Arts Administration

What Can I Do With a Major in Arts Administration?

Facilities, Equipment & Technology

In 1990, with a lead gift by philanthropist Doris Chanin Freedman and a major grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Albright College launched a $6.5 million building project under the direction of architect Adele Santos, who collaborated with sculptor Mary Miss to create the central plaza and amphitheater that form the heart of our Center for the Arts (CFA).

Around this central artwork, Santos designed a south wing to house the Art Department, with studios for drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics and woodworking. The north wing houses the Freedman Gallery, with a small outdoor sculpture court separating it from the northeast wing, which is home to the Music Department and its studios, practice rooms and Roop Hall performance space. The costume and fashion sewing lab connects this floor via a breezeway to the Campus Center. On the second floor of this wing sit the Wachovia Theatre, box office and mezzanine, where special events and receptions are held. Klein Hall, which serves as a space for class lectures and is home to the International Film Series, directly connects the CFA to the Campus Center on this level.

Facilities

• Freedman Gallery | The main gallery and project space comprise 2,000 square feet; 1,500 items in the permanent collection; 9-12 exhibits per year.
• Klein Hall | A 100-seat auditorium used for lectures, larger classes and weekly screenings of the International Film Series, which Albright has hosted for more than 30 years.
• Roop Hall | The multiuse classroom/recital space seats 150 and includes a small stage and Yamaha C7 grand piano purchased in 2013 in memory of Rebecca Gass Butler; home to 3-4 Concert Series events per year and used as practice space for 4 choral ensembles and 4 instrumental bands offering 8-12 student concerts per year.
• Wachovia Theatre | A 270-seat proscenium theatre with adjacent workshop, control room, box office, green room/dressing rooms and costume/sewing lab; home to the Domino Players, Albright College Thespian Society, Albright’s two improv troupes: Soviet Purgatory and Less Than or Equal To, the Albright Dance Team and the Xion Step Team; producing 4-5 main stage productions per year.
• WXAC 91.3 FM | With new studios and offices located on campus in the Berks Community Media Center, Albright’s award-winning radio station offers first-hand opportunities for students to learn about marketing, public relations and communications, as well as the delivery side of the music business industry.
• Other facilities and events | The CFA helps the Fashion Department coordinate three major annual events: the Business of Fashion Forum, the Fashion Ball and the Annual Fashion Showcase & Runway Show.

Equipment and Technology

Depending on the courses taken and experiential learning opportunities in which you partake, you may come into contact with and develop skills using the following databases, programs and equipment:

• Constant Contact (web-based tool for e-newsletter design/dissemination)
• Microsoft Office Suite, including Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint
• PastPerfect (collections management and donor database software used by the Freedman Gallery and CFA)
• SchoolDude (online space/venue scheduling software)
• University Tickets (online ticketing system and subscriber database)
• WebPort and Citrix (financial accounting and budget reconciliation software)

Student Scholarship

In visual and performing arts, students create portfolios, both hard copy and electronic. These portfolios document their work through digital images of paintings and sculptures or with videos and sound clips of performances and concerts. Our goal in arts administration is similar. The curricular assignments and experiential learning opportunities provide opportunities to document learning and skills acquired. Students create posters, programs and playbills for theatre performances and concerts, research and write exhibition labels, install exhibitions and learn how to properly handle and transport fine art collections, design and administer surveys and collect and interpret data for evaluation or financial reporting.

For co-majors, this experience culminates in the capstone course, ARA 490, in which students assist the CFA’s director in working with arts department faculty and student organizations to plan and organize the following year’s activities, and to create and help design the next season catalog.

Profiles:

Sheldon Carpenter ’13 graduated in December 2013 with a co-concentration in arts administration and theatre. Upon his graduation, he continued working for The Reading Musical Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to pursuing excellence in youth music education, and directed Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things for the Domino Players in completion of his senior honors capstone. In June of 2014, Sheldon moved to northern New Jersey where he pursued a part-time career in the restaurant industry and through a contact at Albright, landed an internship with the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation in Manhattan.  In the spring of 2015, he left the internship and formed a new theatre initiative called Torrent Theatre with a few Albright alums in the area. Since the company’s formation, Torrent Theatre has successfully produced two off-Broadway productions including Neil LaBute’s Reasons To Be Pretty and a short-play project entitled Mindflood, comprised of ten-minute plays by playwrights from around the country. Sheldon and the members of Torrent Theatre use theatre as a medium to push social boundaries and challenge the way we live as a society. Provoking the status quo by shedding a different light on topics is something Sheldon has been very passionate about and he firmly believes that his education and immersive training at Albright as both an artist and an administrator has encouraged him to take risks and become his most authentic self, all while pursuing his craft and dreaming bigger. As an undergraduate, Sheldon completed internships at the CFA and Walking Fish Theatre, and served as president for the Domino Players and Albright College Thespian Society for which he also directed A Steady Rain by Keith Huff.

