Art, performance, science and other disciplines, and digital media will come together readily to spark cutting-edge creativity at CC with two new positions made possible by a grant from the Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust. A new professor will teach digital media and performance studies, and an interdisciplinary arts program director will infuse the arts into every corner of campus. Above: CC students at work in a film animation class last year.

Photo by Tom Cherrey

A geology student turns a microscopic view of gneiss into a graphic mural. A sociology student creates a multimedia exhibit, mixing oral histories of undocumented immigrants with images of the blistering desert. A classical musician and a political science major collaborate to create a film depicting the rhythm, repetition, and climax of popular media imagery during a national campaign.

Art will seep into every discipline at Colorado College when the Cornerstone Arts Initiative takes hold, and with a major grant from the Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust, that immersion is well on its way.

The Priddy Trust has awarded two grants totaling $3,420,000 to CC to help fund and endow an interdisciplinary arts program director and a tenure-track faculty member who will teach performance studies and digital media.

The 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, CC is to provide $1 million for the endowment of each position. The Priddy Trust will then provide matching funds for each endowment. 

“This grant will allow us to more thoroughly integrate the arts into our curricula and across our campus, into everything we do,” says CC President Richard F. Celeste. “By extension, it will dramatically enhance our ability to provide the finest liberal arts education in the country. We are grateful to the Robert & Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust for its vision and its belief in Colorado College.”

The two positions will help CC in its mission to change how students define and view the fine arts.

The interdisciplinary arts program director will be charged with integrating the fine arts throughout CC’s curriculum and facilitating excellence in CC’s visual arts programs. The director will assemble interdisciplinary shows and art exhibitions produced on campus, work with professors to incorporate exhibits and objects into their teaching, commission student and faculty art for display in campus spaces, encourage community groups to experience CC’s performances and exhibitions, direct fine arts internships for CC students, and teach courses on arts administration and museum studies.

The professor of performance studies and digital media will meld the relatively new discipline of performance studies, which examines the ways artists perform, with the tools of digital media and other technology. This assistant professor will be fluent in two or more artistic languages (drama, dance, music, art, film, creative writing) and familiar with international approaches to the performing arts.

For more information, see www.ColoradoCollege.edu/campaign/Arts.html