In fall 2024, University of Oregon president Karl Scholz presented to the board of trustees four goals to guide the university into the future. Among them was one that set David Mitrovčan Morgan to reflection: flourishing.

The university has made it a strategic priority to help everyone at the UO to flourish. Leaders are working collaboratively to create conditions university-wide that foster well-being, belonging and growth. The goal is to empower each and every person — students, staff and faculty — to reach their potential. To thrive.

But how does one encourage flourishing? What does it look like, on the ground? What is flourishing?

Morgan, the board’s undergraduate member, has an answer: art is flourishing.

In the months after the strategic priority was announced, Morgan said, “I was really trying to challenge myself: what makes me flourish? One thing that really came to mind was art. Where there’s art, there’s flourishing. That is something on which I could very tangibly put a finger.”

It was an epiphany. Morgan hit on an idea ingenious in its simplicity, one that supports the strategic goal in an unmistakably visible way while inspiring UO departments to rally behind him: foster flourishing through art.

Working with University Housing and the Associated Students of the University of Oregon, Morgan has launched Flourishing by Art, an initiative under which student artists spent the summer creating four elaborate works for residence halls on the Eugene campus.

The pieces — three murals and a sculpture — are as diverse as their authors: a professional artist coping with loss; a decorative painter learning to trust herself; longtime friends collaborating for the first time; an Iranian student combining cultures in a search for identity. But together the works embody constituencies across the university coalescing around the strategic priority of enabling people at the UO to flourish.

“This is everyone working together and being able to say, ‘This is how I contributed to that strategic goal,’” said trustee Lillian Moses. “When we ask, ‘What does flourishing mean for me or for you,’ this is one way we can all look back and say, in 2025, this is how we participated. You can see it on the walls. The flourishing idea has come to life.”

Easy to turn a “no” to a “yes”

Art and flourishing go hand in hand. It’s well understood that the act of creating art — or appreciating it — enriches both author and audience, providing avenues for expression, connection or catharsis that serve mental and physical health.

Kate Mondloch, a professor in the College of Design and faculty fellow in the Clark Honors College, said the power of art lies in its ability to “take you outside of yourself.”

In creating art, or embracing it, “we realize life is not always just about ‘me, me, me,’” said Mondloch, who teaches a course on the art and science of human flourishing. “That is inherently valuable. It’s promoting flourishing by getting over yourself, so to speak. There’s a positive implication in opening up to ideas and perspectives beyond your own, which is good for your mental health. It’s connecting you to something larger: the world in which we live.”

Flourishing by Art also supports physical health, added project partner Sarah Chapman, interior design manager with Housing Capital Construction: two pieces are close to stairs, which might encourage viewers to choose them instead of elevators for a bit of exercise.

Chapman said the project advances the UO’s commitment to principles of WELL — international standards for healthy, people-first work environments — with mental and physical health benefits and a sense of community built among UO units that connected to launch the initiative.

Building connections between students, staff and faculty is a goal that drives both the flourishing strategic priority and Flourishing by Art, said Morgan and Moses, coordinators of the project through Housing Capital Construction, where Moses is director and Morgan assists on special projects.

“One thing I found really cool is seeing students interact with the murals and the artists painting them,” Morgan said. “It was very well received, people were stopping and the artists were getting a chance to talk about their murals. I feel a lot of flourishing is building a community. This is definitely giving more social touchpoints.”

Morgan and Moses couldn’t have accomplished Flourishing by Art alone, of course.

The prospect of recruiting student artists to produce elaborate works of art for residence halls within a public institution raised scores of questions and required cooperation from nearly a dozen units across the UO. Among them: Housing Capital Construction and the ASUO, Housing Facilities, Residence Life, Business Affairs, Safety and Risk Services, and Campus Planning and Facilities Management.

Yet the art initiative was conceived, approved and launched in the span of just three months last spring.

The project’s support of the flourishing goal “made it a lot easier to turn a ‘no’ to a ‘yes,’” Morgan said. “[University leaders] could say, ‘I can see how this is benefitting the institution in a very tangible way.’”

A lot of flourishing is building a community. This is definitely giving more social touchpoints.

David Morgan

For example, Safety and Risk Services — which welcomes inquiries about new activities toward ensuring safety and success — recognized in the art project a clear extension of their mission.

