Author Description

The Academy is a utopian educational institution that is defined by the qualities of those who teach and study there, what is taught, how and why. The ideals described herein are also written in the culminating chapter of the book Dear Gary Dear Eric. That book challenges the status quo of higher education and the conflict between the business of education and the art of education. The authors’ dialogues also address the growing role of “pop” culture, its influence upon the shaping of society and the confusion about the difference between Art and entertainment. The Academy provides solutions for those dilemmas. The story involves a character that visits “The Great City”. After a series of fortuitous events, he learns about a place of learning called The Academy. He observes several classes and rehearsals and has substantive conversations with the students and faculty there. The Academy’s professors present the philosophy of the institution as Art, itself. The Academy instills, inspires and teaches great thought and thinking. Masterworks of music, literature, art, architecture and philosophy are the instructors.Six principles of Art govern The Academy: dominance, movement, harmony, contrast, balance and form. These principles are integrated throughout the curriculum in such a way that students travel through Art on a daily basis – live through Art.The guest learns that The Academy is place where every course is a music course, where every course is an aesthetics class and every course is a history course, etc. The mission of The Academy is to teach students to live life artfully. Simply “being there” in that Great City and learning at The Academy and not somewhere else is critical to achieving that goal. Everything about The Academy – from the campus design to the beauty of the buildings in which the students learn, from the remarkable sculpts, paintings and tapestries that students pass by daily to every course of study, from every student to every faculty member –