2010 Graduate Programs Commencement

August 08, 2010 |

Ben Cameron, program director for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, will be the keynote speaker at Goucher College's graduate programs Commencement.

The ceremony will be held Sunday, August 8, at 3 p.m. in Kraushaar Auditorium and will honor the achievements of the graduates enrolled in programs through Goucher's Robert S. Welch Center for Graduate and Professional Studies.

In 2006, Cameron assumed his current position as program director for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, a nonprofit in New York City that issues grants to support the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research, and the prevention of child abuse. He supervises a $13.1 million grants program that focuses on organizations and artists in the theater, contemporary dance, jazz, and presenting fields.

Previously, he served as the executive director of Theatre Communications Group (TCG) in New York City, the national service organization for American nonprofit professional theaters.

Significant accomplishments during his tenure with TCG include increasing its membership base by more than 45 percent, convening the first national gathering since 1974 of the for-profit and not-for-profit theater sectors, opening a division dedicated to international exchange, launching a national pilot program for audience development (Free Night of Theatre), and increasing its annual grants-giving budget by more than 300 percent. 

Before coming to TCG, Cameron worked for the Dayton Hudson Foundation (the former corporate foundation of the now-named Target Corp.) in Minneapolis in 1993, serving as senior program officer; subsequently, he joined Target Stores corporate headquarters as manager of community relations, where he supervised a $51 million national giving program. 

His other prior professional experience includes work as director of the National Endowment for the Arts' Theater Program (1990-1992), as the associate artistic director of the Indiana Repertory Theater (1981-1984), as the literary manager of PlayMakers Repertory Company (1984-1986), and a variety of freelance directorial and dramaturgical assignments at such theaters as Yale Repertory Theater and Center Stage in Baltimore.

He has taught at the Yale School of Drama, Yale College, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Columbia University, and Virginia Tech; he now guest lectures at the Yale School of Drama.

Cameron graduated from the Yale School of Drama in 1981 with a master of fine arts degree in dramaturgy and was the first recipient of the Kenneth Tynan Prize. He is a grant recipient from the National Endowment for the Humanities for summer study and a former John Motley Morehead scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a bachelor of arts degree in 1975. 

He appeared as a panelist on the Metropolitan Opera's Chevron/Texaco Opera Quiz for 14 seasons, and he is a two-term member of the Tony Awards Nominating Committee and a member of the New York Theatre District Subcommittee, as appointed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. 

Cameron will receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters at Goucher's graduate programs Commencement.

Goucher's Master of Arts in Arts Administration, Master of Arts in Historic Preservation, and Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction are limited-residency programs. Designed for working adults, classes are offered primarily online with a required two-week, on-campus residency. Because of the flexibility the programs provide, students enroll from all parts of the country and often from other countries.

The Master of Education program offers specializations in athletic programs and leadership, education for at-risk students, middle school education, reading instruction, school mediation, school improvement leadership, and urban and diverse learners.

The Master of Arts in Teaching is a certification program designed to prepare graduates with no teaching background for careers in elementary, middle, or special education.

Goucher also recently launched two new limited-residency programs that are the only ones of their kind in the country.

The Master of Arts in Cultural Sustainability program brings together tools from anthropology, history, communications, business and management, linguistics, and activism, and teaches students how to sustain cultural traditions in an era of increasing homogeneity and globalization. 

The Master of Arts in Digital Arts (MADArts) allows students who are interested in music, digital culture, and media to create a marketable body of work in collaboration with well-known, working digital artists, and it teaches them about the business of digital art so they can finance, advertise, and manage their careers.