KeyFacts
Founded: 1853
Type of Institution: Coeducational, private, comprehensive university in suburban Philadelphia
Enrollment: More than 3,200 students, including 1,570 undergraduates, more than 300 part-time undergraduates, and 1,472 graduate students.
Faculty: 306 faculty members. Eighty-five percent of full-time assistant, associate, and full professors hold doctoral or terminal degrees.
Student/Faculty Ratio: 12-1
Degrees Offered: B.A., B.F.A., B.S., M.A., M.S., and doctoral degrees in more than 40 majors.
Study Abroad: Students can study abroad in Argentina, Australia, England, Equatorial Guinea, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Spain, or Wales.
Residence Halls: Six residence halls and apartment units in four local complexes house more than 1,050 students and offer a variety of housing options.
Arcadia's Curator Goes Extra Mile for New Exhibit
"The Mirrored Catalogue D'Oiseaux" Saved through Fast Thinking
For Arcadia University Art Gallery director Richard Torchia, the hard work was finally accomplished. A pair of South American (tropical) mockingbirds from Paraguay was quarantined in Florida, preparing for a trip to Glenside, PA, to be part of Dave Allen's exhibit, "The Mirrored Catalogue D'Oiseaux," which opened the gallery's 2003-04 season. Allen's project was an experiment that explores the possibility that mockingbirds exposed to an avant-garde piano piece—"Inspired by Birdsong" by the classical composer Olivier Messiaen—might mimic the music and draw a full circle from nature to culture and back to nature.
But just a week before the opening, Torchia received some news that threatened to derail the project. The mockingbirds had developed a deadly illness and were no longer able to be a part of the exhibition or stay in the United States. This sent Torchia and Allen on a wild chase to replace the mocking birds with another mimicking bird.
What they found was the starling, a bird made famous by Shakespeare and brought to the United States in the late 1800s by a New York literary society to populate Central Park with birds from the Bard's works. While Torchia and Allen were assured that the starlings can mimic other birds—as well as mechanical instruments such as the piano—there remained a concern whether the starlings would duplicate Messiaen's music as well as the mockingbirds did when Allen staged the event in Germany last year.
"What I found interesting about the situation was that we carefully arranged for Allen to restage a successful work but found ourselves having to improvise at the last minute," says Torchia, who pointed out that Mozart had a pet starling with whom he exchanged melodies. "But while there was a question regarding these starlings' abilities to achieve what had been originally designed for mockingbirds, they brought new and exciting possibilities to this project. The starlings, unlike the mockingbirds, were released back into nature after the exhibit, and that made the artist very excited because they perhaps carried strains of the music with them."
For Torchia, it is all part of the job. As the curator of a small university gallery in the immediate suburbs of a big city, Torchia frequently has to improvise. Because the Arcadia Art Gallery presents new projects by both emerging and well-established artists, Torchia often has to accommodate unforeseen changes at the 11th hour.
Although the gallery has exhibited work by highly regarded international artists, Torchia also pursues the work of lesser-known talent that is often more open to chance. "It's exciting to have an emerging artist who recognizes the opportunities involved in showing here and is willing roll with the punches," Torchia says. "It was great to watch an artist like Dave Allen think on his feet as each new day presented a different scenario. In the end, I know he surprised himself by the way his attitude about the project changed and evolved. A more well-known artist might not have been willing to be so open to fate."
What set Allen's work apart from others at the gallery was his use of live specimens, something different for Arcadia. The aviary was constructed under the guidance of Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences and the Philadelphia Zoo. According to Torchia, Allen's exhibition is also an opportunity for cross-disciplinary study for faculty and students, as well as for the community. "We had several people come through the gallery who had never visited before," he says. "That is what a university art gallery is all about, opening up doors of inquiry and experience that might otherwise be closed, let alone even recognized."
Arcadia University is a coeducational, comprehensive university in suburban Philadelphia, offering undergraduate and graduate study to 3,000 students annually. The Arcadia University Center for Education Abroad, ranked second in the nation by U.S. News & World Report and one of the largest campus-based international study programs in the United States, serves an additional 2,000 students each year from nearly 300 American colleges and universities. Barron's has named Arcadia a "best buy" for the past ten years, and the college has ranked among the top colleges or universities in the north region by the U.S. News & World Report's America's Best College Guide. Arcadia's alumni take great pride in their university, with 40 percent of undergraduate alumni donating to their alma mater yearly. For more information, go to www.arcadia.edu.
