OXFORD — A Miami University art professor's European connection has opened up a world of opportunity for her colleagues and students.

Susan Ewing, Miami distinguished professor of art, first went to the Czech Republic in 1996 as part of an Ohio Arts Council cultural exchange program. From 1997-99, Ewing was a senior Fulbright lecturing scholar, teaching metalsmithing at the Academy of Art, Architecture, and Design in Prague.

Last week, she and four other faculty members traveled to Pilsen in the Czech Republic for the opening of "Connections," an exhibition of 39 works by 19 Miami University art faculty and graduate students at the Institute of Art and Design at the University of West Bohemia.

The exhibition continues through May 24.

"It's been my mission to bring as many colleagues as possible to see why I've been so enamored of the Czech Republic," Ewing said. "Prague was the crossroads of Europe for centuries, and you can feel that in their layering of history and culture."

The trip and exhibition is also the first step in creating a joint international master's degree program at the institute, the first program of its kind in the world, she said.

Artwork will be exhibited in two spaces, University Gallery, in the center of Pilsen; and Gallery Above the Stairs at the university campus. The exhibition is part of a festival founded in 2005 to commemorate the liberation of the city of Pilsen by American troops at the end of World War II.

Miami faculty and students participating, in addition to Ewing, include: Andrew Au, Joomi Chung, Larry Winston Collins, Thomas Effler, Margaret "Peg" Faimon, Tracy Featherstone, Ira Greenberg, dele jegede (art department chair), E. James Killy, Matthew Litteken, Edward Montgomery, Ellen Jean Price, Ralph Raunft, Dana Saulnier, Dennis Tobin, Roscoe Wilson, Jon Yamashiro, Sara Young, and students Alyssa Feather, Tadashi Koizumi, Brent Payne, Alan Pocaro and Kelly Severtson.

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