Foundation Awards 20 Graduate Arts Awards for 2013

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has named 20 students with exceptionally high artistic and creative abilities the recipients of its 2013 Graduate Arts Award.  These Jack Kent Cooke Scholars will receive up to $50,000 per year for up to three years in order to attend accredited graduate institutions in the United States or abroad.

Graduate Arts Award

Now in its third year, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Arts Award elicited 449 applications and portfolios from 43 states and the District of Columbia. The 20 winners represent just four percent of the total applicant pool. They were selected by a 38-member panel of experienced artists and arts educators in the fields of music, dance, theater, creative writing, visual arts, and film.

“By alleviating the financial burdens of graduate school, our award allows these young but deserving artists to focus on developing their talents and preparing for a career in the arts,” said Ms. Dana O’Neill, program manager for the Graduate Arts Award. “We were so impressed with the caliber of applicants this year that we increased the number of awards from 15 to 20.”

For applicants to be eligible for the Graduate Arts Award, they must have: senior standing or have graduated from an accredited four-year US college or university within the past five years; plans to begin their first graduate degree program in the performing arts, visual arts, or creative writing at an accredited college or university; a grade point average of 3.2 or above on a 4.0 scale; and, demonstrated unmet financial need.

The first phase of the application process for this annual award is open in October and November.    Students invited by the Foundation to continue to the second phase must then be nominated by the Foundation’s Faculty Representatives at their undergraduate institutions. Each college or university may nominate up to two students to be considered for the Graduate Arts Award.  In the 2013 application cycle, 131 students were nominated by 92 colleges and universities.

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation congratulates the following award recipients, who join a community of Jack Kent Cooke Scholars, now more than 1,900 strong:

Virginia Berg
University of Virginia

Simin Eivazi
California College of the Arts

Jamie Figueroa
Institute of American Indian Arts

Katherine Goldstein
Colorado College

Louis Rigano
Rhode Island School of Design

Alexandra Hughes Caley
University of Colorado at Boulder

Elena Iosub
Stony Brook University – SUNY

Stephen Jackson
Columbia University

Jefferey Lowry
University of Arizona

Nicholas Missel
Kansas City Art Institute

Clare Monfredo
Yale University

Jacob Muldowney
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Brennan Peters
Loyola University New Orleans

Erika Pinkerton
Vanderbilt University

Randi Rudolph
Stanford University

Jonathan Savage
University of North Texas

Reinhart Selvik
University of California, San Diego

Imran Shafi
University of Southern California

Susan Yang
Vanderbilt University

Nina Yun
Northwestern University