LACMA’s Rich to teach course

Andrea Rich, who was a professor and administrator at UCLA for 34 years before taking charge of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is returning to the classroom. Officially ending her 10-year tenure at LACMA in early November, she will teach “Theory and Practice of Arts Management” at Claremont Graduate University during the spring semester.

The course is part of a master of arts degree program in arts and cultural management, launched last fall to provide “professional alternatives to academia,” said Patricia Easton, dean of the Centers for the Arts and Humanities at CGU.

Rich’s leadership as president and director of LACMA has been a source of controversy because of her lack of formal art training. But Easton said that makes her ideally qualified to work with graduate students grappling with “the issue of whether or not only PhDs in art history should be running arts institutions.”

Rich has agreed to teach the course one time only.

-- Suzanne Muchnic