Curriculum and Courses

This course examines the nature and qualities for effective leadership through the lens of artistic and creative practices. Through critical thinking, experiential learning, readings, and discussion, the course will build an understanding of the essentials of skillful leadership, resource sharing, and innovative and alternative models for collaborative work. This course will provide an opportunity for students to learn from artists, creative practitioners, and case studies as well as for looking at leadership styles and skills and community building practices.

This course covers the principles, strategies and tactics of marketing for artists and arts managers seeking to gain deeper insights into, and engagement with, their fans and patrons. The course addresses both DIY approaches of lightly institutionalized individual artists and more formal traditional-to-current approaches of cultural institutions. Key topics include: the relationship between purpose, mission, branding, and programming; data, segmentation, and analysis/research in a business about people; developing a digital presence; storytelling; public relations; and the patron experience.

This course focuses on the role arts, culture and design can play in equitable community planning and development. Key facets of this course include: exploring how artists affect community change and the social, economic and cultural roles that artists play in their communities; how artists can support populations of people within their communities; and the policies that have supported and inhibited this work. Students will investigate civic and social practice art, creative placemaking, teaching artistry, and arts policy as they work to understand the skills needed to create social action and community change through their work. Exploration of the historical role of the arts in social movement and community planning efforts will lead into a discussion of current practice via case studies, readings, podcasts, documentaries, and interactive discussions. This course will also include class visits by those working in equitable creative community development or possibly one or two site visits to learn first-hand from leaders in this arena.

This is a required course for the Graduate Minor in Creative Community Development.

This course will introduce students to the concept of the creative economy and will explore the nature of contracts, work-life, and enterprises in the cultural and creative industries. It covers key trends and issues in the arts and entertainment industries (those both enduring and those arising in tandem with globalization and digitization), major business forms utilized in the cultural and creative industries (commercial, nonprofit, and hybrid) and their distinctions; contracts, negotiations, intellectual property, and other legal issues for artists; the motives and means of developing and managing a portfolio career; and enterprise modeling for artist-entrepreneurs.

This course counts as an elective course for the Graduate Minor in Impact Entrepreneurship.

Where do personal aesthetics/ethics, practice, and producing structure meet? How do artists organize and create sustainable structures for producing/presenting their work? What’s the right approach for you? How do you integrate your values into your work? These are some of the questions to be addressed in an arts field increasingly defined by new approaches to presentation and production, and a new focus on socially engaged artistry. The first half of the term will include a series of interactive presentations and discussions around model-building for performing arts organizations. These sessions will explore how organizations can listen and respond to their creative constituents, supporters, and audiences to foster a coherent mission and vision. The second half of the term will focus on the principles and practices of creative producing using best practices in arts administration and tools employed in socially engaged art. Students will examine diverse approaches to organizing and producing and then will craft a plan for a project or company they are making, would like to make, or would like to see in the world.

Students in their final term of the Arts Management and Entrepreneurship program are required to complete a Capstone experience (a course called The Entrepreneurial Incubator, offered each spring). This year-long experience gives students the opportunity to draw on the knowledge they have gained in the MA AME program and to demonstrate their skills as socially engaged, independent creative producers. In particular, students will complete the process of envisioning, developing, pitching, and prototyping an entrepreneurial project (i.e. an independently produced performance or a small enterprise) aimed at advancing their career goals. The executed project (even if at a workshop or prototyping phase) must engage one or more targeted communities (i.e. particular members of the public) and must be produced independently. In addition to sessions with the program director, who serves as faculty for this course, students are expected to identify a small network of individuals (i.e. similar to an advisory board) that they can contact for guidance or mentorship throughout the planning and implementation process.  

This year-long experience gives students the opportunity to draw on the knowledge they have gained in the MA AME program and to demonstrate their skills as socially engaged, independent creative producers. In particular, students will complete the process of envisioning, developing, pitching, and prototyping an entrepreneurial project (i.e. an independently produced performance or a small enterprise) aimed at advancing their career goals. The executed project (even if at a workshop or prototyping phase) must engage one or more targeted communities (i.e. particular members of the public) and must be produced independently. In addition to sessions with the program director, who serves as faculty for this course, students are expected to identify a small network of individuals (i.e. similar to an advisory board) that they can contact for guidance or mentorship throughout the planning and implementation process.  

