First Post

I'm the new Director for the Center for the Arts (CFA) at Albright College in Reading, PA. The Center for the Arts is an on-campus building which houses the Art, Music, and Theater departments. It is also the home of the Freedman Art Gallery. I am the first person to be the director of the entire facility - currently the CFA has no mission statement, no strategic plan, no brand etc. The departments have been operating fairly independently up to now, but have decided to create my position to help facilitate collaboration in both production as well as marketing and operations. In addition, I have been asked to create an Arts Management program for the undergraduates here at Albright. Here's the job ad that I applied for:

This position is responsible for coordination and oversight of the day-to-day operations of the Center at the College. The Center houses the Art, Music and Theatre Departments as well as the Freedman Art Gallery. This position will coordinate and oversee marketing, publicity, and audience development in conjunction with related college departments. In addition, the Arts Administrator will teach one course per year in Arts Administration as well as supervise interns and student workers. Position requires an MFA in Arts Management or related degree, experience in arts management with a wide knowledge of arts applications. Excellent communication skills required with the capacity to creatively pursue the overall mission of the College. Successful candidate should also have demonstrated experience in managing a budget and the ability to lead in an innovative and enthusiastic fashion. Experience in academic arts programs and teaching a plus.

My hope is that this blog can be used to track the way that we here at Albright go about creating this new program and how my position and the CFA develop. Hopefully this blog can be used by other schools which are interested in walking down a similar path - to see what works for us, and what goes wrong.

If you have any questions about this blog or this program, I can be reached at: mkopans[at]alb[dot]edu.