Faculty

Ursula M. Kuhar, DM
Director and Assistant Professor of Arts Management
(434) 381-6350
ukuhar@sbc.edu

Ursula Kuhar holds a B.S. in arts administration with honors and MM in music education from Butler University, a diploma from Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris, France), and a DM in Voice from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. Kuhar’s areas of expertise include orchestra/opera management, Leonard Bernstein and 20th centure American song, arts policy and cultural diplomacy.  Previously, she was on the faculty of the arts administration program at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs. She has worked in development and education/outreach with Indianapolis Children’s Choir, Community Hospital Foundation of Indiana and Opera Columbus, and is also a consultant specializing in the areas of community engagement and arts advocacy. Kuhar has been a recipient of numerous honors and awards, including Pi Kappa Lambda, Phi Sigma Iota and fellowships from Butler University and Indiana University. Her professional associations include Americans for the Arts, Association of Arts Administration Educators, Music Educators National Conference, and National Association of Teachers of Singing. An active performer, she has sung in opera houses and concert halls throughout Europe and the Americas, was a 2011 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions Regional Finalist, and recently made her international debut in the title role in Handel's Orlando in Siena, Italy.

Karol A. Lawson, Ph.D.
Director of the Art Collection and Galleries, and the Sweet Briar Museum
Visiting Assistant Professor of Arts Management
(434) 381-6248
klawson@sbc.edu

Karol Lawson earned a B.A. in art history and anthropology from Sweet Briar College and holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in art history from the University of Virginia. She has been an art museum curator and administrator for over 20 years. In addition to advanced academic training in 18th- and 19th-century American art, she has experience in anthropological museums and archaeological field work. Her career began at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American Art. Lawson also served as chief curator and director of collections at The Columbus Museum in Columbus, Ga., and as director of The Maier Museum of Art at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. She is the recipient of scholarly grants from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University and the Huntington Library and Art Collections. She is a peer reviewer for the American Association of Museums and currently serves as chair of the Museum Committee of the College Art Association. She has over 10 years cumulative experience teaching art history and museum studies at the undergraduate level and also publishes and speaks at professional conferences on legal and ethical issues with regard to the management of museum collections.