The Arts Extension Service (AES) is a program of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, located at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Founded in 1973 as part of the Outreach Division to share the resources of the University with the arts community, AES continues this tradition by providing students, artists, arts managers, and other professionals with best practices, the latest research, publications, courses, training programs, an internship program, and much more.
Rooted in community arts, the staff and instructors are a team of leaders in the Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurial fields bringing more than 50 years of experience to our art, humanities, arts management, professional adult, and traditional age students.
AES Instructors and Associates teach courses, workshops, and trainings, are authors and editors of our publications, and are partners in conducting research. They add skills, capacity, geographic balance and racial diversity to the AES staff. Associates also serve as advisors to AES staff in program planning and evaluation and development.
The AES staff size and nature varies according to our programming and funding levels. AES staff are part of a larger College of Humanities and Fine Arts team and AES’s financial systems, personnel, and information technology are managed by Dean's Office staff. AES has a formal system of AES Associates.
Our nonprofit board, the Arts Extension Institute, is guided by former AES Directors, staff, and others who work to bring the news from the field to AES to support our research and awareness of current trends.
Above all, AES scans the horizons for what is coming and prepares the materials and trainings that will best support the field’s needs. In our 50 years, that has included creating the first ever book how to create a Public Art program, offering the first arts management courses for the field in topics such as Cultural Equity in the Arts and Greening Your Arts Nonprofit Organization, and we continue to make coursework relevant by working closely with Case Study Organizations, ensuring that final projects become immediately implementable work plans.
AES SERVES THE ARTS COMMUNITY BY:
- Teaching award-winning courses for students, arts managers and artists, from the field’s most essential fundamentals to cutting edge classes.
- Providing the nation’s only online Arts Management bachelor’s degree completed through the University Without Walls Department of Interdisciplinary Studies.
- Offering certificates in Arts Management, both online and on campus. On campus AES offers the Undergraduate Arts Management Certificate. Online we offer the Core, Professional and Leadership Certificates.
- Addressing the climate crisis via innovative trainings and partnerships through the Culture for Climate Action (C4CA) pilot and programming.
- Conducting research and consulting for clients across the country and internationally.
- Writing publications, including our Fundamentals of Arts Management 6th edition. (LINK)
- Running the Arts Entrepreneurship Initiative which serves students, area artists and others by:
- Connecting students with internship opportunities offered by local, regional and national internship providers, including in person and virtual opportunities. AES supports local artists and nonprofits to ensure that their internships are not only exciting to students, but compliant with federal and state regulations.
- Posting career opportunities for emerging arts entrepreneurs and program alumni.
- Presenting trainings and workshops for arts managers and artists and for public and private clients, including State and Local Arts Agencies, Community Foundations, Museums and Cultural Affairs offices, locally, nationally, and internationally. Trainings include: Artist-in-Business, Public Art, and more!
- Partnering with the Creative Economy Network, Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, the Arts Extension Institute, and others to create and support the ArtsHub serving the four counties of Western Massachusetts.
- Proudly operating the National Arts Policy Archive and Library which documents the evolving community arts field and hosts materials from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, The Association of American Cultures, private collections, and more!
What is arts management? We get asked all the time! At its most basic, Arts Management involves all the behind-the-scenes work to bring art and audiences together by ensuring that arts programs move from concept to completed project, are funded, marketed, experienced by the region’s community members, and support the artists/performers/work. The Arts Extension Service’s focus is on small to mid-sized organizations and how we can help them best serve their communities.
The Arts Extension Service (AES) was founded by former State Senator Stan Rosenberg as a program of Continuing & Professional Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Modeled after Robert Gard's Office of Community Arts Development at the University of Wisconsin, AES was originally created to extend the cultural and educational resources of the University to stimulate cultural activity across Massachusetts.
Rosenberg was inspired by Robert Gard’s work in Wisconsin. Gard's Wisconsin Idea Theater was heir to the Lyceum and Chautauqua movements and a turn-of-the-century progressive reform movement in which state government and the university worked closely together to extend the opportunity for learning throughout the state. Like Gard, Rosenberg sought to build stronger communities by stimulating the organization of community arts councils. In its early years, AES laid the ground work that would result in the creation of local cultural councils in every community in Massachusetts.
AES still works in this university outreach, community development tradition. Originally serving the communities of western Massachusetts, AES teaching, consulting, and publications now reach a nation-wide audience.
Educational programming has long been a central function. Through workshops, courses, conferences and consulting, AES has taught artists, community and state arts leaders how to manage the arts. Publications that were originally developed to enhance the educational value of workshops have subsequently grown so that AES is now a publisher with ten titles currently in print. Publications range from our most well-known, Fundamentals of Arts Management, to the classic, Community Cultural Planning Handbook: A Guide for Community Leaders.
There is a closely related, though independent, not-for-profit organization, Arts Extension Institute (AEI) that serves as the fiscal sponsor for the community arts and other development work of AES. AEI is governed by an independent board, which advises AES staff.
AES is partially sustained by the College of Humanities and Fine Arts and revenues earned from online teaching, consulting, publication sales, and grants.
AES Directors:
- 1973 – 1975: Founding Director: Senator Stanley Rosenberg;
- 1975 – 1976: Ric Kataoka;
- 1976 – 1985: Robert L. Lynch;
- 1986 – 1990: Barbara Schaffer-Bacon;
- 1990 – 2002: Craig Dreeszen, Ph.D.;
- 2002 – 2004: Shirley K. Sneve;
- 2005 – 2011: Maren Brown, M.B.A.;
2011-present: Dee Boyle-Clapp, M.F.A., M.N.M.
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