How does the Charleston Antiques Symposium support the College of Charleston's School of the Arts?

Since 1998, the year of the first Charleston Antiques Symposium, proceeds from the Symposium have supported student travel to conferences, students' research oriented projects, and programs at the School of the Arts. Among the students who have received this assistance are a triple major in Studio Art, Art History and Arts Management who traveled to India to study Hindu art in the summer of 1999. In the following year, another Arts Management major traveled to New York City in order to attend The Association of Performing Arts Presenters' annual conference. Also in 2000, funds from the Charleston Antiques Symposium underwrote the cost of an interdisciplinary lecture series which was open to the public as well as College of Charleston students. The first speaker was Scott Shanklin-Peterson, then Senior Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. (In January of this year, Ms. Shanklin-Peterson became the Director of the Arts Management Program at the College.) The second speaker in the series was Lorraine Johnson-Coleman, noted author and commentator for National Public Radio.

Proceeds from the 2001 Charleston Antiques Symposium provided a Theatre major with funding which enabled him to attend a play writing workshop in conjunction with the Association for Theatre in Higher Education's (ATHE) annual conference. He was the only undergraduate student in the nation to be so honored! After the workshop, the New Plays Production Coordinator for the ATHE's Playwrights Program sent a letter to the student saying "Program directors, along with the rest of the audience at the public showcase ... were impressed with the staged reading of your play..." One Studio Art major used funds from the Charleston Antiques Symposium to support a research project in New York. After returning from his visit to that city, he said that the funding allowed him "to stay in the heart of Manhattan off Times Square and not only visit three major museums, but also go to forty-eight prominent galleries." The student went on to say that the "experience not only profited my research of neo-abstract art..., but it gave me a better feeling for the larger art community on an economic and inter-social scale."

As noted above, funds from the Charleston Antiques Symposium have provided important financial support for the School of the Arts' programs. Programs which have received such support include the College of Charleston Concert Choir, the Jazz Program, the Halsey Gallery, and the Arts Management Program. Among other activities, this support has enabled the Arts Management Program to send students to Columbia, South Carolina, so that they could participate in South Carolina Arts Advocacy Day activities at the statehouse.

As the Charleston Antiques Symposium moves into the second half of its first decade, we will provide you with updates so that you can see how your support for the Symposium continues to benefit the School of the Arts' students and programs.