CAA News Today

Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Getty Foundation Celebrates Thirty Years of Philanthropy

Celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this year, the Getty Foundation is one of the most highly respected international funders of the visual arts in the world. The foundation has awarded 7,000 grants totaling more than $370 million, benefitting over 180 countries on all seven continents. It is the only foundation that funds projects that advance the understanding and preservation of the visual arts on a fully international basis. (Read more from the Getty Foundation.)

The Education of William Adams

At a recent National Endowment for the Humanties dinner for winners of the National Humanities Medal, William “Bro” Adams introduced his special guest Morgan Freeman, who could not help but laugh as he said the words, “Thanks, Bro.” What is the story behind his nickname? (Read more from Humanities.)

Adjunct Action Report Investigates Faculty Working Conditions and Advocates Federal Labor Protections and Accountability from Employers

A recently released SEIU/Adjunct Action report called Crisis at the Boiling Point tells an important story of what’s happening in academic labor by documenting and analyzing just how much work part-time faculty are doing, when they are doing it for free, and how federal employment laws often fail to protect the contingent workforce. This report also offers recommendations and actions that faculty, students, and concerned members of the community can take to begin to reclaim our higher-education system. (Read more from Adjunct Action.)

This Job Market Season, Interview More Adjuncts

Most tenure-track and tenured faculty have tremendous empathy for the plight of adjuncts. Aside from a few “lifeboaters” here and there, the prevailing attitude in the academy is a self-aware and very correct “there but for the grace of [favorite deity], go I.” But when it comes to concrete measures to improve academic labor conditions, many ladder faculty still feel, and not without reason, like their hands are tied. (Read more from Vitae.)

Creative Exchange Launched to Drive Grassroots Projects

The Knight Foundation has teamed up with the Minnesota-based nonprofit Springboard for Arts to help American artists launch grassroots initiatives, from pop-up museums to health fairs that connect uninsured artists with doctors. The project, called Creative Exchange, gives enterprising artists access to on-call experts and free step-by-step guides to replicate previously successful programs. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

Science and Art Meet, Unveiling Mystery and Cultural Tragedy

In the last decade, art conservators—the people who protect and preserve works of art—have begun practicing complicated science. Now they can tell more stories of the secret lives of artists, the chemistry behind great works, and why many of the most famous masterpieces no longer look anything like they did when they were painted. They also discovered that one form of paint may reduce great works of modern and Impressionist art into white canvases with smudges. (Read more from Inside Science.)

The Forever Professors

The 1994 law ending mandatory retirement at age 70 for university professors substantially mitigated the problem of age discrimination within universities. But out of this law a vexing new problem has emerged: a graying—yea, whitening—professoriate. The law, which allows tenured faculty members to teach as long as they want, means professors are increasingly delaying retirement past age 70 or even choosing not to retire at all. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Ageism in Academe

Senior faculty. It sounds like an honorific. It isn’t. It’s more a sort of stigmata. Being called “senior faculty” stigmatizes you. I’m called “senior faculty” quite a lot. I have been teaching journalism for thirty-three years, twenty-nine at the same college. My career in academe, begun with innocent hopes and fearsome ambitions, is nearing its obvious end. I expect to be bid farewell in the style to which I have been made accustomed. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)