NEWS
Faculty News
RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Heather Hart is a recipient of a 2025-26 Nancy B. Negley Rome Prize and will reside at the American Academy in Rome to advance her interdisciplinary practice. The Rome Prize is awarded to about 30 artists and scholars each year. ART & DESIGN
- Didier William has been awarded a 2024-25 University-wide Faculty Year-End Excellence Award in The Presidential Fellowship for Teaching Excellence category. ART & DESIGN
- Frederick Curry has been named a 2025-26 Provost Teaching Fellow, which supports pedagogical innovations designed to improve learning outcomes for students. DANCE
- Jeff Friedman is a recipient of a 2024 Fulbright Specialist grant to travel to New Delhi, India, where he is in residence in the Art, Media and Performance Department at Shiv Nadar University, Uttar Pradesh through May 12. DANCE
- Thomas F. Lennon, director of the Documentary Film Lab, has a short film featured in the New Jersey International Film Festival. He produced and directed Marine Field Station, a 10-minute film about the scientists who track marine life at this Rutgers research center in New Jersey’s coastal marshes. The festival runs from May 30 through June 8. He also served as contributing producer on Cutting Through Rocks, which won the Documentary World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in January. FILMMAKING
- Anthony Branker is a recipient of a 2025 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship in Music Composition. He’s also a recipient of the 2024 International Songwriting Competition where he won 2nd place in the Performance category for his composition “To Be Touched (By The Spirit).” His composition “Praise” also received an Honorable Mention Award as a finalist in the Jazz Category. MUSIC
- Bille Bruley debuted as Erste Jude in Strauss’s Salome at the Metropolitan Opera on April 29. Dean Geary, Music Department director Amanda Eubanks Winkler, department associate director and Woodwind head Maureen Hurd Hause, and the directors of Rutgers Brain Health and Child Health Institutes were in attendance. As part of The Met: Live in HD series, the performance was broadcast in movie theaters worldwide on May 17. MUSIC
- Composition faculty Scott Ordway has been awarded the two-year Fireline Fellowship from the Patricia Valian Reser Center for the Creative Arts at Oregon State University. From 2024 to 2026, he joins a multidisciplinary cohort of artists, writers, and journalists whose work addresses themes of landscape, ecology, and culture in the American West. MUSIC
- On October 28, David P. Gordon won a Barrymore Award for Outstanding Scenic Design for his work on Arden Theatre Company’s production of Once on This Island. The Barrymore Awards recognize professional theater in the greater Philadelphia region. THEATER
FACULTY VOICES IN THE MEDIA
- Mitchell D. Weiss provides tips in moneygeek’s “Experts’ Guide on Finding the Best Business Cards for 0% APR.” ARTS ONLINE
- Gerald Casel is quoted in Dance Teacher Magazine‘s feature “Teaching Politically Engaged College Dance Students.” DANCE
- Jeff Friedman spoke with NorthJersey.com about the Disability Studies minor, a collaboration between MGSA, SMLR, Bloustein, and SAS, as part of the website’s feature “Rutgers launches disability studies minor to explore world of oft-ignored community.” DANCE
- Associate Dean for Equity Marshall Jones III is featured in TAPinto‘s preview of our annual MLK Celebration. DEAN’S OFFICE
- Patrick Stettner weighed in about the benefits and limitations of using a smartphone to shoot a movie in a WIRED article, “You Can Shoot a Movie on a Phone. Just Don’t Expect It to Be Easy.” FILM
- Min Kwon was interviewed by former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley for his Sirius XM radio show, American Voices, about her “America/Beautiful” project, which includes 70 composers and their take on “America the Beautiful.” Kwon has begun recording all 70-plus new works written for the project, which received media coverage from The Financial Times, NBC Nightly News, NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and International Piano, among others. She is collaborating with the Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse for this recording (five volumes), which will be released later this year. MUSIC
- Composer and multimedia artist Scott Ordway speaks about the relationship between art, landscape, and emotion on the Climate Change and Happiness podcast (Helsinki, Finland). MUSIC
- Kraig Williams discusses the Rutgers Wind Ensemble’s concert featuring a live performance of the film score along with a screening of 1931’s Frankenstein on WWFM’s A Tempo radio broadcast with host Rachel Katz. MUSIC
- Christopher Cartmill is quoted in this Los Angeles Times article about the meaning of banter and its place in dating and on dating apps. THEATER
- Cameron Knight talks scare acting in NJ.com’s “A Haunting in New Jersey” feature. THEATER
FACULTY FEATURES
Review: Mark Armijo McKnight‘s Whitney debut (The New Yorker) ART & DESIGN
Haiti-born Didier William’s dazzling, gazing paintings are literally an eyeful (Los Angeles Times) ART & DESIGN
Oakland Museum of California Opens an Exhibit Highlighting the Life and Career of Angela Davis (Gerry Beegan in Ebony magazine) ART & DESIGN
How to Decolonize a Museum? Try an Ax. (Raphael Montañez Ortiz in The New York Times) ART & DESIGN
Road Trip to Escape, USA (Julie Langsam in Dense Magazine) ART & DESIGN
Hear a Chopin Waltz Unearthed After Nearly 200 Years (Robinson McClellan in The New York Times) ARTS ONLINE
Review: The Miraculous Simplicity of Patti Smith’s Childhood (Gerald Casel in The New York Times) DANCE
Best Dance Performances of 2024 (Pam Tanowitz in The New York Times) DANCE
Review: Pam Tanowitz’s Witty Dance Secrets in London (The New York Times) DANCE
Review: The Royal Ballet’s Mixed Bill Is a Winner (Pam Tanowitz in The Times of London) DANCE