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New Engagement: The Office for the Arts at Harvard to Complete Strategic Plan in Partnership with WolfBrown

Cambridge, MA – In partnership with WolfBrown, the Office for the Arts at Harvard (OFA) will complete a strategic plan, charting a compelling vision and dynamic programs for the upcoming decade. The work will be grounded in issues and opportunities related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). It will build upon ongoing work at the OFA.

“We are excited to embark on this planning process with WolfBrown,” said Jack Megan, Director of OFA. “Students at Harvard College are passionate about engaging in art making of all sorts. Nearly half are actively involved in one or more artistic disciplines. This type of creative engagement has the capacity to change their lives and, by extension, the world they will enter after Harvard. We look forward to envisioning the future with our students in collaboration with WolfBrown.”

“This is a unique occasion to collaborate with a major institution in exploring the ways in which the arts can be central to the undergraduate experience,” added Drs. Thomas Wolf and Dennie Palmer Wolf of WolfBrown.

The development of the strategic plan will heavily rely upon student participation in the development and implementation of the methodology, including focus groups and interviews. The strategic plan will also draw upon and ground its work in learnings from the in-process DEIB work at the OFA.

Stanford Thompson and Jane Culbert will also be part of the WolfBrown team. In addition to the OFA’s students, Harvard faculty, administrators, recent alumni, artists-in-residence, and non-OFA personnel interested in the arts will serve in various advisory capacities, ensuring that a variety of stakeholders and perspectives inform the OFA’s next chapter.

About the Office for the Arts at Harvard: The Office for the Arts at Harvard supports student engagement in the arts and integrates the arts into University life. Through its programs and services, the OFA teaches and mentors, fosters student artmaking, connects students to accomplished artists, commissions new work and partners with local, national, and international constituencies. By supporting the development of students as artists and cultural stewards, the OFA works to enrich society and shape communities in which the arts are a vital part of life.

At its essence, the OFA champions artists—whether they are beginning or experienced. Artistic practices from far-ranging voices are integrated into the teaching of co-curricular courses, as well as in the artistic direction of our ensembles, exhibitions, and guest artist programs. The OFA creates connections among practice, theory, history, and lived experience. It also strives for state-of-the-art practices in the management of the many Harvard arts venues.

OFA programs and initiatives enable students to explore an art form in-depth and to work directly with professional artists in a wide range of courses, workshops, classes, residencies, apprenticeships, as well as in the creation of new works.

Learn more on OFA’s website

About WolfBrown: WolfBrown helps funders, nonprofit institutions, and public agencies understand their potential, set priorities, and fulfill their promise. At the heart of WolfBrown’s work is the belief that every human being has a unique creative voice of intrinsic worth and that every community has a responsibility to awaken, nurture, and sustain its cultural capital.

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