NEW YORK — Today, three universities announced that they are joining forces to launch a new — and, as they see it, unprecedented — program in international arts management. A partnership between Southern Methodist University in Dallas, HEC Montreal, and SDA Bocconi in Milan, the one-year master’s program seeks to capitalize on the international growth of art institutions, promising to train a new generation of administrators to navigate an increasingly globalized world where money is tight (except in China and the Middle East) and cultural differences still hamper collaboration.
Here's the pitch: The 25 to 30 students accepted to the program will begin their year at SMU in Dallas, where they will spend four months taking courses on subjects including fundraising for the arts, international arts law, and comparative international arts policy. Then, they will move to Montreal to refine their marketing skills, taking courses with titles like “International Event Product Management” and “Anthropology and Marketing of Consumer Culture.” During the program’s final leg, in Milan, students will work to complete a final project in their area of interest.
“What we hope to offer is unique because of the international context it provides,” said Zannie Voss, chair of the arts management at the SMU Meadows School of the Arts. The program, which kicks off in September 2013, costs a hefty $40,000 (a fee that includes travel, but not lodging, though a handful of merit-based scholarships are available). “Our dream would be to have a cohort of 30 different students from 30 different countries,” Voss said, adding that ideally, these students return to their home countries after the program, bringing their new skills and international web of contacts along with them.
Some details have yet to be ironed out — and indeed there was a hint of skepticism at a roundtable held at the Museum of Modern Art this morning to mark the program's launch, which featured about a dozen arts administrators. Issues under discussion ranged from how to address the rapidly growing cultural industries in China and the Middle East (“It can’t just be us telling them how to do it,” said the Theater Development Fund's Victoria Bailey) to the proper age and experience of prospective students (“Why does it have to be people in their 20s?” asked Holly Hotchner, director of the Museum of Art and Design. “I’d do it.”). Furthermore, some on the panel wondered, who's to say there will be jobs available to these students after they graduate? “Over 10 years, you’d have 250 people,” said Hotchner. “Are there really jobs for them all to do international work?”
"The notion of arts management in three places, three sessions, and three countries — I don't know what that means," said Signature Theater Company’s artistic director James Houghton.
Still, there was a sense that the program might fill an actual gap. “We know arts organizations have difficulty all over the world, but I think a lack of good managers causes most of the problems,” said New York Philharmonic CEO Zarin Mahta.
Toward the end of the discussion, it was Houghton who proposed perhaps the most unorthodox idea of the day for the new global initiative: Why not start the program small, asking other arts administration programs to nominate one student with great potential, and enroll 10 to 15 people in the program for free, at least for the first three years? “Making it invitation-only and fully funded,” he said, “would immediately set it apart.”
The organizers bristled. As arts administrators know all too well, money is tight.