Arts MSU is a new strategy that moves creativity to the center of university life by integrating the arts into our educational experiences, our research activities, our outreach, and our campus culture. Guided by the belief that the arts are essential to a vibrant university community that is resilient, inclusive, collaborative, and globally minded, this strategy is committed to advancing the impact and amplifying the presence of the arts across campus. Arts MSU provides a strong framework for the integration of arts into MSU’s land-grant mission, strengthening our campus through innovative and interdisciplinary practices of discovering, connecting, exploring, and remembering.
Representative projects and initiatives include:
The STEAMPower Artist-in-Residence program brings together leading MSU researchers, working artists, and graduate students across disciplines to design innovative collaborations across arts, humanities, and sciences. Housed in the new STEM Teaching & Learning Facility, this yearlong residency facilitates new research and novel modes of cross-disciplinary learning that address global challenges.
Housed at the MSU Museum, the CoLab Studio is an innovative laboratory that enables the MSU Museum team to explore new methods for designing and implementing programming, informal learning, and community engagement. Findings from this work enables the MSU Museum to capitalize on new ways to engage students, faculty, and researchers as it works to maximize its mission and push the boundaries of what it means to be a 21st century interdisciplinary museum.
Judith Stoddart serves as vice provost for University Arts and Collections. Dr. Stoddart also serves as senior associate dean of the Graduate School and retains an appointment as associate professor in the Department of English.
In her vice provost role, Dr. Stoddart is responsible for supporting those units across campus that hold significant cultural and intellectual collections that serve the research, scholarship, and outreach missions of the University. She also serves as the coordinator for the comprehensive, campus-wide arts strategy.
Prior to her appointment in this role, Judith served as interim Associate Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate School at Michigan State from 2015 to 2017, and senior associate dean in the Graduate School since 2018. In the Graduate School, she has been the co-PI and project director for national grants focused on graduate program improvement and graduate student retention and completion, and coordinating the University Fellowship Programs. She was recently named to the steering committee for the CIC/ACM Mellon Undergraduate and Faculty Fellows Program for a Diverse Professoriate, a 7-year $8.1 million grant focused on preparing underrepresented students in the humanities, humanistic social sciences, and the arts for graduate study and for transitioning through postdocs to faculty careers. In her faculty and Graduate School roles, Judith’s work has involved teaching and scholarly collaborations with the MSU Broad Museum and the MSU Museum. Judith was associate chair and graduate program director in the MSU Department of English, where her graduate and undergraduate teaching were recognized by departmental and university awards.
A National Merit Scholar and a Rhodes Scholar, Judith received a D.Phil. and M.Phil. in English from Oxford University and B.A.s in English and French from Michigan State University. She was a CIC Academic Leadership Fellow in 2002-2003.
Christopher P. Long, Professor of Philosophy and MSU Research Foundation Professor, is Dean of the College of Arts & Letters with additional leadership responsibilities as the Dean of the Honors College at Michigan State University. Dean Long is committed to expanding the transformative power of liberal arts research and teaching by enriching graduate and undergraduate education, deepening our commitment to equity, recruiting and retaining world-class faculty, and creating new opportunities for collaboration among community partners.
He began his tenure as Dean on July 1, 2015. Under his leadership, several advances have been made to help raise the College’s international reputation including the creation of the Center for Interdisciplinarity, the Citizen Scholars program, the Critical Diversity in a Digital Age initiative, and the Excel Network. He has successfully established the College of Arts & Letters as a catalyst of innovation and collaboration at MSU through signature partnerships with the MSU Libraries to create the Digital Scholarship Lab.
An advocate of public scholarship, open access, and digital approaches to scholarship and pedagogy, Dean Long has frequently written about the benefits of using digital modes of communication to enable public education, scholarship, and collaboration. He also discusses these issues in his Digital Dialogue podcast and the Long View blog.
He is co-founder of the Public Philosophy Journal, an open forum for the curation and creation of accessible scholarship that deepens our understanding of issues related to public relevance, and editor of The Journal for General Education, a journal focused on general education as a cornerstone of the arts of liberty that prepare citizens to live engaged, responsible, and meaningful lives.
Dean Long is PI for a $1.2 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to lead a multi-university research project to improve the teaching of less commonly taught languages (or LCTLs) with the Big Ten Academic Alliance. He is also co-PI for the Mellon-funded HuMetricsHSS, an initiative for rethinking humane indicators of excellence in academia, focused particularly on the humanities and social sciences (HSS).
