Wednesday (1/11) on North Texas news site KERA, Jerome Weeks reports, “The past two years, so many arts groups in North Texas have had to find new directors, managing directors and CEOs that people have wondered if there was something wrong—with the Arts District? With Dallas in general?” Weeks cites what he terms “a revolving door” in leadership at multiple arts groups in Texas including museums, theater groups, choral ensembles, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Measuring success can be a difficult sticking point, says Weeks: “Commercial success is easy enough to measure for a typical CEO … Yet arts groups are non-profits—like schools, hospitals and churches—precisely because they are tasked with doing the unprofitable, the worthwhile-but-not-easily-measured: inspiring people, enlightening them, breaking their hearts, beguiling them. Which means any arts administrator’s effectiveness in keeping the place afloat financially may mean relatively little to the larger goal of bettering a community.”
Posted January 13, 2012
