Grand Valley State University establishes endowed professorship

A new endowed professorship has been established at Grand Valley State University, established by an initial gift from Julie Duisterhof. The Duisterhof Endowed Professorship in Visual and Media Arts will begin in the Fall 2025 semester and will aim to provide art students with an enhanced educational experience.

According to an article on Grand Valley State University’s website, Donovan Anderson, who serves as the acting dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, explained what the position will hold and how it will impact the department. He said that he expects the individual who takes the professorship will work to create an interdisciplinary approach to art education and will focus on both historical and contemporary techniques. Anderson is quoted as saying, "They will have an opportunity to work with an expert in the field, a renowned painter, and be able to have that immersive experience in the painting discipline if that's what the student wants to do. We want to give students access to the range of human experiences and this position allows us to fulfill that mission."

The endowment was established via a gift from Julie Duisterhof, who is a passionate painter and recently took art classes at the university. Speaking of her decision to create the endowed professorship, Duisterhof said, "I had the recent privilege of attending courses in oil painting at GVSU. The learning environment represented the best of academic experiences for me, ranging from the practice of painting, and its underpinning studies, to the critique of our own and fellow students' work. It was a deeply meaningful bundle of experiences. Being able to ensure excellence in this key professorship into the future will support and strengthen the power of arts learning at the university. As a painter, I am motivated especially by the desire to see more students exposed to art, and to the artistic and intellectual power of painting, decades into the future.”

The endowed professor finding ways for art students to collaborate with others from seemingly disparate fields is an important aspect of the role, as Norwood Viviano, department co-chair, notes. He said, "Painting is bound to evolve in ways that we can't predict. We want our students to know what the history of the field has been up until the time that they're graduated, but also the potential for growth within the field. They are participating in the future of the field, so they have to be pushing the boundaries of what they've been taught and should be encouraged to do that."

For more information about Grand Valley State University, visit the school’s website.