Purchase College, SUNY has announced that the Sherman Fairchild Foundation has awarded Purchase College a $500,000 Arts & Technology grant. 

 This grant will help establish TAPROOT—“Technology in the Arts Project: Reinvent, Originate, Open, Transform”—with the overarching goal of fostering an expansive creative culture in which emerging technologies are strategically and intentionally integrated across the arts.

 Supported activities include three cohorts of four faculty fellows who will collaborate to build emerging technologies into their courses, and teach students how to use those technologies as tools in the creative process. The grant will also support an Interactive Media Arts Computer Lab, an Interactive Media Arts Creation Lab located in the library, introductory faculty peer workshops, course development, grants to support senior projects growing out of TAPROOT work, and an annual symposium also showcasing the work coming out of the TAPROOT project.

 Purchase College President Dr. Milagros (Milly) Peña said, “I congratulate Assistant Professor Lee Tusman and School of Art + Design Director Cassandra Hooper on spearheading this project and thank them for their dedication to fostering interdisciplinary education in the arts and technology. We are all grateful to the Sherman Fairchild Foundation for the opportunity and look forward to this wonderful initiative which is sure to inspire faculty and students for years to come.”

 Cassandra Hooper, Director of the School of Art+Design at Purchase College, said, “The School of Art+Design is excited to collaborate with the School of Film and Media Studies to realize the opportunities afforded by the Sherman Fairchild grant. Between the broad scholarship of our faculty and our vast facilities for production, Purchase College is poised, once again, to be the avant-garde of art and technology.” 

 Assistant Professor of New Media and Computer Science Lee Tusman said, “The T.A.P.R.O.O.T. grant from Sherman Fairchild Foundation is a paradigm shift in support for art and technology at Purchase and highlights the innovative work created here. With this incredible grant, we will have support to expand curricula, provide new equipment and faculty support, and extend opportunities for our students across the entire college.”

 Purchase College, part of the State University of New York (SUNY) network of 64 universities and colleges, was founded in 1967 by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. His aspiration for Purchase was to create a dynamic campus that combined conservatory training in the visual and performing arts with programs in the liberal arts and sciences, in order to inspire an appreciation for both intellectual and artistic talents in all students. Today, Purchase College, SUNY is a community of students, faculty, and friends where open-minded engagement with the creative process leads to a lifetime of intellectual growth and professional opportunity. Visit www.purchase.edu for more information about the college.