University Art Museum, New Mexico State University

Situated within New Mexico State University (NMSU), a Hispanic-serving land grant institution, the University Art Museum (UAM) serves as an academic environment for the critical analysis of visual art while making culturally relevant and provocative conceptual art and artists accessible to the region. As the only contemporary art museum in southern New Mexico, the UAM is a cultural bridge between the expansive borderplex community and NMSU. New Mexico is known as having a strong arts culture, but the state has a limited number of museums outside of Albuquerque and Santa Fe. These institutions, mostly in northern New Mexico, often hire arts professionals from outside of the state. The UAM will develop new strategic plan on effective collaborations, and building a museum that can hire, train and help retain arts professionals in New Mexico. A grant from the Thoma Foundation will allow UAM to expand its capacity and alleviate the workload of the Director and Collections Manager during the planning process by hiring a Curator of Education and Preparator. Both of these will be teaching positions that will engage students in the process of curating and mounting exhibitions.