Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, has announced a $1.2 million gift from the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund to support the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery.

The award fulfills a three-to-one matching grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, guaranteeing the museum the $4.8 million endowment it needs to create two new positions — an associate curator and assistant registrar — and enabling Skidmore faculty to use the museum in their courses and create exhibitions of their own. The gift also will be used to enhance the museum's capacity to invite distinguished visiting artists, speakers, and scholars from across the globe to the college; sustain a faculty seminar about museums and museum-based teaching; and maintain the museum's newly re-launched Web site.

"The Tang Teaching Museum presents opportunities for learning that stimulate, provoke, and engage," said Skidmore president Philip A. Glotzbach. "This grant ensures that even more Skidmore students and faculty members...[will] benefit from the visionary and generative power of art as a creative catalyst helping to deepen their learning experience."