College of Charleston: School of the Arts: Valerie B. Morris, Dean

Valerie B. Morris is the Dean of the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts. She has held that position since the fall of 1998. As the Dean, she is the chief administrative officer of one of the College’s five academic divisions. Dean Morris oversees Departments of Art History, Music, Studio Art, and Theatre and programs in Arts Management and Historic Preservation and Community Planning. Dean Morris is responsible for the production of approximately 200 events per year, and she provides leadership in cultural education, programming and scholarship.

Prior to joining the College of Charleston, Dean Morris was the Chair of the Department of Performing Arts at American University in Washington, D.C., where she was the founding director of that institution’s Arts Management Program. Other positions Dean Morris has held include Administrative Director of the Academy for the Performing Arts at American University, Associate Manager of the Jorgenson Auditorium at the University of Connecticut, and Promotions Director at Princeton University’s McCarter Theatre.

Dean Morris received her M.A. in Speech (Theatre Administration emphasis) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and her B.A. in Speech Arts from American University. Her publications include The Future of the Arts: Public Policy and Arts Research, edited with David B. Pankratz, a new volume entitled The Arts in a New Millennium: Research and the Arts Sector, also edited with Pankratz, and numerous articles in professional journals. Dean Morris has been the Executive Editor of the Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society from 1982 - 1988 and 1990 to the present.

As an organizer, session chair, panelist, or presenter, Dean Morris has participated in national and international conferences related to the arts and arts management. Of particular note, she has served as a panelist for a session entitled "Are Lotteries the Solution to the Funding Challenges which Face Art Organizations in Britain and America?" for the third International Conference on Arts Management in London, England, July 3-5, 1995. In the same year she was a presenter for the Seminario de Perfeccionamiento in Marketing y Recaudacion de Dondos in Santiago, Chile, in August. More recently, Dean Morris was a presenter at the Theatrical Management International Conference in Kiev, Ukraine, in April 1999. She returned to that country in the summer of 2002 as a Cultural Specialist.

Dean Morris has served as an American Cultural Specialist for the USIA Arts American Program in Santiago, Chile; Kiev, Ukraine; and Montevideo, Uruguay. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the South Carolina Alliance for Arts Education. Dean Morris also serves as a member of the Steering Committee for South Carolina’s Arts in Basic Curriculum program. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, the Washington Theatre Lab, the South Carolina Arts Alliance, and the International Council of Fine Arts Deans.