Tara Copanas Redefines Double Major

You might say that dual majors are in Tara Copanas’ blood. Her father, Thomas, graduated from CBA with a degree in business and her mother, Sondra, graduated from DAAP with a degree in industrial design. Naturally, when Tara, herself, came to UC she chose to double major.

Copanas took French in junior high school and art in high school, all while observing her father’s example of owning his own business. Copanas wondered how she could combine them all in one career for her.

Copanas is now a UC double major in business and French, but that’s not all there is to her “intercollegiality.” She hopes to get a master’s degree in art from the Louvre museum in Paris, France, someday. And what is she going to do with all this?

“I want to work with art from a business perspective,” says Copanas. She hopes to become an art broker working with galleries and auction houses. Like her father, Copanas wants to own her own business. But like her mother, she’ll be busy with art in the process.

“I get my aesthetic viewpoint from her,” says Copanas. “I think our house has been a constant piece of work to her.” Tara Copanas took an advanced placement art history class in high school and fell in love with it. There she learned the many different ways that people can value art: sentimental, historic, monetary, nationalistic and cultural.

“It was my absolute favorite course,” Copanas says. “You apply the history of ideas to art in describing art and you put your own value on it.”

Now in her third year at UC, she is off to spend the next year studying in Grenoble, France, to complete her French degree requirements. After spending a year in France she says, “my French will be good.” When she returns to “les Etats-Unis,” Copanas will complete the requirements for her degree in finance. She hopes to graduate by spring 2007. “I got a slow start,” she admits.

Copanas has received many scholarships along the way, including Cincinnatus, Emily Frank Adler (through the Romance Languages Department), and Cultural Experience Aboard (CEA).

Emily Frank Adler taught French at UC and was a life-long supporter of things musical, artistic and French. The Emily Frank Adler Award is granted each year to a student who is planning to spend an academic year in a French-speaking country. The student must also have a strong record in French. At the age of 93, Mrs. Adler died just this past May, so Copanas will not be able to fulfill one responsibility of the scholarship: to write to Mrs. Adler at least once a quarter.

The Cultural Experience Abroad Scholarship assists students with the financial responsibilities of studying abroad. Copanas was awarded a CEA affiliate scholarship based on her academic performance and written essay.

When Copanas looks into her own future, she sees vast collections and a personal expertise in how to price art, sell art and approach people. And she plans to travel a lot — starting now.