An expert on both ancient Greek and contemporary continental philosophy, Dean Long has extensive publications in Ancient Greek and Contemporary Continental Philosophy, including four books: The Ethics of Ontology (SUNY 2004), Aristotle On the Nature of Truth (Cambridge 2010), Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy: Practicing a Politics of Reading (Cambridge 2014), and Reiner Schürmann and the Poetics of Politics (Punctum 2018).
Dean Long received his MA and PhD from the New School for Social Research in New York and BA from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. Prior to coming to MSU, he was Associate Dean for Graduate and Undergraduate Education and Professor of Philosophy and Classics in the College of the Liberal Arts at Pennsylvania State University.
To learn more about Dean Long’s administrative approach and his research in philosophy, digital scholarly communication, and higher education, visit his blog: www.cplong.org or reach him on Twitter @cplong.
James Forger is Dean of the College of Music at Michigan State University. After earning undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Michigan, he began his career at East Carolina University as assistant professor of saxophone. He joined the MSU faculty in 1979 and became director of the School of Music (now College) in 1990. During his tenure, the college has grown in quality and size, adding programs in jazz studies, ethnomusicology, collaborative piano, music theory pedagogy, piano pedagogy, early childhood music, and a performance diploma. The outreach dimension of the college has expanded with the founding of Community Music Schools in East Lansing and Detroit that serve more than 2,500 adults and children weekly. In 2007 he led the transition of the School of Music, previously one of nine academic units within the College of Arts and Letters, to the independent College of Music; it became MSU’s 16th college. In 2015 the University recognized him with the Robert F. Banks Award for Institutional Leadership.
Forger has maintained an active role as a saxophone performer appearing with orchestras such as Grand Rapids Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra. A leader in the commissioning and performance of new works for the saxophone, he has commissioned works by Milton Babbitt, John Anthony Lennon, David Liptak, Donald Martino, Charles Ruggiero, and Morton Subotnick. He is an active accreditation visitor, having served two terms as member and chairperson of the National Association of Schools of Music Commission on Non-Degree-Granting Accreditation. In 2013, he was elected to the NASM Commission on Accreditation.
Dr. Megan K. Halpern is an Associate Professor at Lyman Briggs College, at Michigan State University and was the inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at MSU’s Center for Interdisciplinarity. Her research interests include art-science studies, interdisciplinary collaboration, public engagement with science, feminist approaches to science communication, and research through design. She teaches science communication, science and technology studies, and drawing comics as a way of knowing about science in society. She earned her PhD in Science Communication at Cornell University and completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Arizona State University’s Center for Nanotechnology and Society and Center for Science and the Imagination. Before earning her PhD, Dr. Halpern was a theatre artist and the co-founder and Artistic Director of Redshift Productions, a company that created performances inspired by science in collaboration with scientists.
Dr. Thomas (he/him) has over twenty years of experience creating curriculum for science communicators, museums, faculty, courses, programs, and publishers. Stephen has a PhD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Entomology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was a curriculum developer in the College of Natural Science at MSU; his work has been grant-funded and award-winning. Over his career, he has evolved from a traditional scientist engaged in disease evolution and insect communication research to an interdisciplinary curriculum developer focused on visual communication of science and visual model-based reasoning, but ultimately, he is interested in building consensus and communication between instructors to bring about programmatic change. Because of his background and interest in the visual arts, he has partnered with artists, game designers, curators, communicators, and videographers in addition to scientists to conceive and produce innovative curriculum design for STEM education.
Dr. Libarkin (she/her) is a Professor of Environmental Science at MSU and runs the Geocognition Research Laboratory, which investigates how people perceive, understand, and make decisions about the planet and human impacts. She began her career studying geology and physics at the College of William and Mary, received a PhD in geosciences from the University of Arizona, and was awarded a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education. Dr. Libarkin was a postdoctoral fellow and researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and taught for three years as an Assistant Professor at Ohio University before her move to Michigan State. Dr. Libarkin has led the development of the Geoscience Concept Inventory; co-led a study of tectonic uplift in Bolivia; generated new collaborations across the geo and social sciences to build understanding of ethics and mentoring across diverse groups; and served as external evaluator or researcher for a dozen NSF, NASA, or NIH-funded projects. Currently, her research focuses on model-driven research design, community-engaged research, and mentoring to address access, inclusion, equity, and justice in STEM and academia. She currently serves on the NASEM Advisory Board for the Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education.
