One leader who has both a business and education background should be sufficient. PAM is so small. It surely doesn’t need two leaders. There are plenty of folks graduating from arts management programs who could handle the job. But I think it is far more important for the next leader to have some education experience. PAM is a school first and foremost. Its leaders need to understand private school markets and how to recruit students in a crowded market.
You are right to suggest that donations could be used to help cover holes in the budget. But to keep the institution acutely attuned to its market, it should try to construct a budget based primarily on tuition revenues. Supplement those revenues with donations for program start-ups (PAM never fronted a full student orchestra because it lacked a decent brass program), special projects and scholarships. But keep the school keenly aware of its market by grounding its budget in tuition revenues.
Alas, it might be too late for any of this. Why did PAM not make provisions for its move? Why was it caught unawares by the move when any disinterested observer could see that MU, with a prep program of its own, was unlikely to share space with a competing program?
