Hamilton College’s Wellin Museum receives $100,000 grant

CLINTON, N.Y. — The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded Hamilton College’s Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art a two-year, $100,000 grant to study the museum’s educational programs for local public schools.

The study will help the Wellin Museum work more effectively with public-school educators to supplement school curricula within the structure of the Common Core requirements, according to a news release from Hamilton College. Study results will be used to create new programming for the museum. The results of the study and an assessment of the pilot programs will be widely disseminated so that peer institutions, locally and across the country, may benefit from the Wellin’s work, the release explained.

“Locally, arts programs are frequently the first to be cut, leaving huge holes in the educational experience for students,” Megan C. Austin, manager of educational programming and outreach at the museum, said in the release. “The Wellin seeks to address this gap by becoming a primary source for arts programming for K-12 students in the Mohawk Valley. This grant also allows us to further develop our educational outreach program and launch new initiatives to serve students in the region and at Hamilton.”

More than 1,500 public-school students from nine area school districts have visited the museum since it opened in the fall of 2012.

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