld the relatively new discipline of performance studies, which examines the ways artists perform, with great proficiency in using the tools of digital media, current software and other technology. This assistant professor would develop cross-disciplinary arts classes in digital media, collaborating with other arts faculty. This faculty member would be fluent in two or more artistic languages (drama, dance, music, art, film, creative writing) and be proficient in international approaches to the performing arts.
The Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust, pleased with the way Colorado College has implemented a previous Priddy grant, requested a proposal from CC to support innovative and sustainable programs that strengthen education in the arts in significant ways . In 2002, the Priddy Trust, based in Wichita Falls, Texas, provided one of Colorado College’s largest grants, $7.9 million, to fund scholarships, student orientation programs, outreach and recruitment of students from the Southwest.
The Cornerstone Arts Initiative will come fully to life with the planned Cornerstone Arts building, a $30 million state-of-the-art interdisciplinary performing arts teaching facility. The Cornerstone Arts building will provide a full range of arts opportunities to students and faculty, encouraging interdisciplinary study, collaboration and experimentation, and providing cutting-edge arts technology, and flexible classroom and performance spaces. Construction is scheduled to begin in June 2006, and the building is expected to be in use by spring 2008.
The new building will be located on the southeast corner of Cascade Avenue and Cache La Poudre Street, directly across from Packard Hall. Renowned New Mexico architect Antoine Predock created the building’s initial schematic designs. The executive architectural firm is Denver-based Anderson Mason Dale PC.
About Colorado College
Colorado College is a nationally prominent, four-year liberal arts and sciences college that was founded in Colorado Springs in 1874. The college operates on the innovative Block Plan, in which its 1,900 students study one course at a time in intensive 3½-week blocks.