“We turned our risk assessment around pretty fast,” said Lisa Taylor, director of the department’s risk management and insurance office, referring to the department’s consultation and recommendations. “When we see something unique like this, we really want to help move it forward while also making sure our students are safe. We want to foster our students — their creativity and engagement — and this has public impact, as well. This was just really a neat project.”

Michael Griffel, associate vice president for Student Services and Enrollment Management and director for University Housing, called Flourishing by Art a “win-win-win-win.”

“Lillian and David showed incredible dedication and commitment,” he said. “They touched base with many people really quickly to make sure they had accounted for all the possible challenges. It’s a terrific partnership for student artists to enhance the spaces that students are going to be in, putting art on empty walls. A really terrific project and enhancement to the community all around.”

Critical to the project was support from the ASUO. The UO student government is funded by student fees and led by 25 senators who guide spending on student groups, activities and other needs.

Taliek Lopez-DuBoff, a junior and new member of the board of trustees, led the effort last spring as speaker of the legislature to procure $15,000 to cover the cost of art materials. He was delighted to win unanimous support for the expenditure, following a last-minute change of heart by a senator who had planned dissent.

“I told him, ‘You knew that my mission coming into this role was capitalizing on the university’s greatest strength — its people, their creativity, their talent and innovation — and this project speaks exactly to that,’” Lopez-DuBoff said. “Ultimately, he voted for it. He said being able to put something in the hands of our peers, letting them express themselves in a way that can be shared with anybody, is something you can’t put a number on. I think that spoke for a lot of senators.”

Capstone to college

Flourishing by Art has proven just as enriching for Morgan himself.

He is the epitome of a student who has flourished at the university, even before the project. Morgan is shouldering a prodigious academic workload: a double major in data science and economics with minors in legal studies, philosophy, mathematics and linguistics. He played for a UO men’s club water polo team that placed 10th in the nation and he is serving a two-year term on the trustee board that will end with his graduation in June. He recently completed an internship with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, DC, where he built a tool that uses AI and machine learning to identify and analyze emerging risks in the banking sector.

At the same time, Morgan has for 2 1/2 years worked for Housing Capital Construction, where Moses promoted him from design assistant to transformation assistant. The catchall title describes his role in finding solutions to whatever confronts the unit as it reinvents itself — “researcher, iterator, problem solver,” Moses said.

But the art project represented challenge on a scale Morgan hadn’t encountered.

He attributed its success to working closely with Moses, the two poring over all the details and together mapping out a project schedule, list of partners and when to consult each. Morgan credited Moses for coaching him over the hurdles of what has culminated, with Flourishing by Art, in a capstone for his college career.

“It’s been an awesome learning experience,” Morgan said. “I’ve never taken on a project of this magnitude. To see it succeed — it gives you agency. I came up with an idea, I said I was going to do it, and I did it. It was really empowering.”

Ahead: Flourishing by Art student profiles

The Workplace e-newsletter — emailed Tuesdays to staff and faculty — will feature the five student artists of Flourishing by Art in the weeks ahead.

Oct. 7: Professional artist Anthony Michael Ryder is coping with the loss of his mother. The artistic process has given him catharsis and healing connections within the university community.

Oct. 14: Emerging artists need venues. Flourishing by Art provides one for Parisa Garazhian, an international student who combines Iranian mirror work and American quilt-making into a literal reflection on identity.

Oct. 21: Lucy Rutherford (black-and-white T-shirt) and Dani Jacobs have been friends and artists since middle school. They brought divergent artistic approaches to their first major collaboration.

Oct. 28: Decorative painter Stella Prichard is driven to create — and to critique her creations. Her mural was the latest step on a path of learning to trust her decisions as an artist. (credit: tucker.grt@icloud.com)

See Flourishing by Art

Faculty, staff, students and the general public can view students’ works.

“Flora and Fauna”: Global Scholars Hall, mezzanine, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding breaks.

“Mirror Quilt”: Global Scholars Hall, first floor, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday during the academic year, excluding breaks.

“Two Birds, One Stone”: Living Learning Center South, west hall, first floor, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays and noon to 7 p.m. weekends during the academic year, excluding breaks.

Workplace