About MAC

Montana Arts Council Members

Judy Ulrich

Judy Ulrich, a professor of education, English and fine arts at the University of Montana Western, believes "the arts are for everyone – not just those who can afford box office, or airline, tickets or those who can 'draw a straight line.'"

With over 35 years of acting, directing and script-development experience in grades K-12, university and community theater, she's also convinced that "children are fully educated only when they learn through and about the arts throughout their entire education."

Ulrich grew up in rural Wisconsin in the '50s when public funding for the arts was a new idea in America. "Several times I took a Greyhound to the Guthrie Theatre, 150 miles away, and got my glimpse there – and at the Walker Museum – at what 'belonged to me' as an American citizen, and was smitten," she says.

Ulrich received her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin-Superior and her masters and doctorate in child drama/theater education from Michigan State University. While at MSU, she performed in free outdoor performances of Shakespeare and other classic plays in East Lansing.

Her first job out of college was with Antique Festival Players, an Idaho troupe funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. They toured in a Barnum-and-Bailey painted bus, bringing shows in repertory to some very remote communities.

Ulrich began her tenure at UM-Western in 1988. Her most recent undertaking was a collaboration with the drama department and Polynesian Club (which she advises) in "Ocean Currents," an original production that featured songs, chants, dances, and stories about the legendary trickster god Maui and the goddess Pele.

Ulrich is also a founder of the Southwest Montana Arts Council, which brings a variety of performing artists to Dillon each year for a concert series. She recalls launching the community-campus arts organization "right out of my college office, with a work-study student, a roll of tickets for the first Showcase Series and a rubber stamp to make it all seem official."

The support of local businesses, the Montana Arts Council, and a cadre of community volunteers "helped catapult those early efforts into the now very successful Southwest Montana Arts Council," she says.

Her husband, Karl, is the provost at UM-Western. They are the parents of three daughters.

"I'm thrilled to be on the Montana Arts Council," she says, "and hope I can help in many ways to make many arts even more accessible and meaningful to all Montanans."

Term: 04/04/07 – 02/01/17