North Adams, Massachusetts – photo by flickr user John Herr

In 1986, Thomas Krens, with an MBA in hand from Yale University and new to his consultancy for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, suggested turning a shuttered electrical plant in North Adams, Massachusetts into the world’s largest contemporary art museum. He had spent six years in North Adams as the director of the Williams College Museum of Art, and the plant had been in his backyard. It was a big, wild idea, and it came to fruition thirteen years later, when the site became the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in 1999. Now, nearly thirty years later, Krens is back with a newer, bigger idea for North Adams: a 160,000-square-foot art gallery on the city’s Harriman-West Airport grounds. This new museum is designed to complement, rather than compete, with the “old” one: it would only show its contemporary-art collection, and there would be no exhibition programming. The idea is unusual in structure, as well; unlike most museums, Krens’ idea is for this one to be privately owned by a for-profit group of investors, and they’re only seeking a twenty-year lease. Not much has been heard of from Krens following the end of his twenty-year tenure as director of the Guggenheim Museum, but this new idea–five years in the making and originally planned for China–is sure to push him back into the limelight. The North Adams Airport Commission is on board. Next up: the Federal Aviation Administration.

Chula Vista Schools Invest Heavily in Arts Education. Chula Vista Elementary School District, which lies just south of San Diego, California, serves some 30,000 students. The last time the district had an arts coordinator was the 1970s, and last school year, the district had just four full-time art teachers. All this is about to change: this summer, the district has undertaken a massive expansion of its arts education program, hiring 60 new art teachers, with 16 spots still left to fill. This unprecedented investment in arts education, spearheaded by Lauren Shelton, has been made possible by $15 million in funding approved by the Chula Vista school board in June. The money comes from from Governor Jerry Brown’s state local control funding formula, which shifted education spending decisions to the local level and targets disadvantaged students. Chula Vista is not the only district to benefit from Governor Brown’s formula, but it’s the first to focus the entire pool of funds–$5 million a year for the next three years–on aggressively expanding arts education. The District’s goal is simple, if ambitious: to raise student engagement, boost attendance and improve academic performance among low-performing students, and of course, implement a long-term plan to restore arts instruction in the district.

Social Sciences Scrutinized, Found Lacking. The social sciences have found themselves in the Createquity limelight recently, and not necessarily for good reason. In March, we reported that the journal Basic and Applied Social Psychology had banned testing for statistical significance and related procedures in papers published in its pages. In May we covered Michael LaCour’s study on the impact of gay canvassers on voters’ behavior, which was retracted when its data was found to be falsified. And this past month, the journal Science released the findings of a yearslong effort to faithfully reproduce 100 studies, in most cases using original data. These studies, published in the leading journals Psychological Science, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, are considered some of the most important work published on personality, relationships, learning and memory. In the case of more than half of the studies, the replication project found that “the evidence for most published findings was not nearly as strong as originally claimed.” While the study of the studies itself could stand some further investigation, the shocking numbers are just the latest warning not to take research results at face value. Is increased competition for academic jobs and research funding to blame, or is the Internet merely making it easier than before to spot crimes against science? Either way, social science is not doomed–but it sure is harder than we give it credit for.

China Lifts 14-Year Old Ban on Video Gaming. In 2000, the Chinese government banned the production and sale of video game consoles, citing concerns that games could have “adverse effects” on Chinese youth. Last year, China eased those restrictions, letting game console-makers operate in the Shanghai free trade zone (though even then they had to enter into contracts to build new manufacturing facilities, secure approval for console sales from regulators, and allow every console to be individually inspected.) This month, the Ministry of Culture lifted the ban altogether, opening the door to Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft to manufacture and sell their Xboxes, Playstations and Wii. Although China is expected to overtake the US as the world’s largest mobile gaming market by 2016, it’s not immediately clear what impact the lifting of the ban will have on Chinese gamers, or on the bottom line of the big three. In the absence of consoles, PC and web based games have eaten up the lion’s share of the market, leaving little room for new products, especially new consoles, which have, despite it all, long been available on the grey market.

