Transform the Arts on Campus
The arts are different at UT Dallas. Across every school and center, creativity and innovation are at the core of a UT Dallas education. Promoting scientific and imaginative inquiry throughout all disciplines, the University is home to interdisciplinary pursuits at the intersections of traditional art history, technology and new media.
The New Dimensions campaign will transform UT Dallas into a cultural destination for North Texas. Combining traditional art studies with cutting-edge analytical techniques and evolving methods of creation and presentation, UT Dallas will become the ideal place to launch a new era of imaginative wonder in North Texas.
The campaign envisions the creation of the UT Dallas Athenaeum: the first major art museum north of Interstate 635, a complex that would serve as a focal point for one of the fastest-growing population centers in the country. The Athenaeum will house world-renowned art collections — such as the Crow Collection of Asian Art and the Barrett Collection of Swiss Art — and provide much-needed performance space on campus for the University’s many talented student artists.
The Athenaeum would turn the UT Dallas campus into an arts district unlike anything currently available in North Texas. Such a complex will attract internationally-recognized performers, critics and artists to Dallas, and contribute to the University’s ability to compete for top student talent by enhancing campus life and augmenting the University’s traditional focus on science, technology, engineering, mathematics and management with new dimensions of artistic excellence.
Situated within a top-tier research institution, the Athenaeum will serve as a laboratory for faculty and students. Physical exhibitions will allow scholars to not only contemplate great works of art, but perform primary research on the University’s collections across a variety of disciplines, revealing a piece’s historical and cultural importance, its aesthetic and thematic qualities, chemical composition, and conservative and restorative processes.
New endowed scholarship funds for student artists and increased funding for visiting artists and innovative curriculum development will help attract multitalented students who bring diverse talents to the campus community, enriching the marketplace of ideas upon which every great university thrives.
Transforming the arts at UT Dallas will augment the University’s existing strengths in the hard sciences with innovative approaches to art history and the humanities, creating a new and unparalleled environment for research and cultural appreciation.
Related Stories
Your investment in UT Dallas students will transform lives and, through our students’ success, build new dimensions of possibility for the future.
More Priorities
Attract the Best and Brightest Students
UT Dallas inspires a culture of academic excellence in which well-rounded student prepare for live of contribution, leadership and fulfillment. On the strength of affordable and accessible academic programs, the University has become a leading destination for some of the most renowned recruits in the country.
Enhance Lives Through Transformative Research
Research and education are in UT Dallas’ DNA. Having emerged as a Tier One research institution serving the state of Texas, UT Dallas now looks to emphatically define itself as the preeminent innovation and entrepreneurship university in the United States.