MUNCIE, Ind. - Y2K may be a good year for the arts as Ball State University students, faculty members and staff perform 2,000 good deeds to advance music, art, theater and dance.

To commemorate the new millennium, Ball State's College of Fine Arts began last year to accumulate "2000 Deeds for the Good of the Arts," special efforts to help people on and off campus better understand and appreciate the arts.

"The project encourages us to exercise some civic responsibility through the arts," said Margaret Merrion, dean of the College of Fine Arts. "Faculty members are modeling a host of voluntary services they perform, and students are learning to contribute in their creative ways."

More than 800 deeds have been submitted by individuals in the School of Music, Department of Art and Department of Theatre and Dance, and the goal is to reach 2,000 this year.

Good deeds range from teaching children about the arts and taking friends to performances and exhibitions to painting murals in public places and performing in hospitals. Others involve financial contributions.

"We are advocates for the arts, and this project demonstrates the ways in which we meet our advocacy mission," Merrion said. "The 2000 Deeds challenges us to become more involved and generous in our citizenship as artists or educators."

Faculty members and students have been inspired to take the arts to nontraditional audiences and places.

"We're seeing far-reaching and cross-disciplinary effects of the good deeds, too," Merrion said.

Art student Angela Manginelli is working with the Ball State Daily News to start a regular forum for publishing student artwork. Art professor Nina Marshall bridged the arts by loaning 10 paintings for exhibition during the Fort Wayne Ballet's "Pointe to the Future" celebration.

Faculty bassist Hans Sturm provided an improvisation session for freshman dance majors, and faculty tubist Mark Mordue gave two Muncie Symphony tickets to his mail carrier over the holidays.

"The deeds give witness to faculty and students advancing their own and others' understanding and appreciation of multiple art forms," Merrion said. "I am particularly proud of the results of cultural outreach we are beginning to see. Faculty and student ensembles are performing and exhibiting at more diverse venues such as retirement homes, hospitals, boys and girls clubs and Rotary clubs, to name a few."

The deeds have also boosted the university's efforts to reach elementary and high schools, she noted.

"We have always had a sense of responsibility to K-12 arts programs, but this project has intensified our efforts," she said.

Other examples of the good deeds for the arts:

• Theater students Liz Davito and Chris Bryant took "The Fantasticks" to schools where kids don't see much theater.
• Several art students helped fourth-graders learn about multimedia computer design and participated in an art program for exceptional children.
• Faculty saxophonist George Wolfe shared music and poetry with a high school English class, and three high schoolers shadowed dance professor Sarah Mangelsdorf for a career day.
• Art student Matt Dobson co-founded Muncie Independent Alliance, a collection resource for local independent musicians.
• Student Jim Wheat hosted three high school students for Honor Band Weekend, and Doug Mitchell sponsored a child in Indianapolis in the Run for the Arts.
• Art major Nathan Heck gave a friend diagnosed with cancer "a painting of a dancer which she felt symbolizes her hope."
• Student Jorjina Amefia-Koffi took a friend to a dance show on campus that included two Asian numbers, and her friend discussed them at an Asian-American Student Association meeting.
• Art professor Marilynn Derwenskus is mentoring a sixth-grade student in her studio.

Students, faculty members and alumni are challenged to use their imagination and ingenuity to accomplish two or three good deeds for the arts this year. Deeds can be added to the list by contacting the College of Fine Arts dean's office in the Arts and Communications Building Room 200. Phone: (765) 285-5495. E-mail: nlindley@bsu.edu.

By Ted Buck, Communications Manager

(NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information about this story, contact Margaret Merrion at (765) 285-5495 or e-mail: mmerrion@bsu.edu.)