Stephanie Wiles, Davison Art Center curator at Wesleyan University, has been appointed the John G.W. Cowles Director of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. She will begin work on July 1 as museum director and as art professor at the College.

Wiles earned a Ph.D. in art history from the City University of New York in 2001. She has worked at the Davison Art Center since her appointment in 1999. Before that, she was the curator of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York from 1982-1988.

When asked why she decided to accept the position at the Allen, she said, “To me the Allen is the epitome of a college museum that represents an extraordinary commitment on the part of the College to the visual arts.”

“Stephanie Wiles has an excellent sense of developments in contemporary art and how to mount exciting exhibitions relevant to a college community,” Dean of Arts & Sciences, Clayton Koppes said. “Ms. Wiles’ broad background in all phases of museum work will enable her to build on the Allen’s strengths and to expand its reach.”

“Stephanie Wiles will make an exceptionally fine director for Oberlin’s Allen Memorial Art Museum,” College President Nancy Dye said in a recent press release.

“The Allen is one of Oberlin’s greatest assets. We are fortunate to find a highly talented and dedicated director who understands academic museums and colleges, and who will be effective in designing and implementing programs that will meet the needs of the Allen’s many constituents on and off campus.”

As the new director, Wiles will be responsible for overseeing multiple facets of the Allen, such as preservation of the extensive existing collections, teaching courses at the College and creating new exhibits.

“The Allen has a long and distinguished tradition as a college museum whose fundamental role is as a teaching resource and a place for scholarly research and investigation,” Wiles said. “This legacy has inspired generations of Oberlin College students to become professionals in the art world — not only museum professionals, but active and engaged professionals in a wide variety of art-related careers. This is an extremely important legacy that I would like to maintain and promote.”
Wiles will also bring her own ideas to the Allen’s operations.

“I’m looking forward to engaging Oberlin alumni in a variety of ways because I think they will be crucial in invigorating the museum and campus and will help keep our vision broad and innovative,” Wiles said. “However, I believe that one of the challenges for a museum in the 21st century is to continually question where it fits both programmatically and intellectually within an academic environment that is itself constantly changing. I’d like to explore how the visual arts can become part of a larger, more diverse conversation with the campus and try to push the traditional boundaries of what the visual arts are to engage the widest possible constituency.”