Fond Farewells

Dean of Students Ainsley Carry is leaving for Alabama’s Auburn University next month.

By: Joshua Fernandez

Therese Dolan, Tyler School of Art’s interim dean, announced she will resign June 30.

By: Chris Stover

Therese Dolan steps down as Tyler dean

At a time of change and excitement for the Tyler School of Art, its interim dean announced her resignation.

Therese Dolan, the interim dean of Tyler, made the announcement Thursday. Her resignation will be effective June 30. Dolan assumed the position in January 2008.

“We are extremely grateful to Terry Dolan and wish her well as she returns to the faculty,” said Lisa Staiano-Coico, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, in an e-mail interview. “She is a respected art historian and a beloved teacher.”

Perhaps one of the biggest accomplishments during Dolan’s brief tenure as interim dean was overseeing the move of the art school from its Elkins Park campus to its new $75 million home at 12th and Norris streets.

The building, which had been in the works for years, is one of the Temple’s biggest selling points.

“Terry Dolan did a superb job guiding Tyler through the challenging transition into its fabulous, new, state-of-the-art facility on Main Campus,” Staiano-Coico said. “And, as President [Ann Weaver] Hart said, she did so with grace.”

Dolan, who was unavailable for comment by press time, has been a faculty member with Temple’s art history department since 1980. Her specialties are 19th-century French art and contemporary art.

In January, under Dolan’s reign, Tyler snagged the Jack Wolgin International Prize in the Fine Arts, the world’s largest monetary award for a fine arts institution. The prize represented a monumental highlight of both her one-and-a-half years as interim dean and of Tyler’s history.

“We have such a high-ranked art program, and we have such a high reputation,” Dolan told The Temple News in January. “People only give to success.”

According to U.S. News and World Report, Tyler’s fine arts program ranks 14th in the nation.
Her tenure as dean also saw a small controversy.

In August 2008, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on alumni donations to Tyler. Dolan was quoted as saying while alumni from the medical and business schools “have deep pockets, ours are still waitressing” and aren’t able to give as much back.

In a response on the Tyler listserv, Dolan said she was “dismayed” that her words were “taken out of context.”

The article struck the wrong chord for some Tyler students, but others are upset to see her step down.
“It’s a shame,” said Liz Schneffer, an undeclared freshman at Tyler. “I liked the way the school was run.”

Robert T. Stroker, dean of the Boyer College of Music and Dance, will perform double duty and serve as interim dean of Tyler. Staiano-Coico said Stroker brings “tremendous expertise and knowledge of the arts to the position.”

Before arriving at Temple, Stroker served as the associate dean at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University from 1996 to 2002.

“Terry Dolan has provided exemplary leadership as interim dean,” Stroker said, “and I look forward to working with Tyler’s outstanding students, faculty, administration and staff.”

Because of the university’s hiring freeze initiated in January by Hart, all searches for deans are on hold, Staiano-Coico said.

Hillel Hoffman, assistant director of news communications, said having other schools’ deans fill in as temporary replacements is not uncommon.

“It is not unprecedented for the dean of a Temple school or college to stand in as interim dean,” he said.
Prior to serving as interim dean, Dolan served as the art history department chair for two terms. She will eventually return to teaching in an art school quickly gaining international acclaim.

“With their wonderful, new building, Tyler is on the rise,” Staiano-Coico said. “We look forward to working with Dean Stroker to ensure Tyler continues to move forward on its current exciting trajectory.”

Chris Stover can be reached at stover@temple.edu.

Dolan to step down as interim dean

Therese Dolan, the interim dean of the Tyler School of Art, has announced she’ll step down from the position at the end of June.

Dolan has been with Temple since 1980, mostly serving as a professor in the art history department. She has served as dean of the school twice and will return to teaching.

Most notably, Dolan oversaw the historic move of the art school from its Elkins Park campus to its new home at 12th and Norris streets on Main Campus.

Robert Stroker, dean of the Boyer College of Music and Dance, will serve as interim dean effective July 1, 2009.

Stay with The Temple News for more information.

Chris Stover can be reached at stover@temple.edu.

Ribbon cut on Tyler’s new home

The Tyler School of Art held a dedication ceremony on Wednesday to celebrate the new $76 million facility on Temple University’s Main Campus.

More than 500 students, alumni, friends and faculty flooded the lobby to celebrate the beginning of a new era for the Tyler School of Art.

Tyler Interim Dean Therese Dolan kicked off the program, calling the school “the north star on the Avenue of the Arts.”

Student work could be seen in almost every direction, right down to the symbolic ribbon crafted to cut at the ceremony.

Dolan called herself the caboose dean for the project’s long period of plotting, planning and preparing that was handed down through several deans and began with the ideas of Peter Liacouras.

Michael Buczola, who graduated from Tyler in 1988, said the move was an idea even when he attended school there.

