MIT Reports to the President 1998-99
The focus of the Office of the Associate Provost for the Arts during 1999 has been the development of a greater sense of community and agency among MIT artists, further development of arts facilities and the rearticulation of some campus-wide arts policy.
THE ARTS COMMUNITY
1999 was the inaugural year of the Council Scholars for the Arts. Supported by the Council for the Arts at MIT, this program brings together 25—30 undergraduates from all the schools of the Institute who have a serious interest in some aspect of the arts. They participate in monthly dinner programs where they can become more familiar with faculty artists, artists-in-residence, arts activities in the Boston/Cambridge area and each other. One of the hoped for results of this new program is to develop a community of artists who can share their passion for the arts and articulate arts policy from the student's perspective. Faculty featured in this inaugural year were Assistant Professor of Music James Makubuya, Professor of Writing and Humanistic Studies Alan Lightman and Senior Lecturer in Music Pamela Wood. Events included a performance of Gross Indecency at the Huntington Theater, a guided tour of the Alfredo Jaar/William Kentridge exhibit at the List Visual Arts Center and a special open dress rehearsal of "Playwrights in Performance, 1999."
This was also the inaugural year for the cross-registration program among MIT, the Massachusetts College of Art and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. About 20 students from all those institutions took advantage of this opportunity. The pilot structure allows ten students from each school to participate.
This year's Arts Colloquia included programs by Assistant Professor John Maeda of Media Arts and Sciences (MAS), Assistant Professor James Makubuya of Music, Senior Lecturer Michael Ouellette of Theater Arts, a performance of Professor Peter Child's music by the student chamber orchestra and Assistant Professor Helen Lee of Writing and Humanistic Studies. The attendance and participation of a significant number of faculty, staff and members of the Council for the Arts gave evidence to the continuing growth of the arts community at the Institute.
The arts community welcomed two new pivotal figures: Assistant Professor Dante Anzolini joined the faculty of Music and Theater Arts as conductor of the MIT Symphony. His first year proved an enormous success with a marked increase in student morale and their level of performance. Jane Pickering began her work as Director of the MIT Museum tripling attendance, generating new educational programs and aggressively pursuing a program of outreach to both the MIT and the Boston/Cambridge communities.
Functioning without a director and with the loss of other key personnel throughout the academic year, the staff of the List Visual Arts Center (LVAC) demonstrated its strength and esprit by maintaining a thriving program of exhibitions and oversight of the permanent collection. Central to its continuing success was the Herculean work of Assistant Curator Jennifer Riddell. After a year-long, intensive search, Jane Farver was selected to become the new director beginning July 1, 1999. Simultaneous with the announcement of her acceptance came the news that Ms. Farver was also named one of the curators for the forthcoming Whitney Biennial. Katy Kline, former director of the LVAC and Helaine Posner, former curator, served as co-curators for the American pavilion of this year's Venice Biennale, developing an installation by Ann Hamilton which had been conceived at MIT and for which the Institute has been receiving recognition throughout the exhibition period.
At the national level, Associate Provost for the Arts Alan Brody and Paul Parravano, co-director of the Office of Government and Community Relations, participated in the inaugural meeting of "Imagining America." This program, jointly sponsored by the University of Michigan, the President's Millennium Office and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, links humanities and arts faculties with their local communities.
The Associate Provost joined Judith Jedlicka, president of the Business Committee for the Arts, as co-director of Creative Visions, a think tank composed of MIT faculty and directors of major not-for-profit arts organizations, and leaders in corporate support of the arts. The focus of Creative Visions is the generation of questions, research and ideas about the intersection of the arts, education and corporate culture. Participants from MIT included Professor of Music Peter Child, Allen Professor of MAS Steve Benton, Epoch Foundation Professor of Management Don Lessard, Neal Hartman, lecturer in the Sloan School and Lori Gross, director of the Museum Loan Network.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts renewed their funding of over 2 million dollars a year through FY 2002 for the Museum Loan Network.
ARTS POLICY
The Creative Arts Council was particularly active this year through the work of two sub-committees. The first convened to evaluate the current One Percent for the Arts Policy and to make recommendations for rethinking that policy in the context of the new campus-wide building development plan as well as the new procedures in Committee for Review of Space Planning (CRSP).
The second sub-committee developed a white paper on the criteria for promotion and tenure in the arts. With the prospect of an unprecedented number of junior faculty in the arts coming up for promotion and tenure, this paper will serve as a resource for department heads, deans, school councils and members of the Deans' Committee in the preparation and reading of arts cases.
FACILITIES AND ACQUISITIONS
The most significant development in the area of facilities was the new impetus toward the realization of the first phase of the long awaited Performing Arts Center. Following the urgent recommendation by the Music and Theater Arts Visiting Committee that a teaching center for the performing arts be pursued immediately and included in the upcoming capital campaign, a subcommittee of the Council for the Arts initiated a preliminary programming and siting study. This is currently nearing completion and will become the basis of a vigorous campaign to develop the resources for construction.
FY 1999 also saw the postponement of the urgently needed new facade for the MIT Museum Building. Because of new CRSP policies, the expected facade, which would have markedly upgraded the disgraceful condition of the building's exterior, was put off until the $500K cost of the project was in hand. Late in the year, a major alumni donor created a $250K matching grant that has brought the prospect of the construction of the facade in FY 2000 closer to realization.
Toward the end of the academic year, the long contested signage for the List Visual Arts Center approached realization. When this project is completed, the campus will see signs announcing the presence of all the arts at MIT on the fence of the Kendall Square parking lot, banners on the streetlights on the Medical Center plaza and directional signs to the List on Main and Ames Streets.
As part of the current One Percent for the Arts policy, artist Matthew Ritchie was chosen to create a piece for the new athletic center.
The Museum Loan Network offices on the fourth floor of N52 expanded into an adjoining conference room, considerably easing the crisis of space the growing program was experiencing. This expansion was instrumental in convincing both the James L. Knight Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trust of MIT's support for the program.
Alumnus and Corporation member Elliot Wolk once again presented the permanent collection with a major work of contemporary art, this time New England Elegy by Robert Motherwell. Discussions have begun with Architect Frank Gehry for siting the piece in the Stata Complex.
