Annual Jandon Business of the Arts Distinguished Lecture at Purchase College

The School of the Arts at Purchase College, SUNY, is pleased to announce that Ruby Lerner, founding director of Creative Capital, will be presenting this year’s Jandon Business of the Arts Distinguished Lecture. The event is free, and will take place on Monday, April 4 at 6:30 pm. in The Recital Hall of the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College.

Lerner will speak on “Radical Creativity: Why it Matters, What it Takes,” as it relates to the arts landscape and to her work at Creative Capital, an innovative arts foundation that adapts venture capital concepts to support individual artists. Under her leadership, Creative Capital has committed $30 million in financial and advisory support to 419 projects representing 529 artists.

Ravi S. Rajan, Dean of the School of the Arts, said, “Our undergraduate degree in Arts Management is among the largest programs at the college, and we are just completing our inaugural year offering the country's first graduate degree focused on Entrepreneurship in the Arts. Led by a faculty of arts industry leaders, our MA program is a unique incubator for launching and fostering arts-related services and companies in a supportive and collaborative environment. We are proud to have a tried-and-true art innovator like Ms. Lerner as this year's annual Jandon Business of the Arts lecturer.”

Established in 2012 through a generous gift from the Cecil family to mark the occasion of Donald Cecil’s 85th birthday, the Jandon Business of the Arts Distinguished Lecture supports the Arts Management program at Purchase College. This endowed lecture reflects Don’s lifelong commitment to excellence in education, leadership in business, and passion for the arts. It is presented annually along with the Jandon Business of the Arts Student Achievement Award, which is given to a student in the Arts Management B.A. program.

About Ruby Lerner

Prior to joining Creative Capital, Ruby Lerner served as the executive director of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF) and as publisher of the highly regarded Independent Film and Video Monthly. Having worked regionally in both the performing arts and independent media fields, she served as the executive director of Alternate ROOTS, a coalition of Southeastern performing artists, and IMAGE Film/Video Center, both based in Atlanta. In the late 1970s, she was the audience development director at the Manhattan Theatre Club, one of New York's foremost nonprofit theaters.

In her nearly 40 years in the arts, Ms. Lerner has written and lectured extensively, including at Harvard Business School (in conjunction with a Harvard Business School case study on Creative Capital) and for the University of North Carolina’s Entrepreneurship Program. She regularly presents on arts issues at conferences and summits, including the Grantmakers for the Arts conference, the National Innovation Summit for Arts & Culture, IdeaFestival in Louisville and the Independent Sector National Conference.

About Arts Management & Entrepreneurship at Purchase College

Arts Management & Entrepreneurship is a fairly new and very successful academic venture at Purchase College. Offering both undergraduate and graduate degrees, the BA program's curriculum emphasizes critical inquiry, creative thinking, and the core skills to produce, promote, and support the arts and entertainment industry. The new MA in Entrepreneurship in the Arts is focused on entity creation in the creative sector – trying to cultivate innovative and radical thinking about how to sustain the arts into the future.

About the School of the Arts

The School of the Arts at Purchase College provides the highest level of education and professional training in both established and emerging fields in the arts. The School prepares students for careers by emphasizing technique, history, inquiry, and innovation: thereby engaging the next generation of cultural producers and managers with a dialogue about the future. Purchase alumni work to instill broad public value for the arts through the creation and investigation of culture in New York City and beyond: they can be found working in major and emerging organizations around the world.

About Purchase College–SUNY

Purchase College, part of the State University of New York (SUNY) network of 64 universities and colleges, was founded in 1967 by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. His aspiration for Purchase was to create a dynamic campus that combined conservatory training in the visual and performing arts with programs in the liberal arts and sciences, in order to inspire an appreciation for both intellectual and artistic talents in all students. Today, Purchase College–SUNY is a community of students, faculty, and friends where open-minded engagement with the creative process leads to a lifetime of intellectual growth and professional opportunity. For more information about the College, visit www.purchase.edu