CAA News Today
Make a Year-End Donation to CAA’s Annual Fund
posted by Patricia McDonnell — December 05, 2012
As 2012 comes to a close, the College Art Association extends thanks for your ongoing membership and support. Members, like you and me, are the engine and purpose for CAA, and it is through our help that CAA provides the myriad programs and services that so many artists, art historians, and other professionals in the visual arts depend upon. This fall, please consider making a generous contribution to CAA’s Annual Fund.
The Annual Fund is integral to CAA’s mission, providing flexible funding to supplement the project-specific support that comprises the majority of charitable gifts to the organization. CAA is dedicated to continuing prized resources that members have come to expect, including:
- The orchestration of the world’s preeminent conference for artists, art historians, critics, conservators, curators, students, and other professionals in the visual arts
- The production of its highly regarded publications: The Art Bulletin, Art Journal, and caa.reviews
- An abundance of online resources, including the Online Career Center for job listings, Standards and Guidelines for professional practices, and CAA News to keep you informed of developments in the field
- Essential advocacy work to promote federal support of the visual art
- Fellowships to graduate students and publishing grants for books in art history
- Travel grants to students and international professionals to attend the Annual Conference
- The production of yearly directories of graduate programs in the arts, which provide detailed information on higher-education programs in studio art and design, art and architectural history, curatorial studies, and more
CAA is dedicated to remaining a progressive voice and indispensible resource in the visual arts, but can only do so with the help and participation of its membership. Your contribution to the Annual Fund will allow CAA to make its active, essential voice in the art world a vital one into the future.
My great thanks for your ongoing support of CAA and contribution to this year’s appeal.
Sincerely,
Patricia McDonnell
CAA Vice President for External Affairs
P.S. Contributions to CAA’s Annual Fund are 100 percent tax deductible.
Task Force on Practical Publications Presents Charge and Survey Results
posted by Patricia McDonnell — September 21, 2010
Eager to serve CAA members and curious about the possibility of a new source for earned revenue, CAA recently formed a Task Force on Practical Publications. A committed group of educators, administrators, and staff members has begun studying a potential program devoted to practical publications.
For several years, CAA has considered publishing slim books of an instructional nature devoted to the practical issues so many members face. Questions these publications might address include: What options do scholars have for online publishing? How does someone lead a dual studio-art and art-history department as chair? If I am faced with teaching Baroque or Abstract Expressionism for the first time and it is not my expertise, how do I best tackle this unfamiliar terrain? CAA members confront these and similar problems so often. And we regularly invent ways to resolve them. A program of pragmatic publications that share good solutions or best practices at a modest cost might be a great boon to the field, or so CAA leaders and staff have imagined for some time.
Such programs are already in place at many learned societies, and revenue from sales creates a vital source of organizational income. As CAA maneuvers through a still-unsteady economic climate, it must continue developing new sources of support—earned and contributed—to thrive as an organization. In this context, the Task Force on Practical Publications developed.
This summer, the task force offered an online survey that queried the membership about the perceived viability of this prospective program, as well as a host of related questions. About six percent of CAA members participated, a number within the range of reasonable expectation. A healthy 85 percent of respondents believed that CAA members would purchase this kind of publication, if available, and 65 percent said that they would buy such publications for their own use. Both statistics are impressive, given that people made a positive judgment sight unseen. The responses are also constructive in giving CAA a clearer picture of what needs to be done.
You will learn more about the discoveries and recommendations of the Task Force on Practical Publications on the CAA website in the months to come. Please stay tuned!
Patricia McDonnell is director of the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University in Kansas and chair of the Task Force on Practical Publications.