Thomas P. Johnson Distinguished Visiting Scholars & Artists Program

2024-25 Schedule

• The Department of Music (in collaboration with the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park) brings several world-renowned performing artists to campus throughout the 2024-25 academic year, including:
• The Rollins Museum of Art offers public artist talks/lectures, both in-person and virtually, throughout the 2024-25 academic year, including: Denise Bookwalter, Jordan Nassar, and Nicole Cromartie.
• The Department of Theatre & Dance continues to work with Felichia Chivaughn (in collaboration with the Student Center for Inclusion and Belonging) on the implementation of their Anti-Racism Action Plan and the application of color-conscious and identity-conscious production principles.

Fall 2024

• The Department of Critical Media & Cultural Studies brings in-person and virtual options for the Rollins and the local community to experience The Global Peace Film Festival from September 17th-22nd, 2024.

• The Rollins Museum of Art in partnership with Olin Library & The Art/Art History Department presents the exhibition Critical Reading: Book Arts in Dialogue. This partnership brings in Denise Bookwalter, an artist and author. Bookwalter works in a range of print media including traditional and digital processes, artist’s books, installations, and dimensional prints. She is an Associate Professor of Art at Florida State University and the founding director of FSU’s Small Craft Advisory Press. Bookwalter will deliver a Q & A session and conversation on September 17th, 2024 from 6-7pm in the Rollins Museum of Art. The Collection itself will be on view through January 5, 2025. 

Spring 2025

• The Rollins Museum of Art brings Nicole Cromartie to present on her experience designing museum programs and exhibitions for young audiences. This program will be in connection with the museum’s spring exhibition of works from the collection collaboratively curated by the children at the Hume House Child Development & Student Research Center. The program will be held on February 4th, 2025 from 6-7pm in the Rollins Museum of Art. Cromartie is the Director of Learning and Engagement at the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado. Her research interests include evaluating early learning in museums, sharing curatorial authority with children, and the benefits of museum experiences for our youngest visitors, from birth to 14 months. In 2021, Routledge published Cromartie’s first book, Evaluating Early Learning: Planning for our Youngest Visitors, which presents developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant practices for engaging young children and their families in museums. She is currently enrolled in the Leadership for Educational Equity, Early Childhood Education EdD program at the University of Colorado Denver. In the spring of 2025, she will be a Getty Museum Guest Scholar in Los Angeles, where she will conduct research for her next book on young children and the arts.