Devon Akmon is an innovative, strategic, and results-driven leader with a proven track record in the cultural management and informal learning sectors. Currently, he serves as the Director of Michigan State University (MSU) Museum and as a core faculty member in MSU’s Arts, Cultural Management & Museum Studies program.
Since joining MSU at the onset of the global pandemic in 2020, Devon has successfully integrated Science Gallery Detroit, which he was initially hired to lead, into the MSU Museum. This repositioned the former institution as the CoLab Studio. The CoLab, an innovative division of the MSU Museum, fosters experimentation and innovation through novel programming. To align with MSU’s academic mission, Devon led the staff in formulating a strategic plan that will steer the future activities and growth of the MSU Museum. This plan outlines ambitious goals, clear objectives, and pragmatic strategies, ensuring the Museum’s relevance in an ever-evolving landscape. Concurrent with the unveiling of the strategic plan, the Museum launched a new brand, symbolizing its renewed vision, values, and aspirations. This marks a significant chapter in the MSU Museum’s journey, setting the stage for future growth and transformation.
Before joining MSU, Devon served as a Senior Consultant with the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland, providing organizational guidance to over 70 cultural institutions across the United States. His work spanned artistic and strategic planning, community engagement, marketing, fundraising, and board development, underlining his versatile expertise in cultural institution management.
His notable tenure as the Director of the Arab American National Museum (AANM) further underscores his leadership prowess. Initially joining as a Curator of Community History when the museum opened in 2005, his career trajectory led to his appointment as Deputy Director in 2009 and subsequently as Director in 2013. Devon’s leadership catalyzed both the physical and thematic expansion of the museum, which included the addition of the Annex, a community arts space, and an artist-in-residency unit in the neighboring City Hall Artspace Lofts. Under Devon’s guidance, the AANM achieved several milestones, becoming a member of the National Performance Network and an internationally recognized TAKREEM Laureate for Cultural Excellence. Furthermore, the AANM became an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution and attained Accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums, a prestigious distinction, all within a decade of its inauguration.
In addition to his executive roles, Devon currently serves on the board of the American Alliance of Museums and Artspace. He has also held positions on numerous other governing boards, advisory committees, and national grant-making review panels, including those for the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Devon has distinguished himself as a keynote speaker at national conferences, among them those hosted by the National Council on Public History and Grantmakers in the Arts. Frequently speaking at industry forums and conferences, he continues to demonstrate his unwavering commitment to the advancement of the arts and sciences, underscored by his extensive leadership experience and dedicated service.
Devon also devotes his time to public service in the communities where he lives and works. Previously, his contributions included service on the Broadway Historic District Study Committee, the Public Art Commission, the Equitable Engagement Steering Committee, and the Vision Zero Implementation Subcommittee for the City of Ann Arbor, as well as the East Dearborn Downtown Development Authority.
Devon is an alumnus of Eastern Michigan University, where he earned his M.S., and Michigan State University, from which he holds a B.A. He is a recognized leader in his field, having been named one of Crain’s Detroit Business magazine’s “40 Under 40” business leaders and an American Express NGen Fellow with the Independent Sector.
Bridges came to the MSU Broad Art Museum from the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 2015 and holds two master’s degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago: one in art history, theory, and criticism, and the other in arts administration and policy.
Tanya (Tani) Hartman is the Chair of the Department of Art, Art History and Design at Michigan State. She previously served as Chairperson of the Department of Visual Art at the University of Kansas, where she also was Co-Director of the School of the Arts and a Professor of Painting and Drawing. Prior to the University of Kansas, she was an Adjunct Instructor of Painting and Art Appreciation at Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York; a Guest Lecturer on Images of Childhood in Western Art at New York University; an Adjunct Instructor of Painting, Basic Drawing, Intermediate Drawing, and Color Theory at Norwalk Community Technical College in Norwalk, Connecticut; and a Teacher of Basic Painting, Life Drawing, and Fundamentals of Drawing at Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten Island, New York.
Hartman has an MFA in Painting from Yale University and a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design. After graduating from Yale, she did post-graduate studies in painting and printmaking as a Fulbright Research Fellow at the Konsthogskollan in Stockholm, Sweden.
