Design: Jenny Lederer www.jennylederer.com

Throughout 2017, we will be using the alphabet as a novel way to unpack the many concepts of arts administration. Please join in. Thank you to the following arts administrators for adding ideas to the project:

• Ashley Thorndike-Youssef, Now Next Dance
• Fernando Maneca, BAX | Brooklyn Arts Exchange
• Hillary Kooistra, Abraham.In.Motion
• Kathryn Humphreys, Hubbard Street Chicago
• Katie Kruger, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center
• Liz Hitchcock Lisle, Shotgun Players
• Phyllis Haskell Tims, University of Utah (retired)
• Rebecca A. Ferrell, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• Sarah Crowell, Destiny Arts Center
• Tammy Cheney, Lines Ballet

Arts administration relates to work at dance centers, arts councils, arts education programs, companies, and college programs. Please read on to explore the many and varied topics within arts administration. While not every topic applies to every setting, we hope that you will still find one or two ideas in the post that are useful and applicable to your particular setting. Please feel free to add ideas and links in the comments section below.

This week, we will talk about letters J and K:

• Job titles
• Job descriptions
• Job postings
• "Keep/Stop/Start" evaluation format

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Let's unpack, consider, and reflect upon each one of these words. Even before reading further, you might want to take the list of 4 ideas here and simply journal for your organization. What do these words and phrases mean to you at your organization?

J is for Job Titles

Director, Coordinator, Manager…..Teaching Artist, Arts Specialist, Teacher, Instructor…..

What are the current titles used at your organization? Is there a clear pathway for growth and leadership? Can an employee spend the next 10 years moving from coordinator to manager to director?

For the sake of inspiration and reflection, I encourage you to check out a few examples here; each link goes to an organization's staff page.

Luna Dance Institute in Berkeley, CA

The Dance Complex in Boston, MA

Destiny Arts Center in Oakland, CA

Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in Salt Lake City, UT

American Dance Festival in Durham, NC

Also, I want to highlight the innovative model that Kyle Abraham's company – Abraham.In.Motion – is using. They have dancers as administrators as well. Read more here in a previous post with Company Manager Hillary Kooistra:

http://blog.lifeasamoderndancer.com/2016/04/becoming-an-arts-administrator-5-questions-for-hillary-kooistra-of-kyla-abrahamabrahaminmotion.html

J is for Job Descriptions

Hand in hand with the job titles, there are the job descriptions. To state an obvious question, do you have on hand a written job description for each of your employees? If someone left next week, are you prepared? A job description ideally lists: needed traits/qualities, needed skills, experience desired, work hours, travel required, benefits, who do you report to and who do you supervise, etc.

To find out more about other arts administrators around the country, check out these previous posts:

Ashley Peters, Accounts Manager and HR Staff Liaison at Gibney Dance

Ashley Thorndike-Youssef, Executive Director of Now Next Dance

Becky Radway, Associate Artistic Director/Managing Director of Triskelion Arts

Caroline Yost, Development Associate of Elisa Monte Dance

Daniel Charon, Artistic Director of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company

David Leventhal, Program Director for Dance for PD

Gigi Arrington, Education Director at Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company

Hillary Kooistra, Company Manager of Abraham.In.Motion

Kathryn Humphreys, Director of Education, Youth and Community Programs at Hubbard Street Dance

Kelsey Favret, Development Associate at ADF (American Dance Festival)

Laura Faure, Director of the Bates Dance Festival

Leah Cox, Dean of ADF (and Former Director of New York Live Arts/Bard College partnership)

Lucia Scheckner, Education Director at the Brooklyn Arts Exchange

Nicolle Wasserman, Director of School Administration at ADF

Sarah Crowell, Artistic Director at Destiny Arts Center

Tiffany Rea-Fisher, Artistic Director of Elisa Monte Dance

J is for Job Postings

And, when you are looking for a new employee, or searching for work yourself….where do you look and post? I suggest the following national venues:

• Dance/USA email list
• NDEO (National Dance Education Organization) email list
• Arts Education Partnership email list
• If you send me a posting, I will share through the Life as a Modern Dancer Facebook Page (email randalldanceprojects@gmail.com)

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K is for "Keep/Stop/Start" Evaluation Format

The letter K is a little lean, but the idea of "Keep/Stop/Start" is a great one to consider. When doing evaluations, you can employ this idea with several people involved. Let's say it is time for my own evaluation (I am the Artistic Director of a nonprofit dance center…) The Board asks me to reflect and write about what I want to:

• KEEP doing – my strengths, my work habits, my leadership, my projects…
• STOP doing – areas of weakness and inefficiency, work pulling away from the mission and goals for the year…
• START doing – dreams/goals/aspirations, new skills to build, new projects and initiatives, new goals…

This simple activity could then be completed about me by one or two board members and one or two colleagues (such as our Executive Director and Education Director). During my evaluation meeting, we can discuss what we each wrote, the similarities and differences, and create new goals and areas of growth for the coming year.

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