Martha Pollak named first Circle Professor of Art History

Martha Pollak, has been named the inaugural Circle Professor of Art History – a position created in February 2019 for the Department of Art History within CADA, with an endowment by a Nebraska-based charitable foundation that wishes to remain anonymous. Historically, UIC was widely referred to as “Circle,” and this new professorship pays homage to that historical name for the university’s Chicago campus and location.

The Circle Professorship will support faculty research and graduate education in Art History and provide exceptional value, in perpetuity, by supporting the holder’s research endeavors, including travel for research and publication subsidies. Graduate students will also receive grants to pursue their research, and to focus on dissertation writing.

The Circle Professorship in Art History will attract promising scholars both to the faculty and to the graduate program and support the school’s mission to empower students in the making, experience, study, and interpretation of art, art history, and contemporary culture and prepare them for a professional life of interdisciplinary practice. Affirming that humanity advances through the arts, the School of Art and Art History at UIC educates its students to rigorously engage in art’s vibrant corollaries: dialogue, critique, experimentation, and social justice.