CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.- The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia has received a gift of nearly $1.6 million from Dr. Carol R. Angle. In creating this endowment, the University of Virginia matched this gift by adding additional funds totaling nearly $800,000, through the University’s Bicentennial Professors Fund. The endowment supports and names the museum’s academic curator position, the Carol R. Angle Academic Curator. Since its inception in 2012 through funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, M. Jordan Love has held this position.
This is the second endowment created by Angle for the Fralin. Now retired in Charlottesville, Angle has made it her mission to address many of the world’s greatest challenges. After spending 45 years at the University of Nebraska Medical Center as a pediatrician, nephrologist and toxicologist, Angle became known as one of the nation’s leading experts on lead poisoning. Today, the self-described “museum hound” and longtime patron of the Fralin has shifted her focus to the arts and education in her community and how it can address both health and community issues. In 2016, Angle also created the Angle Exhibition Fund at the Fralin, which was the first named endowment to support exhibitions at the museum.
“I am profoundly deaf, I have been since the age of 25, and because of that, I have always been interested in the visual arts,” said Angle. “I have always been impressed by how much the Fralin is able to do, with limited resources. I want to provide the financial support across multiple areas of the museum allowing the wonderful staff to think even bigger.”
“Carol is a wonderful example of a donor who cares and wants to create a better museum environment for our students, visitors and staff,” said Matthew McLendon, J. Sanford Miller family director at the Fralin. “Jordan Love’s work with medical students and undergraduates directly supports broad-based student engagement, and this endowment allows the academic curator to be ambitious and think long-term for UVA and the Fralin.”
Love’s career as an architectural historian, educator and museum curator spans more than 20 years. As academic curator, she teaches a combined museum studies class and internship program, which includes an annual student-curated exhibition at the Fralin. Love works with University faculty to include museum exhibitions and collections in their classroom activities. She also teaches undergraduate courses in the McIntire Department of Art that utilize the museum’s permanent collection and offers workshops designed to build the skills of current and future medical clinicians.
The Carol R. Angle Academic Curator is the second arts-related position the Bicentennial Professors Fund has supported; the first was the J. Sanford Miller Family Director at the Fralin. The Fund is a $150 million initiative launched in December 2017 to leverage private philanthropy to attract and retain top faculty and scholars through matching funds from the University’s Strategic Investment Fund. Endowed professorships support salaries for emerging, mid-career and distinguished scholars and can also support the research and scholarly pursuits of chair holders such as the recruitment of graduate students and securing laboratory space. The Bicentennial Professors Fund is the second signature fundraising initiative (after the Bicentennial Scholars Fund, which provides undergraduate need- and merit-based scholarships and graduate fellowships) that leverages UVA’s resources to generate new support for key priorities outlined in the University’s strategic plan.
