UNLV professor Dave Hickey, who received the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant in 2001, has joined UNLV's International Institute of Modern Letters.

Hickey, a renowned art critic and author, was the first Nevadan to receive the MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, a $500,000, no-strings-attached award.

Hickey has written four books, and his numerous essays, critiques, and short stories have appeared in a variety of major American publications, including "Rolling Stone," "Art in America" (for which he once served as executive editor), "Artforum," "Harper's," and "Vanity Fair."

For the past 11 years, Hickey has taught art criticism at UNLV. He has now joined the faculty of the International Institute of Modern Letters, a nonprofit literary activist organization housed at UNLV. Its mission is to identify, support, and preserve the work of both emerging and established literary talent worldwide.

"We are pleased to have professor Hickey join the International Institute of Modern Letters," said UNLV President Carol C. Harter. "It is a wonderful idea to pair Dave with the institute's writing students. He will bring his unique views on beauty, artistic vision, and the virtues of the marketplace to the institute, which seeks to provide a creative and thought-provoking atmosphere for emerging writers. We are very enthusiastic about this collaboration."