This is indeed a good year for the Art Conservation program at Buffalo State. Not only has the graduate program received a $995,000 Mellon grant , but the National Endowment for the Humanities has decided to contribute as well. Add $221,000 and the Art Conservation department is prospering.

The latest contribution allows the department to provide fellowships to the ten students that are allowed in the program each year. The new grant will also continue the support of visiting conservator Ruth Norton, chief conservator of the Field Museum in Chicago. Norton's support at Buffalo State already lies within a previous NEH grant.

The grant will also support other reputed conservators to visit and work in collaboration with the department's objects conservator, Professor Jonathan Thorton.

“Yes, I'm very excited about it,” says Art Conservation program director, Chris Tahk. “This is the third grant we've received this year. The NEH grant will provide student fellowships and permit us to bring one of the leading archaeological experts in the US in to instruct and help the students out. We already have excellent facilities here, but the grants will help us out greatly.”

Buffalo State's art conservation department's graduate program is one of four art conservation programs in North America that grants degrees, besides the University of Delaware, Queen's University in Ontario and New York University. Twelve-month internships are provided at the end of the program in the student's chosen specialty. Since its inception in 1970, a majority of the department's 300 graduates are employed in conservation laboratories in the United States, as well as throughout the world.

For more information on the art conservation program at Buffalo State go to: www.buffalostate.edu/depts/
artconservation