Alan Brody
The MIT List Visual Arts Center's (LVAC) mission is to present the most challenging, forward-thinking, and lasting expressions of modern and contemporary art to the MIT community and general public in order to broaden the scope and depth of cultural experiences available on campus, and also reflect and support the diversity of the MIT community through the presentation of diverse cultural expressions. This is accomplished through four avenues: changing exhibitions of contemporary art in all media by the most advanced visual artists working today that take place in the LVAC galleries (E15); the Permanent Collection of art (comprising large outdoor sculptures, artworks sited in offices and departments throughout campus, as well as art deriving from MIT's Percent-for-Art policy which allocates funds from new building construction or renovation for art in that building or its environs); the Student Loan Art Program, a collection of fine art prints maintained solely for loan to MIT students during the course of the academic year; and through interpretive programs to offer the MIT community and the public various perspectives about LVAC changing exhibitions and MIT's art collections.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR
EXHIBITIONS
Student Loan Art Program (LVAC galleries, September 8 through September 28, 1999). Annual exhibition of 350 works comprising Student Loan Art Collection. MIT students view displayed works and enter a lottery to be awarded the work of their choice on loan for the academic year and hang in their dormitory, apartment or office.
Lewis deSoto: Recital (LVAC galleries, October 8 through December 23, 1998). An artwork created by deSoto for MIT, dealing with the implications of one man's method of dealing with the loss of his wife, a concert pianist. For the exhibition, the gallery took the form of a digital player piano playing her compositions. With assistance from Dr. Ernesto Blanco, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Matthias Mansen: About the House (LVAC galleries, October 8 through December 23, 1998). The LVAC was the only US museum venue for this well-received exhibition of large-scale and colorful woodblock prints, organized by the Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Germany. Exhibition was featured on the cover of On Paper magazine during stay at the LVAC. Partial exhibition support from the Goethe-Institut, Boston.
Alfredo Jaar: Rwanda Projects (LVAC galleries, January 15 through March 28, 1999). A series of three photography projects dealing with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which attracted numerous MIT students and students from area universities and colleges studying the exhibition's themes in other coursework.
William Kentridge: Weighing…and Wanting (LVAC galleries, January 15 through March 28, 1999). Exhibition originated by San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art of charcoal drawings and an animated film based on the drawings dealing, in allegorical fashion, with the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed in apartheid-era South Africa. Exhibition was featured on the cover of Art in America magazine while at the LVAC.
Kiki Smith: Recent Photographic Work (LVAC galleries, January 15 through March 28, 1999). Exhibition presented by LVAC of new work by this internationally-acclaimed artist. The subject of the photographs was Smith herself and her recent delving into themes relating to nature, landscape and spirituality.
Eve Andrée Laramée: A Permutational Unfolding (LVAC galleries, April 23 through June 27, 1999). Exhibition of a new artwork by Laramée created for MIT dealing with how the history of digital technology intersects with numerous disciplinary fields outside of technology and industry, going back hundreds of years. Objects from MIT Museum displayed. Exhibition support from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, Albuquerque, NM and the LEF Foundation, Cambridge.
Landscape: Outside the Frame (LVAC galleries, April 23 through June 27, 1999). Exhibition originated by LVAC of work by artists Jessica Bronson, the Center for Land Use Interpretation, Jacci Den Hartog, Olafur Eliasson, Peter Minchell and Olaf Nicolai which dealt with contemporary art addressing the traditional art form of "landscape" in unconventional ways. Exhibition support from the Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, NM and the Danish Contemporary Arts Foundation, Copenhagen.
INTERPRETIVE PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS
COLLECTIONS
There were 11 gifts of art to the collection including a painting and a print from former MIT President Howard Johnson, John Stephan's No. 4, 1974 and Jim Dine's Tool Box, 1966. Five paintings were given by Joan and Roger Sonnabend ('46), including a large painting by Matt Mullican which is now sited in the MIT Office of the Arts. Other outstanding gifts included a Calvin Brown painting, Fraction B from MIT Council for the Arts members Roy and Dorothy Lavine, three drawings from the estate of former MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) Fellow Virginia Gunter. Two color photographs were also purchased for the collection from MIT Artists-in-Residence Susan Gamble (a former CAVS fellow) and partner Michael Wenyon.
The Student Loan Art Program attracted 668 MIT students to the LVAC gallery over the 15-day period of the exhibition of artworks. A total of 527 students submitted entries to the lottery to borrow artwork, and approximately 325 works were disbursed. Students were also offered a slide lecture, "Introduction to Contemporary Art," delivered by the curatorial staff to acquaint them with contemporary artmaking practices.
STAFF NEWS
Katy Kline, director, departed the LVAC in October 1998 after 19 years of service to MIT. Sabrina Detmar, curatorial assistant, departed the LVAC in November 1998. Magdalena Fernandez, curatorial assistant, joined the staff in December 1998. Kimberly Nyce, administrative assistant, joined the staff in March 1999. Toby Levi, financial officer, departed the LVAC in June 1999.
More information can be found about the MIT List Visual Arts Center at http://web.mit.edu/lvac/www/.
Jennifer L. Riddell
The MIT Museum exists to document, interpret and communicate to a diverse audience, the activities and achievements of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the worldwide impact of its innovation, particularly in the fields of science and technology; and to enhance the spirit of community inside the Institute through the promotion of dialog both at MIT and between the Institute and the wider world.
The Museum has begun another chapter in its history with the arrival of a new director, Jane Pickering. Building on the achievements of the past, its internationally important collections and its exhibits and education program, the Museum will move forward to embrace its mission. This year the Museum has articulated a new mission statement, focusing on its role as an integral part of MIT; seen a number of key personnel changes; produced the first outside-designed exhibition in the main Museum, Flashes of Inspiration: The Work of Harold Edgerton; expanded its education programs; and instigated two very successful public programs.
The Museum served 32,896 visitors this year, an increase of 31 percent over last year's total admission figures.
COLLECTIONS
The Collections Committee met five times and considered 30 acquisitions from which 24 were accepted into the permanent collection. The collections staff developed detailed plans for enhancing collections storage on the second and basement floors. These plans were submitted to Committee for Review of Space Planning (CRSP) early in 1999. In the meantime, some preliminary implementation of these plans has begun, notably with the clearance of two basement rooms for sorting of material presently stored in the Metropolitan Warehouse.
Architecture and Design Collections
Funding for the position of curator is now covered by General Operating Support, which will allow long-term care of this internationally significant collection. Use of the Architecture and Design Collections has increased again this year, with 89 telephone inquiries, 83 e-mail and written requests (37 the previous year) and 25 researchers using the Collections on site. It is anticipated that this growth will continue. The holdings of the Architecture and Design Collections formed the basis for the completion of four Ph.D. dissertations, including that of the curator's. Several interns worked in the Architecture and Design Collections, making it possible to catalog several hundred drawings. Important acquisitions include the Marjorie Pierce (AR 1922), W.E. Putnam (AR 1898), and A.H. Cox (AR 1898) Collections.
