USC PILOT PROGRAM : FIRST CLASS: 25 NEW ARTS MANAGERS

Graduation day for the management class at USC Orange County Center had the usual back-patting ceremonies and the onward-and-upward pep talk.

But this class of ‘85, gathered Saturday at the USC College of Continuing Education facility in Irvine, had the distinction of being the first graduated from USC Orange County Center’s certificate program in Business Management for the Arts, the first program of its kind to be offered in Orange County.

The 25 graduates were told that the arts management field, although still relatively new and small, is a growing one, thanks to the increasing number of arts complexes and organizations being started or expanded nationwide.

One message the class members had heard continually during the semester was repeated by speakers on a graduation-day panel: “If you’re in (the field) for the money, you should know that the arts are still well behind the commercial sector in pay for jobs of comparable responsibilities,” said George Richter, an arts management consultant.

Panelists also pointed out some of the compensations, however.

“Call it the pyschic income, a kind of mental and creative fringe benefit that comes from just being in the arts, and doing something that you love doing. That is its own reward,” said Anne Kimbell Relph, executive director of the USC Orange County Center.

Most of the 25 graduates were more than familiar with the fiscal aspects of arts organizations. About a fourth of them already hold management jobs in the arts--with the Bowers Museum Foundation, Garden Grove Assn. for the Arts, Opera Pacific and Orange County Master Chorale. Other class members either have volunteer ties with arts groups or are seeking to open or expand galleries, arts-marketing firms or other businesses in the field.

And, despite the pessimistic outlook on salary scales, Relph said the USC Orange County Center had no problem in filling the course, begun last November at the facility, in a corporate complex near the John Wayne Airport.

Such a course is considered a natural in Orange County, according to program chair Victoria Kogan Murphy.

“This is an area of such great and accelerating growth in all the arts. It’s one of the most ideal places for such a course,” added Murphy, who is co-owner of the TLK Gallery, in Costa Mesa. Until now, USC and other institutions have offered only a few, single-course arts-management programs in the county (USC offers a full program in museum management at its main campus in Los Angeles).

Relph and Murphy said the present certificate course was designed by a group of arts administrators, including Len Bedsow, executive director of the Orange County Performing Arts Center. In nine Saturday sessions, the course covered topics such as budgeting, audience development, fund-raising and to how to work with boards of directors and volunteer groups.

Instructors were well-known professionals in arts administration and entrepreneurship, including Stephen Albert, manager of the Mark Taper Forum, and Arline Chambers, general manager of the Orange County Performing Arts Center and former head of UCLA’s graduate program in arts management. Members of the advisory board represent other organizations, such as the Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Laguna Moulton Playhouse, Orange County Arts Alliance, Orange County Pacific Symphony, South Coast Repertory and UC Irvine.

Each class member was required to pursue a development or research project. Pat Hammon, administrative director of the Bowers Museum Foundation, Santa Ana, has been analyzing museum membership. Michael Lawler, development director for Opera Pacific (and also an attorney), is preparing a five-year master plan for the Costa Mesa-based opera.

John Swartzel, business manager of Garden Grove’s Village Green Arts Complex (Gem Theatre, Grove Amphitheatre and Mills House galleries), is completing an audience survey for the theaters. Gerry Wakeland, general manager of the Orange County Master Chorale, is organizing a subscription-membership campaign for the chorale.

Dan Maruna, formerly an executive in dental-care marketing, real estate and other fields, is now vice president of an artists’ marketing company in Prescott, Ariz. His project was to plan marketing strategies for his new field. (He commuted by plane from Arizona to attend classes.)

“The program has given us all a great deal more insights in the workings of the field, and it’s been especially rewarding in working directly with top professionals,” said Wakeland. “You can’t beat that kind of exposure.”

Speakers on the graduation-day panel included Virginia Donohugh, assistant director of the Orange County Business Committee for the Arts, arts consultant Mona Hobson and gallery owner Betty Turnbull. They cited a significant growth of job potential in the arts. Employment possibilities, they said, now range from jobs with small arts organizations to highly prestigious positions, such as running a corporation’s grants program and other support projects. But they said salaries in the arts still are generally 30% to 40% lower than the pay for “comparable jobs” in business. As an example, Kevin Consey, director of the Newport Harbor Art Museum, said a recent survey of American art museums found that museum directors’ salaries averaged about $55,000 a year, and chief curators tend to earn about $32,000 annually.