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Mellon Grant Funds Student and Faculty Involvement at Art Museum

The gift will enable the Nasher to create two new positions and double the number of classes that study works of art in the museum, among other things.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $500,000, four-year grant to the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University to enhance its collaboration with faculty and students on teaching, exhibitions and research.

The Mellon Program will enable the museum to create two new positions, double the number of classes that study works of art in the museum and further engage Duke faculty in creating exhibitions and public programs.

Anne Schroder, curator and academic program coordinator, will expand her role in supporting faculty and student use of the collections for teaching and research by conducting faculty workshops and helping to organize related exhibitions. A new part-time study storage supervisor will help to coordinate class visits to study works of art not on public view.

"We are all excited and grateful to the Mellon Foundation for their support of our efforts to involve Duke faculty -- the brain trust of the university," said Kimerly Rorschach, the Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director of the museum. "It will help us to be even more proactive in supporting Duke's educational mission. Also, Duke professors and students offer valuable insights and new ways to study and present our collections, which will benefit our broader public."

Current faculty collaborations include the exhibitions "The Past is Present: Classical Antiquities at the Nasher Museum" (on view), with Carla Antonaccio, chair of the Department of Classical Studies, and Sheila Dillon, professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies; "Lines of Attack: Conflicts in Caricature" (spring 2010), with Neil McWilliam, the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Art & Art History; and "Vorticism in London and New York, 1914-1918" (fall 2010), with Mark Antliff, professor of Art, Art History & Visual Studies. The Mellon Program will expand collaborations with university classes across disciplines, including a program with first-year medical students.