Adele Chatfield-Taylor, Marla Stone Lecture Introduction, 1998-04-09

These records include general correspondence and subject files collected by Adele Chatfield-Taylor during her time as President of the American Academy in Rome from 1988 to 2013. The records contain information ranging widely from strategic planning activities and work with the Academy's Board of Trustees to administrative matters and day-to-day operations of the Academy's offices in New York City and in Rome. They are a particularly rich source of information on the following topics. 1. The records contain many materials on financial and fund raising topics. For example, this collection includes records pertaining to the increase of the Academy's endowment during President Chatfield-Taylor's tenure, the balancing of the program and operating budgets, and the successful completion of a $75 million Centennial Campaign. 2. Most of the Rome Prize Fellowships and Residencies were successfully endowed during President Chatfield-Taylor's tenure, and the records show the long course of work with individual donors, private foundations, and federal agency donors as well as through special events to accomplish this objective. 3. Focusing on historical preservation and modernization of the physical plant, including landmark buildings, during President Chatfield-Taylor's presidency the buildings and gardens on the Academy's eleven-acre property in Rome were restored and renovated with $35 million raised for those purposes. The records contain detailed information about the nature and course of those complex activities, including the rededication of Villa Aurelia in 2002 after three years of extensive restoration and renovation. The records also contain some photographs and architectural plans for the renovations. 4. The leadership and operations of the Arthur and Janet C. Ross Library were endowed and its facilities rebuilt. 5. The place of the arts in the Academy's intellectual life was restored by re-establishing the Andrew Heiskell Arts Directorship. 6. The Rome Sustainable Food Project was successfully launched in 2007 as a replicable model of simple, sustainable food for Academy staff and residents in Rome, addressing a longstanding hospitality concern at the Academy.