Gregory Pierre Cox is CGU’s new vice president of advancement

President Robert Klitgaard is pleased to announcement the appointment of Gregory Pierre Cox as CGU’s vice president of advancement. Cox brings a considerable body of experience and knowledge, having held fundraising leadership positions in many diverse areas of the country and even internationally.

He has a distinguished career in the arts, serving as an executive in several arts organizations across the country. In all of these organizations, Cox revitalized volunteer leadership involvement, secured major gifts, increased public participation, enhanced and strengthened professional fundraising staffs, and developed and implemented long-range strategic planning.

Before coming to CGU, Cox served as executive director of major gifts and regional development for California State University, Long Beach. The office he established and led increased giving across the institution to more than $30 million annually. In addition, Cox led the university through its first comprehensive campaign, which brought $350 million to the school.

 SBOS to host positive psychology symposium

Positive Psychology emerged at the beginning of the new millennium as a movement within psychology aimed at enhancing human strengths and optimal human functioning. This emerging area of scholarship, scientific research, and application has inspired leading scholars and practitioners from across the globe to rethink the fundamental nature of how we live, work, and educate; of our health and well-being; of how to design and lead positive institutions; and how to develop positive public policies.

In 2007, with the addition of world-renowned developmental psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jeanne Nakamura as full-time faculty members – CGU created the world’s first PhD with a concentration in positive psychology.

Now, CGU’s School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences is proud to announce that it will host a day-long event to celebrate the emerging positive social and human sciences, and to push their boundaries. Leaders and leading scholars from across the positive science landscape will gather in Claremont on Saturday, January 24, 2009 to discuss Applying the Science of Positive Psychology to Improve Society.

This event includes presentations and panel discussions. Opportunities will also be given for audience members to pose their own questions about how to use the science of positive psychology to benefit societies across the globe.

For more information on the symposium visit www.cgu.edu/positivepsych or contact Paul Thomas at paul.thomas@cgu.edu.

Drucker Society Global Symposium draws in scores from around the world

More than 75 individuals from more than a dozen countries gathered in Claremont from June 11-13 to explore how they can continue to create a healthier society by advancing effective management, ethical leadership, and the legacy of Peter F. Drucker.

The second annual Drucker Society Global Symposium attracted participants from business, government, nonprofits, and academia. Most were members of the Drucker Society Global Network, an association of grassroots groups dedicated to making a positive difference in their communities by drawing practical knowledge and inspiration from Drucker’s teachings.

The symposium featured remarks by Elissa Clapp, senior vice president of recruitment at Teach for America, who discussed how to build a movement for positive change.

“Last year, at the time of the first symposium, three Drucker Societies had been officially formed, all of them in Asia,” said Rick Wartzman, director of the Drucker Institute. “Today, Drucker Societies in eight countries on four continents have been established. Clearly, our growth has been strong.”

The next step, Wartzman added, was not only to maintain – and even accelerate – the growth of the global network, but to ensure its effectiveness. To that end, Drucker Society representatives at the symposium engaged in workshops led by PainePR, a Los Angeles firm with extensive experience in social marketing, and professional services giant Deloitte LLP, which will focus on assessing results.

“Our aim,” Wartzman said, “is to foster a network of Drucker Societies that would make Peter Drucker proud; one focused on community, orientated to action, and ever mindful that we must, as Drucker himself put it, ‘Measure results in changed lives.’”

For a complete list of Drucker Societies, visit www.druckerinstitute.com/drucker-societies.html

CGU leads the Claremont Colleges Math Center

TThe Claremont Colleges have formed a new joint venture, the Claremont Center for Mathematical Sciences (CCMS), to be led by Claremont Graduate University. The Center will promote collaborative research and creative teaching among the 50-some math professors and 300 math students at CGU, Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, Keck Graduate Institute, Pitzer College, and Pomona College. By combining resources, the CCMS will have the size and scope matched by only the leading math programs and centers in the nation.

CCMS will pursue new initiatives, such as improving regional math education, sponsoring research projects, seminars and workshops, and increased collaboration between the math faculty and the various users of math on and off campus.

