If you choose to provide a restricted gift, consider funding one of the following options, which are among the Tisch School of the Arts’ most critical needs:
Scholarships
Few forms of giving have as direct an impact on the educational experience of students as a gift for scholarships. A benefactor can tailor this type of gift in various ways. He or she can provide a gift that is expendable or endowed. If endowed, the scholarship will exist in perpetuity, supporting students not just today, but for generations to come. The benefactor can select criteria for the scholarship, including such considerations as whether the scholarship should be awarded based on the student’s financial need, academic merit, or the promise of their artistic work. And perhaps most important, the benefactor can choose to provide support for scholarships in the art form that most captures their imagination.
Supporters of scholarship funds have included foundations such as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the ASCAP Foundation, and the Wasserman Foundation; and individuals such as Bernie Brillstein, Chris Columbus, Maurice Kanbar, Martin Scorsese, and Patricia Hitchcock O’Connell.
The Tisch School of the Arts currently has over 100 scholarship funds, providing much needed support to students of film, television, acting, recorded music, dramatic writing, directing, radio, cinema studies, photography, performance studies, animation, interactive telecommunications, and dance. Nonetheless, the need is still enormous. By providing funds directly to students for tuition and expenses, a benefactor is truly “leveling the playing field,” ensuring that all those who deserve opportunity will have it.
Endowed Chairs
The academy offers no higher form of recognition for excellence in scholarship and teaching than appointment to an endowed professorship or “chair.” These academic posts, supported by their own funds, possess a special distinction, and would therefore help Tisch to attract and retain top scholars and artists to its faculty. This in turn would help to attract first-rate students and create a general climate of enthusiasm for the School. Chairs can be named for the benefactor, or a person he or she wishes to honor. Endowed chairs underscore the importance of teaching in the academic enterprise and, in the arts, support the tradition of passing knowledge and technique from master craftsman to apprentice. A gift in support of a professorship is integral to the process of transmitting theory and skill across generations.
Film Production Funds
Critical to the training philosophy at Tisch is the idea that you learn by doing. This philosophy requires every department at Tisch to incur production costs. In film for example students are required to make at least three to five movies and, although the School does cover initial expenses at an average cost of $1,000/minute for a standard short, they often need additional resources to achieve their vision. Currently, there are over twenty film production funds.
Another example is drama. In the undergraduate division there are over 100 productions a year. For each requires a director, sets, costumes, lighting, sometimes dramaturgy marketing, and promotions.
As with scholarship gifts, the benefactor has a voice in the structuring of the fund. The monies can be expendable or endowed, and can be named for the benefactor or a person of his or her choosing. The donor can also choose the criteria – they might choose to support undergraduate or graduate students; dedicate funds to a thesis film; restrict use of funds to a particular portion of the filmmaking process, such as pre-production, production, or post-production; or support students whose previous work demonstrates great artistic promise.
Supporters of production funds have included esteemed movie directors Chris Columbus and Martin Scorsese, alumni of Tisch; music producer Clive Davis; Richard Vague, a distinguished leader in the financial services industry; the Charles and Lucille King Foundation; and companies such as Warner Bros. and Showtime.
By providing a gift for a production fund, you could very well be lending a helping hand to the next generation or the next great innovator who will take the art form in an entirely new direction.
