The Don and Judy McCormack Endowed Visiting Artist-Scholar Residency
To help ensure that the wonderfully rich artistic heritage of Skidmore Summer Programs can be brought to bear during the academic year – in classes, in interactions with faculty and students, in performances, readings, exhibitions, and other venues - the Board of Trustees authorized creation of the McCormack Endowed Visiting Artist-Scholar Residencies within the Office of the Dean of Special Programs.
These residencies are of necessity brief. Rare is the world-class artist or scholar who can commit to an extended stay at a single institution. But if limited in time, the Visiting Artist-Scholar Residencies are designed to provide total immersion for both the artist and the Skidmore community. The artist will live close to campus, dine with students and faculty, teach and sit in on classes and seminars, supervise students, consult with faculty, and of course demonstrate his/her talents. If the occasion allows and multiple artists are in residence at the same time, the College and the artists themselves will pursue collaborations.
The benefit is hardly all to the students’ favor, either. Virtually all of our summer visiting artists and scholars have told us how much they value interacting and even collaborating with young people; and how much, too, they’d welcome returning for a week or more during the academic year. In addition, the benefit to the Saratoga Springs community is enormous, as we plan to arrange outreach in the school systems and partnerships with arts and non-profit organizations.
Skidmore and the Arts: Joint Commitment, Mutual Passion
Skidmore College has risen to a position of eminence as one of America’s very best liberal arts colleges. Among those who value the arts—broadly defined through the work of musicians and composers, dancers, writers, visual and performing artists, and scholars—the College’s reputation is arguably pre-eminent.
The Office of the Dean of Special Programs has been a powerful contributor to this reputation. Under its auspices, Skidmore has become the summer home of the Skidmore Summer Jazz Institute, the New York State Summer Writer’s Institute, a modern dance residency, and a pantheon of artists, performers, and scholars whose works are legion and whose awards include MacArthur Grants, Pulitzer Prizes, the National Medal of Arts, Kennedy Center Honors, National Book Awards and others.
Recent guests have included Trisha Brown, the late Milt Hinton, Mark Morris, Robert Pinsky, Russell Banks, Bill T. Jones, Ann Beattie, Susan Sontag, Twyla Tharp, William Kennedy, Paul Taylor, Chucho Valdes, Toshiko Takaezu, and Joyce Carol Oates. The artists and programs have been recognized and supported by many prestigious organizations and foundations, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Lila Wallace Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Howard Bayne Fund, and EMI-Blue Note Records.
To help ensure that the wonderfully rich artistic heritage of Skidmore Summer Programs can be brought to bear during the academic year – in classes, in interactions with faculty and students, in performances, readings, exhibitions, and other venues - the Board of Trustees authorized creation of the McCormack Endowed Visiting Artist-Scholar Residencies within the Office of the Dean of Special Programs.
These residencies are of necessity brief. Rare is the world-class artist or scholar who can commit to an extended stay at a single institution. But if limited in time, the Visiting Artist-Scholar Residencies are designed to provide total immersion for both the artist and the Skidmore community. The artist will live close to campus, dine with students and faculty, teach and sit in on classes and seminars, supervise students, consult with faculty, and of course demonstrate his/her talents. If the occasion allows and multiple artists are in residence at the same time, the College and the artists themselves will pursue collaborations.
The benefit is hardly all to the students’ favor, either. Virtually all of our summer visiting artists and scholars have told us how much they value interacting and even collaborating with young people; and how much, too, they’d welcome returning for a week or more during the academic year. In addition, the benefit to the Saratoga Springs community is enormous, as we plan to arrange outreach in the school systems and partnerships with arts and non-profit organizations.
Skidmore and the Arts: Joint Commitment, Mutual Passion
Skidmore College has risen to a position of eminence as one of America’s very best liberal arts colleges. Among those who value the arts—broadly defined through the work of musicians and composers, dancers, writers, visual and performing artists, and scholars—the College’s reputation is arguably pre-eminent.
The Office of the Dean of Special Programs has been a powerful contributor to this reputation. Under its auspices, Skidmore has become the summer home of the Skidmore Summer Jazz Institute, the New York State Summer Writer’s Institute, a modern dance residency, and a pantheon of artists, performers, and scholars whose works are legion and whose awards include MacArthur Grants, Pulitzer Prizes, the National Medal of Arts, Kennedy Center Honors, National Book Awards and others.
Recent guests have included Trisha Brown, the late Milt Hinton, Mark Morris, Robert Pinsky, Russell Banks, Bill T. Jones, Ann Beattie, Susan Sontag, Twyla Tharp, William Kennedy, Paul Taylor, Chucho Valdes, Toshiko Takaezu, and Joyce Carol Oates. The artists and programs have been recognized and supported by many prestigious organizations and foundations, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Lila Wallace Foundation, the Harkness Foundation for Dance, the Howard Bayne Fund, and EMI-Blue Note Records.