Funding Faculty and Student Excellence
For Dr. Bob Falcone, giving back to CCAD is a way to celebrate the lives, talents, and influence of those he loved most.
“The farther you go up in the food chain in administrative circles, the fewer people you have telling you the truth,” Falcone says. “CCAD was a place where people would tell me the truth. Are you willing to accept criticism and either improve or change? Good lessons, but they’re hard to learn. I think everyone needs someone to tell them the truth. There are countless stories about Caesar having a slave whispering in his ear, ‘Remember you are mortal, memento mori.’”
Mortality has touched Falcone’s life repeatedly outside the operating room. His wives, Dr. Annie P. Miller and Deborah Meesig, MD, JD died in 1998 and 2024, respectively. Life and what comes after form the primary questions of his art practice. “I’m really fascinated by the presence of life and what happens when it’s no longer there. I’ve looked at it from many ways in many different angles and many different mediums,” Falcone says.
Gweny Jin, assistant professor in Design & Social Practice, is the first recipient of the professorship. She calls the position humbling and inspiring. “It really offers me the opportunity to really keep expanding, to ask the questions,” Jin says. “I’m happy that I’ve been offered this chance, it’s like having one’s own room.”
After graduating with his MFA, Falcone stayed connected with CCAD, joining the board and learning more about the organization from fresh perspectives. “It’s a very well-run organization, and it’s an outstanding college in that it prepares people for a future, whether it’s in the arts or not,” Falcone says. “Art is very, very important to creativity and helping you achieve what you want to do and to communicate your thoughts and express them clearly and effectively. To take criticism effectively and help mold that into a product that makes sense, not only to you but to those around you.”
CCAD was a place where people would tell me the truth. Are you willing to accept criticism and either improve or change? Good lessons, but they’re hard to learn. I think everyone needs someone to tell them the truth.
In tribute to Meesig, Falcone established the Deborah Meesig Endowed Scholarship Fund. Meesig died in 2024 at 69 of cancer. Like Falcone, Meesig was a surgeon and hospital administrator. She also was a talented seamstress who designed and made her own clothes.
“She was really good, but she was really humble about it,” Falcone says. The fund will be directed toward female students “like her, who came from nothing, with very little in the way of support and made something out of themselves because they decided to or got lucky. And with a little help, there’s girls out there who could do the same,” Falcone says.
Earlier, Falcone established the Annie P. Miller Endowed Professorship. Miller died in 1998 at the age of 41 in a car crash. In addition to being a plastic surgeon recognized for her work on post-cancer breast reconstruction, she was a glass artist whose work was exhibited in juried festivals.
WHY I GIVE
CCAD was a place where people would tell me the truth. Are you willing to accept criticism and either improve or change? Good lessons, but they’re hard to learn. I think everyone needs someone to tell them the truth.
Read more about the Here For Change campaign. Or give to CCAD to fuel the next generation of creators.
