Provost

As the first higher education institution in the nation to offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in the visual and performing arts, the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is in the top tier of highly competitive art schools. Established in 1961 by Walt and Roy Disney, CalArts emerged with a bold new paradigm for arts education, the kind not seen since the Black Mountain College experiment of the 1930s that promised the freedom to create with boundless imagination, unfettered by conventional expectations. Located on a campus 25 miles north of Hollywood in the Santa Clarita Valley, CalArts has helped fuel several movements in the arts, its graduates fanning out internationally in every major arts arena. CalArts offers its educational program to student artists through six primary divisions: the School of Art, the School of Critical Studies, the Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance, the Herb Alpert School of Music, the School of Film/Video, and the School of Theater. This year, in the sole art school category, U.S. News & World Report named the CalArts MFA Program in Art in its Top 10 ranking. Animation Career Review named CalArts Animation Programs #1 nationally in its most recent review. The Hollywood Reporter ranked CalArts among the top five film schools, top 10 music schools, and top 15 drama schools in the world.

With the inauguration of Ravi Rajan as President of the Institute, and guided by its strategic direction titled “CalArts 2030,” the Institute is poised to expand its reach, refine its core mission, and address the many cross currents in the contemporary arts worlds. The Provost, working in collaboration with the President and the senior management team, will assume primary responsibility for the academic programs of the Institute. Among these responsibilities will be maintaining a consistent focus on core mission, innovation with integrity, and ensuring broad understanding of the complex and changing pressures that are upon the entire sector of higher education. The Provost serves as the chief academic officer of the Institute. In collaboration with the President, the Provost nurtures and represents the Institute’s core values, faculty, and curriculum. S/he understands that there is a growing need for greater equity, diversity, and inclusion in the academic and academic support sectors broadly, and that increasing diversity will necessitate changes to support the roles of students and faculty. For its size, the Institute is significantly complex, in that it contains six distinct schools and a substantive library. Because of this, creating and implementing interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary learning experiences, a signature of the Institute, can be particularly challenging. A primary responsibility of the Provost is to guide this effort from planning to implementation to evaluation.

The successful candidate will have a strong pedigree in arts education and/or practice in the arts; they will also be knowledgeable, sophisticated, and conversant in contemporary discourse across the spectrum of the arts and higher education in the arts. This individual will have earned an advanced degree in a relevant field and have experience in higher education administration, as well as significant experience teaching. The Provost will have a demonstrated engagement with the arts at the level expected of CalArts faculty.

Only candidates who meet all of the qualifications and submit their credentials by December 18, 2017, will be considered. Nominations, applications, and requests for additional information should be directed to CalArt’s consultants:

Shelli Herman and Associates, Inc.
Attention: Shelli Herman
CalArts-Provost@shellihermansearch.com