New Film & Digital Arts scholarship at UNM

The Department of Film & Digital Arts within the College of Fine Arts at The University of New Mexico announces the first scholarship specifically for the Department, created to support Indigenous Native Students, and a new course titled Indigenous People on Screen.

Indigenous People on Screen will be taught by Tara Gatewood, the former host of Native America Calling. Gatewood is an award-winning, veteran journalist and an enrolled citizen of the Pueblo of Isleta/Diné. Additionally, she is the director of the International Women's Media Foundation's Fund for Indigenous Journalists Reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit and Transgender People and hosts of Indigenous Foundation, a music and public affairs program heard on Santa Fe New Mexico's KSFR 101.1 FM. In addition, Gatewood is a community curator/co-curator Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery, a rare exhibition curated by the Native American communities it represents, sponsored by the Pueblo Pottery Collective. Grounded in Clay was recently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

This year's scholarships and the new course were funded by a generous gift from UNM alumna Katrina Parks, who said, "The Bertha Drabkin Goodwin Leviton Foundation is excited to support this scholarship in honor of its founder, my great aunt Bertha, who was an educator, and my grandmother Gladys, who worked as a nurse on the Navajo Reservation. One of Gladys' areas of focus was eye health, and so we are extending the idea of vision beyond the physical to support American Indian film and digital art makers' visions."

Those wishing to learn more about the UNM College of Fine Arts and the Department of Film and Digital Arts, please visit the website. Those wishing to contribute tax-deductible gifts to this scholarship fund may contact Shelly Smith, Director of Development, UNM Fine Arts at [email protected].