Celebrating 50 Years of Arts Administration at NYU

Take a glimpse of the history of the Arts Administration Programs at NYU Steinhardt from the words of the founding and former directors.

from Brann Wry, former director of the Performing Arts Administration M.A. Program

In 1971 NYU became the fourth university in the United States to establish an arts administration program. This was the beginning of a period of growing recognition that the arts were worthy of research into management to make them a more viable force in the welfare of the United States of America.

Many schools followed in the 1970s with their own programs. These programs were interdisciplinary and usually involved specialized courses and business skills courses for students to study in order to support the arts.

NYU’s Steinhardt School appointed Brann J. Wry the first director of its arts administration program, and what followed was the development of Performing Arts, Visual Arts, and Music Business M.A. Programs to serve the arts worldwide.

It has been a proud and happy history due to the faculties and alumni who have served the field for fifty years.

Brann J. Wry
Founding Director, Arts Administration Programs
The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development
New York University

from Carlo Lamagna, former director of the Visual Arts Administration M.A. Program:

The history of academic programs is often complex, as they develop over time, especially when they are created to help shape a newly
identified and growing discipline. NYU entered the field of arts administration in fall of 1971 under the leadership of Dr. Jerrold Ross, then Chair of the Music Department. Dr. Ross collaborated with Dr. John Czepiel of the Graduate School of Business (GBA, later the Stern School of Business) to structure a 36-point program. The program attracted students from both the Music Department and the then Arts Education Department, and was even its own department for about three years. Brann Wry was appointed the first full time director in 1976, and he wrote the courses that made the program “arts administration” in the broader 54-point format, with the points almost evenly divided between Steinhardt and GBA. At that time Prof. Wry added the Culminating Seminar, which became the course within which arts administration students wrote their masters’ papers.

By 1978, the Department of Music and Music Education and the Arts Education Department decided that the field had developed to the point that there should be a stand-alone Visual Arts Administration program to be created and established in the art department, now the Department of Art and Art Professions. The Visual Arts Administration M.A. Program was designed to accommodate students coming from and going into art museums and other art non-profit related fields. The joint program had grown quickly, but now the separate programs came into their own, reflecting the increasing growth and acceptance of arts administration as a recognized field.

Carlo Lamagna became the director of the Visual Arts Administration program in January 1991 (until 1998), and began to update the curriculum, a continuing process in both programs to keep pace with ever changing issues and concerns in the field. The Department of Art and Art Professions also had a separate for-profit program, begun in 1990, which Prof. Lamagna incorporated with the non-profit program, establishing the two-track curriculum that exists today. While serving in other departmental administrative positions, Prof. Lamagna continued to develop new courses and taught in the program for 25 years.

In the Music and Performing Arts Department, a third for-profit Music Business Program began as a separate undergraduate program, and later developed an M.A. program as well.

Both Prof. Wry and Prof. Lamagna collaborated on a joint study abroad program, eventually titled “Issues and Practices in Arts Administration: The European Context,” which they conducted from 1993 to 2016. There are many more twists and turns in this simplified origins story, which have spun out over fifty years, with many more to come.

Carlo Lamagna
Adjunct professor and part-time faculty for Global Programs,
former director, Visual Arts Administration M.A. Program,
former chair, Department of Art and Art Professions,
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development
New York University

October 2021