Holly Flynn ’13 graduated in May of 2013 with a B.A in art and a minor in arts administration. After graduation she continued her education at Kent University in England, where, along with earning her masters degree in history and the philosophy of art, she had the chance to travel and experience other cultures. Upon returning to the U.S. she first volunteered at a local history museum to gain more experience. While searching for a full-time position, she landed a part-time position at the Mercer Museum, Doylestown, Pa., as an Interpreter in the education department. She then took a full-time job as the Student Services Coordinator for GoggleWorks, Reading, Pa. Her long term goal is to work in a museum or art center as part of the Education department. Her time at Albright gave her the opportunity to explore different aspects of the art world by working in the Freedman Gallery and  with the CFA staff.

Karina Grossman ’13 shined onstage as a theatre co-major in numerous Domino Players performances, but she notes that her internship as a production assistant with Sprout’s The Sunny Side Up Show left her “totally bitten by the TV bug.” It also left her with an appreciation for her arts administration co-major. During her senior seminar, she noted, “Looking at job ads, I realize that I’m qualified for these jobs. I haven’t just learned a skill set at Albright. I know how to communicate and adapt to be what the job needs me to be.” Karina is currently employed by Albright as an Admission counselor.

During her time at Albright, fashion merchandising major Bethany Warn ’13 was a merchandising intern at Anthropologie in New York City and was a marketing/social media intern for Vielet Performance Merino. “Both of these internships exposed me to crucial skills that I still use, even as an employed graduate,” she says. For her senior seminar capstone project, she was the marketing director for the 2013 “Convergence” Fashion Showcase and Runway Show. “I worked closely with both the Fashion Department and the Center for the Arts to assist in the marketing aspect of the showcase,” she says. “The experience was unforgettable.” Bethany now works as an assistant buyer at Paul Fredrick, a menswear company based in Fleetwood, Pa.

After graduating in may 2015, Catherine “Cat” Hupp ’15 took a few months to travel and work doing caricatures before taking a full-time position as the manager for all art operations at Sesame. She attributes her easy transition into management to the business and administration classes she had at Albright.

Shanna Ramsdell ’13 graduated in May of 2013 with a dual major in arts administration and theatre. Since graduation, she has moved to Philadelphia where she found a job at a small software company. Using the skills she learned from Albright’s arts administration program (and some theatrical magic), she was promoted and was soon traveling internationally to oversee new business developments. Her travels took her to the Dominican Republic where she lived for three months while opening a new center of business. Currently, she is finding adventure in Center City Philadelphia as a Project Manager for Comcast where she is guiding the maintenance and improvement of their company-wide intranet system. Shanna’s “master plan” includes working for a theatre company as a Stage Manager, and using her talents to teach other business-minded folk that theatre and the arts can play a big part in team and company success. She would credit her current path, in large part, to the professors and mentors she met while at Albright, who taught her the value of “Yes…And…”; saying yes to the opportunity in front of you, and using it to move the story forward.

Amanda Santiago ’14 graduated in May of 2014 with a co-major in art and arts administration. Since graduation, Amanda has been included in her first art exhibition, Emerging Women Artists, showcased at the Jewish Community Center, Seigel Art Gallery, Wilmington, Del. She also worked in a preschool as a teachers aid, where she made art lesson plans for everyday activities. Since leaving the preschool, Amanda has been working part-time as the front desk attendant at the Woodmere Art Museum, and has been a private art teacher. She has recently been accepted into Ameri Corps City Year program, one of her life long goals, where she will be placed in a intercity public school in Philadelphia in the fall of 2016. There, she will be working along side students and teachers to achieve academic goals, such as reaching higher reading levels, classroom participation and attendance. She says her time spent at Albright taught her how to be better oragnaized, helped her with time management skills, and has given her vast amounts of knowledge and insight into the art world.

Robin (Vacek) Balmer ’11 graduated in May of 2011 with a B.A. in theatre and minors in arts administration and art history. Since graduation, Robin has lived in Minneapolis, Minn., Eastham, Mass. (Cape Cod), and New York City, working on theatre and film projects while maintaining jobs in retail and office setting. She spent this past year in Reading, Pa., volunteering with Artists Striving to End Poverty, and completing applications for graduate school. In the fall of 2016, Robin will be moving to Boston to pursue her Ed.M. in Educational Leadership & Policy Atudies with a concentration in Higher Education at Boston University. While in school, she will be the Public Service Fellowships graduate assistant at MIT and a graduate intern at the Center for Career Development at BU. The semester she spent abroad in Moscow, Russia, and her wonderful college experience at Albright led her to change her career trajectory to pursue a career in higher education. She wants to help students make the most of their college experience through her work in international education, academic advising, or career development. Ideally some mixture of all three.

Makenzie Witter ’14 graduated in May of 2014 with a co-major in arts administration and art. After graduation, Makenzie worked part-time at both the Corning Museum of Glass and the Rockwell Museum in Corning, NY and volunteered in the Rockwell Museum’s education department. It was during this time that she realized museum education was the route for her, and decided to apply to graduate school to continue her education. Currently, Makenzie is pursuing her M.A. in Museum Professions and working as a graduate assistant at Seton Hall University. She is also interning in the education department at the Allentown Art Museum and working on her thesis, which focuses on educational programming for at risk teens. Makenzie’s long term goal is to open her own art center that specializes in programming for at-risk and underprivileged children and teens. She says that it was her time spent as an art administration student and CFA intern that nudged her in the direction of museum studies and she’s never looked back. The hands-on training provided by Albright has yet to be matched, and her overall experience as a student really helped her prepare for her future.