The curator continues to collaborate with other Institute departments on special projects, working with the Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning; Rotch Library; Institute Archives and Special Collections; List Visual Arts Center; and the Council for the Arts, as well as serving on the Aalto Communications Committee and the McDermott Award selection committee. Collaboration outside MIT has also been extensive, including work with Harvard's Loeb Library on The Architects Collaborative archive; The Bostonian Society; and the Gamble House Museum in Pasadena, CA. Exhibition assistance and collections information was provided for the Museum of Modern Art, NYC; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Addison Gallery of American Art.
One of the most significant undertakings of the past year was the development of the exhibition, Dreams in Brick and Mortar: Alvar Aalto, MIT and the Design of Baker House, which will open on September 30 in the Museum's Compton Gallery.
Hart Nautical Collections
It has been a year of important transitions in the Hart Nautical Collections. The addition of a part-time assistant late last year has allowed the curator to focus on exhibition/program development and long-range planning, including detailed long-range budgeting for the anticipated Burroughs endowment.
Our new exhibit, Deep Frontiers: Ocean Engineering at MIT, opened in March at the Hart Nautical Gallery, 75 years after the founding exhibit in the Gallery. It is the first exhibit in this space which aims to interpret current research in the Department of Ocean Engineering and the MIT Sea Grant Program and we will continue to maintain and update this exhibit to reflect departmental activity.
The Davis-Hand Project was completed last fall, with over 150 copies of the Guide to the Davis-Hand Collection sold. Over 700 copies of Guide to the Haffenreffer-Herreshoff Collection have been sold to date (200 copies in this fiscal year). We are nearing completion of the George Owen 1894 Collection Project. A guide to this collection will also be produced and is expected to be printed before December. Additional funds for this project have been received from Course XIII alumni/ae and faculty (Professor Jerry Milgram).
In late December of 1998, John Lednicky '44 once again made a gift to help fund the Deep Frontiers exhibit. Mr. Henry B. duPont IV and Michael McMenemy made gifts to support the Davis-Hand Guide. Over 1,000 inquires were received via phone, fax, e-mail and regular mail; over 250 of these resulted in requests for specific materials from the collections. MIT faculty have increasingly used the collections, for example Professor Lorna Gibson for teaching an undergraduate class in the properties of wood as a shipbuilding material.
Historical Collections
The Historical Collections continued to receive heavy use, with over 200 visitors both from within and without MIT. Over 100 requests for photographic material were fulfilled and 45 use agreements issued. Some notable MIT projects included alumni seeking material for reunions (e.g. the Logarhythms Reunion) and the Alumni Association's use of 40 images for a multi-media presentation at the Great Court Gala on Tech Day. The collections also continue to be a significant resource for researchers charting the development of the Internet and the history of computing; requests for material on Vannevar Bush came from Germany, Italy, Taiwan, and the UK as well as US popular media. A joint project with MIT's A/V Services, the News Office, MIT Libraries and the Dean's Office enabled over 1,000 images from the collections to be digitized in order to improve access to this heavily used collection. It is hoped that this digitization project will continue next year.
There were nine loans from the collections, most notably six early computer artifacts loaned to the List Visual Arts Center exhibit Eve Andrée Laramée: A Permutational Unfolding. Accessions for FY1999 totaled 13, including several hacks which were formally accepted into the collection, as well as a number of photographs and a film, "Low Altitude Aerial Tour over Campus, 1941."
Hacks are a unique part of the Historical Collections. This year we increased contact with the hacking community to develop collecting guidelines for these unique artifacts. Working with the Museum's hacks archivist, the director and chair of the Collections Committee hosted a dinner in January for a number of students and recent alumni/ae to discuss the issues surrounding the collecting and exhibition of hacks. The resulting collecting guidelines will be adopted by the Collections Committee in July.
The Museum employed an interim registrar, Louann Drake Boyd, from October through June 1999 to work on the paintings collection. We now have a detailed inventory of the collection (both in the Museum and elsewhere on campus); condition reports for each object; and detailed recommendations for future storage of collection and appropriate procedures for organizing the on-campus collection. A number of pieces, previously considered missing, were rediscovered during this process.
Holography Collections
There were two acquisitions to the collections this year: Eighty rolls of motion picture film, shot by the Holographic Film Company, were selected by Professor Steve Benton for the collection. In addition Carl F. Reutersward made a gift of the hologram ‘Non-Violence.' The Museum received a $10K grant from the Shearwater Foundation which, together with matching support from the MIT President's Office and the Museum, will fund a six-month project in the latter half of 1999 to produce definitive inventories and databases of the collection. This will enable proper care of the collection; improved accessibility, including access through the World Wide Web; and the development of a new permanent exhibition and other public programs at the Museum.
EDUCATION AND OUTREACH
Thanks to a generous gift by A.R. Arulpragasam '77, the Museum's education program continued to grow. Otto Loggers, our education coordinator, worked with 3,370 individuals (50 percent K—8, 32 percent 9—12, 14 percent college, 4 percent adult). He continues to offer a number of very popular holography programs, organized during the academic year and vacations, and has trained a number of MIT students to help with these. Together with a Public Service Center fellow, Wally Holland, two new week-long programs were developed in holography (Holy Holograms!) and in stroboscopy (Don't Blink). The latter was one of a series of programs developed to interpret the new exhibition Flashes of Inspiration. The Museum is particularly concerned with reaching a diverse audience through its programs and worked with, amongst others, the Cambridge Public Schools Amigos Program; Dorchester House; Perkins School for the Blind; and the Community Art Center Inc. A number of outreach visits to Cambridge schools and statewide science fairs were also made. The Museum is looking forward to working with Cambridge Public Schools on a Department of Energy funded Content Institute this summer, entitled "The Design Process: Light, Color and Energy."
Over 30 MIT students have volunteered their time to help with the Museum's education programs. Students provide a highly valued and dynamic source of instruction and technical assistance and are able to talk with K-12 students about both the subject matter and life at MIT. Rayka Yokoo '02 developed her own program for the April School vacation, when 30 elementary students were introduced to the life and work of Harold Edgerton.
