Meet Four New University Circle Institution Directors as They Discuss Their Organizations’ Role in our Cultural Community

CLEVELAND (April 30, 2015) On Friday, May 8, “New Directors, New Directions” will take place at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This is a free event, open to the public beginning at 6:00 p.m. in Gartner Auditorium. A question and answer session will follow. The discussion will be moderated by Thomas B. Schorgl, President and CEO of Community Partnership for Arts and Culture.

Now, more than ever, the pulse of University Circle is generated by the collaboration of the institutions in the Circle. “New Directors, New Directions” will serve as a unique forum for four recently appointed Circle directors to speak publically about their visions for each institution.

Panel participants include:

• Dr. William M. Griswold, Director of the Cleveland Museum of Art
• Dr. Evalyn Gates, Executive Director and CEO of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History
• Dr. Clement W. Hamilton, President & CEO of The Holden Arboretum and Cleveland Botanical Garden
• Kelly Falcone-Hall, President & CEO of the Western Reserve Historical Society

“University Circle’s arts and culture organizations are recognized nationally and internationally for their outstanding programs and services,” said Schorgl. “I am pleased to moderate a discussion with CEO’s from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland Botanical Gardens, Western Reserve Historical Society and the Cleveland Museum of Art. Each of them are relatively new to their positons and as such, will bring new insights and perspectives on how their unique institutions serve greater Cleveland and Northeast Ohio.”

Those interested in attending the discussion should visit the Womens Council website at www.WCCMA.net and click the RSVP button on the home page or call 216-707-2527.

The event is a presentation of Circle Neighbors, coordinated by The Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art in collaboration with the Cleveland Botanical Garden, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, the Women's Committee of The Cleveland Orchestra and the Western Reserve Historical Society.

Circle Neighbors

Circle Neighbors’ mission is to bring the community and its institutions together. This collaborative entity strives to provide an insider’s view of the unique University Circle; to provide networking opportunities; to identify and advance the strength of the individual institutions and their collaborative efforts; and to provide ongoing access to pertinent issues. The program attracts a wide variety of individuals from local community development corps, government, non-profits, education, business and cultural institutions.

Dr. William M. Griswold
In May 2014, Dr. William Griswold became the 10th director of the Cleveland Museum of Art since its founding in 1916. Dr. Griswold enters the life of the museum at a dynamic moment, with a newly completed expansion project increasing its capacity and significance, and a centennial anniversary approaching. His ambition is to build the museum’s strong relevance throughout the region, the nation and the world, capitalize on its longstanding community engagement legacy and enhance the quality and breadth of its well-known collection. Dr. Griswold’s tenure at the museum follows his term as the fifth director of the Morgan Library and Museum. During his seven years of leadership there, Dr. Griswold spearheaded the growth of the Morgan’s Collections, exhibition program and curatorial departments. He oversaw a number of important exhibitions and scholarly exchanges with leading international museums, including the Louvre, London’s Courtauld Institute, Munich’s Graphische Sammlung and Turin’s Biblioteca Reale. Dr. Griswold had previously served as the director and president of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, from 2005 to 2007, acting director and chief curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum, from 2004 to 2005 and associate director for collections at the Getty, beginning in 2001. Prior to joining the Getty, Dr. Griswold had been the Charles W. Engelhard Curator and Head of the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan Library since 1995. From 1988 to 1995, he was on the staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, first as assistant and then as associate curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints. Formerly a member of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Dr. Griswold currently serves on the boards of the American Federation of Arts, American Friends of the Shanghai Museum and American Trust for the British Library. He is a member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, and President of the Master Drawings Association. Dr. Griswold earned his bachelor’s degree at Trinity College, in Hartford Connecticut and his Ph.D. at the Courtauld Institute of Art, in London.

Dr. Evalyn Gates
Evalyn Gates is the Executive Director and CEO of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Under her leadership, the Museum is undertaking a bold and innovative renovation and expansion project to reinvent its physical campus with the focus on bringing science to life for people of all ages and inviting people to personally engage in science. After receiving her Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Case Western Reserve University in 1990, Gates held postdoctoral fellowships at Yale University and the University of Chicago and was a member of the theoretical astrophysics research group at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. She spent seven years at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, initially as Director of Astronomy and then as Vice President for Science and Education. Before coming to the Museum in May of 2010, Gates was the Assistant Director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics and a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Most recently, her research has focused on various aspects of dark matter, and searching for ancient stellar fossils in the form of the oldest white dwarfs. Her first book, Einstein’s Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe, was published by W.W. Norton in February 2009. She also has a strong personal interest in addressing the under-representation of women and minorities in the physical sciences and has written several articles and presented talks on the topic of women in physics. Gates was a Boyd Fellow in the National Arts Strategies’ Chief Executive Program from 2011-2013 and is a member of the Leadership Cleveland class of 2013. She is a member the Executive Committee of the University Circle Inc. board and Co-Chair of the UCI Transportation & Infrastructure Task Force. She also serves on the Cuyahoga Arts and Culture Campaign Steering Committee and was recently elected to the American Physical Society Panel on Public Affairs. She and her husband, Eric Pelander, live in Shaker Heights and have three grown children.

