Shortly after breaking ground on a sprawling 12-acre cultural district, the University of Texas at Dallas announced this week that it plans to merge two of its schools to create what it calls the School of Arts, Humanities and Technology.
Hoping to create “a new path for excellence, innovation and growth in the arts,” UTD officials say the “combined school will provide the university with a strong, unique academic presence for the arts, while taking advantage of UTD’s Arts and Performance Complex.” — Athenaeum Edith and Peter O’Donnell Jr. worth 158 million dollars which is now under construction.
The school’s inaugural dean, Nils Roemer, said the move would “make a statement to the entire country about our commitment to the arts, humanities and technology.”
Inga H. Musselman, UTD vice president for academic affairs, said the combined strength of the two schools “will enhance the student experience, advance research and support the mission of our arts, humanities, technology and communication programs.”
Roemer said the goal is to establish a “rich academic environment where students excel.”
Administrators at UTD credit the late Richard R. “Rick” Brettell, the institute’s founder, for “developing the vision for the Athenaeum,” whose mission the school describes as “convening a space for reflection and discussion across disciplines, encompassing the visual and performing arts, literature, and the sciences. ” But school officials also credit the late Hobson Wildenthal, a former provost and former executive vice president, with supporting Bretell’s vision in creating the Athenaeum.
Bretel, who spent five years as art critic for The Dallas Morning News, secured $17 million from Edith O’Donnell to create the art history institute. And in 2017, UTD partnered with the late Dallas philanthropist Margaret McDermott to create the Richard Brettell Award for the Arts, which awards $150,000 every other year to an artist “whose body of work demonstrates a lifetime achievement in their field.”
Brettel died in 2020 after a long battle with cancer.
In another move, he also engineered UTD’s acquisition of the Crow Museum of Asian Art, giving the school a presence in the Dallas Arts District — and more. In 2019, the Crow Collection — started by the late Trammell and Margaret Crow in the 1960s and expanded as a downtown museum in 1998 — announced it was donating its entire holdings to UTD.
And now Vrana will be the cornerstone of the Athenaeum, which school officials say will occupy the southeastern edge of the campus and create “a new gateway to the university.”
The school merger will take effect on August 22.
Michael Granberry, art writer. Michael Granberry was born and raised in Dallas. He graduated from Samuell High School in Pleasant Grove in 1970 and Southern Methodist University in 1974. Between his junior and senior years, he interned at the Washington Post during the “Watergate Summer” of 1973. He spent 19 years at the Los Angeles Times before returning to Dallas.
mgranberry@dallasnews.com @mgranberry