Art School Profits off of Student Dreams. Remember when the entire first year MFA class at USC Roski School of Art and Design in Los Angeles dropped out in May on account of their funding and teaching opportunities being curtailed? If that story made you mad, have we got a tale of student exploitation for you. The for-profit Academy of Art University, based in San Francisco, was by founded by Richard S. and Clara Stephens in the 1920s. Under the watch of granddaughter Elisa Stephens, who became president in 1992, the school has become the largest private art university in the United States, with 16,000 students (35% of which are online-only) generating an estimated $300 million in annual revenues. The Stephenses are purportedly worth some $800 million, which they spend–lavishly and visibly–on prime San Francisco real estate, summer homes, yachts, jets, and cars. According to a Forbes exposé this month, it seems that fortune has been built on the selling of false hope. The Academy accepts any applicant with a high school diploma and the willingness to spend $22,000 a year on tuition–no art portfolio required. Only 32% of full-time students and 3% of part-time students graduate, and it takes most full-time students six years to do so. (The school keeps a full semester’s tuition if the student is enrolled for at least four weeks.) Add to this a caginess around job placement statistics and numerous building violations, and regulators are finally taking notice. It’s worth reconsidering the white-hot controversy surrounding Roski dean Erica Muhl in this light: shady as the university’s dealings might have been, they affected a grand total of seven students.

MUSICAL CHAIRS / COOL JOBS

• At long last, the National Endowment for the Arts has a new theater director: Greg Reiner.
• Charlotte Cohen has been appointed executive director of the Brooklyn Arts Council, succeeding Ella J. Weiss who is retiring after serving 16 years as president of the organization.
• The Tucson Pima Arts Council announced a leadership shift this month: Debi Chess Mabie was appointed CEO, with current executive director Roberto Bedoya transitioning to the new role of Director of Civic Engagement.
• Angie Kim was named president and CEO of California’s Center for Cultural Innovation.
• Jennifer Coleman has been appointed Senior Program Officer for the Arts at the George Gund Foundation in Cleveland.
• After fifteen years with the Walton Family Foundation, Buddy Philpot will step down as its executive director.
• Sarah Martínez-Helfman has been named president of Philadelphia’s Samuel S. Fels Fund.
• Former Microsoft executive Michael Thatcher was named president and CEO of Charity Navigator.
• Scott Cantrell, long time staff music critic at the Dallas Morning, is the latest writer to accept a buyout at the paper.
• The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation seeks an arts program officer. Posted July 27; no closing date.
• The David and Lura Lovell Foundation seeks an executive director. Posted July 31; no closing date.
• The Krupp Family Foundation is hiring a part-time Foundation Grants and Program Director. Posted August 4; no closing date.
• The Prince Charitable Trusts is hiring a managing director. Posted August 5; no closing date.
• The California Arts Council is hiring a deputy director. Posted August 19; closing date September 18.
• The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is hiring a Program Fellow for the three-year Hewlett Fellowship. Posted August 28; no closing date.
• The South Jersey Cultural Alliance seeks an executive director. Closing date September 11.
• Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts is hiring an Assistant Director for the Arts Research Institute. Closing date September 30.
• The New Jersey Council for the Humanities seeks a Director of Programs. Applications will be reviewed beginning October 15.
• ArtsEnging/a2ru_News has openings for a Research Director and Research Fellow. No closing date.
• AEA Consulting is recruiting a research analysts and consultants. No closing date.
• The Oklahoma Arts Council is hiring a Director of Art in Public Places. No closing date.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• A recent analysis of the Mellon Foundation’s Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program by the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute has found that the program has “no significant effect” on Ph.D. completion rates among minority students.
• The University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism examined the 700 top-grossing films between 2007 and 2014 and released a report revealing, in no uncertain terms, Hollywood’s bias against women, people of color and LGBT characters.
• A new study suggests that educational television programs such as Sesame Street have not been successful in reducing kids’ prejudices.
• The U.S. Department of Education released two reports assessing the qualifications of middle & high school instructors across arts disciplines. Spoiler alert: they’re not all qualified.
• How do you get to Carnegie Hall? A new study published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that individuals underestimate the value of persistence for creative performance. Another report from the same journal indicates that money does matter, and what’s more, that low-income individuals are less happy in places with greater income inequality.
• A public study of Chicago residents commissioned by Arts Alliance Illinois last year reveals that while Chicagoans are united in wanting access to arts, not all have access: 28 of 77 of the city’s neighborhoods are home to zero arts organizations.
• A report published by Gulf Labor, a coalition of artists and activists, reveals that underpayment and harsh working conditions have persisted for migrant workers building new Guggenheim, Louvre and Zayed National museum branches in Abu Dhabi.
• A survey of professional dancers in UK revealed that more than half of them earn less than £5,000 a year from their performing engagements (and other bleak statistics).
• And in more lighthearted news: baristas rejoice! A new study reveals that people are willing to pay more–13% more!–for latte art.

