Delivery of the steel trusses from the Cleveland manufacturer this summer for the Center for the Arts was "quite a feat," Lepley said, but no major problems have surfaced during construction.

"It's a very, very nice building," he said. "The skylights are going in now."

The Center for the Arts includes gallery space, classrooms, and offices for the art history faculty. The formal opening of the building will be in October 2011, when the trustees meet at the College.

Marsh is thrilled with the building's design. "It's very exciting to see the amount of space dedicated to exhibition and to see the very thoughtful distribution of space for other activities, for art history, and for the art faculty."

She intends to seek and develop exhibitions and programming that serve the ­College curriculum across various fields of study. "I think that colleges and universities are starting to look to their museums to be much more effective in the day-to-day mission of teaching," she said.