The Museum ran a number of highly successful informal public outreach programs. The first F.A.T. Science (Friday after Thanksgiving) Day attracted over 700 visitors, who were introduced to the work of ‘Doc' Edgerton, have a high-speed flash photograph taken of themselves, and participated in a number of other activities associated with the Edgerton exhibition. The spring saw the pilot of F.A.S.T. Sundays (Family Adventures in Science and Technology) with three programs, at the end of February, March, and April respectively, all staffed by MIT student volunteers. These afternoon programs attracted nearly 1,500 people in total, and provided an excellent vehicle for introducing MIT research and activities to the wider community. The Museum is very grateful to the Edgerton Center, the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Department of Materials Science for their help with these programs.
EXHIBITIONS
Responsibility for the Compton Gallery was transferred back to the Museum from the Department of Architecture, effective June 7. The Compton Gallery Committee, comprised of representatives from each school, the Dean of Undergraduates and the Alumni/ae Office, was formed in May to encourage and consider potential new exhibits in this gallery from around the campus.
New exhibitions included:
Flashes of Inspiration: The Work of Harold Edgerton, a new permanent exhibit at the main Museum was curated by Joyce Bedi, of the Lemuelson Center, a noted historian of Edgerton, and opened on September 26. A number of interactives, including a specially produced CD-ROM and two short films about ‘Doc' are part of the exhibit.
Deep Frontiers: Ocean Engineering at MIT, opened in the Hart Nautical Gallery on March 19. This exhibit was co-curated by Kurt Hasselbach, curator of Hart Nautical Collections, and Justin Manley ‘96 of the Department of Ocean Engineering, and features information from a number of research groups in that department.
On the Edge of the Future: Mid-Century Convocation at MIT, was showcased in La Sala de Puerto Rico, Student Center, over Tech weekend and is now showing at the Compton Gallery from June 28 to August 20. It features a short film of highlights of this event, a pivotal point in MIT's history, as well as a complete film of Winston Churchill's speech on the evening of Thursday, March 31, 1949.
In addition to the new exhibitions, the Ganson and Holographic Artists exhibits were redesigned and reinstalled. The Museum also produced a temporary exhibit on hacks in the last half of January, for IAP, including the relocation of the police car to Lobby 7 for a day! Unfolding Light: The Evolution of Ten Holographers, curated by Rene Barilleaux, continues to tour nationally.
DEVELOPMENT AND MUSEUM SHOP
Fundraising and commercial activities continued apace to generate income to support the Museum's many programs. The Museum received $75,454 in gifts and grants this year including $3,330 in unrestricted support; $33,600 for the Education Program; $5,474 for new exhibitions; $14,550 for new initiatives of the Hart Nautical Collections; and $18,500 for the Holography Program. Generous gifts were received from A. R. Arulpragasam '77 MA for the Education Program, John A. Lednicky '44 OE for the Hart Nautical Collections, and the Ralph Stephens Trust and Shearwater Foundation for Holography. In addition, an alumnus and long-time friend of the Museum has pledged $250,000 for a new facade and public entrance for the Museum, on the condition that another $250,000 be raised by September 1, 1999 to fully fund this project. The Development Committee, chaired by A. R. Arulpragasam, is working diligently to meet this goal. The Museum Shop generated $48,000 in profit on $360,000 worth of sales. The mail order catalog results were as favorable as in previous years.
PERSONNEL
Jane Pickering assumed her position as the director on August 3. Mary Leen, who served as acting director since July 1996, resumed her position as associate director with responsibility for finance and development. A new administrative assistant, Ellen Weene transferred from Chemical Engineering, and a new registrar & collections manager, Joan Whitlow from the Peabody Essex Museum, were hired. A new director of exhibitions and public programs, Janis Sacco, currently head of exhibitions and public programs at Oklahoma Natural History Museum, joined us on August 16. The Museum's first curator of science and technology, Deborah Douglas, currently visiting historian at NASA, takes up her position on August 2. We are also in the process of hiring a new commercial services manager. Kimberly Shilland completed and successfully defended her doctoral dissertation at Boston University in December.
FUTURE PLANS
In April the Museum adopted a one-year Strategic Plan for FY 2000. In particular the drafting of a five-year long-range plan and the renovation of the facade of the Museum, a long awaited necessity, will further the Museum's development and will be of paramount importance in achieving our potential. The six goals of the Strategic Plan are:
More information about the MIT Museum can be found on the World Wide Web at http://web.mit.edu/museum/.
Kurt Hasselbach, Mary Leen, Jane Pickering, Kimberly Alexander Shilland, Don Stidsen, Joan Parks Whitlow
The Museum Loan Network (MLN)–the first comprehensive national collection-sharing program–stimulates, facilitates and funds long-term loans of art among US institutions to enhance museums' "permanent" installations. Established in 1995, the MLN is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, and is administered by MIT's Office of the Arts. The MLN concurrently addresses two pressing issues facing the national museum community. Currently, hundreds of thousands of works of art sit in museum storage facilities around the country, most never put on display and many not adequately catalogued. At the same time, hundreds of museums are restricted in the range and quality of permanent exhibits they can mount because of the limitations of their own holdings. By fostering collection-sharing between museums, the MLN brings to light our nation's enormous hidden heritage in a meaningful way.
The program continues to expand its emphasis on network building, both through human and technological resources. The curatorial ambassadors, appointed in the fall of 1997, continue to help promote the program, assist applicants in locating potential lending partners and provide curatorial advice to MLN. The curatorial ambassadors' work has already resulted in several grant applications and heightened awareness of MLN in the curatorial community. Development continued on the MLN on-line Directory, a practical means of identifying art objects available for long-term loan to eligible museums throughout the US, which now contains over 3,750 objects from 28 institutions. A further innovation was the development of virtual exhibitions on the MLN homepage. Featuring projects made possible by MLN implementation grants and designed in conjunction with MIT's Hypermedia Teaching Facility (HTF), these virtual tours not only provide visual models for museums to understand how to creatively utilize MLN, but also stimulate public interest in the arts and provide greater access to museums' hidden permanent collections. There are now six virtual exhibitions on the MLN homepage featuring installations from the Mobile Museum of Art, Williams College Museum of Art, Joslyn Art Museum, Mint Museum of Art, Harn Museum of Art and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
In conjunction with the communications departments of the funders and MIT, an aggressive press initiative was launched in the fall of 1998. This initiative which the communications consultant, Resnicow/Schroeder, was hired to lead, is a key element of a more comprehensive communications strategy for the maturing program. After designing a complete press kit, a successful press luncheon was held in New York City on January 25, 1999. Although the intention of this event was to be one of long-term cultivation, significant press has already appeared including articles in the Cybertimes, Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, USA Today and PC Magazine. Press releases concerning grant awards were distributed to 1,700 museums, related organizations and the press. In October 1998, the second MLN newsletter, Museum Loan Network News 1997—1998 was printed in a run of 4,000 copies and distributed at museum conferences and by mail. This 16-page newsletter features testimonial stories by grantees and articles about the MLN Directory, a list of the 1997—1998 grant winners and an article by one of the curatorial ambassadors concerning the permanent collection. The MLN Director or Program Associate lectured about the program and related museum issues at the following annual meetings: the College Art Association (CAA), Los Angeles; the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums, Cape May; the New England Museum Association, Burlington; the Midwest Museums Conference, Madison; and the Museum Computer Network, Los Angeles. In addition, MLN hosted a luncheon meeting for curators during the CAA meeting in Los Angeles.
