VOL. 23, NO. 24	JUNE 12, 1998

Fitzpatrick.

obert Fitzpatrick, dean of the School of the Arts since 1995, has been named director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. He assumes his new responsibilities immediately.

  A search committee will be formed in the upcoming months and will begin looking for a new dean of the School of the Arts in the fall.

  Dan Kleinman, associate dean, will serve as acting dean for the coming year.

  “This is an exciting and challenging opportunity to become director at a key moment in the museum’s history,” said Fitzpatrick, “but making the decision was not an easy one, for I have very much enjoyed and been nurtured by the friendship, intelligence, and caring of the faculty, staff and students within the School of the Arts.”

  In his years as dean, Fitzpatrick has seen a renewed focus on the arts at Columbia. The University’s commitment of over $8.5 million to update its arts facilities and resources included the $5 million renovation of Dodge Hall, home of the School of the Arts. New classrooms, offices, rehearsal spaces, a writing lab, photography area with dark rooms, remodeled painting and drawing studios, and a coffee shop/lounge area were created, along with the million-dollar state-of-the-art digital media lab and the LeRoy Neiman Center.

  President George Rupp said, “The University community is immensely grateful to Bob for his leadership at a time when the arts resumed their rightful place at Columbia. I am confident that the creative initiatives he undertook will continue to thrive under and be enhanced by his successor.”

  Under Fitzpatrick’s leadership, awareness and appreciation of the School of the Arts and its divisions increased significantly among its various professional arts communities, as well as among prospective applicants.

  In little more than two years, 15 feature films by recent alumni of the Film Division have been released. Award-winning films from the annual Polo Ralph Lauren New Works Festival of Columbia University Filmmakers have been featured in and won prizes at the world’s most prestigious film festivals.

  The LeRoy Neiman Center, dedicated to advancing the art of the print, and the Digital Media Center have widened the depth and breadth of the Visual Arts Division’s offerings. New faculty in the Theatre Arts, such as Cuban-American playwright Eduardo Machado, are ensuring the cultivation of new voices in the theatre community.

  Alumni from the Writing Division are enjoying unprecedented success, collecting critical honors, publishing their works with major publishing houses and seeing their works praised in the pages of the New York Times Book Review.

  Fitzpatrick also helped revitalize programming at Miller Theatre, with the “Theatre of Ideas” series and other public presentations.

  Before joining Columbia, Fitzpatrick served as president and CEO of EuroDisney in Paris and president of California Institute of the Arts. He also served as vice president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and director of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival.