John Knecht Fund


John Knecht Fund for Innovation in the Visual Arts, established to honor Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor John Knecht, and his thirty years of teaching at the university, will fittingly provide the Department of Art and Art History with resources to support the curricular and pedagogical innovation that characterized John’s tenure at Colgate.

John’s leadership as a faculty member and chair of the Art and Art History department fostered many significant changes, from an expanded curriculum in film and video to the addition of much-needed faculty positions to the development and realization of a state-of-the art facility for teaching visual art. His strategy was unfailingly to support a good idea because it was worthwhile, and then find a way to fund it.

The John Knecht Fund for Innovation in the Visual Arts will allow this vision to continue by providing ongoing support for endeavors that expand and enrich the teaching of visual art and culture at Colgate. This might include such things as the funding of student research projects, innovations in teaching, visiting artists and speakers, faculty collaborations, and travel for students to visit New York galleries, museums and artists’ studios. It would provide flexible, discretionary funding for ambitious, innovative projects and initiatives that will benefit the Art and Art History department curriculum and, by extension, the university at large.

The optimal goal is to establish a spendable fund to be used at the discretion of the Art and Art History Department and administered by the chair. Make your gift to the Knecht fund at colgateconnect.org/makeagift.