Aaron Dworkin is a man in a hurry.
Deans at the University of
Michigan are limited to a maximum of 10 years, explains the new dean of
the School of Music, Theatre and Dance.
“You get two five-year
terms, so I don’t believe I have the luxury of time,” says Dworkin, who
also was President Obama’s first appointment to the National Council on
the Arts. “I feel a real sense of urgency.”
Small surprise that he
hit the ground running. Consider what the 2005 MacArthur “genius grant”
winner checked off in just his first seven months:
The
45-year-old founder of Detroit’s famed Sphinx Organization created a new
Department of Chamber Music, launched EXCEL, a school-wide program to
burnish students’ entrepreneurial skills, established a new Director of
Inclusion to boost minority enrollment, and ramped up involvement with
the Ann Arbor Public Schools.
And in perhaps his most startling
initiative, Dworkin announced a new international chamber-music
competition, the M-Prize, that will be held on campus every May with a
cash prize of $100,000.
“In his first two weeks on the job,” says
an amused Professor Stephen Shipps, who heads the school’s Department of
Strings and taught Dworkin when he was an undergraduate and graduate
student, “Aaron raised money for this huge new chamber competition — the
most lucrative in the world.”
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