College of Arts + Architecture

Alumna Pooja Nair has been named “Rookie Teacher of the Year” by the North Carolina Art Educators Association, the state’s largest advocacy group dedicated to supporting visual arts education. The NCAEA honors one beginning teacher each year who has made “an exemplary initial contribution” and “demonstrates the potential for development.”

Classroom management, curriculum development and dance instruction. These were the tasks given to a talented, motivated group of students from the University’s Department of Dance who interned at Barre Belle over the past summer.

CarlosAlexis Cruz, associate professor of theatre, is the new president of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, the national professional membership organization for college and university theatre departments and administrators, educators, graduate students and theatre practitioners. He assumed leadership of the organization at the 2023 ATHE Conference in Austin, Texas.

The Department of Art & Art History and Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław, Poland, recently jointly presented an exhibition, “The World Without Us,” curated by UNC Charlotte painting professors Andrew Leventis and Maja Godlewska.

Tom Burch, associate professor of scenic design, recently returned from six weeks in Italy, where he designed two opera productions for La Musica Lirica, an intensive opera training program for young professional singers. Premiering first in the town of Novafeltria, each production traveled to additional locations in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy.

A house designed, built and owned by Marc Manack, associate professor of architecture, with his firm SILO AR+D, was awarded the 2023 George Matsumoto Prize from NCModernist, a nonprofit organization and educational archive established for the documentation, promotion and preservation of residential modernist architecture in the state.

Kim Jones, associate professor of dance, has received a research fellowship from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts’ Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Jones was one of six fellows chosen for this prestigious grant, which this year focuses on modern dance pioneer Martha Graham and her company as it celebrates its 100th anniversary. 

The lobby of Robinson Hall for the Performing Arts on the UNC Charlotte main campus is the location for the annual piano sale Aug. 3-5. The Department of Music has the use of new first-class pianos on a no-cost basis each school year. This arrangement is provided through an association with the Rockley Family Foundation. These instruments, those provided to other institutions and those made available by various manufacturers will be sold to perpetuate this valuable program.

David Janowiak is the new chair of the Department of Theatre, effective July 1. He comes to UNC Charlotte from Western Oregon University, where he has spent the past seven years as professor and chair of the Creative Arts Division, following 17 years leading the WOU Theatre Department.

Professor of Architecture and Urban Design José Gámez was named interim dean of the College of Arts + Architecture. His appointment begins July 1, following the departure of Dean Brook Muller.