Faculty Achievements

Anchors

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• Julie Gunn Appointed Lincoln Academy Rector of Arts and Performing Arts 
• Kamila Glowacki and Audra Weinstein Receive Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Awards 
• Dawn Harris Awarded Charles Nelson Reilly American Prize  
• Joan Mitchell Fellowship Awarded to Liza Sylvestre
• Alan Mette Honored with 2022 Campus Award for Excellence in Faculty Leadership
• UIUC Professors Collaborate with Artist Nasrin Navab on KAM Exhibit
• Cynthia Oliver Receives U.S. Artists Fellowship
• Kathryn Anthony Awarded 2021 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion 
• FAA Researchers Awarded Funding for Two Arts CO+RE Program Projects
• Presidential Initiative: Expanding the Impact of the Arts and the Humanities
• Cripping the Arts – Karyn Sandlos (UIC) and Jorge Lucero (UIUC)
• Informing and Enabling Illinois’ Arts Ecosystem – Jennifer Novak-Leonard, Andrew Greenlee, and Magdalena Novoa (UIUC)
• The Neverland, or “Why Are there American Indians in Peter Pan?”: A Collaborative Work on New Theatre – Gabriel Solis and Terri Ciofalo (UIUC)
• Africana World Studies at UIUC and UIC

Julie Gunn Appointed Lincoln Academy Rector of Arts and Performing Arts

Julie Gunn Appointed Lincoln Academy Rector of Arts and Performing Arts 

Governor J.B. Pritzker appointed Julie Gunn (DMA ‘01, MMUS ‘92), codirector of Lyric Theatre and professor of accompanying, as rector of the Arts and Performing Arts for the Lincoln Academy of Illinois. It will be Gunn’s job to nominate individuals to receive the Order of Lincoln, thereby making them Lincoln Laureates. Her diverse experience and knowledge in performing arts allows her to bring attention to worthy honorees from a wide breadth of areas ranging from architecture to art to rap music to pottery. 

Kamila Glowacki and Audra Weinstein Receive Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Awards

Kamila Glowacki and Audra Weinstein Receive Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Awards

Kamila Glowacki (MFA ‘18 Art Ed, BFA ‘13 Art Ed/Painting), education coordinator for Krannert Art Museum, received the Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award for Education. Kamila’s commitment to public arts and cultural education has strengthened public engagement and championed diversity, equity and accessibility in museum programs since 2014. She spearheaded a yearlong partnership with Booker T. Washington STEM Academy and cocreated the KAM Pen Pals program to reach classrooms and homeschool groups across the state with art education curriculum. She also leads KAM’s accessibility committee and assists in authoring guidance for disability-aware museum engagement. With her leadership, museum education continues to grow in innovation, inclusivity, and diversity. 

Audra Weinstein, administrative aide in the School of Art and Design, received the Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award for Clerical Administrative Support. Audra demonstrates an enormous capacity to manage the school’s multiple, simultaneous, and often competing projects and initiatives. Her organization, initiative, and creativity have been crucial for school functions such as faculty searches and tenure, undergraduate recruitment, faculty and staff meetings, alumni relations, and communications. As a strategic thinker, she provides the executive team with the information needed to identify priorities and develop strategies for action. Audra has been integral in establishing a culture of support, openness, engaged governance, and shared mission.

Dawn Harris Awarded Charles Nelson Reilly American Prize

Dawn Harris Awarded Charles Nelson Reilly American Prize

Dawn Harris, professor of voice and Lyric Theatre at Illinois, was awarded the Charles Nelson Reilly American Prize in Stage Direction for her work on LTI’s production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw. The American Prize, named for Tony Award-winning actor and Broadway stage director Charles Nelson Reilly, is unique in scope and structure – designed to recognize and reward the best performing artists, directors, ensembles, and composers in the United States at professional, college/university, community, and high school levels. Harris is a versatile artist who has won critical acclaim for her performances of opera, operetta, concerts, and musical theatre works in a wide range of repertoire.