crown – Photo by Flickr user Jason Train, Creative Commons license

Both the NEA and the NEH have new official leaders this month: Jane Chu, head of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri, will be the 11^th chair of the NEA; William “Bro” Adams, formerly president of Colby College, will be the 10^th chair of the NEH. Respected internal acting chairs had been manning the ships since Rocco Landesman’s resignation from the NEA at the end of 2012 and Jim Leach’s resignation from the NEH in April 2013. The new appointees are just in time for the Congressional debate over the President’s budget, which requested essentially flat funding for the cultural agencies.

In her previous job, Chu oversaw the mid-recession capital campaign that built the Kauffman Center, a major performance venue that is now home to the Kansas City Ballet, Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. She has a background as a grantmaker, with a PhD in philanthropic studies and a previous post as the vice president of community investment for the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. A former member of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, she may also be well equipped to reach across the aisle – or at least to continue making the case for the economic impact of the arts.

Adams, a Vietnam veteran and intellectual historian, has led arts and humanities initiatives at several colleges, including the Great Works in Western Culture Program at Stanford and a major expansion of the Colby College Museum of Art. His long and varied resume of experience in academic administration marks a shift from Leach, who had been a Congressman for thirty years at the time of his appointment. We hope he will continue his tradition of open forums entitled, “Yo, Bro.”

Glimmers of hope in state and local arts budgets: For the first time in many years, public arts funding is increasing in notable areas of the country. The Florida state budget now officially includes $56.4 million for the state’s Division of Cultural Affairs, vaulting the Sunshine State past New York to take the prize of most generous state arts council overall – even if you exclude the $12.4 million in line-item funding from that total. Not to be outdone, New York City’s 2014-15 budget includes a $23 million boost for arts education, to be directed toward arts specialist positions, facilities, and partnerships with cultural institutions. On the opposite coast, the California Arts Council received a $5 million boost from the state, bringing its total appropriation to about $9 million. Paltry as it may seem compared to Florida’s investment and California’s size, that $5 million is the first significant increase the CAC has received since it was gutted by more than 90% more than a decade ago. Michigan allocated an additional $2 million for the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley gave arts advocates reason to cheer by refraining from vetoing funding for the South Carolina Arts Commission for the first time since 2011.

Debate over equity in arts funding adds to Bay Area arts turmoil: In what may be a harbinger of feuds in other parts of the country, arts advocates in the City by the Bay clashed with one another over funding for arts organizations serving communities of color. A recent report from the Budget Analyst’s Office claims the bulk of funding distributed by San Francisco’s Grants for the Arts/Hotel Tax Fund goes to organizations serving primarily white audiences. Amid calls to address the disparity by boosting funds to the Arts Commission’s Cultural Equity Grants, which target underserved and culturally specific communities, sharp words flew between sub-groups of arts advocates, some of whom felt the Arts Commission and Grants for the Arts were being pitted against each other. The budget for Cultural Equity Grants is now poised to receive $119,000 previously allocated to Grants for the Arts, with further action by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors expected in July. This is all on top of the recent shutdown of the San Jose Repertory Theater after 34 years and the dramatic shrinking of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts announced last month.

The Detroit Institute of Arts continues on its escape path from the city’s bankruptcy proceedings: The Detroit City Council unanimously approved the museum’s plan to privatize as a charitable trust. The so-called “grand bargain” would ransom the DIA from the bargaining table in exchange for more than $800 million in public and private funds to be paid to the city’s pensioners over 20 years. Foundation money currently accounts for more than $350m of that, including major gifts from Ford ($125 million) and Kresge ($100 million). The museum itself is required to raise $100m of the money; they’re about 70% of the way there, thanks to recent donations from the Big Three automakers ($26 million total) and from Mellon and Getty ($10 million and $3 million, respectively). Even if the funds are raised, the deal must still win the approval of pensioners and the presiding judge – which is not guaranteed, as some creditors are calling for part or all of the museum’s collection to be in play to settle the city’s debts.

