2010–14 Board Election
Election Results
The amendments to the By-Laws regarding appointed directors were approved.
CAA members elected four new members to serve on the Board of Directors from 2010 to 2014: Peter Barnet, Roger Crum, Jean M. K. Miller, and Sabina Ott.
Results of the election were announced on February 12, 2010, during the Annual Members’ Business Meeting at the 98th Annual Conference in Chicago. The new directors take office at the next board meeting in May 2010; their original candidate statements appear below.
New Board Members
Peter Barnet
Metropolitan Museum of Art
For nearly one hundred years CAA has played a central role in art and art history in the United States, bringing together artists, scholars, and critics in the worlds of academia and museums. As an art-museum curator for more than twenty-five years, first at the Detroit Institute of Arts and now as head of the Medieval Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I seek expanded collaboration among artists, teachers, and scholars in the study, presentation, and preservation of works of art. Creative installations of permanent collections and well-focused loan exhibitions can revitalize the study and appreciation of art. Related forums for new research are traditional exhibition catalogues organized in conjunction with new online resources. Having been a founding trustee of the Association of Art Museum Curators, I am convinced that I can contribute to CAA as it continues to engage the full range of its membership in advocating for the visual arts in this era of economic crisis.
Roger Crum
University of Dayton
CAA, though larger in its concerns than the interests of any one member, is fundamentally our organization. The strength of the association lies primarily in the diversity of its membership and catalytically in the many exchanges—in person, print, artistic production, and artistic advocacy—that we enjoy at different stages and with varied agenda in our careers. Above all, CAA is an organization concerned with nothing less than the art and artistic practitioners and professionals of the entire world, past, present, and future.
I seek election to the Board of Directors so that I might work with others, both on the board and across the membership, in contributing to the continued vitality, inclusiveness, and currency of our CAA. As someone who has greatly benefited from the career services, professional opportunities, and stimulating education about art afforded me through CAA, I ask for your support so that I might work on the board on your behalf. I would bring to this responsibility my longstanding engagement with the organization, including my dedicated service as a CAA career-development mentor for several years, my work as a former president of the Italian Art Society (a CAA affiliate), my present work at the University of Dayton in global and intercultural initiatives, and my abiding commitment to the importance of art and the contributions that myriad individuals and entities make to its production, preservation, study, and furtherance.
Jean M. K. Miller
University of North Texas
My involvement with CAA has included acting as the Professional Practices Committee’s task-force chair for revisions to the MFA Standards (2008) and the creation of the Standards and Guidelines for Academic Art Administrators (2009). In addition, I presented the MFA Standards revision process at the committee’s panel in Los Angeles in 2009. I was also a recent member of the Nominating Committee.
As a CAA representative at the Americans for the Arts’ “Arts = Jobs Summit,” part of the 2009 Arts Advocacy Day in Washington, DC, I advocated for increased funding for the National Endowments for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and encouraged participation by our elected leaders in the Senate Cultural Caucus. Over the years, I have participated in CAA mentoring activities, interviewed many prospective faculty members, and have been interviewed myself. In fact, my first job interview at CAA in 1990 resulted in an on-campus invitation and ultimately my first tenure-track position.
Priorities for CAA include these areas:
- Emerging Arts Professionals: CAA must continue to build programming and strengthen support mechanisms for our members as they navigate the evolving landscape of higher education and life as arts professionals
- Diversity: CAA has made great strides in diversifying its membership and should continue promoting full representation. Other priorities include expanding CAA’s vocabulary of interdisciplinary and collaborative processes; developing guidelines for best environmental practices; exploring relationships among the arts, communication, and media; and sustaining meaningful global partnerships
- Advocacy: It is important that CAA raise its profile in Washington, DC, and at the state levels. This challenging task requires vigilance and preparation to stay informed about current events related to the art and humanities; energetic political lobbying; and exploring relationships with potential allies. As we seek to honor CAA’s one-hundred-year history and begin planning strategically for its next one hundred years, advocacy must be a high priority
Sabina Ott
Columbia College Chicago
As the premier organization serving artists, art historians, and arts educators across the country, CAA has been invaluable to my practice as an artist, through grant and exhibition calls, job opportunities, and especially Art Journal and The Art Bulletin. I always recommend membership—I first joined in 1995—to my students as a way to connect with other artists and to develop an understanding of how the fields of art and education work.
Artists and educators face many challenges: the effects of economic conditions, generational shifts in learning and teaching methods, and new technological and communication tools—all subjects in the forums of public discourse that CAA provides, and should expand. As a board member I would use my extensive academic administrative and teaching experience and connections in the art world to move CAA in these directions:
- Increase CAA’s international presence by developing partnerships with the European League of Institutes of the Arts and other international organizations
- Work on CAA’s online presence by addressing our current website as well as utilizing social-networking venues. For example, I would like to work on web-based “kunsthalle” that would encourage art historians and curators to organize online exhibitions, thus highlighting the scholarship of art historians and the studio research of artists. Podcasts curated by art historians and artists are another possibility for expanding our reach and cultural presence
- Increase the visibility, services to, and participation of studio artists in CAA’s overall activities, regardless of academic affiliation
- Promote awareness of CAA and its services to college students by organizing informational lectures and presentations to academic art programs and developing an online component specifically for college students
CAA is a powerful organization representing enormous creative forces, with the potential to influence the role of the arts and art scholarship in our country and the world to an even greater extent than it already does. I would like to be part of this effort.
