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COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 17 Gallery at Zoellner Arts Center through May 21, 2021, has had considerable student involvement. The exhibit was co-curated by students and faculty from the history, political science, journalism and communica- tion, and art, architecture and design departments. Additionally, Lehigh students recorded an audio guide to an outdoor exhibition featuring 4-foot by 8-foot billboard reproductions of 22 of the photographs placed along a 1.9-mile stretch of the South Bethlehem Greenway, in partnership with the SouthSide Arts District. The voices of Lehigh students can also literally be heard on a new audio guide to the university’s renowned outdoor sculpture collection. A group of 25 students worked to create the guide to the 56 outdoor sculptures on Lehigh campuses. Before the pandemic drove most people indoors and online, LUAG redesigned its website to bring it in line with the Lehigh brand and increase visibility, and is in the process of digitizing its collection of almost 17,000 works of art. About 2,500 works have already been digitized and are available for public viewing on LUAG’s website. LUAG has received a second federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to digitize the rest of its collection, with some of the money earmarked to fund training for Lehigh students to do the digitization. “We’re trying to make museums matter,” Crow says. “We want museums to be places of possibility and we want everyone to feel like they belong and to take ownership in the museum. So, we’re really working actively to make sure that happens.” Zoellner Arts Center: ‘What We Have in Common’ In his previous position as executive director of cultural programs and partnerships at Grunin Center for the Arts in Tom’s River, N.J., Mark Fitzgerald Wilson developed an understanding of “how to connect the arts and technology together.” Wilson arrived at Lehigh in August 2020 as the new executive director of Zoellner Arts Center during the pandemic that shifted so much of education—and almost everything else—from the in-person world to the digital realm. And connecting arts and technology will play a role as he seeks to prioritize accessibility and diversity to better serve the university and the local community. “Moving forward in the arts, I think people are going to have a thirst to come back together,” Wilson says. “And I think we now know that we can do some things with technology to continue to keep the arts thriving. So for my staff, I ask them what are things that we are doing that we want to continue to do to connect our commu- nity with the arts? Can we use this technology to answer this accessibility question for people in our community who do not have accessibility to arts as much as they need? I think that’s the thing we can start to do is to take a step back and figure out if this could be a way for us to now get to the people on the margins and get them more involved or figure out more solutions to that question.” Technology also can help break down barriers. One idea Wilson is considering is using technology to bring together suburban and urban students, or rural and urban students. “Could we use our technology to have a shared experience with the students? Would they talk to each other about the performance that they saw and what they learned together using technology?” Aside from technology, Wilson also would like to explore ways to bring performances and events more directly to the community. “I would say that the bigger vision would be for us to open the arts outside of just the four walls of our theater, but actually partner with student groups and community groups to bring the arts across the campus and across the community and not be moored by us just having performances inside a building,” he says. Wilson says Zoellner will continue bringing in the popular, traditional shows—world-class orchestras and dance companies, contempo- rary adult performers like Smokey Robinson, and Broadway shows—while striving to provide perfor- mances and events to connect to different cultures among Lehigh students and the community. For example, he thinks Zoellner could help support student cultural clubs “by letting them see their voice on the stage and let them interact with artists and give them an opportunity to experience their culture and share that out with the greater community also. So I think it’s about diversity, equity and inclusion, and getting the community to see different cultures.” It all comes down to the important role that the arts can—and should—play during this time when so many are focused on the things that divide us. “I think the arts can be a way to bring people together to see what we actually have in common,” Wilson says. ● CHRISTA NEU, RYAN HULVAT PHOTOGRAPHY (TOP LEFT, TOP RIGHT)