This course focuses on the role and nature of governmental policy at the national, state and local levels. Students will investigate the essential relationship between government and the arts, including cultural and educational policy, funding, the relationships among federal, state, and local policies, and key policies such as visa, federal funding, cultural diplomacy, artist rights, copyright, and arts education standards and regulations. Specific attention will be given basic advocacy, including public awareness and legislative, coalition building, government relations, and the basic steps to launching a campaign.

This class will focus on how the elements of arts management--strategic planning, human resource development, fundraising, finance, marketing and audience engagement--interrelate and intersect with organizational structure, lifecycle stage, and governance. Management and governance issues that have emerged as critical challenges in the 21st Century will be interrogated, and case studies will be examined to reinforce theories and concepts. Special attention will be given to the changing environment for arts organizations and, in particular, the ways in which they are addressing issues of diversity, inclusion, and equity as well as their increased social/civic responsibilities.

Financial data is critical to the decision-making process. Whether you are running a sole proprietorship or incorporated as a B-corp, nonprofit, or LLC you need to be able to understand basic financial information. This course is specifically geared to those aspiring to work in the cultural or creative industries. Students will gain practical experience in financial planning, management, analysis, and reporting using cases and examples drawn from cultural organizations of varying size and business form. Students will also conduct their own research and analysis, exploring entities of their choice, applying course concepts to their own creative projects, and/or creating hypothetical organizations for some assignments. While students will learn accounting terminology and gain the ability to understand, prepare, and discuss financial statements the course is not intended to prepare students to become CPAs.

 This course tackles the nuts and bolts of creative producing and production management in the performing arts. We will cover the practical fundamentals of producing live music and theater performances in a variety of contexts, including larger union houses, smaller informal venues, and site-specific settings. Through in-depth engagement with technical production personnel, students will gain and apply practical and philosophical knowledge related to various aspects of scheduling, budgeting, negotiating, and implementing technical production plans. We will explore the all-encompassing role of the line producer and the production manager in the practical realization and delivery of creative projects, across different mediums, in the modern creative industries.

Effective fundraising for nonprofits requires an understanding of sources of private and public philanthropic support, the motivations and expectations of donors and grantmaking institutions, and facility in applying a variety of techniques and tools of fundraising. The course emphasizes matching fundraising techniques and messages to donors' values, interests, and capabilities. Through individual and team projects, students gain experience in developing strategies and solicitation materials for a selected nonprofit.

This course will explore the role that values-based imagination needs to play in the lives and careers of future leaders. Alongside hard core skills needed to manage complex 21st Century institutions, it is equally critical to explore the universe of possibilities for how the external world might evolve in future decades, to envision how those diverse possible scenarios could affect the mission and values of next generation organizations, how those organizations might be structured in light of these possible futures, and even how the actual work these organizations undertake might be affected. Such future-oriented questions and possibilities will animate this course. From a structural standpoint, students will read and discuss important texts by leading art theorists, artists and economists, engage with leading thinkers and disruptors in a variety of sectors, including arts and culture—who are asking bold questions and experimenting with new models, and will use scenario planning to explore the possibilities of an uncertain future and consider and design strategic responses to those futures.

The Artistic Practice Requirement is intended to be an avenue for you to maintain or deepen a core artistic practice while you are in graduate school taking courses in management and entrepreneurship. Direct entry students must fulfill an APR three out of four terms. Dual degree students in their fifth year must fulfill an APR one out of two terms.

There are three primary ways that you may fulfill your artistic practice requirement:

• You may take an approved graduate level College of Performing Arts conservatory course (auditions may be required for some courses).
• You may convert outside gigs, recordings, rehearsals and productions into credit.
• You may take a special two-day 1-credit Artistic Practice Workshop. These workshops vary by term. Past examples include: Mediaturgy for the Virtual Performance Space with Jared Mezzocchi; Re-Imagining Live Performance for a Virtual World with Rachel Karpf; Creative Skills for Civic Practice with Michael Rohd; Connecting Through Sound with Amanda Gookin; The Philosophy & Practices of Festival Curation with Ellen Dennis; Creative Producing with International Contemporary Ensemble; Legislative Theater Workshop with Theater of the Oppressed NYC; and Storytelling & Design in the 21st Century: Workshop with 3Legged Dog.

The internship requirement is intended to provide you with an opportunity to develop your enterprise, management, or administrative skills and experience. Direct entry students must fulfill an internship one out of four terms. Dual degree students in their fifth year must fulfill an internship one out of the two terms. We may occasionally offer courses that will fulfill this requirement.