The first public event for CCMS was a poster session showcasing the mathematics research done by Claremont undergraduate and graduate students this past summer.
This event took place on September 17 at the CMC Athenaeum.
 
The center’s mission statement reads: “The CCMS aims to promote excellence in research and teaching in mathematics by combining the resources of the individual member colleges for the benefit of the extended mathematical community.”


The Claremont Colleges, as a whole, have had much success in mathematics, having won numerous awards and received many grants from prominent organizations, such as the National Science Foundation, the American Mathematical Society, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the Mathematical Association of America.

For more information on the CCMS please visit its website at http://ccms.claremont.edu.

CGU and Loma Linda University developing health-care partnership for Inland Empire

A group of administrators and professors from Claremont Graduate University and Loma Linda University (LLU) met on Wednesday, August 20 to discuss how the two institutions can collaborate on research and education projects centered on health and wellness issues facing the Inland Empire. The meeting, organized by CGU School of Information Systems and Technology (SISAT) Professor Samir Chatterjee, focused on several aspects, including telemedicine, health informatics, and joint research and education opportunities.

In addition to SISAT, CGU was represented by faculty from the new School of Community and Global Heath, the School of Educational Studies as well as representatives from the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito School of Management and Provost Yi Feng.

The group participated in a three-hour, guided brainstorming session that generated many ideas centered on establishing a partnership that would help solve the various health-related problems – such as obesity, drug addiction, and poor access to medical care – present within the Inland Empire.

As LLU has extensive knowledge in clinical care and delivery and CGU is deeply involved in health-care informatics and behavior research, a union between the two institutions would provide effective solutions to these problems.
“Many chronic health problems which inflate US health-care budgets are rooted in human behavior – obesity, alcohol, tobacco, sedentary life styles, and little prevention,” said Paul Simms, Director of LLU’s Telehealth Initiative. “The collaboration between LLU and CGU will bring together our mission, expertise, and values for a more vibrant partnership between patients and physicians through telemedicine and e-health technologies.”

“It is our long-term vision to establish a leading-edge research center exploring telehealth and health informatics to help the Inland Empire community with its health care needs, and we are very happy that our two institutions are joining forces to achieve that,” Chatterjee said.

New CGU Apartments Open Their Doors

Just in time for the beginning of the school year, CGU’s new five-building apartment complex has opened its doors to its first class of incoming students.

These five structures are comprised of 151 units with 251 rooms that are all fully furnished, with the exception of a bed. Floor-plan designs range from studios to three-bedroom apartments, each offering central heating, air conditioning, and handicap accessibility upon request. There are also laundry facilities in each building, a playground for kids, and a community room that provides free wireless Internet service and a place for students can convene and socialize.

Only a short walk to campus, the new apartments are located on North College Avenue, neighboring the Claremont School of Theology, the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, and the Claremont Golf Course. The apartments are also within walking distance of downtown Claremont and the Metrolink station. At night the path to the gated apartments is brightly lit and the premises are patrolled by campus security 24 hours a day.

The new apartments will be taking the place of the old dorms on 11th Avenue. Those buildings are scheduled to be demolished this spring and turned into a parking lot for students and faculty.

For inquires about the new apartments consult the Real Estate and Housing Office website at www.cuc.claremont.edu/realestate, or visit their office at 1245 N. Dartmouth Avenue.

Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation increases to $100,000

CGU’s Drucker Institute has received a $500,000 grant from the Coca-Cola Foundation to greatly enhance the Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation.

The gift from the foundation, Coca-Cola Co.’s primary international philanthropic arm, will allow the Drucker Institute to increase the Drucker Award to $100,000 from the current level of $35,000 beginning in 2009. (Second prize will remain at $7,500 and third prize at $5,000.) The grant also provides for additional marketing support.

“This extraordinarily generous gift from the Coca-Cola Foundation underscores just how important it is for nonprofit organizations to innovate – something Peter Drucker was writing about and talking about long before there was such an intense focus on the social sector and social entrepreneurship,” said Rick Wartzman, director of the Drucker Institute, a campus-wide resource of Claremont Graduate University. “This gift will allow us to better recognize the work being done by leading nonprofits, while also raising the awareness of Peter Drucker’s seminal contributions to the field. We couldn’t be more pleased to have Coke as our partner.”

