Native American art scholar W. Jackson Rushing III joined the OU faculty this fall as the Mary Lou Milner Carver Chair in Native American Art and the Eugene Adkins Presidential Professor of Art History. The estate gift from Carver, who earned her Fine Arts degree at OU in 1947, enabled the School of Art and Art History to establsih a PhD program in art history at the University.

W hen Mary Lou Milner Carver graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1947 with a degree in fine arts she could not have foreseen the impact she would have on her alma mater some 60 years later. Today, a gift from her estate has helped establish OU’s first doctoral program in art history with the funding of an endowed chair in Native American art.

Native American art scholar W. Jackson Rushing III joined the OU faculty this fall as the Mary Lou Milner Carver Chair in Native American Art and the Eugene Adkins Presidential Professor of Art History. Rushing said the combination of the endowed positions and the collections of Native American art at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art created a “perfect storm” of conditions to bring him the University.

“As far as I know, OU is the only university in the world with a chair designated for research in Native American art,” said Rushing. “I am very pleased and honored to be here.”

The Carver chair was made possible by a $1 million gift from the Carver estate and is part of the new doctoral program focusing on Native American art and art of the American West.

The Adkins Presidential Professorship was created in tandem with the addition of the Eugene B. Adkins Collection to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art — one of the largest and most important private collections in the nation of works by the Taos artists, as well as Native American works of art.

Rushing specializes in several areas, including Native American art; modern art; art theory and criticism; and museum studies. He specifically studies the intertwined areas of Native American studies, anthropology and art history.

“Jackson Rushing is one the premier scholars in the field of Native American art history,” said Mary Jo Watson, director of the School of Art and Art History. “His national and international recognition provides a significant enhancement for the OU School of Art and Art History. Our new doctoral program in Native American art history will benefit from his teaching and scholarly research. We are delighted that he is now part of our faculty.”