Ransom Everglades School is seeking a Director of Arts. This position involves overall responsibility for the school’s performing and visual arts programs, faculty, and facilities in the middle and upper schools. Responsibilities include leadership, support, and development of faculty; growth, development, and coordination of curriculum and programs; and representation and promotion of the visual and performing arts departments and their work, in the school and in the larger community. Highly developed organizational, communication, and interpersonal skills as well as a deep understanding of best practices in arts education, performance, and exhibition, and how the arts complement the academic and co-curricular programs at a premier independent school, are essential.

The role involves some teaching in the appointee’s discipline, but is primarily administrative. The Director of Arts serves on the school’s primary academic decision-making body, the Academic Council, and works in consultation with division heads, the Associate Head of School, and the Head of School. 

The Director of Arts oversees department personnel and arts facilities on two campuses.  The department is composed of fifteen full-time faculty members in the visual and performing arts, adjunct instructors in instrumental music and accompaniment, and a part-time department assistant. Our performing and visual arts facilities include, on the upper school campus:  the 1000 seat Lewis Family Auditorium, the Wakefield Rehearsal Hall, practice rooms, the Acting Studio (black box), studios for ceramics, photography, architecture, printmaking, and painting, and the Solomon Art Gallery; on the middle school campus:  the recently renovated 500 seat Swenson Hall, band room, dance studio, and visual arts studios. Additional exhibition spaces exist across both campuses, and the Posner Lecture Hall, a new flexible speaking and performance venue of nearly 200 seats, is part of our Fernandez STEM Center, opened in August 2020. 

Ransom Everglades School has a long history of excellence and achievement in the visual and performing arts. The faculty emphasize equally the growth of the artist and the process of art-making and the final product and performance. RE students have earned regional and national recognition in painting, photography, acting, and music, and have developed a national reputation for jazz performance. RE alumni are distinguished filmmakers, musicians, actors, photographers, and architects. The Director of the Arts has the opportunity to expand curriculum and programming in the arts, and elevate the profile and presence of the arts at Ransom Everglades, on campus and in the community.  

Qualifications

• Demonstrated leadership and teaching excellence in the arts
• Demonstrated ability to communicate effectively with all constituents and stakeholders, on and off campus
• Familiarity with and ability to learn about current best practices in the visual and performing arts
• Demonstrated capacity for arts leadership, including facilities and event management, budget, and technology
• Experience as part of a comprehensive arts program