Dean Michael Mastanduno and the four Associate Deans of the Faculty are pleased to announce that Virginia Beahan, Senior Lecturer in Studio Art, and William F. Phillips, Visiting Associate Professor, Film & Media Studies, have been named as the two recipients of this year's Distinguished Lecturer Award.
Beahan plans to use resources from her Award to fund travel to Cuba, where she will photograph the island nation's changing social and economic landscape. She expects to make a series of environmental portraits profiling Cuba's entrepreneurial spirit in the wake of unprecedented economic reforms recently introduced by Cuban President, Raul Castro. These reforms have reduced the number of government jobs, legalized the purchase and sale of private property, and enabled Cubans to open small businesses.
Phillips plans to use resources from his Award to help finance a documentary film about Vermont printmaker Sabra Field; he is shooting the film on digital video. Phillips has had complete access to the artist's large collection of prints. Field expects to travel to Tuscany, Italy, this summer to do more work, and Phillips will film her in the creative process. He hopes to travel to other venues while Field is doing her artwork, in order to capture live-action footage of the locations that inspire her prints.
