Allison Gilliard is currently the Special Programs and Outreach Coordinator at Portrait Society of America, a nonprofit in Tallahassee, FL, aiming to “foster and enhance an understanding of the practice, techniques and applications of traditional fine art portraiture and figurative works.” As Outreach Coordinator, Allison is primarily responsible for cultivating relationships with artists and sponsors (nationally and internationally) and connecting them to educational resources.

The Arts Extension Service is excited to celebrate five years of its Arts Entrepreneurship Initiative devoted to supporting the careers of working artists and providing students with opportunity locally, regionally, and nationally. The development of new programs happens for a myriad of reasons. Sometimes it is inspiration that propels a new service offering into being. Just such a conversation between two people from different creative disciplines gave rise to the Arts Entrepreneurship Initiative.

Connecticut’s Mystic Seaport Museum is the nation’s leading maritime museum, garnering an average of 284,000 visitors annually and inspiring “an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.” The Museum’s grounds cover 19 acres on the Mystic River in Mystic, CT and include a recreated New England coastal village, a working shipyard, formal exhibit halls, and state-of-the-art artifact storage facilities.

The School of Public Policy (SPP) and the Arts Extension Service are offering a new concentration in nonprofit and arts management for students in SPP’s Master of Public Policy and Master of Public Policy and Administration programs. This is an exciting inter-college collaboration between the College of Humanities and Fine Arts and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UMass, which reflects the increasing overlap between the realms of public policy, nonprofit management, and arts and culture.

When we talk to students and professionals about the Certificate in Arts Management available to them through the Arts Extension Service here at UMass Amherst, we tell them it is a “value add” to their degree or their career. Joining our program from arts backgrounds such as Theatre, Dance, and Music; humanities disciplines like English, Art History, and Film Studies; or adjacent programs such as Public Policy and BDIC (Bachelor’s Degree with Individual Concentration) – we encourage our students to consider how a Certificate in Arts Management can support their future endeavors and enhance the toolkit they are carrying out from their college experience.

The Arts Extension Service held the first Women in Arts Leadership Symposium (WALS) on October 27th, 2018. Nearly one hundred arts professionals, five college students, and nationally recognized speakers gathered to crack open the conversation about what women recognize as the barriers to their leadership in the arts, and how these barriers can be mitigated and broken down. The tone of the day was one of building community and mutual effort to uplift each other, while at the same time acknowledging that women’s experiences vary and the systemic oppression of women and non-binary people of color must be tackled in concert with gender equity.