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Art is not just something that one makes, but also something that one does.

As director of the School of Art, I have the privilege of working with talented, curious people who believe in art as a tool for addressing the complex challenges we increasingly face. Through art, we are uniquely situated to rethink and reimagine history, find meaning in the present and together shape the future. School of Art donors are choosing to not only enjoy and celebrate the arts but to also contribute to our creative community. They support the advancement of artists, scholars and art educators by enabling the highest level of learning and production. The School of Art offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the areas of art education, art history, museum studies and studio art. We provide students with an education in art that goes beyond building knowledge and technical skills; it also provokes thought, encourages exploration and ignites generative dialogue. It is with deep gratitude that we acknowledge those who invest in our mission and help to make the School of Art a place where extraordinary things can happen.

– Forrest Solis, director

Forrest Solis

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Your support helps art students like Bruce Ward and Ruchi Ukhade achieve their dreams while supporting their community.

Bruce Ward

Bruce Ward first became involved with Arizona State University when he donated one of his paintings to an ASU charity show called {Ink}carcerated. At that time, Ward was himself incarcerated and had no path to higher education. Through the Inside-Out Exchange Program and with financial support from ASU scholarships, Ward graduated from ASU and now works with the Inside-Out Program to help others transition back into society. Ward continues to work with community-focused programs, including the continuation of the {Ink}carcerated Art Show and his artist collective Cardiac Leather Works. Additionally, he has spearheaded the Folded Flags project and the Veterans Iron Pour, two projects that focus on United States Veterans and the unique challenges they face when returning to civilian life.

Ruchi Ukhade

Ruchi Ukhade, an animation student at the ASU School of Art, has dedicated much of her college career to advocating for equity in creative and technological fields. During her sophomore year, she co-founded the ASU chapter of Women in Animation (WIA), an international organization that supports the advancement of people of underrepresented gender identities in the animation industry. As WIA’s president, Ukhade, now a senior, works closely with the ASU Women’s Coalition and has established a lecture series featuring high-profile leaders in the animation world. These guest lecturers have shared their visual development and production design knowledge with thousands of students across the institution. Ukhade is currently working on her senior capstone, a 3D animated sci-fi genre film that explores the resilience of oppressed communities.

How you make a difference

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Investing in our students

A scholarship donation to the School of Art is more than a gift – it’s an investment in our students, a commitment to the importance of art education, and a catalyst for artistic ambition. Here are a few ways your contribution impacts our students’ success:

Scholarship contributions apply directly to students’ educational expenses. Many of our students would be limited in the scope of their education without the support of donors like you.

Your contribution plays a crucial role in fostering a dynamic community within the School of Art, which boasts the largest number of student-led organizations across the Herberger Institute. Our clubs organize community events, workshops and lectures featuring professional artists; attend national conferences; sell their work; and enhance their financial literacy by collaborating with ASU Student Government to secure funding for their creative pursuits. Your generosity directly fuels these initiatives, empowering our students to lead and participate in this rich community.

Through our partnership with Blick, the School of Art is able to provide many of our students with funds for art materials. This support empowers them to diversify their artistic experiences, experiment with various materials and pursue ambitious projects (including their senior exhibitions) that might otherwise be financially out-of-reach.

In addition, your donation supports the School of Art's ongoing lecture seminar series, open to undergraduate and graduate students across the university as well as the community at large. This series, in conjunction with our strong foundations curriculum, focuses on strengthening students' professionalization practices and opportunities for networking. By providing guidance on practical, applied topics, the series enhances students’ impact as artistic citizens and facilitates their career growth, ultimately contributing to student retention and success.

Your support can become an enduring part of this legacy, shaping the future of the School of Art for generations to come.

Investing in our faculty

The School of Art's world-renowned faculty ensures that students learn a range of techniques and concepts that enable them to develop their own style and specialty. With over 85 faculty members, the School of Art is well-equipped to mentor students throughout their college careers. Our faculty are active scholars and artists, recognized within their fields nationally and internationally, and have won an array of awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship, National Endowment of the Arts Grant, International Animated Film Society Award and a United States Artist Fellowship.

Your investment in faculty development and research is vital to maintaining and expanding the high-quality education we provide to students.

You can direct your investment to support faculty in the following ways:

Faculty chairs recognize the achievements of faculty over a lifetime of scholarly endeavor. Such named chairs carry with them a level of prestige among the wider academic world that allows ASU to attract and retain faculty of the highest level of achievement and teaching.

The ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts wishes to increase the number of chairs in each of its schools, resulting in the continued artistic and creative development of its faculty.

Offered only to full professors, named chairs provide faculty with recognition, compensation and supplementary support for their teaching and research activities. These named gifts also strengthen the economic and creative well being of Arizona.

Named professorships help the ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts recruit and retain the brightest and most talented faculty in the world.

Like endowed chairs, named professorships support teaching and research activities, but are typically provided to scholars and faculty at an earlier stage in their academic careers.

Part of the ASU Herberger Institute’s Annual Giving program, the Faculty Enrichment Fund is a pooled fund that supports the costs of research grants, supplies, travel fellowships and other essential activity that is part of the faculty’s creative leadership work.

