Pictured left to right: Alyssa McKeithen, John Altonen, Hope Ginsburg, Mary Metzger and Stephen Alcorn. Photo Credit: Jenna Carr
VCUarts held its 2026 Faculty and Staff Awards at its annual Fall Meeting on August 17, honoring five members of our community whose research, teaching, adjunct instruction, service and innovation define the best of the School.
“This awards ceremony reminds me why VCUarts is such an extraordinary place to work and learn. This year’s award recipients not only exceed the standard of excellence we hold ourselves to, but they redefine it,” said Carmenita Higginbotham, dean of the VCU School of the Arts.
“What strikes me most is how much of their work is fundamentally about other people: students who feel truly seen, colleagues who feel truly supported, technology that quietly just works so that art and teaching can happen. That is the spirit of this School.”
Congratulations to this year’s winners!
- Stephen Alcorn, Professor of Communication Arts
- Alyssa McKeithen, Adjunct Instructor of Music
- Hope Ginsburg, Chair and Professor of the Department of Kinetic Imaging
- John Altonen, Assistant Director of Endpoint Management
- Mary Metzger, Academic Affairs Coordinator in the Departments of Interior Design, Fashion Design and Merchandising, and Graphic Design
Please join us in congratulating this year’s honorees and in thanking everyone who took the time to nominate a colleague. Their words made this year’s awards possible.
Read more about each of their remarkable accomplishments and impactful contributions to the School of the arts and our students.
Dean’s Distinguished Award in Teaching
Stephen Alcorn, Professor of Communication Arts
This award honors outstanding contributions to the art of teaching by a faculty member in the School of the Arts who has produced remarkable work. This includes outstanding teaching-related activity such as innovation or creativity in teaching, general excellence in their discipline as evidenced by engaged students, commitment and/or ongoing improvements of teaching in the arts.
Alcorn is an award-winning illustrator, printmaker, portraitist and author, who joined the VCUarts faculty in 2010. He uses his artistic practice to inform his teaching. During his tenure at VCU, he has developed a “teaching praxis that is steeped in judicious and transformative pedagogy to cultivate artists-thinkers in an immersive learning approach in the classroom, in the studio, and in communities near and far,” according to his nominator.
Alcorn collaborated with faculty across VCUarts to expose his students to the interdisciplinary nature of the arts. While co-teaching a course with Dance professor Gaynell Sherrod—The African American Presence in American Dance, Performance and Other Social Context, Alcorn presents lectures about legendary American folk singer and civil rights activist Odetta Holmes. His presentations were made richer by anecdotes about his personal friendship with the singer, showing students the importance of “cultural sharing” and the interplay and interconnectedness between diverse art forms and culture. The Dance and Communications Arts students discussed the work with each other, making critical connections about aesthetic theory, creative/cultural production and the creative process.
“Stephen has a wonderful way of allowing students to take ownership of their learning by leading them through a process of interrogating the work, of questioning, and responding to and analyzing the material. In the classroom setting, with a calm and gentle manner he garners the attention of the students,” wrote his nominator.
Alcorn earned his master’s equivalency from VCUarts, his B.F.A. from the State University of New York at Purchase after studying at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of the Arts and Istituto Statale d’Arte in Florence, Italy. His concentration was graphic arts, including intaglio, lithography, relief printing, silkscreen, art history and philosophy. He apprenticed under master printers Paolo Tarchiani and Roberta Cioni and produced limited editions for major Italian artists.
Dean’s Distinguished Adjunct Faculty Award
Alyssa McKeithen, Adjunct Instructor of Music
This award recognizes an outstanding adjunct faculty member in the School of the Arts who best contributes to the mission of the School. This includes the culmination of their teaching or research, or excellence for a one-time contribution in these areas.
McKeithen brings a wealth of teaching experience. Joining VCU in 2015 as Adjunct Instructor of Oboe, she has taught at Randolph-Macon College, the University of Florida School of Music, the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester and Texas Lutheran University. 
McKeithen has a teaching portfolio that is remarkable for its breadth and balances instructional demands of Classical Music History I and Woodwind Methods with the specialized studio instruction of Applied Oboe and Oboe Masterclass. She developed two unique courses which reflect her interdisciplinary expertise: Folk Music in America and The Creative Habit, which is offered through the Center for Creative Economy.
“She is a master pedagogue, a dedicated servant-leader, and a world-class performer who embodies the “uncommon” excellence of VCU,” wrote her nominator.
McKeithen’s ability to ensure students feel seen while maintaining high standards is the hallmark of a distinguished educator, writes her nominator. Students regale the impact she has had on them. Her nominator noted that McKeithen’s structure made early music “engaging and interesting,” fostering a lifelong appreciation for the craft, while another described her as a “magical gem,” noting that McKeithen “sees and respects me as a student and truly listens.”
As a performer, McKeithen maintains a prestigious national and international presence that brings prestige to the School and VCU. For eight years, she has served as a Guest Artist at Oboe Fest in Puerto Rico. She has performed professionally with the Richmond, Roanoke and multiple Symphony Orchestras in Florida as well as the Sarasota Opera,where she has been Associate Oboist since 2009.
Equally impressive, McKeithen uses her artistry for the public good, having performed at the Massey Cancer Center and the Barfoot Veterans Care Center dementia ward, bringing the healing power of music to those who need it most. Her dedication to “service-through-art” exemplifies the arts and health initiatives integral to VCUarts.
Her nominator describes McKeithen this way: “A versatile scholar, a high-level performer, and a compassionate mentor in Alyssa. She does not merely fill a role—she elevates the entire department through her presence.”
