CAA News Today
Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd
posted by CAA — Dec 03, 2019
STATEMENT
I am an art historian, curator and arts administrator, and I have been a member of CAA since 1994. I am currently a Visiting Professor of Art History at Oklahoma State University (OSU), and I have also taught at Duke University, Spelman College and Xavier University of Louisiana (where I also served as Curator of the University art collections). I have benefitted from CAA’s programming and publications throughout every phase of my career, from exploring doctoral programs in CAA’s Graduate Programs in Art History guides to The Art Bulletin and The Art Journal, which have long been a key source of scholarly currency for me, as well as for my students. I have attended CAA Conferences since the early 1990s, and they continue to function as opportunities for networking, for engaging with new scholarship both within and beyond my areas of specialization, and for re-connecting with treasured colleagues and friends in the field.
If elected to the Board, I would focus on devising strategies for addressing diversity-based disparities in faculty hiring and tenure processes, as well as in leadership positions at museums; mentoring students and emerging scholars that are preparing for conference presentations, and preparing their texts for publication; meeting the needs of emerging scholars and/or non-tenure-track faculty; facilitating greater interdisciplinary engagements with fields like Comics Studies at the Annual Conferences; and assisting staff members tasked with caring for art collections at University-based archives and libraries. I am also focused on developing institutional partnerships that provide students with valuable professional experiences. At Spelman College, I developed a project that enabled Curatorial Studies students to engage with the art collections held by the Atlanta University Center (AUC) Library and Archives, culminating in publication of the students’ interpretive texts in Art Papers magazine. As curator of an exhibition entitled Little Nemo’s Progress: Animation and Contemporary Art (currently on view at the OSU Museum of Art), I assembled a Student Curatorial Team to provide Art History, Graphic Design and Museum Studies students with curatorial research and exhibition design experience.
I have had more than thirty years of administrative, curatorial, fundraising and public programming experience at The Amistad Research Center; The Bronx Museum of the Arts; The Caribbean Cultural Center; The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; the Museum of the City of New York, The Studio Museum in Harlem and other institutions. Having worked in such a broad range of cultural environments has provided me with unique insight into the tremendous potential for CAA’s mission, advocacy and programmatic initiatives. It would be an honor to serve with my colleagues as a CAA Board member, actively seeking ways to address the scholarly and professional development-based needs of current and future members of CAA.