Art History

I have been looking for a job in graphic arts for more than two years. I suspect my resume is not taken seriously because I am deaf. I know this is indirect discrimination, but don't know what to do about it. I have an excellent portfolio and good references. How can I get through the door? I have a bachelor's degree in advertising design and am interested in going to graduate school for a master's in art history or fine arts administration. Which colleges have these programs?

John Walker McCoubrey, 86, an emeritus professor in the department of art history at the University of Pennsylvania, died of kidney failure Tuesday at his home in University City. Dr. McCoubrey was awarded a Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching just four years after joining Penn's faculty in 1964. That same year he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to study in London. He had previously studied in Paris on a Fulbright Fellowship. He was also recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Lisa Tremper Hanover, longtime director of the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College, has been named director and chief executive of the Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, the Michener's board of directors announced Tuesday. She will succeed Bruce Katsiff, who has headed the Michener since 1989. Katsiff said last year that he would retire in 2012 and devote himself to photography. Hanover, 55, has been the Berman's director for 25 years and also serves as an adjunct professor of fine arts at Ursinus, located in Collegeville, Montgomery County.

A new scholarship this fall at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts honors the late Selma Burke, a Bucks County sculptor whose work is familiar if you've ever studied your change. That picture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the dime? It bears an uncanny resemblance to a bas-relief that Burke formed of FDR. Until her death 16 years ago at age 94, Burke would tell visitors to her Solebury Township studio of the presidential commission she won over 11 other sculptors. Lewis Tanner Moore, the Warrington collector of African American art, said Burke often recalled the day in 1944 when she unrolled a sheet of butcher paper across the Oval Office and sketched Roosevelt for 45 minutes in charcoal, while reminding him to sit still.

Michelle Hong, a senior at Conestoga High School, took first place in the 1991 Pennsylvania Student Press Association reporting contest. At a conference held last month in Harrisburg, students listened to a keynote speaker and within an hour wrote a news or feature story or editorial on the speech. Hong, who is editor of the high school newspaper, The Spoke, received a check for $75. Raymond Hulse, a chemistry teacher at Haverford High School, attended the Pennsylvania Science Teachers Association last month in Carlisle.

The president of Lafayette College in Easton will become Haverford College's 14th president, but he won't start the job for over a year, Haverford officials announced Tuesday. Dan Weiss, who has been president of Lafayette since 2005, was approved by Haverford's Board of Managers on Saturday, following a national search that began last fall. He starts at the 1,200-student liberal arts college in July 2013, which allows him to complete his eighth year of presidency at Lafayette, Haverford said.

Haverford College will wait more than a year to get its first choice for a new leader, Lafayette College president Daniel H. Weiss. The prestigious Main Line liberal arts college on Tuesday announced that Weiss, an art history scholar who has led Lafayette since 2005, would become Haverford's 14th president in July 2013. Weiss, 54, asked for the time to finish his eighth year with Lafayette and oversee projects he had started, including the design and building of a new center for global education and a new arts campus.

Some people spend their lives going through the motions, sleepwalking from one indistinguishable day to the next. Michelle Rein, 44, wasn't one of them. There appeared to be no end to the adventures that the Center City resident crammed into her life, no matter how far-fetched or dangerous they seemed. She was an animal lover who rescued hedgehogs. She fought for women's rights in Iran, and spent a week in jail there for her efforts. She lived abroad in Morocco as part of a Fulbright fellowship, and once studied in Saudi Arabia.

Louise Breier Kean, 71, longtime educator who assisted thousands of Rutgers University students through her dual positions as administrative assistant dean of students and international student adviser at the Camden campus, died Saturday at her home in Cherry Hill. Mrs. Kean was born in South Acworth, N.H., where she attended a one-room schoolhouse. She moved to Woodbury in the early 1930s and graduated from Woodbury High School in 1941 as a member of the National Honor Society.

Phyllis Lyon Clemenko, 91, of Haverford, who guided groups through the treasured galleries of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for 34 years, died of heart failure April 1 at home. Mrs. Clemenko was a volunteer guide at the museum from 1969 to 2003, conducting diverse audiences including school groups and people with special needs. A volunteer's training includes 18 months of weekly sessions in art history, art appreciation, and the museum's collections; a yearlong internship; and attendance at continuing-education programs.