Calendar of Upcoming ProgramsCommunications Professionals February Program - Postponed
From Stories to Strategy: Lessons from Seven Years of Arts Impact Reporting Over seven years, Arizona Arts’ State of the Arts | Impact Report has evolved from a “well-designed memo” into a strategic storytelling tool—earning a Southern Arizona PRSA Award of Excellence—that communicates the breadth, relevance, and impact of the arts. This session explores how the report was developed, how themes emerge organically from artistic work, and how narrative can align with institutional priorities such as student success, faculty work, and community engagement. The presentation also reflects on ongoing efforts to provide clearer context for research in the arts through collaboration and story-driven approaches. Charlie Snyder, Director of PR, Marketing & Communications, Arizona Arts / College of Fine Arts, University of Arizona will share. As always, members are encouraged to share their experiences and best practices, too. Members are also invited to share topics they would like to discuss at future meetings. Register here. This program is free for members of the Communications Professionals affinity group. Join this affinity group now. Non-members are invited to participate in the discussion with a registration fee of $80. Creative Leadership – The Aesthetics of Administration
Tuesday, March 24, 2026 at 4:30pm Eastern / 3:30pm Central / 2:30pm Mountain / 1:30pm Pacific in the United States As a follow-up to the January 15 discussion about creative practice as research, a presentation offering transferable techniques for making institutional infrastructures visible as designed objects rather than given conditions. What if the budget spreadsheet were a drawing? The tenure policy a score? The committee meeting a durational performance no one applied to stage? This presentation treats administrative systems (curricular decisions, policies, scheduling grids, assessment protocols) as cultural forms that encode inherited theories about how knowledge gets made, how collaboration is structured, and what counts as authorship. Rather than accepting these structures as neutral background or inevitable constraint, Bureaucratic Realism proposes that they are material: legible, visualizable, and available for rework through reflective and creative practice. Drawing on his parallel practice as academic administrator and artist, Troy Richards, Dean, School of Art and Design, Fashion Institute of Technology, will present visual works derived from institutional documents — org charts rendered as kinship diagrams; approval workflows mapped as circulation patterns; a catalogue raisonné of redacted work emails presented in book form. These works do not simply illustrate bureaucracy; they render visible the structures through which administrative labor operates. In doing so, they open a larger inquiry into how the daily work of administration itself might be approached as a form of creative practice rather than treated solely as managerial function. The session will offer transferable techniques for making institutional infrastructures visible as designed objects rather than given constraints. For faculty, this reframes administrative structures as shaping research and pedagogy. For academic leaders, it positions operational work as a site of creative and reflective agency. Bureaucratic Realism does not promise escape from institutional constraint. It asks what becomes possible when we treat administrative form as something we can study, render, and redesign. Members will be encouraged to participate in the discussion. Registration for this discussion is free for members and colleagues within their arts academic units. Register here.
Advancement Officers March Program Join us for this session with industry leaders Dr. Angelique Grant & Dr. Lee Bynum of The Inclusion Firm. As always, members are encouraged to share their experiences and best practices, too. Members are also invited to share topics they would like to discuss at future meetings. This program is free for members of the Advancement Officers affinity group. Join this affinity group now. Non-members are invited to participate in the discussion with a registration fee of $80. Register here. Communications Professionals Online Programs Advancement Officers Online Programs
All programs will be hosted online the last Tuesdays of January, February, March and April.
Dates: January 27, February 24, March 31, April 28
Time: 4:00 Eastern / 3:00 Central / 2:00 Mountain / 1:00 Pacific. Online programs are 60 minutes.
Programs may include topics such as Gift Planning, Capital Campaign Success Stories, Building Team Culture, and other topics to be determined with member input. Invitations for each meeting will be sent. Registration is free for members of each affinity group or $80 per session for non-members. Join this affinity group now.
All programs will be hosted online the third Thursdays of January, February, March and April.
Dates: January 15 January 14, February 19, March 19, April 16 (Please note the January date change)
Time: 4:00 Eastern / 3:00 Central / 2:00 Mountain / 1:00 Pacific. Online programs are 60 minutes.
Programs may include topics such as One-Staff Wonders: Efficiencies that Have Led to Success, Best Practices: Processes and Procedures, Working with Faculty in Meeting Curricular Needs, Case Studies: Student Workers and Programs, Creating Safe Spaces for Rest and other topics to be determined with member input. Invitations for each meeting will be sent. Registration is free for members of each affinity group or $80 per session for non-members. Join this affinity group now.
Tuesday, October 6 - Thursday, October 8, 2026 Detroit, Michigan A printable Save the Date flyer can be found here. |
