The art museum in Old Main on the campus of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff will be renamed in honor of the university’s thirteenth president Clara Lovett. The Clara M. Lovett Art Museum is located on the second floor of Old Main on the Historic North Quad, and is a leading cultural institution in northern Arizona that offers an annual schedule of special exhibitions.
Lovett, who served as president from 1994-2001, was the first woman to be president of a state university in Arizona. She was a champion of the arts throughout her career.
Born in northeast Italy, Dr. Lovett received her undergraduate education in English and German at the University of Trieste and at Cambridge University in England. She came to the United States in 1962, earning master’s and doctoral degrees in history at the University of Texas at Austin.
During her 25 years in higher education, she served as professor of history at Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, chief of the European Division of the Library of Congress, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at George Washington University, and provost and vice president for academic affairs at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
After leaving Northern Arizona University in 2001, Dr. Lovett was president and chief executive officer of the American Association for Higher Education.