Guilford College continues to face serious financial challenges as do many other private
liberal arts colleges. There is widespread confidence in the decisions being made by the current
administration and their plans for Guilford's future. In the short run, however, the college has been faced
with making some very difficult cuts. This past spring, in part as a response to the declining stock market
and its effect on our endowment, all college departments and programs were asked to cut 15% from their
total budgets for FY 2001-2002. As budget planning continued, it became evident that further cuts were necessary.
Effective July 1, 2001, the Art Gallery's budget and staffing were reduced by 50%. This cut has reduced the director &
curator's position to half time for the academic year, and forced the discontinuation of planned exhibitions
and educational programs. The gallery will now present only one show per semester in the main gallery, and
no longer host traveling exhibitions. Other
gallery services such as lending works of art to other campus buildings and
other institutions, guided tours, internships, and work-study opportunities, have been
greatly reduced. The director & curator's new office hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays 9 a.m.-4 p.m. and Wednesdays
9 a.m.-2 p.m.
Due to the special nature of this position and concerns for the Permanent Collection, the college has
authorized a group of volunteers led by Gallery supporters Dr. A. Kelly
Maness, Jr., Judith Weller Harvey, and Charlotte Straney, to embark on a fund-raising campaign to restore the staffing and budget to its former level.
We urge you to help us maintain the integrity of the Art Gallery by sending
a tax-deductible donation, earmarked for this cause, to Guilford College.
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Over the College's 2000 Thanksgiving holiday, a pipe burst in an air handler mounted on the
roof over the Art Gallery. The resultant flooding was not discovered until the Library
re-opened four days later, and by that point, more than one-thousand gallons of water had
leaked into the room. Fortunately, there was not an exhibition on display, and thus, no
work of art was damaged. A disaster restoration service was called in immediately, and
with their assistance and powerful equipment, the gallery was dried out within two days.
This fall, the College installed four sensors in the ceiling of the Art Gallery, which will sound an audible
local alarm if water is detected, and additionally, notifies a 24-hour Campus Security station.
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The lecture, "The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Fritz Eichenberg," given by Philip
Harnden, on October 4, 2000, during Guilford's presentation of Eichenberg's retrospective
exhibition, is to be published as a Pendle Hill pamphlet. Pendle Hill is a Quaker retreat and study center
located near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Eichenberg, who became a Quaker in 1940, produced
two other Pendle Hill pamphlets himself, one an autobiography, and the second titled,
"Art and Faith."
Harnden, an author and former publisher of the Other Side (a radical Christian
activist magazine), interviewed Fritz Eichenberg in 1985. Gallery Director Theresa Hammond
read this interview, and contacted him via the internet. Now living in the backwoods
of northern New York state, he grows vegetables and works with the American Friends
Service Committee on a variety of programs involving the Mohawk and Seneca Nations.
Although he had not kept a copy of the Eichenberg interview tapes, he agreed to
prepare a talk based on his rememberances of the man. All those in attendance at the
lecture were impressed by Harnden's poetic speech and his thoughtful, scholarly, treatment
of his subject. At the conclusion of the event, a suggestion was made by Ted Benfey (Dana
Professor of Chemistry and History of Science Emeritus) to submit the manuscript to Pendle
Hill. Guilford's new library director, Mary Ellen Chijioke, serves on Pendle Hill's
Publications Committee and she encouraged the author as well.
Approximately one month later, approval by the Pendle Hill Publications Committee was
secured, and the pamphlet was scheduled for printing in December 2000. Contact Pendle Hill for purchase inquiries.
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The second Alumni Art Exchange and Exhibition scheduled for the second half of the 2001 Fall semester,
has been postponed indefinitely due to recent budget and staffing cuts at
the Art Gallery.
The first Alumni Art Exchange and Exhibition was held in March 1996, and featured a
day-long symposium with a keynote presentation by Jack Lindsey '81, Curator of American
Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and alumni panel discussions concerning
graduate schools and advanced education, professional opportunites in museums and
galleries, art education, art businesses, and life as practicing fine artists. The
exhibition, which was juried by art faculty members and the gallery's curator, featured
works by nearly fifty alumni artists in a wide range of media.
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