Purchase College-SUNY is rolling out a new master’s program dubbed Entrepreneurship in the Arts. When it debuts in the fall of 2015 it will be the only graduate arts degree in Westchester of its kind—one that focuses, from the onset, on the arts as it applies to launching arts-related businesses, nonprofits, and community organizations.
Purchase College-SUNY President Thomas Schwartz says the program “will enable graduates to identify, imagine, and build enterprises that will create and sustain the arts marketplace of tomorrow.” The program, he says, will specifically address the need for artistic leadership in the nonprofit and commercial arts space.
The program was designed by James Undercofler, professor and chairman of the Purchase College Department of Arts Management and Entrepreneurship. The degree will take a year and a half to complete, focusing on leadership and management techniques, fund development and financing, digital marketing, and law. The goal is to have students leave the program ready and able to launch their own arts ventures.
Ravi Rajan, dean of the Purchase College School of the Arts, says the program “is designed to empower the emerging generation to be leaders who will redefine the arts through innovation.” He says it will foster a “meta synergy” by equipping graduates with a unique blend of idea generation, marketing, policy, management, and financial skills to apply to the creation of new entities for the arts.
Want to know more about the business of the arts? Check out Behind the Arts, Big Money in the Q3 issue of 914INC.
