2005 Nancy DeLaurier Award
Presented March 7, in Miami Beach, Florida to
John Taormina, Duke University and
Mary Wassermann, Philadelphia Museum of Art
Recipients’ Remarks:
[Mary]
Thank you. As many of you know, John was not able to make it down for the conference, so I will read his remarks and follow up with a few of my own.
[John]
The Summer Educational Institute was very much a group effort between two organizations, the latest in a series of successful collaborations. This award recognizes the contributions of the various members of both organizations involved in making the inaugural Institute such a success last year.
Serious conversations about providing an educational opportunity about image management for new members first began within ARLIS’ Visual Resources Division and VRA’s Education Committee back in 2000. The concept was brought to both Executive Boards in 2001 and a Joint Education Task Force of almost fifteen members was formed and first met at the joint 2002 conference in St. Louis.
During the next two years the Task Force developed a project plan, timeline, curriculum, and budget. It was decided that the inaugural offering would be held at Duke University in the summer of 2004, hosted by Duke’s Department of Art and Art History. In 2003 an Implementation Team, a sub-group of the Task Force, was created to deal with the more practical matters of fundraising, publicity, registration, local arrangements, instructors, instructional materials, and day-to-day logistics. We would like to recognize the Implementation Team members now, as they shepherded the first SEI to completion: Debra Cox, Eileen Fry, Leigh Gates, Mark Pompelia, Jenni Rodda, and Margaret Webster; as well as Board liaisons Suzy Frechette and Carol Graney for ARLIS/NA and Kathe Albrecht and Elisa Lanzi for VRA.
For the first Institute, funding or instructional materials contributions totaling over $6,000 were made by both ARLIS/NA and VRA; the Duke University Department of Art and Art History, Duke’s Office of Interdisciplinary Studies, and Duke’s Perkins Library; the Art Institute of Chicago Ryerson Library; The Getty; Two Cat Digital; and two individual donors. We would like to thank them all for their generosity. The first Institute turned out to be a tremendous financial success with net profits of over $14,000, almost equaling total expenses.
We would be seriously remiss in not recognizing three visionary members of our profession, who were the guiding inspiration for the Summer Educational Institute. The SEI grew out of the need for instruction in visual resources and image management that became apparent when the renowned visual resources training workshops taught by Christine Sundt and Nancy Schuller at the University of Texas in Austin ended. The SEI really built on their extensive work, their publications, and their educational contributions to the profession. Finally, it is fitting that this award, named for Nancy DeLaurier, is now being given to recognize the Summer Educational Institute. Nancy too was a pioneer in visual resources instruction and regularly offered classes in visual resources management at the University of Missouri. The syllabus for her course has sat in our SEI files since we began developing the Institute, a fitting link between our first formal educational programs of twenty-five years ago and this award today.
[Mary]
After two years of so much hard work by John and everyone on the Joint Education Task Force and Implementation Team, it was really gratifying to experience the enthusiastic response of the attendees over the four days of the Institute at Duke last summer. And it is great to see so many 2004 alumni here in Miami. I hope, with the prospect of the 2005 and future VRA and ARLIS/NA Institutes looking very good, we will continue to follow the fine example Nancy DeLaurier, Chris Sundt, and Nancy Schuller have set for us in fostering our professional growth.
On behalf of John and myself, we thank the committee and membership very much.
