Efforts to Diversify Boards Are Meeting With Limited Success

Last summer, the California Arts Council slashed South Coast Repertory’s organizational grant by almost 25% from the previous year, largely because it thought the troupe lacked a sufficient number of nonwhite board members. Over the course of one year, however, SCR doubled its number of minority trustees, bringing the total to six out of 44, and boosted its 1990 outreach rank from 3 to minus-4.

While ethnicity is an important criterion for leadership, it is not something that SCR seeks to the exclusion of other critical qualifications, producing artistic director David Emmes said this week.

“Our aim is and has been to bring on really terrific trustees” regardless of color, Emmes said.

According to figures supplied by the CAC, other major Orange County arts groups fared less well in diversifying their boards this year, despite repeated admonitions from the council and public statements later made by the groups that they would try to improve.

Pacific Symphony executive director Louis G. Spisto said two additional nonwhite board members have been recruited since the orchestra submitted its CAC application several months ago, but ranking panels use only information available to them at the time they meet.

Newport Harbor Art Museum reported three members of ethnic minorities on its board, compared to five at the time of last year’s application. But board President Thomas H. Nielsen said Thursday that last year’s figure included some prospective trustees who had been “fully expected” to join but ultimately did not come aboard. The fact that they have still not added more minority members “reflects the difficulty of finding qualified trustees,” he said.

Officials at Opera Pacific were not immediately available for comment.

Orange County groups, however, don’t differ markedly from other large groups statewide in terms of increasing the presence of ethnic minorities on their boards.

Here is a list of several Southern California arts groups and the ethnic makeup of their boards:

-- South Coast Repertory: 1989: 3 minorities, 45 whites. 1990: 6 minorities, 38 whites.

-- Opera Pacific: 1989: 2 minorities, 40 whites. 1990: 2 minorities, 40 whites.

-- Pacific Symphony: 1989: 2 minorities, 40 whites. 1990: 2 minorities, 40 whites.

-- Newport Harbor Art Museum: 1989: 5 minorities, 28 whites. 1990: 3 minorities, 28 whites.

-- Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles: 1989: 4 minorities, 30 whites. 1990: 5 minorities, 30 whites.

-- Los Angeles Music Center Opera: 1989: 2 minorities, 42 whites. 1990: 2 minorities, 48 whites.

-- Los Angeles Philharmonic: 1989: 1 minority, 34 whites. 1990: 5 minorities, 36 whites.

-- San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art (formerly the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art): 1989: 2 minorities, 26 whites. 1990: 1 minority, 24 whites.