IIE-SRF named the first recipient of the Janet Hennessey Dilenschneider Scholar Rescue Award in the Arts, established in February 2014 through gifts from IIE Trustees Robert L. Dilenschneider and Mark A. Angelson to provide IIE-SRF fellowships to 10 threatened scholars of the visual, performing, or literary arts. In her most recent book of paintings, It is a beautiful world, what are we doing to protect it?, artist Janet Hennessey Dilenschneider says, "Artists have the right—and maybe the obligation, because they have the platform—to make a social/political statement about the world they live in. Many artists and art scholars put their lives in danger doing this." 

The award recipient, Dr. Jumana Ali Jaber is an established Syrian professor with a portfolio that spans architecture and interior design. She established one of Syria’s first interdisciplinary undergraduate degree programs in fine arts and has exhibited her work in Poland, the United States, and Syria. As the violence in Syria escalated, Dr. Jaber suffered harassment and intimidation due to her artwork, which critically examines traditional norms. An IIE-SRF fellowship brought her to Montclair State University, where she teaches visual art, painting, design for theater, and interior design through the university’s Departments of Art and Design and Theatre and Dance.