Fresno State Receives 1 Million-Dollar Endowment to Create Arts Center

The Business Journal
Written by Business Journal staff
Tuesday, 17 August 2010

An anonymous donor has made a $1 million endowment for California State University, Fresno, for the creation of a Center for Creativity and Arts, announced President John D. Welty today.

According to the university, the center will create interdisciplinary, university-wide thematic exhibitions involving all of the schools and colleges at Fresno State. The center won't occupy any particular physical space, but would use existing spaces on campus depending on the needs of the exhibition, whether it be a gallery, lecture hall, performance space or other uses.

The endowment, from a donor who wished to remain anonymous, will create the John and Madeline Perenchio Arts Exhibition Endowment and the Andrew and Dorothea Perenchio Museum Studies Internship Endowment.

Andrew and Dorothea Perenchio are the parents of Los Angeles billionaire Jerry Perenchio, a Fresno native and former chairman and CEO of Spanish-language television network Univision.

The Center for Creativity and Arts concept was created last spring when Fresno State was asked to assist the Fresno Art Museum through financial problems. The center's exhibitions will include cinema, music, dance, theatre, readings, lectures and hands-on learning opportunities.

"This rich array will provide students and the broader community easy access to through-provoking art, visiting guest artist is and lecturers and stimulating educational programs," according to a university statement.

Each year the center will focus on a theme, with the first being "Labor, Immigration and Migration."

Citing an example of the interdisciplinary concept for the center using the "Labor, Immigration and Migration" theme, "the Department of Chicano and Latin American studies might present on the history of political-economic relationships between the global north and the global south; the Women’s Studies Program on feminist organizing around migration and economic exploitation in Guatemala; while the Department of Criminology could report on the relationship between labor migration and the Juárez murders," according to the university.

Artistic programming around the theme could include music, lectures, dance, plays, movies, book readings, participatory art, exhibitions, poetry and history writing assignments.

College of Arts and Humanities Associate Dean José Diaz will serve as the center's interim director.