Creative hubs compete to offer tax credits for film and TV production: A large majority of states offer tax incentives for film and TV production, but the last several weeks have seen several governments advance the arms race. New Jersey’s state Senate passed a bill that would raise the annual cap for film tax credits from $10 million to $50 million; Austin’s City Council approved reimbursement of up to 0.75% of production companies’ wages; and, not to be outdone, the California state assembly passed a “Film and Television Jobs Retention and Promotion” Act that would add an undefined amount to the current $100 million annual kitty. In Pennsylvania, lawmakers may clarify their tax credit rules to better attract feature films and TV series specifically; the shopping network QVC has received more than $26 million under the program since 2008. Meanwhile, Boston is kickin’ it old-school: the state legislature is considering incentives to lure live theater headed to Broadway or Off-Broadway to Beantown and the rest of Massachusetts. As we noted in January, the ultimate benefit of incentives like these to citizens is not always clear.

MUSICAL CHAIRS/COOL JOBS

• After seven months, Los Angeles has a new arts czar: Danielle Brazell is Mayor Eric Garcetti’s nominee to head the Department of Cultural Affairs. Brazell, who has spent the last eight years corralling the region’s arts advocates as executive director of Arts for LA, will take up the reins in August.
• Los Angeles also added a high-profile art education leader to its ranks: Rory Pullens, head of Washington, DC’s Duke Ellington School for the Arts, will take over Los Angeles Unified School Districts’ arts education branch in July.
• After fourteen years as Deputy Director and Director of Programs, Grantmakers in the Arts’ Tommer Petersen will retire at the end of 2014. GIA has announced a national search for his replacement.
• Simon Greer has left the Nathan Cummings Foundation following a two-and-a-half year stint as president and CEO. Greer noted he and the Board were “increasingly unaligned around the hard choices that are inevitably part of implementation.”‘
• Sad news: Rebecca Blunk, former Executive Director of the New England Foundation for the Arts, passed away on June 22 at the age of 60.
• The San Francisco Arts Commission is hiring a Senior Program Officer for Community Investments. Deadline: 6/16. Salary: $73-89k.
• Artist Trust (based in Seattle) is looking for a new Executive Director. Deadline: 7/3. Salary: $85-95k.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• Three new studies examine the link between arts participation and individuals’ sense of life-satisfaction.
• A University of Messina psychologist has linked creative capacity to hormones. Examining a small sample of visual artists, she found evidence of high prenatal testosterone rates among both males and females. A 1999 study of musicians suggested a similar correlation.
• Music education has been linked to increases in mathematical ability – might it help students with reading as well? Unfortunately, it may not do as much for your kid’s skill with the oboe as Malcolm Gladwell believes: a new study finds a strong genetic component to musical talent.
• Last year we outlined best- and worst-case scenarios for the impact of MOOCs on public education. Now, research on the use of educational technology in affluent vs. non-affluent communities suggests the worst-case scenario may be winning, as children from mid- and high-income families benefit more from fancy gadgets and internet access than their low-income peers.
• The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies offers a snapshot of how its members handle fellowships for individual artists.
• Arts Midwest has released a report on its leadership and strategy development program, ArtsLab, including case studies of eight grantees.
• Researchers affiliated with the Cultural Policy Center are preparing a book on the impact of major cultural facilities projects and the mistakes that can drive unwise investment by cities. The book expands on the authors’ previously-released study.

In her previous job, Chu oversaw the mid-recession capital campaign that built the Kauffman Center, a major performance venue that is now home to the Kansas City Ballet, Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. She has a background as a grantmaker, with a PhD in philanthropic studies and a previous post as the vice president of community investment for the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. A former member of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, she may also be well equipped to reach across the aisle – or at least to continue making the case for the economic impact of the arts.

Adams, a Vietnam veteran and intellectual historian, has led arts and humanities initiatives at several colleges, including the Great Works in Western Culture Program at Stanford and a major expansion of the Colby College Museum of Art. His long and varied resume of experience in academic administration marks a shift from Leach, who had been a Congressman for thirty years at the time of his appointment. We hope he will continue his tradition of open forums entitled, “Yo, Bro.”