The MLN awards two types of grants to eligible nonprofit institutions in the US: planning grants and implementation grants. At the January 1999 and June 1999 Advisory Committee meetings held at MIT, 49 grants totaling $714,757 were recommended for approval by MIT for funding to museums throughout the country. Survey grants were awarded to such prestigious institutions as the Peabody Essex Museum, The Field Museum, the American Craft Museum, and the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Travel grants were awarded to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Boise Art Museum. Implementation grants were awarded to such diverse institutions as the Fitchburg Art Museum, the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University and the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico.
The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation approved the ongoing funding of MLN, over a three year period covering fall 1999 through summer 2002. The amount of the new grant is $3,794,000 ($1,897,000 from each foundation). Although, MLN has been careful to expand itself slowly and carefully to ensure that its goals can be met, it seems that after four years of concentrating on "art" and slowly experimenting a bit on the edges, the time has come for MLN to branch out. With this new grant, the focus of the program will expand from "art objects" to include objects of cultural heritage and those museums which focus on cultural heritage.
Lisa Zeidenberg, administrative assistant, resigned in April 1999 and was replaced by Julie Barrett in June 1999.
More information about the MLN can be found on the World Wide Web at http://loanet.mit.edu/Web/.
Lori Gross
In the tenth year of the Office of the Arts, Arts Communication continued to increase awareness of the arts at MIT both within and outside of the Institute by publishing and distributing up-to-date information on MIT arts events and exhibitions; actively promoting arts-related activities, programs and people at MIT; and working with the Admissions Office to inform prospective students about the arts at MIT. Significant developments included the launching of a major initiative to revamp the Arts at MIT web site and develop new print materials.
INTERNAL COMMUNICATION
Work began on a major initiative to develop new "Arts at MIT" materials for public relations, publicity, student recruiting and fundraising purposes. Components include an "Arts at MIT" identity, a professionally-designed web site, new publications, and new event calendar templates. After receiving budget approval from the Associate Provost for the Arts, a Request for Proposal was produced in conjunction with MIT's Publishing Services Bureau and the noted writer/designer team of Neal Kane and Kathy Forsythe was hired for the project.
Arts Communication's offer to take over the programming of a new LED sign in Building 16 was accepted, and work began on a complicated process of linking an Office of the Arts computer to the sign for programming purposes.
Director of Arts Communication Mary Haller represented the arts as a member of two new MIT committees: the Construction Communications Committee (CCC) and the Communications Operations Group (COG).
Administrative Staff Assistant Lynn Heinemann worked with the student founders of the new Tech Calendar to inform their development of this new electronic resource while overseeing and maintaining its listings of MIT arts events.
Heinemann maintained and publicized the current World Wide Web site for the arts at MIT and linked it to numerous other Web pages and sites.
Arts Communication continued to oversee ArtsNet, which consists of about 90 campus arts representatives, the "Arts at MIT" bulletin board in Lobby Seven and the weekly "Arts Hotline" (253-ARTS).
Student Recruitment and Communication
Arts Communication created a pocket-sized "freebie" flyer to help inform current and prospective MIT students of some of the extra-curricular arts opportunities available to them, including: the Council for the Arts-funded Grants Program, Boston Symphony Orchestra ticket program, Student Excursion program, Museum of Fine Arts university membership, and the List Visual Arts Center's Student Loan Art Program.
For the fourth year, MIT's admission application included tear-out postcards for prospective students to use to request information on the arts at MIT and indicate specific arts interests. Postcards and email responses were received from 1,628 individuals and a copy of the Student's Guide to the Arts and a "freebie" flyer were sent to each with a letter from Associate Provost for the Arts Alan Brody. Students who were eventually admitted and who had indicated interests in music and in theater were sent congratulatory letters from Professor Peter Child and Associate Professor Janet Sonenberg giving specific information on opportunities in those areas at MIT.
At the invitation of the Admissions Office, Director of Arts Communication Mary Haller spoke to Admissions staff prior to their fall travels about student opportunities in the arts at MIT. Haller also submitted, by invitation, an article about the arts at MIT for an Admissions newsletter sent to prospective students.
For the eighth year, Arts Communication prepared and manned an information table at the annual Activities Midway for incoming freshmen.
The arts at MIT were represented at Family Weekend by various events, open houses and materials, and, for the first time, at an information table manned by Haller.
The arts at MIT were represented at Campus Preview Weekend by various events, open houses and materials; Haller gave a presentation about the arts at MIT as part of the Parent's Panel.
General arts information in the MIT Bulletin was updated and significantly rewritten.
MIT arts-related photos continued to be prominent in The Tech, with many appearing on the cover of the paper–due, in part, to a partnership cultivated with The Tech's photo editor, graduate student Gábor Csányi. Through Csányi, Arts Communication also continued to add to its collection of stock photographs.
Advertisements of extra-curricular arts "freebies" were placed in The Tech periodically throughout the academic year.
Tech Talk Coverage
For the tenth year, Arts Communication provided text and images for the weekly Arts Page in Tech Talk. Material for 22 feature Arts Pages and eight Month-at-a-Glance Arts Pages were compiled and written by Heinemann, edited by Haller. Haller attended weekly News Office meetings and both she and Heinemann continued to work closely with its staff. Arts Page stories were made available on-line through the World Wide Web. Copies of the Month-at-a-Glance Arts Page (including two two-pagers) were mailed monthly to 901 individuals at their request.
Eighteen feature arts-related stories and 13 arts-related photos-with-captions were published in Tech Talk's general spaces, including three stories and two arts photos on the front page. Heinemann was the primary writer; other contributors included Haller, members of the News Office staff and members of the MIT arts community.