Stephen Di Benedetto is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre at Michigan State University. Current research and publications explore scenographic design in various cultural contexts and examine the ways in which artists in performance harness the senses to engage attendants. He is interested in arts advocacy and the role of art practice and art education as a mode of knowledge production that intersects with but is fundamentally different from, other sectors of the university. Dr. Di Benedetto’s books include The Provocation of the Senses in Contemporary Theatre (Routledge, 2010), An Introduction to Theatre Design (Routledge, 2012), The Routledge Companion to Designer’s Shakespeare (Routledge, 2016) co-edited with John Russell Brown, and The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre since 1945 (Cambridge University Press, 2021) co-edited with Julia Listengarten. Additionally, he is a Performance + Design Series Editor (Bloomsbury).
Di Benedetto joined Michigan State from the University of Miami where he was an Associate Professor of Theatre History and served as a Director of Undergraduate Studies, Associate Chair, and Chair and Executive Director of the Jerry Herman Ring Theatre.Prior to joining the University of Miami in 2005, Di Benedetto was an Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University of Houston. He served for one year as a Visiting Assistant Lecturer in Modern Drama at University College Dublin, National University of Ireland, and he also was a Lecturer in English at DePaul University.
Di Benedetto received his Doctor of Philosophy in Theatre from Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 2000. He has an M.A. in Theatre and Drama from the University of Michigan, and a B.F.A. in Theatre History and Criticism from The Theatre School, DePaul University.
Adam Brown is an internationally recognized conceptual artist whose work incorporates art and science hybrids including living and biological systems, robotics, molecular chemistry and emerging technologies that take the form of installation, interactive objects, video, performance and photography. Brown’s creative research is informed by a background in Intermedia, a philosophy that provides a framework for breaking down and combining different models of thought and bringing together disparate disciplines, leading to the establishment of new forms of research and creative activity. To this end, most of his creative and research endeavors are collaborative in nature.
His most recent project, The Great Work of the Metal Lover (with Dr. Kazem Kashefi) is an artwork that sits at the intersection of art, science and alchemy. The piece received an Honorary Mention and was exhibited at Ars Electronica 2012 and received an Award of Distinction from Vida 14.
Origins of Life: Experiment #1.x, is a working scientific experiment using simulated lightning, heat and primordial gases that has been repositioned as an art installation (with Dr. Robert Root Bernstein). The “open source” project, which invites contributions and participation from other scientists, builds on Miller’s 1953 iconic experiment. In 2011 the piece was selected as part of Ars Electronica and the Synth-ethic exhibition in Vienna. In 2012, Brown and Root-Bernstein received a grant from the National Science Foundation to continue this project.
His earlier work Bion (with Dr. Andrew Fagg) makes reference to an individual element of primordial biological energy identified as “orgone” by the scientist Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957). The interactive installation is a sensor network composed of more then one thousand, mass-produced, three-dimensional glowing and chirping autonomous robots called bions. In 2006 Brown was selected as an emerging artist to exhibit this piece in Archival to the Contemporary, Six Decades of the Sculptors Guild and that same year it was also selected for SigGraph in Boston. In 2010 the work appeared in the Brazilian Biennial Emoção Art.ficial 5.0 in Sao Paulo.
Brown’s work has been written about widely in publications such as the New York Times, Wired, Nature, Sculpture Magazine, Washington Post, Forbes, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Discover and the Huffington Post.
Brown currently is an Associate Professor at Michigan State University where he created a new area of study called Electronic Art & Intermedia. He is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts at Ball State University, and serves as an Artist in Residence for the Michigan State University BEACON (Bio/Computational Evolution in Action Consortium) project, funded by the NSF. Previously he was an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma, where he developed an electronic art program called Symbiotic Media. He received his BA, MA and MFA from the University of Iowa.
Mark Sullivan is a music composer, a photographer, and educator. He is an Associate Professor of Composition at Michigan State University in the College of Music. His music compositions have been performed, and his photographs published and exhibited, around the US, Europe, and Asia. He has focused on research and creative activity in the arts, involving creative use of technology, and innovative approaches to education. During the last couple of decades, he has become increasingly involved with the pedagogy of composition, and the pedagogy of creativity, and now, as CoLab Studio Creative Director, on nurturing collisions between the arts and sciences.