Widely considered the father of modern management, Drucker not only consulted for major corporations, he advised the Girl Scouts of America, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and countless other social-sector organizations. He called the nonprofit “America’s most distinctive institution.”

The Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation, administered annually since 1991, is granted to a social sector organization that demonstrates Drucker’s definition of innovation – change that creates a new dimension of performance.

Wartzman noted that, while the increase in the award amount won’t take effect until next year, more than 500 nonprofits applied for this year’s Drucker Award – a 47 percent jump over the 2007 total.

CGU holds most acclaimed Professional Development Workshop Series to date

From August 22-27 the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences (SBOS) held their sixth annual Professional Development Workshops in Evaluation and Applied Research Methods. This year’s workshop garnered the best reviews to date from participants.

Evaluators traveled from Bermuda, South Africa, Guyana, Iceland, New Zealand, Pakistan, and 13 American states to participate in high-quality, intensive training on CGU’s campus.

In addition to 23 day-long workshops on evaluation and applied research methods, this year’s series featured three well attended keynote lunches. Videos of these talks, by CGU President Robert Klitgaard, Mark Lipsey (Vanderbilt University), and Joha Louw-Potgeiter and Johann Louw (University of Cape Town) will be available through SBOS’ online video library (www.cgu.edu/pages/4435.asp).

For those who couldn’t make it to the conference, SBOS will also be creating online versions of classes presented at workshop. These classes, Theory Driven Program Evaluation and Basics of Evaluation, are available at http://www.cgu.edu/pages/5164.asp.

New arts management program in Claremont engages region’s future arts leaders

A revamped and expanded masters in arts management program at Claremont Graduate University began this fall under the new leadership of Laura Zucker. Zucker, who became director of the program this July, has had a long and distinguished career in arts management. Her appointment provides the opportunity for CGU students to study under one of the most renowned and experienced members of the Los Angeles art scene.

Concurrent to her position at CGU, Zucker serves as the executive director of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, a position she has held since 1992. The Arts Commission provides leadership in cultural services of all disciplines for the largest county in the United States. Zucker oversees a $4.5 million grants program that funds more than 300 nonprofit arts organizations annually. She also leads the regional plan to restore arts education to all 80 school districts in Los Angeles County.

In 2000 she spurred the county leadership, in conjunction with the Getty Foundation, to fund the largest arts internship program in the country. This allowed close to 300 undergraduates to receive paid employment in Los Angeles-area nonprofit arts organizations each summer. The following year the Arts Commission launched the Arts Leadership Initiative to provide professional development to mid-career arts administrators.

This extensive background makes her ideal to head the arts management program, which is a collaboration between CGU’s School of Arts and Humanities and the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management.

“Peter Drucker had visionary insight into improving the management of public sector organizations,” Zucker said. “The Drucker School is now adding more courses focused on the areas that people who run nonprofit organizations need to know about, particularly governance and fundraising.

“The profession has changed since I first started,” Zucker added. “Learning on the job can’t take the place of up-to-date professional management education and entrepreneurial skill development.” 

Students in the program have had the opportunity to learn from some of the most prominent arts managers in Los Angeles. In the spring of 2007, students had the opportunity to study under Andrea Rich, then president of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This fall, an art policy course is being taught by Jessica Cusick, the cultural affairs manager for the City of Santa Monica. Zucker will again teach a course on the theory and practice of arts management in the spring.

Also new, the Arts Management program will offer an executive track for mid- and senior-level arts administrators already working in the field. Students can also take advantage of the full breadth of course offerings at CGU for electives.
 
While preparing those who will shape the future of arts organizations nationally and globally, Zucker thinks the program also will allow Southern California to retain more of its local talent.

“Two-thirds of the undergraduate interns funded by the Arts Commission and Getty Foundation want to pursue careers in arts management, and they sometimes leave the region for a graduate degree,” she said. “Often, they don’t come back. With CGU now home to one of the best programs of its kind in the country, we plan to keep them here. Los Angeles is the creative capital of the world and offers a wealth of opportunities for CGU students.”