The DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland announces a new cohort of seven international arts managers to its three-year Fellowship program, including Young Artists of America’s Producing Artistic Director and Co-Founder, Rolando Sanz.
The Institute’s Fellowship program serves entrepreneurial executives in the arts and cultural sector who are prepared to look critically at their work, challenge assumptions, and develop rigorous strategies to address the most pressing challenges facing their organizations, regions, and art forms at large. The cohorts will be in residence in Washington, D.C. for a month-long arts management intensive led by DeVos Institute executives, consultants, and experts from the field. Designed for individuals who have dedicated themselves to management, rather than artistic leadership, the program supports leaders in developing, implementing, and refining organizational strategies over a three-year, cohort-based engagement.
The DeVos Institute believes that creative practice is an essential expression of the dignity, aspirations, and achievements of individuals, communities, and societies, and that pro-active support for creative practice as a platform for intercultural, and international, cooperation is required in a healthy global society. Led by Institute Founder, Michael M. Kaiser, and President, Brett Egan, the Fellowship is equally tactical and aspirational in exemplifying these beliefs.
The program emphasizes critical organizational capacities in long-term artistic planning, marketing, fundraising, board development, and financial management; while provoking broader questions of mission, relevance, impact, and the role of art – and the dialogue it provokes – as an instrument of peace. The program emboldens leaders who leverage creative practice to confront injustice, advance social change, and encourage empathy for other perspectives and ways of life. The program acknowledges a historical lack of equity across communities and philanthropic systems and empowers leaders to build equitable and inclusive systems that assure people of every class, race, geography, age, ability, gender, and sexual orientation have equal access to, and representation in, art and creative practice.
Individuals typically engage in the Fellowship at point of inflection in their career, where an infusion of strategic training, mentorship, peer learning, and reflection is necessary to advance both their work in the organization and their role as a leader in their field. All Fellows share a deep commitment to the role of arts, culture, and creative practice in their respective societies and an inquisitiveness that drives them to engage deeply in the immersive and collaborative environment.
To date, the Institute’s Fellowship program has served over 250 arts managers from over 50 countries. DeVos Institute Chairman Michael M. Kaiser launched the Fellowship program in 2001 during his tenure as President of the Kennedy Center. In 2008, the Institute introduced the current, intensive model of one month in residence each summer for three years and transitioned to the University of Maryland from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2014. 2023 DeVos Institute Fellowship 2 The DeVos Institute’s Fellowship program is made possible with the support of the University of Maryland.
About the DeVos Institute of Arts Management
The DeVos Institute of Arts Management provides training, consultation, and implementation support for arts managers and their boards. It operates on the premise that while much is spent to train artists, too little is spent to support the managers and boards who keep those artists at work. At the same time, rapid changes in technology, demographics, government policy, and the economy have complicated the job of the manager and volunteer trustees. These changes continue to accelerate. Organizations that have mastered these trends are flourishing—even leveraging them to their advantage.
For those that have not, however, the sense that “something’s not quite right” can seem unshakable. For too many, these changes have led to less art, decreased visibility, diminished relevance—even financial collapse. These challenges inform our approach. Never has the need to balance best practices and new approaches been so urgent.
Institute leadership and consultants—all arts managers themselves—understand that, in today’s environment, there is no time or resource to waste. Therefore, Institute services are lean, direct, and practical.
The DeVos Institute has served more than 1,000 organizations from over 80 countries since Michael M. Kaiser founded it during his tenure as President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. While environments, objectives, and disciplines vary, each of our clients shares the desire to create, market, and sustain exemplary cultural programs.
The DeVos Institute has designed its services to assist a wide range of institutions, from traditional performing and presenting organizations, museums, galleries, art schools, and libraries, to botanical gardens, glass-making studios, public art trusts, and nonprofit cinemas, to name a few.
In 2014, the DeVos Institute transitioned to the University of Maryland, where it continues to offer support to individuals, organizations, and—in collaboration with foundations and governments—to communities of organizations around the world.
For more information about the DeVos Institute, please visit www.devosinstitute.net.
