Smey named executive director of Arts Initiative

Melissa Smey, the director of Miller Theatre, has been appointed executive director of the Columbia University Arts Initiative, a position that had been vacant since October.

According to an email from University President Lee Bollinger, Smey will now serve as executive director of both organizations under the School of the Arts. Smey said she anticipates the emergence of a dynamic relationship between the two groups.

“In the short term, my goals are to develop programming that is more responsive to what students want and to leverage Miller Theatre's position as a major professional presenter in New York to create even more opportunities for students to engage with organizations throughout the city,” Smey said.

Bollinger established the Arts Initiative in 2004 to offer a range of programs, aimed at students and alumni, that provide affordable access to arts events around the city. CUArts, as it is also known, has faced a number of challenges in the last couple of years as the University has attempted to streamline and scale back budgets.

Over the last two years the popular program’s budget has been cut by forty percent.

Tony-Award winning director Gregory Mosher had served as the founding director of the Arts Initiative until October, when he stepped down to return to his work on Broadway.

Smey said that formalizing the relationship between the Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre will enable the development of more large-scale programs, like Miller Theatre’s March benefit for Japan earthquake victims, which featured Yoko Ono.

But this isn’t the first big change for CUArts.

In 2009 the Arts Initiative was moved from the Office of the President into the School of the Arts. At the time some students questioned the decision, arguing that CUArts is a University-wide program and shouldn’t fall under the jurisdiction of one graduate school.

“We feel as though the School of the Arts may not necessarily be the proper home for the Columbia University Arts Initiative,” Aries Dela Cruz, GS ’09 and the founder of the group Advocates of the Arts Initiative, said in 2009. “…Now it’s sort of incarcerated, cast down in the graduate school that in previous years seems like it hasn’t done any sort of undergraduate outreach.”

Smey said that this year reaching out to undergraduates will be a top priority. She said she hopes to solicit student feedback by engaging focus groups and shaping a program around student interests.

Dela Cruz told Spectator that he is optimistic about Smey’s appointment and believes she has done well as executive director of Miller Theatre.

“We hope she brings that same spirit of innovation and cultivates donors. The Arts Initiative needs a good fundraiser,” Dela Cruz said. “Its best days are ahead of it. My dream is to see it be a leader amongst peer institutions in being an arts program that touches each person’s life. Art has such a profound capacity to transform people socially and emotionally, and I think President Bollinger understands this.”