Message from the Dean: Spring 2018

CCFA has certainly had a busy and rewarding spring, and I hope you enjoy reading about the accomplishments of our faculty, students, and alumni in this online issue of Voices. I have been grateful for the continuing warm welcome and support of the CCFA community as I have settled into my role this past year, and it has been a pleasure, as well, to get to know colleagues in the arts and cultural sector in Memphis. Our extensive network of community partners is one of the most impressive aspects of CCFA’s profile, and I am proud of the range of research and outreach initiatives that faculty and staff engage in, and of the internships and other opportunities that these community links facilitate for our students.

Several of these collaborations will contribute to the buzz of activities that are poised to transpire on our campus and around the world this summer. While the rising mercury may propel a seemingly languid ambience, this CCFA summer will be very far from sleepy.

Many of our students will opt to accelerate their progress by enrolling in summer courses. Meanwhile, our campus will welcome aspiring students to get a taste of what we do through a variety of endeavors. The Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music, for instance, will hold its two-week long Memphis Summer Music Camp for Orchestra, Band and Choir in June, followed by the annual Orff Music Institute in July. It will host the Memphis Jazz Workshop for the entire summer, and our music faculty will also be working with the Stax Academy summer camp. 

Music faculty will also be busy further afield, joining the staffs at many summer festivals and camps across the country and in Europe including the Accademia Vocale Lorenzo Malfatti Vocal Training Institute in Italy and the Walled City Music Festival in Ireland. Some of our students will attend the prestigious Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, the National Repertory Orchestra and the American Institute for Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. This year the School of Music has its first Fulbright Scholar who will begin a yearlong residency in Vienna this summer (see accompanying article on Robert Apple).  

Meanwhile, the Department of Journalism and Strategic Media will host a three-day journalism and strategic media workshop for high-achieving high school students June 12-14. Directed by Assistant Professor Robby Byrd with the help of graduate students Dana Coper and Addie James, AMP (Accelerated Media Project) will give twenty Memphis-area students an introduction into the world of journalism, public relations, advertising, and creative mass media. Department faculty and graduate students will lead sessions during the workshop, and students will also have the opportunity to meet recent Journalism and Strategic Media graduates to discuss college life and life after college.

For the second summer, the CCFA campus will host the Dixon Art Camp, offered via a collaboration between the Department of Art and the Dixon Gallery and Gardens. The two-week long Dixon Art Camp will enable about 100 Shelby County youths in grades one through eight to experience everything from painting to sculpture to printmaking. Many of the art campers study at schools that do not offer enough in the way of the arts, and the camp gives them a chance to use art to engage their imaginations.

The Department of Theatre & Dance will partner with FEMMEmphis, an artist collective with the mission of “championing all women+ empowering and promoting the female, female-presenting, and gender-queer artistic voices in the Memphis community”. The Department will provide actor, design and space support for two summer productions: Desdemona, A Play About a Handkerchief, by Paula Vogel, and Pretty, a new work investigating notions of beauty and female objectification devised and directed by Leslie Barker. We look forward to welcoming the collective and Memphis audience members to our theatre building.

The Department of Architecture will steer some of its students off-campus this summer in order to conduct the AIAS (American Institute of Architecture Students) Design+Build Studio in the Binghampton neighborhood, with the Carpenter Art Garden as its primary community partner. The Department is working to secure further support to begin construction on a single-family affordable residence in the same area. 

Other CCFA community projects taking place in Memphis include Caregiver Training, which the Center for Health Literacy and Health Communication will deliver to the Caregiver's Respite organization in Memphis. The Center is also working with oncology caregivers to test new health communication resources.

Well, there goes the notion, at least for CCFA, of colleges shutting down shop for ‘summer break!’ Creative projects and opportunities for study such as these not only enhance our presence and impact within our community, but also help us to ensure that our students, and our future students, can embrace ongoing opportunities to tap their creativity through unique learning experiences.

I send you my very best wishes for a lovely summer, and thank for your ongoing interest in our college. I truly appreciate your support and enthusiasm for CCFA, and I look forward to sharing with you more news and upcoming initiatives in the print version of Voices this fall!

Kind regards,

Anne F. Hogan, Dean