Susan Taaffe , a Weatherspoon Art Museum preparator, slides Robert Rauschenberg's “Straw-Boss” collage out from its storage site in the museum's vault.

It could be considered a way of taking stock.

From now until May 3, the Weatherspoon Art Museum will display pieces from its permanent collection in eight thematic groupings.

“We're trying to answer the question, why do you collect what you do?” said Nancy Doll, Weatherspoon director. “Sometimes we extend our collection by a certain artist, add a new artist or add new material in context.”

In this exhibition, “Cool, Collected and in Context,” it's the juxtaposition that makes things interesting.

For example, the museum's most valuable piece, Willem de Kooning's “Woman,” will be shown with other pieces that pertain to the female body.

“Some are younger artists not usually shown with de Kooning,” said Xandra Eden, curator of exhibitions, noting that Julie Heffernan's “Self-Portrait with Birds in My Fingers” will be one of the pieces in the grouping. “It shows the evolution of the female body.”

Other themes include photography, painting into sculpture, collage, the book and prints, drawing and nature.

That's just one way of grouping these works. There are many others, Doll said.

“It's learning about different ways of looking at art,” Eden said. “I think of the exhibition as an educational tool. It's like a library — you learn from what's there.”

Peter Goff; “mark-shade-spray;” mixed media; 2008

One of our students has done it again.

Peter Goff '08 MFA received the International Sculpture Center's (ISC) Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.

He was one of 12 winners selected from a field of 401 student nominees from more than 162 art departments at colleges and universities around the world. This is the second consecutive year a UNCG student has won this award.

Peter's winning ISC work consists of three sculptures, “mark-shade-spray,” “listen-clean-stop” and “chew-drive-comb,” which incorporate found objects such as vinyl records, forks, bicycle parts, cotton swabs, wine corks, thorns and chicken bones. “I consider factors such as place, material and process in the production of socially engaged artifacts,” he said.

In addition to this award, Peter also was selected as one of two UNCG students to receive a Fulbright Scholarship. He was a visiting artist at Chancellor College in Zomba, Malawi, producing sculptures and documenting the work of Malawian artists through photographs and on the internet.

UNCG is merging its performing arts programs — music, theatre and dance — into a single school that will enhance and bring more visibility to the institution's performing arts programs.

Chancellor Linda P. Brady and Provost David H. Perrin have set the process in motion, and their email letter to faculty and staff said the new organization would create a “vibrant and thriving” performing arts unit. Its working name: School of Music, Theatre and Dance.

Dr. John Deal, who is UNCG's music dean, will remain dean of the reconfigured school. Oversight for Aycock Auditorium and the University Concert & Lecture Series will be transferred to the school from the Division of Student Affairs.

A transition committee began meeting in January to address organizational and administrative issues. The effective date for completing the change is July 1, 2010.

Fall 2008 figures show that merging the three academic units would assemble a full-time faculty of 98 who would teach 1,042 students — 812 undergraduates and 230 graduate students.

Reconfiguration of UNCG's performing arts programs has been discussed for several years, most recently in 2007-08 by the Campus Arts Committee, which brought in two consultants. The committee and the consultants proposed strategies to raise the visibility of the university's arts programs.

Combining the performance resources of the School of Music and the Departments of Theatre and Dance will enhance the visibility of each. It will also encourage new and larger private gifts, which might ultimately result in a major new facility to house the three areas under a single roof, the chancellor and provost said.

• “Bike Racing for Children,” by Kristen Dieffenbach '03 PhD
• “Dam Greed,” an oral history of the damming of the Little Tennesse Rver in eastern Tennessee by Frances Brown Dorward '54
• “Seed Across Snow,” a book of poems by Kathleen Fitch Driskell '91 MFA
• “From the Fishouse,” an anthology of poetry featuring work by Dan Albergotti '02 MFA, Maria Hummel '98 MFA, Sarah Lindsay '84 MFA, co-edited by Camille Dungy '97 MFA and Matt O'Donnell '98 MFA
• “Adventures in Pen Land: One Writer's Journey from Inklings to Ink,” Marianne Gingher '74 MFA
• “Practicing Resurrection,” a book of sermons by Dr. Martha Darnley Highsmith '74, '78 MS
• “Twigs and Knucklebones,” a book of poetry by Sarah Lindsay '84 MFA
• “Teacher TV: Sixty Years of Teachers on Television,” co-written by Laura Linder '86
• “Pretty Monsters,” a collection of short stories by Kelly Link '95 MFA
• “Little Pockets of Alarm,” a collection of short stories by Kat Meads '77 MFA
• “Frontier Madam: The Life of Dell Burke, Lady of Lusk,” a biography by June Wilson Read '73, '77 MEd
• “The Fireman's Wife,” a novel by Jack Riggs '79, '93 MFA
• “Returning from Mars,” a book of poetry by Eric Weil '80 MFA, '89 MA, '93 PhD

Awards

• Claudia Emerson '91 MFA has received the first Donald Justice Award for Poetry.
• Mary Ellen Snodgrass '66 received the 2008 American Library Association Booklist Editors' Choice Award for Reference for “Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places and Operations.”