A new series of "Art Talk" columns was inaugurated, featuring questions and answers with selected MIT artists and art-makers. The year's first columns were interviews by Heinemann with a faculty member (Edward Baron Turk), a student (Philip Tan) and a staff member (Susan Welby).
LOCAL AND NATIONAL COMMUNICATION
Calendar listings of MIT arts events were produced and mailed monthly to 290 members of the electronic and print media. Press releases were produced for major events and announcements and mailed locally and nationally to targeted writers and media sources. Heinemann took on increased external writing and publicity responsibilities, researching and drafting press releases and responding to more media queries.
Arts Communication, for the second year, made special efforts to promote "world music" concerts at MIT concerts by presenting listings for Gamelan Galak Tika, MITCAN and MITHAS as a series through advertisements and flyers. Advertisements were placed in both the Fall '98 and Winter/Spring '99 World Music program booklets; flyers were mailed locally and distributed at MIT music events.
SELECTED MEDIA ATTENTION
The following are some of the people and projects across the Institute who received external media attention through press releases and publicity efforts initiated by Arts Communication:
The 50th anniversary concert and reunion by MIT's all-male a cappella ensemble, the Logarhythms.
The MIT Concert Band's salute to retiring director, John Corley, the only conductor the ensemble had known since its creation in 1948.
Awards presented by the Council for the Arts to author Junot Diaz (Eugene McDermott Award) and Professor Alan Lightman (Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship Prize).
The 1998 Abramowitz Memorial Lecture presented by Urban Bush Women founder Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, company dancer Ganelle Sherrod and dancer/percussionist Kwame Ross.
The appointment of List Visual Arts Center Director Jane Farver.
Author Junot Diaz's activities at MIT as Artist-in-Residence.
The appearance of bandoneon prodigy Michael Zisman with the MIT Symphony.
MIT senior James Kretchmar's stint as conductor at the Tech Night at Pops concert which also featured performances by Affiliated Artist Heng-Jin Park Ellsworth, Professors Ellen Harris and John Harbison and Lecturer John Corley.
In addition, Arts Communication provided consulting and publicity assistance for numerous arts-related people and projects across the Institute who received significant press attention, including: Resurrection, a new opera by Media Laboratory Associate Professor Tod Machover (music) and Laura Harrington, lecturer in music and theater arts (libretto); participation by MIT affiliates in the Boston CyberArts Festival; the Experimental Music Symposium's 25th anniversary celebration; performances by MITCAN, MITSO, Ali Akbar Khan, and the Aurelieus Ensemble; the Museum Loan Network Program; and Edward Baron Turk's book, Hollywood Diva).
Other National Attention
Institute Professor Jerome Friedman was featured in a nationally-aired radio feature by reporter Phyllis Joffe about people working in non-arts related professions who credit their success in part to their fine arts backgrounds (Marketplace, Sept. 22). "I think arts liberate a person's mode of thinking...they have this unfettered quality in which you can explore," asserted Professor Friedman, who said he spent two to three hours a day painting and drawing in high school. Ms. Joffe also informed her audience that "today more than half of all [MIT] undergraduates take at least one course in the arts."
Artist-in-Residence Arthur Ganson made the cover of Sculpture magazine (October 1998) with his "elegant mischief machines." Ann Wilson Lloyd wrote, "His pieces borrow, or parody, widely to devise original virtuoso performances dramatizing the physics of movement and playing upon the escalating dance between person and machine."
Other Local Attention
A Boston Globe Calendar feature titled, "Welcome to Campus," highlighted the perks of visiting MIT's cultural entities during the summer "off season." MIT's world music programs and concerts were featured in another Boston Globe Calendar article which stated, "Though not a high-profile operation, the Office of the Arts at MIT runs one of the best multicultural programs in the area," and concluded, "And you thought MIT was a place for science."
In an article on "Free Cambridge," The Cambridge Tab wrote, "Though it has a reputation as the nation's oldest and most expensive egghead jamboree, MIT actually has a huge arts community. Even if you have only gum and pocket change on you, feel free to ...saunter over to the university: 97 percent of events are free and open to the public."
The new director of the MIT Symphony earned praise in his debut season. The Boston Globe's Richard Buell praised both the Symphony's new director in his debut concert on October 23 and the orchestra, writing, "It was clear at the start that Anzolini knew what he was after. And what's more important, it was clear that the players of this young and ambitious community orchestra knew what he was after, too. They were able to deliver it solidly and reliably, and at times even with a suggestion of brilliance." In a review of MITSO's May concert, the Globe's Susan Larson wrote, "The MIT Symphony Orchestra is bursting into bloom under the leadership of new music director Dante Anzolini, and Saturday night's concert provided evidence that the maestro has won the musicians' hearts and imaginations as well as their minds."
Artist-in-Residence Arthur Ganson was featured in a flattering article in The Boston Sunday Globe City Weekly which also quoted Director of Special Programs Maureen Costello and MIT Museum Director Jane Pickering. In addition, Ganson's exhibition at the MIT Museum was ranked number three in the Cambridge Tab's "Top 10 Exhibits of 1998."
The Boston Phoenix named the MIT Museum the "Most intriguing lunchtime getaway" in their "The Best" issue. The quick run-down of the current exhibitions pronounced them "very cool stuff" and suggests a visit to the Museum Shop. The Boston Globe Calendar also singled out the MIT Museum Shop as a "haven for the [holiday] shopping-averse" while author Cate McQuaid pronounced the Museum's exhibitions "spectacular."
Other MIT people and programs receiving positive press attention included Professor Krzysztof Wodiczko (for his Bunker Hill Monument projections of bereaved Charlestown mothers); the SONOS ensemble – composed of faculty from MIT (Professor Marcus Thompson, viola and Senior Lecturer David Deveau, piano) and Boston University–which has "achieved brand-name status" according to the Richard Buell in his Boston Globe review of their December 6 concert); Architectural Research Fellow Ritsuko Taho (for her Multicultural Manifestoes project in Central Square); Assistant Professor Thomas DeFrantz (in conjunction with performances he directed of Theater Offensive's production Pure PolyESTHER: Biblical Burlesque); The MIT Juggling Club (featured with juggler Michael Moschen on stage at the Emerson Majestic Theater in a Boston Globe "Names & Faces" photo); and numerous MIT artists taking part in Boston's first CyberArts Festival.
More information about the Office of the Arts can be found on the World Wide Web at http://web.mit.edu/arts/.
