Endowment honors and extends the legacy of beloved professor of ceramics
An educator could hardly ask for more glowing praise than the late Professor of Art Marlene Jack routinely receives from her former students, even decades after their graduation from William & Mary.
“A very, very special human” was how Kevin McDonald ’94 described Jack in remarks delivered at a memorial service after her passing in March 2023. Even though McDonald majored in history, not art, he said, “she made a huge impact on me.”
Now, over a year later, this beloved instructor is poised once more to make a huge impact on students in the Department of Art & Art History through the Marlene Jack Ceramics Opportunity Endowment.
Established in 2023 through generous, matching lead gifts from McDonald and from Jack’s husband, photographer and curator Tom Moore, the endowment now amounts to over $125,000 contributed by 54 donors, according to Gerald Bullock M.Ed. '97, executive director of development for Arts & Sciences. Invested through the W&M Foundation, these funds, largely donated by Jack’s colleagues and former students, will grow further for future years.
“It’s just an inspiring story of … family, friends and alumni coming together to make it happen,” Bullock said. “You don’t see that very often.”
This collaboration was on full display at a sale of Jack’s ceramics held at her home studio in Barhamsville, Virginia, in March 2024. According to Jack’s friend and former student Beth Turbeville ’82, who helped coordinate the event, colleagues, alumni and figures within the ceramics community came from as far away as Florida and Minnesota to show their support.
Those in attendance found the gathering to be deeply moving. “As we opened the door to her studio her spirit hit me,” Jeff Oestreich, a longtime friend and colleague of Jack’s, recalled. Pots beautifully displayed, people chatting and lovely food. The new pots of hers [from the sale] live proudly in my kitchen with even more meaning. I feel surrounded and loved by her.”
Over the course of two days, the sale raised over $10,000, with 75% directly invested in the endowment and the remaining 25% donated to the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts, of which Jack had been a board member from 1981 to 1988 and a lifetime Fellow since 1989.
“It was a labor of love taken on by many people,” Turbeville said.
Mike Jabbur, associate professor of art and chair of the Department of Art & Art History at the time the endowment was created, selected some of Jack’s works to be gifted to the Muscarelle Museum of Art rather than sold. While some will be exhibited there, Melissa Parris, deputy director of collections, exhibitions & operations at the Muscarelle, is currently working to place other pieces at various museums to honor Jack’s wider impact in the art world.
“We feel privileged to steward Marlene’s works and look forward to sharing them with the William & Mary community and with researchers and visitors in the newly expanded Muscarelle Museum of Art at the Martha Wren Briggs Center for the Visual Arts,” Parris said.
For his own part, Jabbur, who has known Jack since 2006 and succeeded her on the Art & Art History faculty after her retirement as a full professor in 2011, looks forward to all the opportunities the endowment will create for students in his department.
“The Marlene Jack Ceramics Opportunity Endowment Fund generates a meaningful payout every year, which will allow us to augment our programming in numerous exciting ways, including more visiting artists, field trips, equipment purchases, and more,” Jabbur explained. “I have just developed a new ceramics-focused COLL 100 course that involves a field trip to a local or regional museum, so the funds may be used to cover the expenses for a trip to D.C. or Richmond as soon as this spring.”
Bullock added that the endowment could also fund undergraduate research opportunities and conference travel, complementing a larger A&S mission to promote applied learning outside the classroom.
In these many ways, the endowment reflects Jack’s active and innovative approach as an educator, both on campus and off. “It will be just one more facet of the incredible legacy Marlene Jack leaves behind,” Jabbur said.
That legacy of transforming students’ lives and careers reaches back to the earliest days after Jack’s arrival at W&M in 1974. The first woman to achieve tenure in studio art at the university, she served twice as department chair (1985-1987 and 1993-1994) and was instrumental in transforming the Old Power Plant into a cutting-edge ceramics studio in 1976. Three and a half decades later, just before her retirement, Jack invited Turbeville and 13 of her other former students to display ceramic works at an exhibit celebrating what the studio had made possible.
This showcase of her students’ art was emblematic of Jack’s efforts to cultivate undergraduates’ individual creativity. According to Turbeville, who credits Jack with helping her launch a career as a professional potter that continues to this day, “She helped students find their own voice in clay.”
For McDonald, who not only took ceramics classes with Jack, but also accompanied her on one of 12 summer study-abroad programs she led in Italy and fondly remembers the studio potlucks she and Moore hosted at their home, Jack’s most valuable lessons transcended art.
“My ceramics classes were some of the most challenging I experienced at William & Mary — cognitively, physically, artistically, emotionally — and I am so grateful for that,” McDonald said. “Although I didn't realize it then, I walked away with the ability to articulate, to defend, and to communicate meaning and intention. And Professor Jack was at the heart of this learning process. I am grateful for her seriousness of purpose, her intellectual heft, her insightfulness combined with her empathy, her kindness, her relatability.”
Jack challenged and enriched generations of undergraduates at W&M, and the Marlene Jack Ceramics Opportunity Endowment will enable the Department of Art & Art History to create similarly rewarding experiences for generations more.
“I could not be prouder of the endowment and the support it has received from so many donors,” Moore said. “Marlene had a profound impact on the lives of more students than I could possibly count, and this endowment will extend that impact for years to come.”
Annie Powell contributed reporting for this story.