Dr. Clement W. Hamilton
Dr. Hamilton grew up in Ohio and Wisconsin, where he developed his three primary passions for nature, baseball and music. He earned a B.S. in Geology at Harvard, and a Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Washington University and the Missouri Botanical Garden. He has conducted botanical research and fieldwork in Thailand, Panama and Chile, as well as the U.S. Clem was Assistant and Associate Professor at the University of Washington for 14 years, including directing the Center for Urban Horticulture for eight years. Then he served as Executive Director of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in southern California for five years. From 2004 through 2008 he was Vice President and Director of Research at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. In 2008 he became President & CEO of The Holden Arboretum, where he is leading the arboretum’s renewed dedication to the cultivation of beautiful and healthy trees, forests and communities, in service to the communities and natural environments of Northeast Ohio and beyond. Clem also plays classical and jazz saxophone and clarinet, and studies the statistics and sociology of baseball; in 1998 he won the Robert Peterson Award from the Society of American Baseball Research, for his statistical analysis of the racial integration of the major leagues.

Kelly Falcone-Hall
Kelly Falcone-Hall joined WRHS in 1995 as an intern in the Archives/Library, and has since held positions of increasing responsibility at both Hale Farm & Village and the History Center. From 2008 to 2012, she led the financial, programmatic and cultural turnaround of Hale Farm & Village where she managed a multi-year, million dollar capital project to stabilize and preserve each of Hale Farm & Village’s 32 historic structures as the museum’s Vice President. In October 2011, she assumed responsibility for all WRHS sites as the organization’s COO. During her tenure with WRHS, Falcone-Hall created a number of innovative museum programs, including the “Timeslider Theater Troupe.” At Hale Farm & Village, she developed the Holiday Lantern Tours program, the powerful, nationally recognized A Fugitive’s Path: Escape on the Underground Railroad and championed the Roots of Entrepreneurship program that immerses students in the commercial and social networks of the area’s earliest entrepreneurs. As President and CEO of WRHS, Falcone-Hall leads a team of Directors and professional staff with oversight of multiple divisions, and works collaboratively with a Board of Directors to engage the community and develop resources to support its mission. She also works to advance the WRHS 150 Strategic Plan developed to guide the institution toward its 150th anniversary in 2017. Falcone-Hall is involved in a variety of other community organizations including: the Board of Directors and Executive Committee at University Circle, Inc. and the State of Ohio Civil War 150 Advisory Committee. She is a member of the Visiting Committee for the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) at Cleveland State University (CSU). Falcone-Hall graduated with an M. A. in American History from CSU with a focus on regional, community history, specifically women in the abolition movement before the Civil War. She has an undergraduate degree in Political Science from CSU, and lives in Westlake with her husband, Ken, daughter Alex and son Mitchell.

Thomas B. Schorgl
Tom Schorgl is president and CEO of the Community Partnership for Arts & Culture (CPAC) located in Cleveland, OH. CPAC is a nonprofit arts and culture service organization with core competencies in public policy, business development and research. CPAC works with county and municipal governments to encourage public policy that is responsive to the needs of the arts and culture sector, while improving the community as a whole. CPAC’s work in public policy led to the passage of a 2007 dedicated arts and culture county excise tax that generates $15M annually. The organization provides business training and support to individual artists as well as business assessment and diagnostic services to nonprofit arts and cultural organizations. Prior to launching and managing CPAC, Schorgl was president of Culture Works from January 1994 to June 1997. There he designed and managed the formation of Culture Works through a merger of two arts and cultural institutions: a local arts agency and a united arts funder located in Dayton, OH. Schorgl led the Indiana Arts Commission as its executive director for a decade beginning in August 1983. He began his professional arts administration career as curator and then executive director of South Bend Regional Art Museum. Schorgl holds BFA and MA degrees from the University of Iowa and an MFA from Miami University in Ohio. Schorgl’s board of trustee service includes the Ohio Arts Council (OAC) where he was chair of the Finance committee and served on the OAC’s Executive and Legislative committees. He is a recipient of the Indiana Governor’s Arts Award and the Cleveland Arts Prize’s Robert P. Bergman Award.