Cornell Council for the Arts announces annual awards

Abigail Huber
Huber

Abigail Huber, a Cornell senior majoring in interior design, is the recipient of the 2005-06 Edward M. Murray Committee on the Arts Scholarship, the Cornell Council for the Arts (CCA) announced this month. Huber will receive the award during the committee's annual meeting Friday, Oct. 21.

CCA also will honor Emily Goldman '06, winner of the 2005-06 Undergraduate Student Artist Award, and Arthur Laurents '37, winner of the Cornell Distinguished Alumni Award. Goldman, a music major in the Cornell College Scholar program, will receive her award following a piano recital Thursday, Oct. 27, at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall. The performance is free and open to the public.

Laurents, a distinguished playwright, author, screenwriter and director who wrote the books for "West Side Story" and "Gypsy," will receive his award, the Class of '63 Tower, a glass sculpture, in New York City later this fall.

Huber has worked on experimental research exploring alternative and sustainable paper materials. For three years she participated in the Cornell Design League and currently works as a teaching assistant for DEA 251: History and Theory of the Interior. During her junior year, she studied at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland, concentrating on retail and exhibit design. The following summer she completed a design internship at Jackson Galloway Architecture in Austin, Texas, specializing on places of worship.

"Abby is an outstanding example of the human environmental pedagogy [taught in] the department of design and environmental analysis," said Rhonda Gilmore, a teacher in the department. "Aware of the power of design and its potential for making positive change, Abby has chosen this field so that she can use her skills and her compassion to help create humanistic environments after she graduates."

Indeed, Huber said she plans to work in a multidisciplinary firm that encompasses her interest in creating environments that shape human behavior.

The Edward M. Murray Committee on the Arts Scholarship is presented annually to undergraduate majors in arts- and culture-related programs. The scholarship provides financial assistance for artists showing exceptional promise in their field.

Murray, who died in 2000, was a Cornell professor of music theory as well as a conductor, composer and pianist. The Committee on the Arts established the award in 2000, through the guidance of alumnus James Byrnes '63, MBA '64, CEO of Tompkins Trust Co., and Elizabeth Rawlings. Committee members work with the CCA to support and promote the arts at Cornell and among alumni by honoring an outstanding student artist and a distinguished alumni artist each year.

 

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