Editor’s note: As the University of Arizona School of Art approaches its centennial in 2027, we’re celebrating the people who have helped shape its legacy.
For three decades, Marcia Grand has invested in the future of the School of Art — supporting the students who push creative boundaries and the spaces that help them thrive.
Through the Marcia Grand Centennial Sculpture Prize and major gifts for building renovations, her philanthropy has given graduate students resources to realize ambitious projects while transforming the studios, classrooms, galleries and gathering areas where the next generation of artists learns and works.
A University of Arizona alumna and former publishing executive, Grand supported the College of Law and began to fund the Centennial award in 2000 to support ambitious sculptural and 3D & Extended Media work by MFA students.
Meanwhile, her major gifts to the School of Art helped launch renovation projects from 2021 to 2025, improving the main building and graduate studios, increasing the visibility of student galleries and creating more opportunities for collaboration. The original building, completed on Olive Road in 1956, had not undergone major renovations since the late 1960s and mid-1990s.
“Marcia’s impact on the School of Art has been exceptional,” School Director Jeff Beekman said. “Her support has been instrumental in modernizing our facilities and enhancing the educational experiences of our students, helping to position them for future success in the arts. We are profoundly grateful for her dedication, vision and lasting contributions to our community.”
Students begin their journey at the School of Art in the Marcia Grand First Year Experience classrooms. Top photo: Marcia Grand and Marina Shaltout, the 2019 Centennial Sculpture Prize recipient.
Centennial Prize
The Centennial Prize competition provides as much as $10,000 toward completing a project, giving graduate artists the means to pursue ideas that might otherwise be difficult to realize at the scale they envision.
“Receiving the Centennial (in 2023) changed the trajectory of my work and allowed me to work with a new material, mycelium, which is now very integrated within my overall practice,” said 2025 MFA graduate Claire Fall Blanchette, now an adjunct instructor at the School of Art. Her project featured two interacting walls of bricks that she “grew” with the invisible part of mushrooms whose roots consist of minuscule fungal threads.
Blanchette exhibited the project in the Rombach Gallery and at the ENR2 Building courtyard before moving it to the Land with No Name, an outdoor art sanctuary southwest of Tucson. “The funds gave me the ability to explore mycelium as a material,” she said, “but it also morphed into the conceptual ideas of my practice as a whole and continues to influence my work years later.”
Andrés Caballero (MFA ’26) drew on the award to create “IN PLACE,” a multimedia installation that recreated a Mexican family’s dining room from the borderlands. The work combined a full-scale domestic environment with two contrasting video elements: one grounded in oral histories and the reenactment of family’s memories, and the other generated in real time through computer-vision systems that scan and track visitors.
“Support from donors like you has had a direct impact not only on my artistic practice, but also on my ability to create projects that foster cultural exchange and dialogue,” Caballero said in a letter thanking Grand.
Receiving the Centennial (in 2023) changed the trajectory of my work and allowed me to work with a new material, mycelium, which is now very integrated within my overall practice,” 2025 MFA graduate Claire Fall Blanchette said.
For current MFA student Clarissa Kear, the 2026 Centennial Prize recipient, the award is making possible “Perception Wheel,” a project that moves her painting practice into sculpture and public art.
“My work often explores how the built environment shapes the way we experience and understand a place, and this project gives me the opportunity to investigate those ideas on a much larger scale while developing new technical skills in fabrication and installation,” Kear told Grand in her thank-you letter.
The award’s impact often extends well beyond graduate school. Jessica Drenk, a 2005 recipient, credits it with helping launch her career by enabling her to create a larger installation and bring her work to its first gallery.
“I still proudly show my Centennial award work in my artist talks today,” she said. “It’s so difficult to get an art career started, so the boost I got from the award was very significant to me.”
Marina Shaltout, the 2019 recipient and a 2020 MFA graduate, used the award to create “She Who Eats Forbidden Fruit,” a large-scale, multimedia installation that included video, sculpture and found objects.