“There was talk about Tyler moving to Temple’s Main Campus when I was in school,” he said. “I was one of the people to fight it, we wanted to stay up there [in Elkins Park]. But now I can see the community it creates.”

As the ceremony continued, community was certainly a central recurring theme.

The building’s architect, Carlos Jiminez, posed the question, “Why do artists arrive as a community instead of scattered in buildings?”

The Elkins Park campus was divided into different buildings for specific programs, while the new Main Campus building brings all the art programs together under one roof.

Dolan mentioned one collaborative and communal effort that involved sculpture students who declared war on four neighboring art schools by placing large scale Trojan horses inside each the school’s buildings.

The response from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts was on display on the first floor of the building during yesterday’s ceremony. PAFA disassembled the Trojan horse and converted it into a chariot where they placed their own Helen of Troy sculpture, accompanied with a note that said return to sender.

After the presentation and ribbon cutting, guests were encouraged to check out the Trojan horse and explore how the new community of Tyler students adapted to the building’s design, which Jiminez called a creative space to inspire.

He said the blank corners in the building are meant to generate corners of imagination in the minds of students.

That imagination was present in the photographs, paintings, prints, ceramics jewelry and more displayed from corner to corner on all four floors of what Ann Weaver Hart said was, “already a well-used art building.”

Alum and founder of Woman’s Art Journal Elisa Konig Fine, who graduated from Tyler in 1967, had been to the new building when it first opened in January, and returned Wednesday to see the latest.

“It was too clean when I first saw it,” said Fine, 78. “But now it actually looks like artists are here … it makes me want to put on my jeans and get my hands dirty.”

Students and alumni mixed and mingled, reminiscing about their Elkins Park past and reveling in the future possibilities of this new Main Campus community.

Mary Hagenbach can be reached at mary.hagenbach@temple.edu.

Tyler snags top prize

The world’s largest annual fine art prize is to be awarded to and by the Tyler School of Art.

A recent $3.7 million was donated to the school by Jack Wolgin, a Philadelphia real estate developer. The money is to be given out in a yearly $150,000 award. To be eligible for the prize participants must be nominated by a field professional.

Tyler Dean Therese Dolan said the grant has been a long time coming.

“This was negotiated many years ago through the Liacouras administration,” Dolan said.

Wolgin is a Penn State alum and University of Pennsylvania Law School graduate. He is also an arts patron and philanthropist.

It was Wolgin who chose Claes Oldenburg’s giant clothespin sculpture to be placed on Market Street across from City Hall.

“The man is so ahead of his time in his ability to perceive where art is going. This is the legacy he is leaving Tyler in his name,” Dolan said.

Wolgin is currently residing at his winter home in Florida but will have an active role with the contest, officially named the “Jack Wolgin International Competition in the Fine Arts at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University.” Wolgin decided the competition’s criteria, which is art that transcends traditional boundaries.

Dolan said credit is due in part to Tyler professors, Martha Madigan and Jeff Fuller. The two are close friends of Wolgin’s and encouraged him to choose Temple for this endowment.

“We have such a high ranked art program, and we have such a high reputation,” Dolan said. “People only give to success.”

Tyler’s reputation is climbing. According to the U.S. News and World Report’s list of best fine arts schools, Temple ranked 14th. Three years ago it was ranked 23rd.

Currently, the Rhode Island School of Design holds the No. 1 spot, followed by Yale University, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Dolan said she hopes the combination of a brand new building with the award endowment will further boost Tyler’s score.

“Elkin’s Park was held together with Scotch tape and bubblegum. I am very confident with a new building and this prize,” she said. “I want to be No. 1. I’m very hopeful to be in the top five next time.”
Tyler students received e-mails announcing the news.

“It would benefit Tyler because it would be the biggest award offered to an independent artist ever,” said Lucy Perluck, a junior jewelry and metals major.

“Making art is pretty expensive. I like to work in sterling silver and sometimes gold,” she said. “It would be cool to not have to worry about the amount of materials I can afford.”

Matthew Werth, a junior photography major, was surprised by the award, too.

“I don’t know what I’d do with it,” Werth said. “It’s more than schooling would be.”

The specifics of the award are still in the works. Dolan said a committee is being formed to come up with the terms of the contest.

It’s been determined that contest participants must be nominated.

Dolan said the contest “would probably bring forth literally millions of applicants” if it received open applications.

This is not only due to the enormity of the prize but also because nominees are not limited to Temple students. Any artist from any continent can be suggested.

The winner who was selected will have his or her own exhibit on Temple’s campus in May. Because of the late deadline, this year’s exhibit will be hosted in September.

The winning artist will be presented with his or her award by Wolgin during a ceremony.

Both the ceremony and the exhibit will be open to the public.

Dolan said she is proud of Tyler’s good fortune.

“This is a testament to Temple’s access to excellence.”

Michelle Provencher can be reached at michelleprovencher@temple.edu.