The Magazine of California Institute of the Arts | Spring 2016
———— LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES This issue of CalArts is devoted almost exclusively to a celebration of Steven Lavine’s 29-year presidency of the Institute. When Steven arrived in 1988, CalArts was a different place, struggling with persistent budget deficits, a shrinking endowment, and low morale among faculty and administration. Based on his résumé alone, Steven was not an obvious choice to take on such daunting challenges. But the Board of Trustees recognized something special in him and decided to take the chance. What a great decision that turns out to have been. With the ever-present help and support of his wife and partner Janet Sternburg, Steven has guided CalArts to its current position of unprecedented strength by every measure. On behalf of the Institute’s Board of Trustees, I thank Steven and Janet for their service, friendship, tireless commitment and deep devotion to CalArts. The Board has begun an international search for the Institute’s fourth president, who will assume leadership when Steven steps down in the spring of 2017. With input from faculty, staff, students, alumni, Overseers and Trustees, I’m confident that we will, together, select a new president who will build upon Steven’s legacy and lead CalArts into the future with prudence, daring, compassion, open-mindedness, levity, and a deep love of the arts and the diverse people who create them. Among the Board’s priorities in its mandate for the new president will be making CalArts affordable for every qualified applicant, building upon our commitment to diversity and extending it to every level of the organization, pioneering curricular innovations, providing graduates with all the tools they need to succeed as “citizen artists” in the wider world, and becoming a more outward-looking and engaged part of our local community in the Los Angeles area, as well as nationally and internationally. With Steven’s departure, a remarkable era in CalArts’ history comes to a close. But the spirit, character and mission of this unique community carry on— a community driven by its passion for the new in all art forms and creative disciplines, eager and prepared to extend CalArts’ and President Lavine’s extraordinary legacy of achievement. Wishing you a wonderful summer, Tim Disney Chairman, CalArts Board of Trustees
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFFICERS Tim Disney, Chair Thomas L. Lee, Vice Chair James B. Lovelace, Vice Chair TRUSTEES Joan Abrahamson Alan Bergman David A. Bossert Louise Bryson Don Cheadle Olga Cosme, Student Trustee Jonathan Dolgen Melissa Draper David I. Fisher Rodrigo Garcia Harriett F. Gold Richard J. Grad Karen Hillenburg Laurie Jacobs, Staff Trustee Charmaine Jefferson Marta Kauffman Jamie Kellner Jill Kraus Steven D. Lavine, Ex-Officio Thomas Lloyd Michelle Lund Jamie Alter Lynton Leslie McMorrow Greg McWilliams Thomas Newman Michael Nock Tina Perry Janet Dreisen Rappaport David Roitstein, Faculty Trustee Tom Rothman Araceli Ruano David L. Schiff Joni Binder Shwarts Susan Steinhauser Roger Wacker Luanne C. Wells TRUSTEE EMERITI Austin M. Beutner V. Shannon Clyne Joseph M. Cohen Robert J. Denison Robert B. Egelston Douglas K. Freeman Jeffrey Katzenberg William S. Lund Peter Norton C. Roderick O’Neil Michael Pressman Joseph Smith