Arts and Culture Matter in a New Course at Fairfield University | Press Releases

FAIRFIELD, Conn. (March 3, 2017) — Director of the Pequot Library in Southport, Stephanie Coakley will be leading, “ Engaging with the Creative Community: Why the Arts and Culture Matter ,” a seminar through the Regina A. Quick Center’s Open MINDS Institute. The five-week course will run Tuesday afternoons March 7 through April 4 from 12 p.m. to 1:45 p.m.

A response to the growing concern over the unsatisfactory state of funding for the arts and culture in America, the course seeks to shed light on the increasing difficulties faced by leading flagship institutions such as the Metropolitan Opera , Metropolitan Museum of Art , and major museums and libraries throughout the United States, which are suffering from declining support and revenue streams, while striving to remain relevant and vibrant.

The course will also consider implications of budget cuts to the National Endowment of Humanities, National Endowment for the Arts and public television, examine how the United States arts funding picture compares to other countries, and will conclude with a visit to the Morgan Library and Museum in NYC for a guided tour of current art and rare book exhibitions.

Especially valuable to anyone with interest in the arts, philanthropy, and non-profit governance, this course will instill in participants a greater understanding of how important support for the arts is in today’s complex social-political environment.

Devoting her career to working with diverse communities to improve lives through the power and wonder of the arts and culture, Coakley’s current role as director of the Pequot Library is preceded by her role as director of Education and Community Partnerships with the Tucson Museum of Art in Arizona, where she co-founded the Museum School for the Visual Arts , a public high school for artistically talented teenagers on the campus of the art museum and the first of its kind in the U.S.

The course is $290, $275 for Quick Center members. For more information about enrollment and tuition, please visit quickcenter.com or contact the Quick Center Box Office at 203-254-4010 or toll free at 1-877-ARTS-396 or e-mail at boxoffice@quickcenter.com.

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Fairfield University is a Jesuit University, rooted in one of the world’s oldest intellectual and spiritual traditions. More than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students from 36 states, 47 foreign countries, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are enrolled in the University’s five schools. In the spirit of rigorous and sympathetic inquiry into all dimensions of human experience, Fairfield welcomes students from diverse backgrounds to share ideas and engage in open conversations. The University is located in the heart of a region where the future takes shape, on a stunning campus on the Connecticut coast just an hour from New York City.