Seven nominated as NEA advisers

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 25, 2002

Seven new members, including one from Congress, have been appointed to the council for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), replacing Clinton-administration appointees who were serving on expired terms. The council advises the NEA on who should receive millions of dollars in arts grants.

The nominees, who must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, are: Scottsdale, Ariz., businessman Don V. Cogman; Cincinnati arts patron Katharine Cramer DeWitt; Connecticut-based art critic David Gelernter; Austin, Texas, educator Teresa Lozano Long; Los Angeles-area designer Maribeth Walton McGinley; Dallas art collector Deedie Potter Rose; and Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.).

The NEA also is searching for a new leader after the unexpected death last month of its chairman-elect, Michael P. Hammond. Interim director Eileen Mason is leading the agency.

Cogman chairs CC Investments and is the former president and chief operating officer of marketing-communications firm Burson-Marsteller, as well as executive vice president of its parent company, Young & Rubicam.

DeWitt is an arts patron and community activist who for more than two decades has served as a docent for the Cincinnati Art Museum. She also cochaired last year's Presidential Inaugural Committee and has chaired the Cincinnati Fine Arts Fund for Individual Gifts.

Gelernter is a professor of computer science at Yale University, an art critic, an author and an artist. He is the chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies in New Haven, Conn., and is the technology adviser to the K12 Internet school. He also is a painter and an art critic for the Weekly Standard and the former culture columnist for the New York Post.

Long is an educator, patron and trustee whose family organization, the Long Foundation, supports numerous Texas cultural and educational programs. She serves on the boards of Ballet Austin, the Interscholastic League Foundation, the Austin College and the Texas Committee for the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

McGinley is the president and owner of M. Walton McGinley Design, a firm that develops merchandise for the Disney Store Inc., Walt Disney Art Classics, Mattel Toys Inc., the Brass Key and others. She was awarded two Gold Records for art direction for the films Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and E. T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.

Rose is an art collector and past president of the board of the Dallas Museum of Art. She is on the boards of Public Radio International, Channel 13/KERA 90.1, Texas Christian University, Dallas Foundation, Dallas Theater Center, Dallas Center for the Performing Arts, the Dallas Institute for the Humanities and Culture and International Curators Inc.

-- JD