In Saturday’s (1/21) InForum (Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota), John Lamb writes, “When Tania Blanich was named director of the Rourke Art Gallery Museum in December, it brought one fact into focus—in the local arts scene, women run the show. Directors of the Plains Art Museum, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony, Fargo Theatre, Trollwood Performing Arts School, Bluestem Center for the Arts, Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County are all women. Add in smaller, but vital organizations like the Spirit Room and Theatre B and the advocacy group, the Arts Partnership, and the local voice for community’s culture is overwhelmingly female. … ‘Nonprofits are lean, feisty organizations,’ Linda Boyd Coates, executive director of the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra. ‘You have to be frugal, creative and hard-working to be successful and that figures into women’s leadership styles. They’re good at that.’ Coates is part of the rule in the world of symphonies and orchestras. According to the League of American Orchestras, of which the FM Symphony is a member, a survey sampling of 315 adult and youth orchestras, shows 161 female executive directors to 131 male executive directors in the 2010-’11 season. Overall job numbers lean to the male side in the museum world, according to an American Association of Museums study released in November.”
Posted January 23, 2012