Joan Mitchell Fellowship Awarded to Liza Sylvestre

Joan Mitchell Fellowship Awarded to Liza Sylvestre

Lisa Sylvestre, curator of academic programs at Krannert Art Museum, was selected as one of fifteen inaugural recipients of the new Joan Mitchell Fellowship for painters and sculptors. The fellowship provides a total of $60,000 in unrestricted funds to the artist across a five-year timeline allowing them to allocate the money in a way that best develops their work and career. In her role, Sylvestre is responsible for connecting the university’s faculty and students to the museum – developing KAM into a vital teaching resource across all disciplines at the University of Illinois. She is known for her intersectional and multidisciplinary work that explores the ways in which our senses alter our experience and perception of the world. Sylvestre’s work as a multimedia artist has been shown both nationally and internationally.

Alan Mette Honored with 2022 Campus Award for Excellence in Faculty Leadership

Alan Mette Honored with 2022 Campus Award for Excellence in Faculty Leadership

Alan Mette, professor and director of the School of Art and Design, was one of four University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty honored with the 2022 Campus Awards for Excellence in Faculty Leadership. Mette received the Executive Officer Distinguished Leadership Award which recognizes outstanding academic leadership and vision by an executive officer within a college or campus unit. Under his leadership, the School of Art and Design has seen an increase in public engagement and significant achievements in undergraduate recruitment and retention. The Office of the Provost sponsors the campus-level awards in recognition of faculty members who distinguish themselves in their vision of the future and their efforts to enable and promote others in shaping that future.

Reckless Law, Shameless Order

UIUC Professors Collaborate with Artist Nasrin Navab on KAM Exhibit

Faranak Miraftab, professor of Urban and Regional Planning, and Ryan Griffis, associate professor of New Media, collaborated with visiting artist Nasrin Navab on the exhibition “Reckless Law, Shameless Order.” The exhibit, which explored the shared experiences of people held in confinement and displayed works by formerly incarcerated artists, was on view at Krannert Art Museum from February 11 – April 2, 2022. The collaborations that this exhibition fostered led to art-based workshops and intimate dialogues in which these artists found common practices of punishment and experiences across ethnicities, cultures, and borders. “All of the artists, even though they were put in situations to be crushed and dehumanized, protected their humanity,” Miraftab said. “It’s their humanity that comes through in their art.”

Cynthia Oliver Receives U.S. Artists Fellowship

Cynthia Oliver Receives U.S. Artists Fellowship

Dance professor Cynthia Oliver was one of 60 United States Artists Fellows selected for 2021 and one of five fellows in the field of dance. This competitive fellowship is awarded to recognize the accomplishments of artists across ten creative disciplines. Fellows receive a $50,000 unrestricted cash award to support their artistic and professional development. A celebrated choreographer and performer, Oliver has danced with several professional companies before joining the faculty at Illinois including the David Gordon Pick Up Co., the Bebe Miller Company, Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, and Tere O’Connor Dance. Oliver’s work is a blend of dance theatre and spoken word that incorporates Caribbean performance with African and American forms. 

Kathryn Anthony Awarded 2021 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion

Kathryn Anthony Awarded 2021 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion

Kathryn Anthony was awarded the 2021 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Association of the Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) awards this honor to individuals for their demonstrated dedication to the education of and their influence on architecture students. An ACSA Distinguished Professor and the longest serving female faculty member, Anthony amplified the conversation about how spaces and places affect people – chiefly addressing issues of gender and diversity in design.

FAA Researchers Awarded Funding for Two Arts CO+RE Program Projects

FAA Researchers Awarded Funding for Two Arts CO+RE Program Projects

The Arts CO+RE (Community + Research Partnership) Program, launched just last year, is strengthening relationships between University of Illinois researchers, artists, and community members. The creative local arts community is still in the process of recovering and moving forward from the ongoing pandemic. These exciting new projects support local artists and showcase the creativity and vibrancy of our diverse and talented community. 

The multidisciplinary research team of CETACEAN (The Whale): The 6th Performance in the Unreliable Bestiary will use collected, recycled plastic to create a full-scale blue whale skeleton built by local students and student-led organizations. This multi year communal process will culminate in a public performance that will include music, a live chorus, costumed performers, and a large-scale video projection while the 110-foot-long whale skeleton is suspended “swimming” through the air of the University of Illinois Stock Pavilion. Among the research team is Susan Becker, assistant professor in the School of Art and Design, Terri Ciofalo, director of production at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Jorge Lucero, associate professor and Chair of Art Education in the School of Art and Design, and John Boesche, faculty member of the Department of Theatre specializing in media design.