Glimmers of hope in state and local arts budgets: For the first time in many years, public arts funding is increasing in notable areas of the country. The Florida state budget now officially includes $56.4 million for the state’s Division of Cultural Affairs, vaulting the Sunshine State past New York to take the prize of most generous state arts council overall – even if you exclude the $12.4 million in line-item funding from that total. Not to be outdone, New York City’s 2014-15 budget includes a $23 million boost for arts education, to be directed toward arts specialist positions, facilities, and partnerships with cultural institutions. On the opposite coast, the California Arts Council received a $5 million boost from the state, bringing its total appropriation to about $9 million. Paltry as it may seem compared to Florida’s investment and California’s size, that $5 million is the first significant increase the CAC has received since it was gutted by more than 90% more than a decade ago. Michigan allocated an additional $2 million for the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley gave arts advocates reason to cheer by refraining from vetoing funding for the South Carolina Arts Commission for the first time since 2011.

Debate over equity in arts funding adds to Bay Area arts turmoil: In what may be a harbinger of feuds in other parts of the country, arts advocates in the City by the Bay clashed with one another over funding for arts organizations serving communities of color. A recent report from the Budget Analyst’s Office claims the bulk of funding distributed by San Francisco’s Grants for the Arts/Hotel Tax Fund goes to organizations serving primarily white audiences. Amid calls to address the disparity by boosting funds to the Arts Commission’s Cultural Equity Grants, which target underserved and culturally specific communities, sharp words flew between sub-groups of arts advocates, some of whom felt the Arts Commission and Grants for the Arts were being pitted against each other. The budget for Cultural Equity Grants is now poised to receive $119,000 previously allocated to Grants for the Arts, with further action by San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors expected in July. This is all on top of the recent shutdown of the San Jose Repertory Theater after 34 years and the dramatic shrinking of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts announced last month.

The Detroit Institute of Arts continues on its escape path from the city’s bankruptcy proceedings: The Detroit City Council unanimously approved the museum’s plan to privatize as a charitable trust. The so-called “grand bargain” would ransom the DIA from the bargaining table in exchange for more than $800m in public and private funds to be paid to the city’s pensioners over 20 years. Foundation money currently accounts for more than $350m of that, including major gifts from Ford ($125m) and Kresge ($100m). The museum itself is required to raise $100m of the money; they’re about 70% of the way there, thanks to recent donations from the Big Three automakers ($26m total) and from Mellon and Getty ($10m and $3m). Even if the funds are raised, the deal must still win the approval of pensioners and the presiding judge – which is not guaranteed, as some creditors are calling for part or all of the museum’s collection to be in play to settle the city’s debts.

Creative hubs compete to offer tax credits for film and TV production: A large majority of states offer tax incentives for film and TV production, but the last several weeks have seen several governments advance the arms race. New Jersey’s state Senate passed a bill that would raise the annual cap for film tax credits from $10m to $50m; Austin’s City Council approved reimbursement of up to 0.75% of production companies’ wages; and, not to be outdone, the California state assembly passed a “Film and Television Jobs Retention and Promotion” Act that would add an undefined amount to the current $100 annual kitty. In Pennsylvania, lawmakers may clarify their tax credit rules to better attract feature films and TV series specifically; the shopping network QVC has received more than $26m under the program since 2008. Meanwhile, Boston is kickin’ it old-school: the state legislature is considering incentives to lure live theater headed to Broadway or Off-Broadway to Beantown and the rest of Massachusetts. As we noted in January, the ultimate benefit of incentives like these to citizens is not always clear.

MUSICAL CHAIRS/COOL JOBS

• After seven months, Los Angeles has a new arts czar: Danielle Brazell is Mayor Eric Garcetti’s nominee to head the Department of Cultural Affairs. Brazell, who has spent the last eight years corralling the region’s arts advocates as executive director of Arts for LA, will take up the reins in August.
• Los Angeles also added a high-profile art education leader to its ranks: Rory Pullens, head of Washington, DC’s Duke Ellington School for the Arts, will take over Los Angeles Unified School Districts’ arts education branch in July.
• After fourteen years as Deputy Director and Director of Programs, Grantmakers in the Arts’ Tommer Petersen will retire at the end of 2014. GIA has announced a national search for his replacement.
• Simon Greer has left the Nathan Cummings Foundation following a two-and-a-half year stint as president and CEO. Greer noted he and the Board were “increasingly unaligned around the hard choices that are inevitably part of implementation.”‘
• Sad news: Rebecca Blunk, former Executive Director of the New England Foundation for the Arts, passed away on June 22 at the age of 60.
• The San Francisco Arts Commission is hiring a Senior Program Officer for Community Investments. Deadline: 6/16. Salary: $73-89k.
• Artist Trust (based in Seattle) is looking for a new Executive Director. Deadline: 7/3. Salary: $85-95k.

