Summer / Fall 2026 | Texas Leader

Melinda Mayer cultivates creativity at the Blanton Museum of Art.

Photo by Sloan Breeden

In September 2025, Melinda Mayer made a planned gift to create a permanent endowment and to fund the first five years of the Susan and Melinda Mayer Art Museum Education Graduate Fellowship at The University of Texas at Austin’s Blanton Museum of Art. The fellowship provides a UT graduate student with an important academic and professional development opportunity, as well as a generous stipend. Mayer Education Fellows receive valuable hands-on experience and mentoring, while K-12 students benefit from the Blanton’s outstanding art collection and skilled gallery teaching. Melinda’s gift, made in honor of the enduring bond she shared with her late mother, Susan, will strengthen the museum’s mission to engage young minds and cultivate future leaders in art education.

Both Melinda and Susan are nationally recognized for their distinguished careers in art museum education as beloved members of The University of Texas at Austin faculty. They viewed museum education as more than simply presenting history. Visual arts education can build self-awareness, empathy and cultural understanding. By encouraging students to recognize and reflect on different perspectives, these experiences also strengthen their sense of identity and place in society.

Melinda taught for 20 years, including 10 years at UT as assistant professor of art and art history, and was known for her unwavering commitment to helping students secure internships and launch successful careers.

Both Susan and Melinda were military kids, with childhoods shaped by both the instability and the discipline of military life. Susan was born in Georgia at Fort Oglethorpe, the daughter of one of the U.S. Army’s last cavalry officers whose service stretched through the World War II era. Her family moved often and learned to build a sense of home wherever they landed.

“My art history class felt like coming home, and I came to understand how strongly two years of visiting museums in Europe had shaped me. With my mother already working at UT, I felt a natural connection to that world,” she says.

Now retired, Melinda enjoys spending time with her dogs and has become an avid gardener. Living in Austin has given her both joy and a sense of belonging. She values the city’s openness of thought and the way it encourages innovation and fresh ideas. Throughout her home, her mother’s paintings adorn the walls, helping Melinda feel deeply connected to her.
 
Melinda has supported many causes on the Forty Acres, including KUT Radio, the Department of Art and Art History, and the Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts. In 2024, she donated Susan’s professional papers to UT’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Concurrently, Melinda gave a gift to fund an archival graduate student to organize and digitize her mother’s papers for future researchers. She sees the creation of the Mayer Endowed Fellowship as a profound way to invest in the future of museum education in perpetuity, and to cultivate deeper, lasting connections between audiences and the arts.
 
“We need to focus on the future,” she says, “by building audiences and creating meaningful experiences for people in these spaces, not just preserving the art itself.”