“This was a very exciting new direction for my work that would not have been possible if it weren’t for the award,” Shaltout said. “My project was exhibited in multiple galleries, on a billboard in Los Angeles, and part of an exhibition by the Royal Photographic Society in Bristol, England.”
School renovations
Grand’s significant support helped launch major improvements to the School of Art’s main building and graduate studios.
The first phase of renovations reimagined the school’s entrance, lobby and shared courtyard with the University of Arizona Museum of Art. A new glass entryway and the relocation of Marcia Grand First Year Experience studio classrooms to the front of the building made the school more visible, while moving the Lionel Rombach Gallery to the entrance put student artwork front and center.
The new lobby and outdoor patio and informal gathering spaces gave students places to relax, exchange ideas and collaborate. The improvements also created more flexible spaces for presentations and receptions, strengthening connections between the School of Art and the wider university and Tucson communities.
“Marcia is a substantial part of why we have such a modern look,” School of Art Building Manager Carrie Scharf said, while former School Director Colin Blakely called Grand’s support “transformative” in helping create a more visible and outward-facing art program at the U of A.
“The best philanthropists are true partners, working to understand and even help develop a vision for the organizations they support,” said Blakely, now associate provost at the Rhode Island School of Design. “For decades, Marcia has done just that for the School of Art. She has been an indefatigable friend of and collaborator with the school, working to understand its potential and provide generous support that has moved it forward in ways that would not otherwise have been possible.”
The school’s lobby and patio can accommodate big events, such as the annual School of Art Welcome in the fall.
Professor and former College of Fine Arts Dean Andrew Schulz, a faculty member in Art History, credited Grand’s commitment with helping bring the first phase of the Arizona Arts Master Plan to fruition and encouraging further investment in facilities that reflected the strength of the university’s arts programs.
“There is so much time and creative energy embedded in the walls of this building,” said former School of Art Visiting Assistant Professor Danielle Jones (MFA ’21), who is now teaching at Sam Houston University. “The changes introduce more light and breathing room. It’s encouraging for a place of making and growing.”
Grand’s philanthropy also funded most of a comprehensive renovation of the School of Art’s graduate building, completed in spring 2025. Now known as the Visual Arts Research Studios, it’s located just north of Speedway Boulevard on Fremont Avenue.
The 25,000-square-foot facility includes 53 studio spaces, six audiovisual studios, a reconfigured gallery, a seminar classroom and additional spaces for graduate students, faculty and visiting artists and scholars. New shared areas encourage interaction across disciplines, while improved facilities better support students working in a range of media.
“I appreciate being able to work alongside fellow faculty members and our wonderful graduate students,” said Yana Payusova, associate professor of practice for the First Year Experience program. “The communal atmosphere of the space is truly inspiring.”
Leaving her mark on the U of A
Grand’s connection to the University of Arizona is both personal and longstanding. She attended the university, as did her daughter, Cindy, who studied dance in the 1970s. Her late husband, Richard Grand, earned his JD from the U of A in 1958 and was a nationally recognized plaintiff’s trial attorney based in Tucson.
Marcia served as the associate publisher for TWICE (This Week in Consumer Electronics), a major trade publication established in 1986. She was inducted into the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) Hall of Fame in 2017.
In 1995, she and her husband established the Richard Grand Foundation to support arts, education and community organizations. Over the years, Marcia served on the University of Arizona Foundation Board of Trustees and chaired the Board of Fellows for the Center for Creative Photography. She also served on the University Public Art Advisory Committee. The Grands were avid art collectors who donated works and commissioned pieces from local artists, extending their support to other parts of the university, including the James E. Rogers College of Law.
“I’m grateful that Marcia shares our belief in the transformative power of arts education at the University of Arizona,” Schulz said.
Shaltout, one of Grand’s more than 25 Centennial Award recipients, is proof. The artist is now an assistant professor and fundamentals coordinator at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
“Marcia is one of the kindest, most gracious people I have ever met,” Shaltout said. “I will forever be grateful for her contributions toward my artistic career.”
