Winnipeg Art Gallery Opens Doors to University of Winnipeg Students

The Winnipeg Art Gallery and The University of Winnipeg have entered into a partnership that will see students from the Faculties of Arts, Science, Business, and Economics and the University’s Professional and Applied Continuing Education Division using the WAG’s Muriel Richardson Auditorium as classroom space for the fall and winter terms of the 2013/2014 academic year.

Access to the Muriel Richardson Auditorium allows UWinnipeg to reduce waiting lists by offering a premier facility with technical capacities for popular classes that tend to fill up quickly. As a result of this initiative, just under 400 students in total will attend  various classes at WAG this fall.  Approximately 80 of those students would have otherwise been on waiting lists.

“The WAG and the University of Winnipeg have a long relationship going back many years,” says WAG Director & CEO Stephen Borys, who is a graduate of UWinnipeg and an adjunct professor in the history department. “We already have academic ties with  UWinnipeg in that our curators teach classes in UWinnipeg’s Masters degree in the Curatorial Studies program. This new partnership represents an opportunity to forge even stronger ties.”

The WAG will also provide free admission passes to the students attending classes there, to bursary fund recipients through the UWinnipeg’s Opportunity Fund, and others.

“The WAG offers a unique learning environment for our students. This agreement with the WAG augments a foundation for future collaborations and strengthens our shared commitment to creating a vibrant downtown arts precinct,” said Dr. Lloyd Axworthy, President and Vice-Chancellor, UWinnipeg. “We are attracting more students than ever before, with our enrolment up more than 50% in the past decade, so sharing neighbourhood resources is both practical and economically viable.”

The area around Memorial Boulevard and Portage Avenue is the downtown’s artistic hub with the WAG, Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art inside the Buhler Centre, the University’s Asper Centre for Theatre and Film, and Gallery 1C03 in Centennial Hall contributing to the creative vibrancy of the area.