Center for Arts and Culture to Affiliate with George Mason University

IFACCA/Artshub, 04 February 2005
USA

George Mason University and the US Center for Arts and Culture today announced their intention to affiliate. Under the affiliation, the Center would remain an independent think tank, with a wide range of projects based in cultural policy, and continue with its non-partisan research and sponsorship of the two web sites, www.culturalpolicy.org and www.culturalcommons.org. The Center’s office will be relocated to the Arlington campus of the North Virginia University. At the same time, the Center for Arts and Culture and the University jointly announced the appointment of Stefan Toepler as the new Center Director. Dr Toepfler is an executive editor of the Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society and a current Fellow in Museum Practice at the Smithsonian Institution. He served on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies before joining the George Mason University in 2002. GMU Provost Peter Stearns, making the announcement with the Center’s Board Chair, Frank Hodsoll, said, ‘The Center for Arts and Culture has an impressive track record. There are tremendous synergies in their research and policy work and the interests of this growing university. We look forward to a robust collaboration.’ Hodsoll, who has chaired the Center since 2001, and is a former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and a current member of the US National Commission for UNESCO said, ‘The Center has developed an extensive network of scholars, practitioners, and decision-makers throughout the country and abroad. We now look forward additionally to drawing on the great intellectual depth and vibrancy of this distinguished University.’ The addition of the Center to George Mason University will also give students a deeper understanding of cultural issues and policy management in the arts sector, and help foster national and international links with policy groups and organisations. The Center's newly appointed Director, Stefan Toepler, said: ‘Having closely followed the Center for Arts and Culture's many accomplishments over the past ten years, I'm excited to be joining the Center at this point in its history and to work with its distinguished board and Research Advisory Council. I very much look forward to maintaining and expanding the Center's far-reaching relationships with the cultural policy community, both in the US and abroad, while creating a focal point for students and the large number of outstanding cultural policy experts on George Mason's faculty.’ For more information about the affiliation, please Click Here

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