Arts Leadership Graduate Certificate

Certificate in Arts Leadership (ARTL)

The graduate program in arts leadership is a two-semester certificate program for artists, arts administrators and cultural workers of all types to develop the skills necessary to become successful leaders in the arts and arts organizations in a rapidly changing and radically altered contemporary world. The program is based in the Thornton School of Music, but it is designed to be applicable for artists/students engaged in any of the arts disciplines who want to develop their leadership skills in the hybrid and holistic environment of the contemporary arts. The program is highly individualized and deeply student centered in its approach, with simultaneous emphases on research, discovery, theory and current practice. With strong faculty mentorship and guidance from the director of the program and other working professionals in the field, students explore the dimensions of the most current issues and ideas while developing specific real-world applications of these ideas to their own practice as artists and leaders.

The program consists of a minimum of 18 units which can be completed in two semesters. The program begins with a 2-unit gateway course (ARTL 500 ), which introduces the students to the varied, complex and contentious issues in the arts and arts leadership that currently exist in the contemporary arts world. From this experience, students will develop a life plan that examines their own career and life trajectory for the next several years, providing a guidepost for their own personal development in arts leadership. Students will take four core courses including ARTL 501 , which focuses on a deep understanding and application of the challenges of executive leadership in the arts and ARTL 502 , which looks at major environmental trends affecting the arts and how that impacts the student’s leadership role in the arts. Essential to all of these courses is developing the ability to think, speak and write critically about the arts in the contemporary world, key components of strong arts leadership. There is also a two semester practicum, ARTL 510 , in which the student creates, develops and completes an actual arts leadership project of his or her own choosing, supported by faculty mentorship and the cohort of other practicum students.

Admission to the program is by application, reviewed and approved by the director of the program. Admission to the practicum requires a project proposal to be created by the student and approved by the director of the program.