Mary L. Haller
COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS
This year was a busy and exciting one for the Council for the Arts at MIT: the nature of our increasingly active and enthusiastic membership was made manifest through a record-setting fundraising year.
Council Standing Committees
Annual Meeting (Dorothea Endicott, chair). This year's Annual Meeting was focused on Writing. However, the other aspects of the arts at MIT were not ignored. The meeting began with an exhilarating walking tour of the permanent collection of sculpture, led by Jennifer Riddell of the List Visual Arts Center. The Council was also officially introduced to Jane Pickering, the new director of the MIT Museum and Dante Anzolini, the new head of the MIT Symphony Orchestra. In keeping with the year's theme, Frank Urbanowski of the MIT Press addressed the Council, and discussed the distinguished publisher's history and place at MIT. The Annual Meeting dinner was held at MIT Endicott House in Dedham, at which the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts was presented to Junot Diaz (See Special Programs, below). The Friday morning business meeting began with an address from President Vest, followed by the introduction of MIT's new Provost, Bob Brown, and Chancellor, Lawrence Bacow. Council committee chairs gave brief presentations and a panel discussion on the place of writing at MIT was held with Council member Pat Chute, Professor Alan Lightman, and lecturer and playwright Laura Harrington serving as panelists. Council member Brit d'Arbeloff ‘61 moderated. The Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship Prize were presented to Professor Alan Lightman, professor of Physics and recent head of the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies (see Special Programs below) at the Annual Meeting luncheon on Friday.
Communications (Pepi Weis, chair). The Communications committee produced three issues of the Council newsletter, Council Currents, this year, to great success. Currents is written by Council members, for Council members.
Development (Daniel Vershbow '45, chair). Sixty-nine Council members provided unrestricted contributions averaging $4,025. Twelve non-member donors contributed unrestricted gifts averaging $2,331. The total raised was $305,747.
Grants Program (Bradford M. Endicott '49, chair). Under the leadership of Chairman Bradford M. Endicott '49, $70,000 in the form of 40 grants were awarded to projects such as a concert celebrating the centennial year of Duke Ellington, a collaborative cultural show called "Grains of Rice," produced by several Asian student groups, and a sculpture designed to commemorate the work of longtime Center for Advanced Visual Studies composer and visual artist Paul Earls, who died in the late summer of 1998. In the early summer of 1999, the Grants Program application form was put on the web at http://web.mit.edu/arts/grantform.html.
Membership (Bernard G. Palitz '47, chair). At the writing of this report (7/98), Council membership stands at 97, plus six ex officio members. Four individuals accepted appointment to the Council upon the invitation of President Vest: Fay Chandler, Paul Fricke '61, Paul Gluck '68 and Kate Dundes Shattan '80. Lawrence Bacow, chancellor, became a new ex officio member.
Special Events Committee (Catherine N. Stratton, chair). The Special Events committee chose the location and dates for the next Council special excursion: Miami, Florida in March 2000.
List Visual Arts Center (LVAC) Advisory Committee (Kitty Glantz, chair) A new director for the LVAC was chosen, Jane Farver, formerly director of exhibitions at the Queens Museum in New York.
MIT Museum Advisory Board (Harvey I. Steinberg '54, chair). As Jane Pickering settled in as new director, the committee worked to create a new mission statement for this unique organization. Physical as well as spiritual revitalization is underway, as a new emphasis on work done here at MIT came to the fore, while plans for the revamping of the building facade proceeded apace.
Artist-in-Residence Committee (Stephen Memishian '70, chair). Organized along the lines of the MIT Museum and LVAC Boards described above. This committee works with MIT Office of the Arts Director of Special Programs Maureen Costello and a panel of arts professionals, Council Members and artists to bring artists to the MIT campus to work throughout the Institute.
Special Programs
The Council Scholars Program enjoyed a successful inaugural year of programming, with a roster of 23 students. The group attended theater in Boston, toured art exhibitions at the List Center, danced the Virginia reel in Kresge Rehearsal Room A and shared their own poems, paintings, piano pieces and art glass with the rest of the group.
Brit d'Arbeloff '61 was made chair of the Arts Scholars Selection Committee and will, as such, sit on the Executive Committee.
Since 1980, the Council has underwritten MIT's enrollment in the University Membership Program offered by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. This program provides free admission and discount benefits to all MIT undergraduate and graduate students, as well as ten membership cards for the daily use of MIT faculty and staff.
The free-ticket program with the Boston Symphony Orchestra continued this year. MIT students can obtain, with their student ID, free admittance to Thursday evening and Friday afternoon concerts on a day-of-show, stand-by basis. The success of this unique program continues unabated.
The successful Student Performing Arts Excursions Series continued, with each event enjoying full attendance–an average of 50 students per event. The Council provided tickets to see the World Music presentation "Gypsy Caravan," August Wilson's Jitney, and a performance of the Mark Morris Dance Group with Yo-Yo Ma and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
The Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship Prize was presented by Alan Brody to Professor Alan Lightman at the Annual Meeting luncheon on Friday, October 23. Professor Lightman most generously donated his prize money to the fledgling Arts Scholar Program. At the Annual Meeting dinner at Endicott House, the Eugene McDermott Award was presented by Dorothea Endicott (McDermott Award Committee chair) and Anita Desai (Mr. Diaz's nominator and professor in the MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies) to Junot Diaz, New York-based author of the short-story collection, Drown. Mr. Diaz read from his work following the dinner.
At the Institute Awards Convocation on May 5, Associate Provost for the Arts Alan Brody presented the Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Awards to Petra Chong ‘99 for music, Matthew Hanna ‘99 for music and theater arts, and Julie Park ‘99 for theater arts. The Louis Sudler Prize was presented to Eto Otitgbe ‘99 for his achievement as a visual artist.
More information about the Council for the Arts can be found at http://web.mit.edu/arts/camit.all.html.
Susan R. Cohen
SPECIAL PROGRAMS
Special Programs completed its ninth year at MIT and its second year with the newly established Artist-in-Residence Program Advisory Board, under the chairmanship of Steve Memishian (G ‘70). The Artist-in-Residence Program remained strong in the Humanities and in the School of Engineering, while the Advisory Board helped strategize about expansion into all areas of the Institute. The RACE2000! series sustained the public goals of the Committee on Campus Race Relations.