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Consider making a gift to a specific scholarship fund

Born in 1925 in New York City, Seymour Rosen was a musician, scholar and artistic director who began his musical career as a double bass player. Drafted into the 99th Infantry during WWII, he was awarded a Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart. After his return to the U.S., Rosen pursued musical studies at Juilliard and later served as the executive director of the American Symphony Orchestra League, the manager of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the managing and artistic director at Carnegie Hall. In 1986, Rosen became the Dean of the Herberger College of Fine Arts at ASU, where he proposed and established the Institute for Studies in the Arts. Today, his legacy continues to reverberate throughout the arts world as the Herberger Institute revolutionizes arts education by encouraging multidisciplinary collaboration, exploring new art forms and addressing critical issues across artistic disciplines.

The Seymour L. Rosen Scholarship supports undergraduate students in the School of Art at Arizona State University who demonstrate academic excellence and artistic promise. Contributing to the Seymour L. Rosen Scholarship makes it possible for undergraduate students to follow in Rosen’s footsteps as a pioneering leader in the arts community.

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Established in 2017 by Gary and Christine Guerin, the Guerin Scholarship supports first-generation students in the School of Art who are majoring in Painting or Sculpture. Scholarship recipients are third-year students and above who demonstrate exceptional creativity and dedication in their studies. Contributing to the Guerin Scholarship provides first-generation students in the School of Art with the opportunity to pursue their artistic aspirations, access invaluable educational resources and break down financial barriers, fostering a supportive environment for their creative growth and academic success.

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Established in 2018 by Mys’s family and friends, the Caelan Mys Memorial Endowed Scholarship serves as tribute to the legacy of art historian Caelan Mys. Born in 1967 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Caelan obtained her MA in Art History from Indiana University, where she studied Medievalism. After working in the Fine Art and 20th Century Decorative Art Department at Sotheby’s, she spent over 10 years as a director at Russell Bowman Art Advisory in Chicago. In 1998, Mys became the curator for the Estate of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, where for 20 years she studied and promoted the collection.

The Caelan Mys Memorial Endowed Scholarship supports first-generation students pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree in the School of Art at Arizona State University. In keeping with Mys's professional and personal qualities, scholarship recipients must demonstrate curiosity, persistence, an enterprising disposition and future artistic promise. Contributing to the Caelan Mys Memorial Endowed Scholarship makes it possible for first-generation students to honor Mys’s legacy through continued education and ambition in the arts.

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Born in 1942, Tom Eckert is an Emeritus Professor of Art at Arizona State University and a member of the faculty within the Woods program since 1971. He received his BFA and MFA at Arizona State University. His sculptures have been exhibited in hundreds of national and international exhibitions since 1966, his work is displayed throughout the United States and was part of the Craft in America traveling exhibition. Today, his legacy continues through new generations of students creating sculptures formed entirely of wood using woodworking techniques by ensuring access to a specialized woods program within a professional grade facility.

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Mary Neubauer is a President's Professor in sculpture at Arizona State University and head of the Art Foundry at ASU's Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. She received her BFA in Sculpture from Colorado State University in 1973, and her MFA in Sculpture from Indiana University Bloomington, IN in 1981. Professor Neubauer runs the foundry program and is also affiliated with ASU's Partnership for Research in Spatial Modeling.

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Born in 1959, Kathryn Maxwell is an Emeritus Professor of Art at Arizona State University and a member of the Printmaking program since 2001. She received her BA from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and her MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her artwork explores the many forms of human connections to each other and the universe.

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Emeritus Professor since 2017 and faculty within the drawing program since 1987, Janice Pittsley was a dedicated educator, scholar and colleague. Professor Pittsley’s primary interest is to explore the place where representation and abstraction meet, where the particularities of the material world are joined with the abstract qualities of the world or ideas and emotions. Her drawings interweave opposites: the naturalistic and the idealized, the airy and the grounded, the imagined and the observed, the particular and the generalized.

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Mark Klett is an American photographer born in 1952 in Albany, New York. He has been Emeritus Professor of Art at Arizona State University since 2022 and has been a member of the School of Art faculty at Arizona State University since 1982. He achieved the rank of Associate Professor in 1992, was promoted to Professor in 1996, and awarded the rank of Regents’ Professor in 2002. He received his MFA in Photography from State University of New York at Buffalo, Program at the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, New York, in 1977. His work has been exhibited in hundreds of national and international exhibitions and collected by numerous prestigious institutions.

During his 40 years at ASU, he has been active as an artist and an educator. Professor Klett’s contributions to the School include creating over a half dozen new classes for the photography program, and he mentored over a hundred MFA students and several PhD students, serving on their graduate committees, often as Chair.

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James White is currently an Emeritus Professor of Art at Arizona State University and has been a faculty member of the Sculpture program since 1981. Sculptor and professor James White has been creating and exhibiting art using emitted light since the late 1960s. Wood, steel, found objects and an array of other materials also make their way into his sculptures. An expert in technical knowledge, White teaches all types of sculpture fabrication, including metal, wood and plastics, along with architectural sculpture, neon, and other forms of light in sculpture. He is also founder of the ASU Neon Workshop. Professor White fostered the development of conceptual thought and creativity in his students, teaching them the vocabulary and structure of sculpture to allow them to craft their ideas into their own unique visual poetry. Professor White has been twice nominated for the ASU Outstanding Professor of the Year Award.

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Give to the School of Art, today.

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Contact us

Speaking with a development professional is like having a free, personal advisor to assist with your philanthropic goals. Development officers can assist you with crafting an individual strategy that fits your unique circumstances, philanthropic vision and financial budget. Please consider contacting a member of our team:

Senior director of development

Development director

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