Student Council efforts to lobby for the creation of an "art fund" for student-run projects have met with success, netting a $5,000 grant from the University.
Council's Student Arts Committee spearheaded the initiative, which aims to increase opportunities for students to advance their interests in the arts.
Vice President for Student Affairs Pat Lampkin, whose office provided the funds, spoke enthusiastically about the art fund, which she said will support student arts in the community.
"It's an avenue for our students to bring the arts into the student community," she said.
The Student Arts Committee is the only Council committee receiving money from the Vice President for Student Affairs office at present, according to Lampkin.
The Committee will manage the funds and allocate them for student art projects outside of the classroom which otherwise would remain unfunded, Student Arts Committee Chair Rebecca Menges said.
Proposals for "new and emerging work" in the arts, whether in film, music, dance, drama, studio art, architecture and design, creative writing or poetry, will be presented to the Committee for approval. Any undergraduate or graduate student, regardless of his or her major, can apply for funding for a project.
"We're looking for students with project proposals that will benefit the arts at the University and will have a large impact on the University community," Menges said.
Students who garner funding will need to present a performance or exhibit to the University community within a year of receiving the grant.
The Committee has not yet finalized the application or chosen initial due dates. Menges said the Committee asked four students to create sample proposals used to gain the funding from Lampkin's office.
Those proposals included trips to a drawing marathon at a New York studio school, five violin lessons from Isaac Perlman with a subsequent performance and "a digest of the soundscape" at the University.
Another example detailed a performance of the Victorian ghost tale The Woman in Black, which portrays "a desperate young man in search of an actor who will help him tell the story of the woman in black, the ghost of a widow who lost her child in an accident over 100 years ago," according to the project proposal.
These projects would improve community visibility of the arts at the University and encourage other students to pursue their interests in the arts, Menges said.
Should the initiative prove successful, Lampkin said her office would look for more money for the art fund.
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