Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Museum of Art have announced a $15 million commitment from Cleveland Museum of Art trustee Nancy Keithley and Case Western Reserve trustee Joseph Keithley for a collaborative venture that capitalizes on the institutions' respective strengths in scholarship, curation, conservation, and education.

The gift will be used to create a joint initiative that advances the missions of both institutions and prepares future curators, scholars, museum directors, and academic leaders for careers in the field. To that end, the initiative will provide funding for a reimagined doctoral program that the two institutions developed over the last few years and which combines an "object-oriented" approach involving theory and methodology with intensive, in-person study of actual pieces of art. In addition to seeing objects first-hand, students also will participate in museum internships that provide real-world experience in curation and other aspects of museum operation.

In addition to underwriting the doctoral program, the couple's gift will be used to fund stipends and travel fellowships for graduate students; curriculum development, teaching, and collection seminars; summer internship opportunities for undergraduates; and acquisitions by the museum's Ingalls Library and Museum Archives, the third-largest art research library in the United States. In recognition of the gift, the initiative will be named the Nancy and Joseph Keithley Institute for Art History.

"We are honored that Nancy and Joseph Keithley chose to help us realize our shared dreams of a dynamic, world-class institute," said David Franklin, the Sarah S. and Alexander M. Cutler director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. "Their gift is not only a gift of collaboration, but also the opportunity to realize incomparable opportunities for students, faculty, museum staff, and the public. We look forward to working closely with Case Western Reserve to make this an innovative program that attracts the best and brightest faculty and students from this country and around the world."