NEW RESEARCH OF NOTE

• Three new studies examine the link between arts participation and individuals’ sense of life-satisfaction.
• A University of Messina psychologist has linked creative capacity to hormones. Examining a small sample of visual artists, she found evidence of high prenatal testosterone rates among both males and females. A 1999 study of musicians suggested a similar correlation.
• Music education has been linked to increases in mathematical ability – might it help students with reading as well? Unfortunately, it may not do as much for your kid’s skill with the oboe as Malcolm Gladwell believes: a new study finds a strong genetic component to musical talent.
• Last year we outlined best- and worst-case scenarios for the impact of MOOCs on public education. Now, research on the use of educational technology in affluent vs. non-affluent communities suggests the worst-case scenario may be winning, as children from mid- and high-income families benefit more from fancy gadgets and internet access than their low-income peers.
• The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies offers a snapshot of how its members handle fellowships for individual artists.
• Arts Midwest has released a report on its leadership and strategy development program, ArtsLab, including case studies of eight grantees.
• Researchers affiliated with the Cultural Policy Center are preparing a book on the impact of major cultural facilities projects and the mistakes that can drive unwise investment by cities. The book expands on the authors’ previously-released study.

ART AND THE GOVERNMENT

• This is pretty much the most creative cultural tourism gambit ever.
• The Michigan House approved a plan to contribute $195 million in state money to the “grand bargain” to save the Detroit Institute of Arts from the city’s creditors; this money would join the $366 million pledged by foundations, $100 million pledged by the museum itself, and possible funding from union groups. Some creditors still reject the deal, although the judge overseeing the proceedings has refused their request to remove and appraise every painting in the collection.
• “National and local governments don’t take decisions about arts funding based on evidence, however convincing it is.” The Guardian argues that our only hope for better public funding is to create “the kind of solid public support that makes cuts politically dangerous or, even better, unthinkable” through closer ties to local communities.
• Score one victory for the arts lobby: after a vigorous campaign by organizations such as the League of American Orchestras, the Obama administration has carved out an exception for musical instruments in its new ivory regulations.
• Meanwhile, the FCC is accepting public comments on its latest proposed net neutrality rules, which would seem to allow internet providers to strike deals with content sites for faster service – deals akin to those that already exist with tech companies like Netflix, Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Given the Commission’s recent flip-flopping, there’s no telling where this will lead, and we may not know until after the next election. One thing we do know: the idea of America itself is at stake.

MUSICAL CHAIRS

• Peter Handler will be the new executive director of the Reva and David Logan Foundation, sponsor of the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. Handler is currently the program director at the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.
• Moy Eng, former director of both the Hewlett Foundation Performing Arts Program and Palo Alto’s Community School of Music and Arts, has been announced as the first executive director of the Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST), a real estate services provider for artists and arts organizations.
• John Horn, of the Los Angeles Times, will be the new host for an arts an entertainment program on KPCC, Southern California Public Radio.

IN THE FIELD

• Just a year after losing its highly respected director Deborah Cullinan to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts has just announced a major restructuring that will result in the closure of several programs and the layoffs of key staff. And NPR is cancelling “Tell Me More,” a little-heard daily talk show aimed at minority audiences, and eliminating 28 jobs. The National Association of Black Journalists blames lackluster promotion efforts.
• The San Diego Opera lives! But along with a full 2015 season, the company has announced layoffs including 13 full-time staff. And now the auditor is calling.
• New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is planning to gut-renovate its modern and contemporary wing to make room for a major gift of Cubist paintings and potentially create a new entrance from Central Park. Is this another case of museum hubris?
• The plan to dissolve the Corcoran Gallery of Art has been finalized, with the collection going to the National Gallery of Art and other museums it chooses and the building and design school going to George Washington University.
• When you think of St. Louis, do you think of jazz? A $10 million expansion to Jazz St. Louis—to be called the Harold and Dorothy Steward Center for Jazz—hopes to make the two synonymous, establishing St. Louis as one of the top hubs for jazz in the world.
• Lower Manhattan is home to a new performing arts school. Thanks to three years of significant growth, Pace University’s performing arts program will become a school within Pace’s liberal arts college.
• Thanks to the lobbying efforts of Jonathan Safran Foer on behalf of all of those without enough to read, Chipotle cups will now be adorned with short texts by literary luminaries. Not everyone is enthusiastic.
• Those Colorado Symphony mile-high marijuana concerts are now invitation-only, due to an overlooked regulation banning toking up in public. The Denver Post’s music critic went and got blasted – I mean, had a blast.

ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS

• AT&T announced that it intends to buy DirecTV. The “media chessboard is moving more than it has in the past decade,” with Comcast’s February purchase of Time Warner cable and Sprint’s overtures to T-Mobile…
• … and reports that Apple is planning a major new foray into streaming music with an acquisition of Beats Audio and of co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, though something is holding up the deal.
• Nearly four years after announcing a name change, a new mission, and a new grantmaking strategy focused on impact, Cincinnati’s ArtsWave (formerly the Fine Arts Fund) seems to be seeing results. The united arts fund raised a record $12 million for its annual campaign this year, helped catalyze last year’s creation of a new multidisciplinary arts festival drawing national attention, and is starting to form strategic partnerships with non-arts funders. Retiring CEO Mary McCullough-Hudson deserves a lot of credit for seeing this transformation through.
• The Hewlett Foundation’s Fay Twersky defends the decision to end the Nonprofit Marketplace Initiative as data-driven in the face of William Schambra’s accusation that a leadership change was the primary driver. Let’s hope this public debate doesn’t dissuade grantmakers from following Hewlett’s lead on transparency.
• The Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund has announced a new capitalization program, including its largest-ever grant of $200,000 to the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center. The Fund created the program in response to research showing that even many of the city’s strongest arts groups were constrained by having only three months of financial cushion.

BIG IDEAS

• Is it time for foundations to embrace partisan politics instead of trying to remain above the fray? Writers for the Stanford Social Innovation Review think so. “Partisan conflict is not an external factor that advocates can work around,” they write. “It is the defining axis of American politics today, and funders must be unafraid to reckon with it.”
• The expansion of the Gates-Buffett Giving Pledge – a promise to give away at least half of one’s fortune – to include billionaires from around the world raises questions about different cultural attitudes toward philanthropy (in China, public or transparent giving is eschewed) and about the relative merits of the Big Philanthropy model vs the more distributed community foundation model of giving.
• Arts entrepreneurship aficionados, look out: Barry’s Blog has a stellar lineup, uh, lined up for a weeklong blogathon on the topic starting…today!

RESEARCH CORNER

• The National Academy of Sciences has hard numbers that show students learn better through hands-on activities than through lectures – at least when it comes to the sciences.
• Philanthropy Northwest reports on a year-long peer-learning project on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts involving 10 foundation CEOs in the region.
• Corporate giving is up again, according to the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy’s annual tally.
• South Arts has released two research reports on arts education in the South. The first, a survey of nearly a third of all principals in the region, found among other things that Southern students have less access to visual arts and music than other American students but greater access to dance – with significant variation among Southern states. The second, case studies of nine strong arts education programs, found that the successful schools cultivated a shared vision of the arts, incorporated the arts into the core curriculum driven by state and national standards, and exposed students to working artists.
• Bringing the ability to make snazzy charts and tables to the masses, evaluators Stephanie Evergreen and Ann K. Emery have developed a data visualization checklist for the graphically challenged among us.
• In case you ever wondered about the correlation between per capita consumption of cheese and the number of people who die by becoming tangled in their bedsheets, Tyler Vigen has you covered.

Createquity Office Hours: San Francisco
Wednesday, March 12
6:30-8:30pm
Ma’velous
1408 Market Street
San Francisco, CA
RSVP here by March 10

Createquity Office Hours: LA
Sunday, March 16
5-7pm
Hyperion Public
2538 Hyperion Ave
Los Angeles, CA (Los Feliz neighborhood)
RSVP here by March 14