preeminence he anticipated.”

Garrison selected John Coplans to direct the original art gallery and chair the art department, Eugene Loring as chair of dance, Mehli Mehta to conduct the University Orchestra, Colin Slim to chair music and Robert Cohen to chair drama. Seventy students became arts majors when the campus opened in the fall of 1965. Within a few years, under Garrison’s leadership, the school grew into a major national arts academy. By 1969, the M.F.A. program had been established, and in 1970, the Fine Arts Village – now the CTSA Village and Plaza – was completed.

The division departed from the usual university fine arts program by emphasizing studio- and performance-centered, professional-level standards as part of a superior liberal arts education for the creative and performing artist. The schoolothers.

Garrison served as dean of the school for its first 17 years and remained for nine more years teaching acting and running UCI’s monthlong satellite Music Theatre Program in New York.

“More than just a dean and a director, Clayton maintained close collegial relationships with administrative officers, deans of other schools, faculty members in all fine arts departments and, above all, with his hundreds of drama and dance students, with whom he often performed,” said his good friend and colleague Robert Cohen, Claire Trevor Professor Emeritus of Drama. “Clayton Garrison was more than a superb theatrical artist and educator: He was a true mentor to all who worked under him.”

Garrison had a long and distinguished career at and beyond UCI as an internationally acclaimed choreographer and stage director. He