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Betsy Alwin

Adjunct Professor and Sculpture Shop Technician

Betsy Alwin has attended several residencies including the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Vermont Studio Center and Sculpture Space. In 2005 she completed a permanent public commission in Tokyo, Japan. She has exhibited her work both regionally and nationally and has participated in several public art venues such as Figment on Governor’s Island and the Art Under the Bridge Festival, in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Solo shows include Figments of the Ordinary Life at A. I.R. Gallery in New York City and Inner Limits at The University of Tacoma Gallery, Tacoma, Washington. Selected group shows include Projects ’07 in the Carriage House, Islip Art Museum; Cultivate at the Berkshire Botanical Garden (Mass MoCA); Flora at the U.S. Botanical Garden; This is That at Peter Fingenstein Gallery, Pace University, and a forthcoming two person exhibition at the Islip Art Museum. She was nominated for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant and has been a visiting artist at Penn State University, Virginia Commonwealth University Craft Department, Johnson State College and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.