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High Museum Establishes Academic Affliation with the Lovett School and the Westminster Schools

The High Museum of Art recently established new academic affiliations with both The Lovett School and The Westminster Schools. The three-year collaborations allow for the sharing of resources between the High and the schools to further integrate the visual arts into their educational curricula by drawing on the High’s special exhibitions, collections, programs and Museum staff expertise.

“We are delighted to collaborate with Lovett and Westminster to establish our first affiliate agreement with P–12 schools,” says Patricia Rodewald, Eleanor McDonald Storza Director of Education. “Building on our mutual commitment to the integration of the arts into education, this affiliation will deepen our relationship with Lovett and Westminster and engage their communities with great art and programming.”

During this affiliation Lovett and Westminster students and chaperones will receive free admission to the High’s special exhibitions and permanent collection for school-sponsored field trips. Additionally, discounted memberships will be available for purchase at the Museum for Lovett and Westminster families and faculty. Students will also have the opportunity to participate in informal discussions or career workshops. They will have access to each of the High’s special exhibition and collection catalogues in their school’s media center. Additional programmatic benefits will include lectures and internships.

Faculty members will receive annual updates on the High’s long-term plans for special exhibitions and programs. Teachers will also participate in various professional development programs at the High, designed to foster discussion and idea sharing to further integrate resources from relevant exhibitions into the schools’ curricula.

“We are very excited to start this partnership with the High Museum of Art,” says Jay Freer, Lovett Director of Fine Arts. “The unparalleled access provided to our students and faculty will not only enrich the learning experiences for us all, but also create a crucial connection for the future. Mrs. Lovett was deeply committed to making the arts a part of her school. By partnering with the High we are honoring that commitment. While some schools are cutting their arts programs, Lovett’s new partnership with the High shows how essential we believe the arts are to the education of the whole child.”

“This partnership makes it easy for our school to provide our students with a tremendous resource: access to the world-class collections and special exhibitions of the High Museum. We will also be able to use the Museum’s excellent professional development services to help our teachers confidently incorporate art into their curricula,” said Jere Wells, Assistant Headmaster for Academic Affairs at The Westminster Schools. Westminster started the school year by involving the teachers in this new affiliation process on August 12, the opening night of its Faculty Forum. “We took more than 100 teachers to an evening filled with special events at the High, which generated a lot of enthusiasm from our faculty toward this program.”

The Lovett School
The Lovett School is an independent, college-preparatory day school serving students in kindergarten through grade 12. Since Mrs. Eva Edwards Lovett founded the school in her home in 1926, the school has been a leader in progressive education, with an emphasis on “the whole child.” The school supports her vision by offering its students rich, integrated experiences in academics, arts, athletics and service. Lovett’s reach extends beyond its Buckhead neighborhood with students from 78 different zip codes across the metro area, and even into Central America, where Lovett maintains 850 acres of cloud forest in Ecuador as a protected preserve, and operates a research center to support tropical conservation education.

The Westminster Schools
The Westminster Schools is a K–12 Christian Preparatory school that helps young people from diverse backgrounds discover their gifts and potential in a supportive, encouraging environment. Learning takes place in the classroom, onstage, on the playing field, in the community and around the world, inspiring students to reach beyond their perceived limits in ways they never thought possible. Westminster has been serving students from the greater Atlanta area and from several countries since 1951, teaching the skills and values that prepare students for college and for life.

High Museum of Art
The High Museum of Art, founded in 1905 as the Atlanta Art Association, is the leading art museum in the Southeastern United States. With more than 12,000 works of art in its permanent collection, the High Museum has an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American and decorative art; significant holdings of European paintings; a growing collection of African American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography and African art. The High Museum of Art is also dedicated to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists and is distinguished as the only major museum in North America to have a curatorial department specifically devoted to the field of folk and self-taught art. The High’s media arts department produces acclaimed annual film series and festivals of foreign, independent and classic cinema. In November 2005 the High opened three new buildings by architect Renzo Piano that more than doubled the Museum’s size, creating a vibrant “village for the arts” at the Woodruff Arts Center in midtown Atlanta. For more information about the High, please visit www.high.org.

The Woodruff Arts Center
The Woodruff Arts Center is ranked among the top four arts centers in the nation. The Woodruff is unique in that it combines four visual and performing arts divisions on one campus as one not-for-profit organization. Opened in 1968, the Woodruff Arts Center is home to the Alliance Theatre, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the High Museum of Art and Young Audiences. To learn more about the Woodruff Arts Center, please visit www.woodruffcenter.org

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