Appointed as the Maurice E. & Dorothea I. Shaffer Art Professor
- Alex Mendez Giner
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
On Tuesday, July 7th, I received official notification from Dean Michael Tick that I have been appointed as the Maurice E. & Dorothea I. Shaffer Art Professor in the Department of Film and Media Arts at Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. I'm deeply honored, and still taking it in.
An endowed professorship is one of the highest forms of recognition a university offers a faculty member. Unlike titles tied to rank alone, it is an appointment funded by a lasting endowment from private donors — a gift that continues to fund and honor scholarly and creative work long after the donors themselves are gone. In this case, that name is one I know well: our Department of Film and Media Arts is housed inside the Dorothea Ilgen Shaffer Art Building. After fourteen years of teaching and making films inside this building, being named a Shaffer Art Professor gives that walk to the office a new resonance.
The Shaffers' story is remarkable. Dorothea Ilgen Shaffer, Class of 1933, went on to found her own commercial interior design firm the same year she graduated — in the middle of the Great Depression — and spent the rest of her life championing the arts, women's leadership, and education. She served on SU's Board of Trustees from 1968 to 1980, was named an honorary Trustee, and she and her husband Maurice provided the lead gift ($3.25 million) that built the Shaffer Art Building, dedicated in 1990 and home today to Film and Media Arts, programs from the School of Art, Creative Arts Therapy, jazz studies, and the Syracuse University Art Museum. Two years later, in 1992, they endowed this professorship. Dorothea passed away in 2012 at the age of 101, but her belief in the arts continues to shape what happens inside these walls every single day.
To be named a Shaffer Art Professor is to be entrusted with a small piece of that legacy. I'm honored to now stand in that lineage on behalf of our film program.
My deep thanks to Dean Michael Tick, Associate Dean Seyeon Lee, and everyone at VPA who made this recognition possible. And an equally deep thank you to the Shaffers themselves — whose imagination and generosity nearly a century ago is still making the work of art and education possible today.
Now, back to it.
