Katie Couric, Ron Howard & More to Lecture for Pace University's New Arts & Entertainment Management Program

Pace University's Lubin School of Business has launched a new Arts and Entertainment Management (AEM) concentration that addresses the growing interest of business students in the management side of industries within the broad range of the arts/entertainment field. Management majors concentrating in Arts and Entertainment Management earn a Bachelor of Business Administration Degree that prepares them for careers in theater companies, museums, dance companies, art galleries, talent representation and management companies, and television production firms, as well as in related support services.

Pace is home to Bravo TV's long-running Inside The Actors Studio, a 15-time Emmy nominated series that is broadcast to 89 million homes in 125 countries. Pace also has deep ties to the financial and entertainment communities of New York City, a global hub of both industries.

"Upon my arrival at Pace in July 2010, I was intrigued to learn that the fastest growing department in the university was Performing Arts, which today boasts more than 600 declared majors from all over the country. That gives our business school a unique opportunity to build a program to prepare students for management roles in the arts and entertainment industry," said Neil Braun, Dean of the Lubin School of Business and a former President of the NBC Television Network and CEO of Viacom Entertainment.

"With Pace already a destination for students in the performing arts, we intend to also make it a destination for students who want to build careers in the organizations and companies that are built upon the arts," Braun added.

The Arts and Entertainment Management program will be under the direction of Theresa K. Lant, Ph.D. Dr. Lant, who joined Pace in 2009, received her Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University, and her A.B. in Speech Communication and Theater from the University of Michigan.

While a faculty member at New York University's Stern School of Business, she helped develop multidisciplinary courses in entertainment and media business for their MBA and Executive MBA programs. Lant also co-edited of The Business of Culture, an innovative 2005 book that analyzes culture as a business, rather than a series of artistic pursuits. Her current research explores the interdisciplinary collaboration between science and education, which provides a solid grounding for her new role.

"Learning about management in arts and entertainment prepares students for the challenges of a dynamic, interdisciplinary, and multicultural world in which the boundaries between industries and societies are blurring," said Lant, who is also co-president of the Board of Directors of Little Village Playhouse, a nonprofit educational theater program in Pleasantville, NY. "Bringing together business and performing arts students in the same classroom prepares students for building relationships across boundaries."

Faculty members in the Arts and Entertainment Management program have experience managing theater and dance companies, performing arts theaters and arts foundations and will be joined by outstanding producers and managers from across the spectrum of arts and entertainment. Pace's relationships within New York City's entertainment community have resulted in Lubin student internships at NBC, CBS, ABC, HBO, MTV Networks, Metropolitan Opera, Sony Music, Roundabout Theater Company, and Sirius XM radio, just to name a few.

Through Pace's longstanding association with the arts community, industry icons will make guest appearances as lecturers in the program. These guest lecturers will give students of the new concentration an opportunity to hear first-hand about their successful and varied careers in managing arts and entertainment. Among those who have committed to lecture are:

Katie Couric
Katie Couric is an award-winning journalist, a well-known advocate for cancer research and awareness, and a New York Times best-selling author of The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons from Extraordinary Lives. Couric recently began hosting her own syndicated daytime talk show, Katie. Since 2011, she's been a special correspondent for ABC News, contributing to ABC World News, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America, and This Week. Couric gained fame for her unprecedented 15-year run as co-anchor of NBC's Today show. She left in 2006 for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, becoming the first solo female nightly news anchor and the newscast's managing editor. During her four-year run, the Evening News won two prestigious Edward R. Murrow Awards for Best Newscast.

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