Our nation has been coping with one of the most difficult weeks in our history. The devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has left many dead and hundreds of thousands of people homeless. It is believed that more than 30 colleges and universities in the Gulf Coast region have been severely damaged by the hurricane and that up to 100,000 students have been displaced.

California College of the Arts would like to reach out to those displaced students who are studying art, architecture, design, and writing. The American Council on Education has established guidelines for institutions of higher education that are accepting these students, and CCA will abide by these guidelines.

For fall 2005, students will be offered enrollment at CCA on a visiting basis so that they will remain students of their home institutions. Students who have paid tuition to their home institutions will not pay tuition to CCA.

We are committed to helping students find appropriate courses and facilities depending on availability. Students will receive a transcript at the end of the fall semester. CCA will provide federal financial aid as outlined by the U.S. government. In addition, we will make every effort to provide free housing. Students may be placed in the residence halls as space is available or with members of the CCA community.

CCA is providing these arrangements for the fall 2005 semester. As recovery progresses in the Gulf Coast, we will review our policies going forward.

Associate Dean Mark Takiguchi is coordinating the hurricane relief outreach efforts. He may be contacted at 510.594.3636 or mtakiguchi@cca.edu.

Some current CCA students have been directly affected by this disaster. We urge them to contact the Dean of Students if special accommodations need to be made.

Gulf Coast residents are facing a long and challenging road to recovery at every level. Now is the time to reach out to students in need.

Stephen Beal, provost of California College of the Arts (CCA), is pleased to announce several new faculty appointments for fall 2005.

Designer Yves Bé;har Is New Chair of Industrial Design

Internationally recognized designer Yves Bé;har has been named the new chair of the Industrial Design Program. Bé;har brings to the college a collaborative and integrative approach to the design process, combined with extensive knowledge of contemporary design practice. Bé;har is the founder and principal of the San Francisco–based design studio fuseproject. He is renowned for his innovative design of products for Birkenstock, Herman Miller, Microsoft, Nike and other industry giants.

Artist Brian Conley Chairs Graduate Fine Arts

Brian Conley is the new chair of the MFA Program in Fine Arts. Conley, whose work employs a range of disciplines to explore our perceptions of humanity, nature, technology, language and consciousness, exhibits his work widely throughout the United States and Europe. In addition to his art practice, Conley is the founding coeditor of Cabinet magazine.

Academy Award Winning Director and Acclaimed Artist Join Media Arts Faculty

Rob Epstein, one of the most acclaimed nonfiction film directors today, is this year's Viola Frey Distinguished Visiting Professor. As well as teaching in the Media Arts program, Epstein will assist the program in exploring curricular innovation. Epstein won his first Oscar for the classic documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk," and a second for "Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt." He has also received three Peabody Awards, four Emmys, and a Guggenheim fellowship.

Artist Kota Ezawa also joins the Media Arts faculty this fall and will teach undergraduate and graduate courses. Ezawa was recently honored at the Shanghai Biennale for his work in digital animation, investigating recent history and current events. His work was featured in the recent exhibition "Baja to Vancouver: The West Coast and Contemporary Art," seen at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts and three other major West Coast venues.

New Faculty Hires in Painting Program

CCA's Painting Program welcomes four new faculty members to tenure-track positions.

Linda Geary's work has been seen in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including "Bay Area Now 3" at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and "Being There: 45 Oakland Artists" at the Oakland Museum of California.

James D. Gobel comes to CCA from CSU San Bernardino, where he was an assistant professor of painting and served as director of three university galleries. His work has been shown widely, including a solo show at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and the group show "100 Artists See God" at the Jewish Museum, San Francisco; Laguna Museum of Art, CA; and Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.

CCA alumnus David Huffman (BFA '86, MFA '98) has had recent solo shows at Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery in Los Angeles and the de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University. His work in the group shows "Black Belt" and "Freestyle" at the Studio Museum of Harlem received wide critical acclaim.

Jordan Kantor comes to CCA from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he was an assistant curator in the department of drawings and curated the exhibition "Drawing from the Modern, 1975–2005," on view this fall. Kantor has a PhD from Harvard University in history of art and architecture; he publishes and lectures extensively on contemporary art.

Visiting Artists

A number of prominent visiting artists and scholars will be teaching at CCA this fall, including New York performance artist Andrea Fraser, award-winning writer Julie Orringer, sculptors Jane Bruce and Mary Shaffer and playwright/screenwriter/performer Paul Magrid of The Flying Karamazov Brothers.

About the College

Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts (formerly California College of Arts and Crafts) is the largest regionally accredited, independent school of art and design in the western United States. Noted for the interdisciplinary nature and breadth of its programs, CCA offers studies in 19 undergraduate and 6 graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design and writing. The college offers the bachelor of fine arts, bachelor of arts, bachelor of architecture, master of fine arts, master of arts and master of architecture degrees. With campuses in Oakland and San Francisco, CCA currently enrolls 1,600 full-time students.

The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts presents "General Ideas: Rethinking Conceptual Art 1987–2005," an exhibition that considers the legacy of conceptual art in works produced by a generation of artists born during or close to the first phase of conceptual art production (1965–1975). Organized by Matthew Higgs, adjunct curator for the Wattis Institute and Director of White Columns in New York, "General Ideas" is on view September 15–November 13 in the CCA Wattis Institute's Logan Galleries on the San Francisco campus of California College of the Arts.

The college recently received grants from three important foundations: the James Irvine Foundation, the Fletcher Jones Foundation, and the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation. Notification of a sizable award also came from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Irvine Foundation renewed its leadership support of CCA with a three-year grant of $450,000. This award will underwrite educational opportunities for youth from low-income and underserved communities, including mentorship classes, the Pre-College summer program, the new Community Arts major, and student scholarships. In 2002, the Irvine Foundation awarded CCA a three-year grant of $700,000 to fund a collegewide program to increase sustainable diversity as part of the Campus Diversity Initiative.

The college also received a $100,000 grant from the Fletcher Jones Foundation to create the Fletcher Jones Endowed Scholarship. This is the first award that the college has received from this foundation. The Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, established after the death of this beloved benefactor, is also a new supporter. The college has received $150,000 for exhibitions and related programs of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts.

In addition to foundation support, CCA also received two awards from the National Endowment for the Arts: (1) a $40,000 Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth grant to underwrite curriculum and professional development for teachers at the Center for Art and Public Life's partner schools in Oakland and (2) a $20,000 Access grant to digitize the Capp Street Project archive.

CCA president Michael S. Roth commented, "Receiving support from foundations and government agencies is crucial to maintaining and growing the diverse programs at CCA. Because these organizations receive requests for many worthy projects, it's particularly gratifying to be selected. Foundation and government support validates the direction we're taking with our programs and is an indication that we are doing important, state-of-the-field work in arts education. When funders renew their support, as in the case of the Irvine Foundation, it allows us to take what we've learned and build on it. We are extremely grateful to these organizations for their generosity and foresight."