McKeithen completed coursework toward a doctorate at the Eastman School of Music under Richard Kilmer, and was a graduate assistant in music history. She earned a Master of Music in Oboe Performance from the University of Illinois, and a Bachelor of Music in Oboe Performance from the University of Florida.
Dean’s Distinguished Award in Research
Hope Ginsburg, Chair and Professor of the Department of Kinetic Imaging
This award recognizes outstanding contributions to academic and creative research scholarship by teaching and research faculty. This includes products of research and scholarship that demonstrate significant depth of creativity and vision; creative and innovative developments of theory, method or form; or expanding the frontiers of knowledge in the arts that constitute substantial contributions to intellectual and artistic communities.
Ginsburg joined VCU faculty in 2007, with joint appointments in the Arts Foundation Program and the Department of Painting and Printmaking for 16 years, before moving into the Department of Kinetic Imaging in 2023. 
Ginsburg’s work explores collaborative projects where art, science and spirituality meet. Since the late 1990s, her work has spanned video, installation, performance and pedagogy. She is the artist/director of Meditation Ocean (2023–present), an iterative project focused on human and more-than-human thriving, realized by an evolving team of collaborators called the Meditation Ocean Constellation.
Retired Associate Professor Pamela Turner who nominated Ginsburg wrote: “Creating such a constellation requires vision, trust building and the ability to direct and orchestrate many moving pieces…..Her multi-faceted research illuminates the work that art can do, the work of the artist as the ecologist and the guide reminding us to look, listen and to breathe…..Her ability to collaborate and build projects – and spaces – based on collaborative engagement is her superpower.”
Ginsburg’s vast experience, connections and research form a foundation of knowledge and of network that reaches into the classroom and connects students to experience beyond the campus, according to Turner.
Her reach extends well beyond VCU: Ginsburg has exhibited her work extensively at national and international venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, PS1, MASS MoCA, USF Contemporary Art Museum, Contemporary Art Center Vilnius and the Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil, among many others. Her work has been featured in Artforum, Hyperallergic, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She is the recipient of a Wexner Center for the Arts Artist Residency Award in Film/Video, a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship in Film and Video, and an Art Matters Foundation Grant. Her exhibitions have received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and Women & Philanthropy at The Ohio State University.
“How these ongoing and collaborative projects show up in the world is important, especially in a time when art and science, awe and empathy, are needed to address the urgent crisis of climate change,” writes Turner.
Ginsburg earned her Master of Science in Visual Studies from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her B.F.A. in Sculpture from the Tyler School of Art in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.
Dean’s Excellence in Innovation Award
John Altonen, Assistant Director of Endpoint Management
This award recognizes a staff member who exemplifies highly creative problem-solving skills in their work. This includes taking responsible risks and learning from mistakes; developing alternatives and understanding the feasibility of them, effectively sharing and implementing their ideas, developing efficiencies, practicing teamwork, engaging with the campus community, or creating open and collaborative cultures. 
Whether he’s installing equipment with a hammer drill, completing audio connections with a soldering iron, or reprogramming control surfaces with a computer, John Altonen has an outstanding ability to absorb new technical information, put it into action, adapt it to different locations, and then teach it to the rest of his team.
Altonen joined VCU more than 20 years ago, working for VCUarts for almost 15 years, and quickly emerged as a lead engineer on the IT team. He implemented and optimized the endpoint management systems to provide students and faculty with the best possible computing experience, while also complying with university policy. Altonen upgraded the School’s audio visual presentation technology in classrooms, reflecting his strong leadership and creativity.
“[John’s] research, development and implementation of simplified, cost-effective solutions has reduced installation timelines. The cost savings compared to the traditional hiring of an outside contractor can not be overstated. [H]e is the embodiment of creative problem solving, and his skillset routinely transcends the normal expectations for his position,” the nominator writes.
“The School’s computing environment is better today because of his skill set and his commitment to bending the computers to his will,” he adds.
Dean’s Excellence in Service Award
Mary Metzger, Academic Affairs Coordinator in the Departments of Interior Design, Fashion Design and Merchandising, and Graphic Design
This award recognizes a staff member who exhibits exceptional achievements or exceptional service to, or in support of, the School of the Arts mission. Recipients are recognized for their excellence in the culmination of their service or in a one-time contribution, and exhibit respect for the School and campus community, a positive attitude, pride in their work, excellent customer service and dependability.
“Part of Ms. Metzger’s incredible value to our department is her eagerness to innovate and engineer systems that attack historically ambiguous and formless, yet critical, academic processes. Her development of frameworks to guide curriculum revisions in our department are some of the most valuable tools we have, so much so that I have shared them with our colleagues in Qatar so they can model their own pedagogical evolutions using them,” writes one of her nominators. 
“Advocating for her colleagues within and beyond her immediate position, she is an holistic thinker whose efforts consistently improve and facilitate how we can become better educators.”
Metzger has amassed a track record of excellent service at VCUarts and the university. She was nominated by the Design group and awarded the 2025 Outstanding Advocate for Advising Award from the University Academic Advising Board in 2025. In 2024-25, she served on the NISS Course Scheduling Workgroup across schools and disciplines to develop new policies and processes for two-year course planning.
Additionally, Metzger has served on more than 10 staff search committees during her tenure at VCUarts as well as served on the VCUarts Working Website Group.
Another nominator writes: “Mary consistently goes beyond what is simply required in order to ensure a human-centered approach to her work that is always in service to our VCU community.”
