ALUMNI DISTINCTIONS & GIVING

AWARDS

Diedre Dawkins-Opare M.F.A. ’10 dance, received a 2016 President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Volunteer Service from President Obama. Dawkins has volunteered for arts institutions throughout the country and is the arts director at ConneXions School for the Arts in Baltimore as well as a dance instructor at AileyCamp Baltimore.

Rebeca Moreno, Ph.D. ’13 Spanish languages and literatures, received the 2016 Legal Book of the Year Award from the Bar Association of Puerto Rico for her book on slavery in the Hispanic Caribbean, “Escritura, derecho y esclavitud: Francisco José de Jaca ante el nomos colonial” (Ediciones Puerto, 2016).

Mahwish Chishty, M.F.A. ’07 art and Jefferson Pinder M.F.A. ’02 art and B.A. ’93 theatre, received 2017 Guggenheim fellowships for their work in fine arts. Chishty creates sculptures, paintings (below, right) and performances that explore Pakistani politics and traditional culture relative to the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. Pinder creates performances, video work (below, left) and objects that ask viewers to consider the complex construction of identity.

GIVING

Bill McGillicuddy gifted more than a dozen unique works by Washington Color School artist Paul Reed to the University of Maryland Art Gallery, bolstering the strength of the Art Gallery’s permanent collection and offering significant works for study, scholarship and presentation.

Shelley and Thomas Mulitz and the Mulitz-Gudelsky Family established two endowed scholarships to support undergraduate students in both the School of Music and the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies.

Through bequest, John C. Ford ’64 and Sandra S. Poster ’64 established the Ford and Poster Endowment to support important needs or initiatives that advance the mission of the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies including scholarships, faculty fellowships and visiting artist residencies.