The Disability Aware Cities project that incorporates public art, oral history, and storytelling will engage and spotlight members of the arts and disability communities. The research team will pilot a public art project that exposes pre-health professional students to the lived experience and embodied understanding of disability which will support and promote artists and individuals with disabilities living in Urbana-Champaign. The project furthers the university’s mission of discovery, engagement, and innovative learning by prioritizing learning through first-hand experience in sustainable and equitable partnerships. “UIUC has a large number of students with disabilities, more than 3,000 registered with Disability Resources & Education (DRES) and likely many more who are not registered, so it’s critical to develop programming in support of that community, in support of their voices and their experiences,” shared Liza Silvestre, multimedia artist, curator of academic programs at Krannert Art Museum, and project lead. The research team will work with students and community members to identify sites on campus and in Urbana to create an oral history or subjective storytelling that explores the experiences of a person who has a disability. Sylvestre added, “We’re excited for the Arts CO+RE support, and it comes at an important time. We have the chance to explore what art should become in thinking about long-term access and how the pandemic has forced us to reckon with what access is and what access should be.”

Presidential Initiative: Expanding the Impact of the Arts and the Humanities

Presidential Initiative: Expanding the Impact of the Arts and the Humanities

Now in its second year of system-wide funding, this presidential initiative is providing up to $2 million in support of proposals that will expand the impact of the arts and the humanities. FAA-affiliated faculty are involved in the following four proposals that received funding this year totaling $619,000. 

Cripping the Arts Karyn Sandlos (UIC) and Jorge Lucero (UIUC)

Cripping the Arts—Karyn Sandlos (UIC) and Jorge Lucero (UIUC)

Cripping the Arts will build an art-focused collaboration to allow students, faculty, and disabled community members across the U of I System to take advantage of the well-recognized educational opportunities for people with disabilities at universities in Urbana-Champaign and Chicago. The project will begin with an exhibition in Chicago and Urbana-Champaign that will serve as the launch point for new community partnerships, teacher training, and artist residencies. Project leaders plan to transform spaces dedicated to the arts as well as art education and studio practice through new ideas about disability. Students from UIUC and UIC will be involved in all stages of programming.

Informing and Enabling Illinois’ Arts Ecosystem Jennifer Novak-Leonard, Andrew Greenlee, and Magdalena Novoa (UIUC)

Informing and Enabling Illinois’ Arts Ecosystem—Jennifer Novak-Leonard, Andrew Greenlee, and Magdalena Novoa (UIUC)

This arts-focused project will highlight the impact of the arts in communities around the state and help identify factors that can better support the arts and artists in different regions. The project intends to help propel the newly launched Arts Impact Initiative within the UIUC College of Fine and Applied Arts in collaboration with the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. The project also will include a series of public forums, along with generating a series of evidence- and data-driven issue briefs and an applied workshop course in Urban and Regional Planning that will pilot curricula that explores how arts and artists are a part of community development.

The Neverland, or “Why Are there American Indians in Peter Pan?”: A Collaborative Work on New Theatre – Gabriel Solis and Terri Ciofalo (UIUC)

The Neverland, or “Why Are there American Indians in Peter Pan?”: A Collaborative Work on New Theatre – Gabriel Solis and Terri Ciofalo (UIUC)

The project’s leaders plan to produce a new work of theater, The Neverland by Madeline Sayet, executive director of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program, in spring 2022. Sayet will serve a residency as a guest artist as part of the project. The play will be designed, performed, managed and studied by UIUC students and faculty, leading to the production of undergraduate and graduate research. The goal of this project is to substantially increase knowledge and understanding about Indigenous performance. Please see page 6 for the full story.

Africana World Studies at UIUC and UIC

Africana World Studies at UIUC and UIC

Teresa Barnes, Maimouna Barro, Mary Gathogo, Erik McDuffie, Tekita Bankhead and Sam Smith (UIUC); and Lynette Jackson and Kirk Hoppe (UIC)

The development of a joint Africana World studies project on the UIC and UIUC campuses will help break down long-standing academic silos of African studies and African-American studies. Through a three-semester sequence, the project is expected to lead students to new opportunities for language learning and community engagement, and it will impact the curriculum at both universities. The project leaders anticipate that the primary participants will be undergraduate students.