Announcing The New School’s Next Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
A Message from Joel Towers, President and University Professor
It is my pleasure to announce the appointment of Richard Kessler, Executive Dean of the College of Performing Arts and Dean of Mannes School of Music, as The New School’s next Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. Richard begins in his new role today.
The provost is a critical member of the university’s senior leadership team, serving as the chief academic officer responsible for the strategic and operational oversight of our schools and colleges, all pre-college, undergraduate and graduate teaching and research activities, and academic support units.
As Executive Dean of the College of Performing Arts and Dean of Mannes since 2011, Richard has a demonstrated record of success in leading and working with faculty and staff across these areas, and has served on our campus with great distinction for almost 15 years. The longest serving senior administrator at the university, Richard is widely regarded as a thoughtful leader who places a high value on listening and collaborating and is committed to fostering shared governance, advancing our teaching and learning mission, and seeking new opportunities for impact and institutional growth. He knows our university’s history, culture, and traditions, and cares deeply about the welfare and needs of our students, faculty, staff, and the communities we serve.
In addition to being an outstanding member of the university’s senior leadership team throughout his tenure at The New School, Richard was central in our efforts to academically and physically integrate Mannes, Jazz, and Drama to create the College of Performing Arts in 2015. Since the creation of the College, enrollment has increased by 62% at its peak, and faculty and staff have grown to meet this increased demand. Richard has also focused on expanding representation of diverse backgrounds and viewpoints across Mannes, Jazz, and Drama—including raising awareness of the barriers to success for women in jazz and achieving the highest percentage of women faculty compared to peer institutions (Jazz Counts: Measuring the Jazz Faculty Gender Gap in Higher Education).
Early in his tenure as dean, Richard led the creation of two seminal college strategic planning documents: the first reimagined Mannes as a future-leaning classical conservatory; followed by a plan to merge what were three separate performing arts divisions at the time into a single College of Performing Arts. The planning and subsequent restructuring impacted every part of the new College of Performing Arts, including vision, staffing, the creation of scores of new courses and approaches, hundreds of new part-time faculty hires, and successful new degree programs, minors, and concentrations, such as an MFA in Contemporary Theater and Performance and a Master of Music, Composer-Performer. The College of Performing Arts also fostered the recruitment of groundbreaking new ensembles in residence, including the JACK Quartet, The Westerlies, and Sandbox Percussion; a foundational partnership to move the highly influential experimental music venue, The Stone, into The New School; an expansion of the Mannes Composition department, making it one of the most important departments of its kind; and the hiring of major figures in the performing arts including Leila Josefowicz, Jennifer Koh, and Arturo O’Farrill. Importantly, the College’s commitment to presenting significant and often overlooked works, including major premieres, has led to significant media news coverage.
Labeled a “firebrand” by The New York Times, Richard’s career in the arts, education, and academia spans more than three decades and is marked by a record of distinguished vision as a musician, educator, teaching artist, advocate, lobbyist, and organizational leader and consultant. Before his appointment as dean of Mannes in 2011, he served as executive director of the Center for Arts Education (CAE) from 2004 to 2011, which was at that time the single largest private funder of arts education in New York City, and his work there garnered him awards from the Music Educators Association of New York and the New York City Art Teachers Association/United Federation of Teachers. He previously was executive director of the American Music Center, where his work led to an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, and was senior vice president of Artsvision, an international arts education consulting company, where he led projects of national and international importance, including an arts focused part of Annenberg Foundation’s Challenge to The Nation—whose mission was to restore arts education to the New York City public schools, resulting in over $750 million in new funding, teachers, and arts supplies across the largest school district in the United States.
An accomplished musician, teaching artist and performer, Richard has performed with the New York City Ballet and the New York City Opera. He was a college faculty member at the Manhattan School of Music, overseeing and teaching brass chamber music, and a winner of the Walter W. Naumburg Chamber Music Award, as well as the Rafael Méndez International Brass Quintet Competition and the Artist International Competition. As a chamber musician, he commissioned and premiered works by major composers, including Arvo Part, Pauline Oliveros, Anthony Davis, and Ned Rorem. A native of Brooklyn and raised in Rockaway Beach, Richard received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from The Juilliard School and attended Mannes for two years as an undergraduate student. He has served on the boards of the American Composers Orchestra, Great Minds, National Sawdust, and Chamber Music America, where he was board chair for almost a decade. In other significant contributions to the field of education, Richard served on the New York State Board of Regents’ Blue Ribbon Commission on Arts Assessment and its Task Force on K-12 Principal and Teacher Effectiveness, and also gave the keynote speech for the College Music Society’s National Summit on the Future of Music Conservatories.
Through his years of experience working closely with The New School’s provost and other academic leaders, Richard has developed a deep understanding of the people, systems, and operations that make the university function as a strong community. He has shared his excitement for this opportunity and his unwavering commitment to partnering with me, the university’s leadership team, and the entire New School community in the critical work ahead to evolve our institution to best serve our students. He is eager to meet the demands of this moment to build on the considerable progress The New School has made under the leadership of Provost White.
Richard will soon share more information about plans to ensure full coverage of his responsibilities as Executive Dean of the College of Performing Arts and Dean of Mannes. In the meantime, we will rely on the shared leadership of the strong team in place at the College.
I want to take this opportunity to recognize the members of the Provost’s Council—Maggie Koozer, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Deputy Academic Officer; Deanna Voss, Vice Provost for Enrollment Management; Robert Mack, Vice Provost for Student Success and Engagement; Paula Young, Vice Provost for Institutional Research and Decision Support; Lindsey Interlante, Vice Provost for Planning, Operations, and Communications; and Nadine Bourgeois, Senior Director for Academic Planning—for their leadership and commitment during this transition period. I also want to thank the entire team in the Provost’s Office for their hard work, dedication, and support for the university’s teaching and learning mission, particularly during an extremely busy time on our campus.
I very much look forward to working with Richard in this new capacity. Please join me in thanking him for his dedication and service to the College of Performing Arts and The New School.