U of L Launches Arts and Culture Initiative

The University of Louisville has announced its new Arts and Culture Partnerships Initiative. WFPL’s Elizabeth Kramer has more.The initiative took root two years ago when the university began to develop formal agreements with local arts and cultural groups that could benefit nonprofits while giving students learning opportunities and faculty prospects to advise these groups. So far, the university has partnerships with 13 organizations. (See list below.)Blaine Hudson is the dean of the college of arts and sciences and helped spearhead the project."This could be a network that certainly would be regionally unique," Hudson says. "If we elaborate it fully, it could be nationally unique; if we really explore all the possibilities in it."Hudson says the university has spent about $100,000 on the initiative and has applied for grants to further fund it.Former Speed Art Museum director Peter Morrin also has been working on this project . He says interaction between U of L and these groups can create a learning community."It’s how we can really make these resources part of the intellectual and academic fabric of the university and how the university, in turn, can bring its intellectual resources to bear for the university," Morrin says.Hudson says he wants these formal partnerships to makes the university a stronger part of the region and help vital organizations."It’s easy to say “be involved in the community," he says, "but that usually doesn’t result in much of anything beyond just random activity. So, we wanted to create some structure, some programs, some formal relationships that would be mutually beneficial."Arts and Culture Partnerships Initiative Crane House, the Asia Institute, Inc. Farmington Historic PlantationFilson Historical SocietyFrazier International History MuseumKentucky Center for African American Heritage Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft Locust Grove Louisville Visual Art Association Muhammad Ali CenterMuseum of the American Printing House for the BlindPortland MuseumSpeed Art Museum Riverside, the Farnsley-Moremen Landing University of Louisville¼/p>