Artist-in-Residence Program Advisory Board
The Advisory Board finalized the Mission Statement, Goals and Strategies of the Artist-in-Residence Program, providing the foundation for a Five-Year Plan to expand the Program into all five schools of MIT, while establishing the Artist-in-Residence Endowment to support it. This plan is to be developed in collaboration with the Five-Year Plan for Office of the Arts as a whole. Ida Ely Rubin, a member of the Council for the Arts at MIT and Professor Samir Nayfeh of the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering joined the distinguished membership of MIT faculty, nationally recognized artists and leaders of the arts community.
A generous contribution to the Artist-in-Residence Program Endowment by Mrs. Margaret McDermott has established the Ida Ely Rubin Artist-in-Residence Program, to be initiated in 1999—2000.
School of Humanities and Social Science
Author Junot Díaz received the 1998 Eugene McDermott Award and conducted a Residency Program in collaboration with Writing and Humanistic Studies, Literature, and Foreign Languages and Literatures. He also offered a public reading and discussion of his work, entitled "An Evening with Junot Díaz."
Michael Moschen, juggler and movement artist, was named the first Katzenstein Visiting Artist and spoke and performed in MIT's Kresge Auditorium to a diverse audience.
Eve Andrée Laramée, creator of the List Visual Art Center exhibit A Permutational Unfolding, offered a gallery lecture on her artistic exploration of the early prototypes of digital technology to students from Science, Technology and Society.
The Office of the Arts continued collaboration with the three Humanities and Social Science sections that have formed Residency Planning Committees within their faculties. The Theater Section Residency Committee, through the William L. Abramowitz Program, invited Urban Bush Women to work with students in courses and co-curricular programs, including a workshop for students interested in the Dramashop production of for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf and a public lecture-demonstration, "Survival Through Cultural Traditions," which featured substantial student participation.
The Music Section Residency Committee invited the Pacific Jazz Arts Ensemble in the Fall, a program of fusion jazz featuring traditional instruments of aboriginal New Zealand, with a public concert in Killian Hall entitled "Korero: Confluence of Two Cultures"; and an investigation of contemporary composition with Ensemble Intercontemporain in the Spring. In both cases, artists actively engaged with faculty and students in courses and in public programs.
The Foreign Languages and Literatures Section invited the Wu Wei Theater of Frankfurt to participate in courses on German language and culture and perform a tri-lingual production of The Good Woman of Szechuan, in collaboration with Dartmouth, Trinity College, New York University and the Goethe-Institut, Boston. Subsequently Foreign Languages and Literatures formed a Residency Committee chaired by Professor Isabelle DeCourtivron and began planning for future programs.
Performance artists Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Roberto Sifuentes were named the 1999 William L. Abramowitz Artists and will be in residence in November in collaboration with Theater, Foreign Languages and Literatures, and the Comparative Media Studies Program. In January of 2000 they will return as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Scholars to facilitate the creation of Dramashop's IAP production.
School of Engineering
The initiative to create productive pairings between artists, scientists and engineers continues to thrive and grow. With support from the National Science Foundation, Felice Frankel, Artist-in-Residence at MIT since 1994, began developing a curriculum on visualizing science and a conference on this subject is planned for June, 2001, in collaboration with Boyce Rensberger, Knight Foundation director. The exhibition of her work, On the Surface of Things, has continued to tour nationally. Also this year, Frankel was granted an appointment by President Vest as "Artist-in-Residence/Research Scientist" in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. This new position will begin in 1999—2000.
Arthur Ganson, kinetic sculptor, continued to offer public lectures in his exhibition, Gestural Engineering, at the MIT Museum and participated for the second year as both "client" and advisor for two student groups in Course 2.72, Elements of Mechanical Design. One of these Course 2.72 designs, "The Flickering Tower," was presented to the Artist-in-Residence Advisory Board in the February meeting and as a result, through a grant from the Council for the Arts, "The Flickering Tower" is currently being built by students, under the supervision of Ganson and Professor Samir Nayfeh and will be installed in the Fall in Mechanical Engineering's Pappalardo Laboratory. Arthur Ganson was named the Ida Ely Rubin Artist-in-Residence for 1999—2000.
Elaine Yoneoka, ceramicist, worked with Material Science and Engineering faculty and Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) students to investigate issues of glaze stability. Diane Willow, environmental and sound artist, was invited to participate in the 1999—2000 Artist-in-Residence Program. Departmental connections are being explored.
Haystack Observatory
The MIT Museum has invited Susan Gamble and Michael Wenyon, holography and media artists entering their fourth year as Artists-in-Residence, to present Observing, a complete exhibition of the work that has resulted from their investigation into the world of astronomy at the Haystack Observatory. The exhibition will open in the Compton Gallery in February, 2000. Dr. Joseph Salah and the Haystack team will create a complementary, explanatory exhibit about the work of the astronomers at Haystack, to be installed in the adjacent corridor. A catalogue will be published by the MIT Museum and Kohn-Cruickshank, with an essay by Debra Balken.
List Foundation Fellowship Program In The Arts
The first two List Fellowships ever to be awarded in musical disciplines were completed this year. Sumita Pennathur 2000, majoring in aeronautics and astronautics, concluded her study of Carnatic vocal music and jazz saxophone with a standing-room-only concert of "Carnatic Jazz" in Killian Hall, October 2, 1998. Isela Rodriguez ‘99 of the Urban Studies and Planning Department, after a year of study with renowned vocal coach Kamal Scott, shared her skill and demonstrated the beauty of the Mariachi music tradition in a concert in Killian Hall in April of 1999.
1998 fellowships were awarded to Rigel Stuhmiller ‘99, architecture, to develop a graphic novel; and Zojeila Itzel Flores 2000, Biology, to study traditional Panamanian dance. The continuation of the List Foundation Fellowship Program in the Arts was insured through support from the Office of the Provost.
Institute Committees
"RACE 2000!" a series of public programs sponsored by the Committee for Campus Race Relations, continued with two community discussions in the Black Student Union lounge, which renewed alliances with several students' associations while addressing the topic "Is BLACK Black? How to Build A Community with Diverse Populations." A public panel discussion of the same name was also held, with Harvard Professor Lani Guinier and MIT Associate Professor Melissa Nobles, Dean Isaac Colbert, Eto Otitigbe ‘99 LaTonya Green (G), moderated by Dean Ayida Mthembu.
The Office of Special Programs was given the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Award by the Committee on Campus Race Relations for advancing the cause of improved race relations at the Institute.
More information about Special Programs in the Office of the Arts can be found on the World Wide Web at http://web.mit.edu/arts/specprogs.all.html.
Maureen Costello
MIT Reports to the President 1998-99