08 / UNOTES / NEWS
FROM
CAMPUS
BRIE FS
Karen V. Duhamel, assistant professor of nursing, received the Nightingale Award for Excellence in Nursing last September from Hartford HealthCare at Home. The Nightingale Award celebrates and elevates the nursing profession and recognizes nurses who have made a significant impact on patient care and the profession. The award is named for Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. Duhamel has served on the College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions faculty since 2011 and was named program director of the Master of Science in Nursing program last year. She has extensive experience in behavioral health nursing, case management, and project management. Duhamel is a committed lifelong learner and is passionate about teaching and advancing nursing as a noble profession. Amy Weiss joined the UHart community in January as director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies. She previously directed the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Education at Saint Elizabeth University in Morristown, New Jersey. Weiss, who will also serve as assistant professor of Judaic studies and history, and director of the Museum of Jewish Civilization, has also taught Judaic studies and American history at Rutgers University and The City College of New York. “We are very much looking forward to the next era of the Greenberg Center under Amy’s leadership,” says College of Arts and Sciences Dean Katherine Black. “She brings a wealth of administrative experience, scholarship, and teaching to the Greenberg Center.”
Working Together Students assist community arts organization The University of Hartford and Five Points Center for the Visual Arts (FPCVA) are partnering on a new initiative to assist FPCVA in its opening of a world-class art center in Torrington, Connecticut. While the well-known gallery will remain downtown, the new FPCVA site, located on what was formerly the University of Connecticut’s Torrington regional campus, will include a 30,000-square-foot classroom building and 90 bucolic acres that will be transformed into a dynamic facility for cutting-edge exploration and community-driven activity. The Art Center is planned as a state-ofthe-art cross disciplinary facility complete with an Art Park focused on the ecology and planet sustainability. The Center, when fully operational, will offer artists and community members access to workspaces equipped for printmaking, alternative
H / UNIVERSITY OF HARTFORD MAGAZINE
photograph processing, ceramics, digital art, sculpture, painting, drawing, and 3D fabrication. The 245-seat auditorium will offer artist talks and documentaries. Visitors will be able to enroll in workshops, drop their kids off at the Children’s Lab, enjoy a snack from the café, explore the library with more than 1,000 publications, browse the gift shop, meditate in the Courtyard Sensory Garden, walk the Art Park’s paths and trails (with four-legged friends), create, explore, relax, and learn. Students throughout UHart’s schools and colleges will have a unique opportunity to collaborate with FPCVA while contributing to different aspects of this initiative based on their programs and talents. Various projects were incorporated into the curriculum during the spring semester, and other students are working on projects through
