SMU Prof Receives Inaugural Art Entrepreneurship Award

The $500 Sharon T. Alpi Award is given to an innovative educator who has positively influenced arts entrepreneurship both at their own school and in the field as a whole.

arts entrepreneurship

The Society for Arts Entrepreneurship Education recently announced Southern Methodist University’s James Hart as the first recipient of its Sharon T. Alpi Award for Innovative Arts Entrepreneurship Pedagogy.

The $500 Sharon T. Alpi Award is given to an innovative educator who has positively influenced arts entrepreneurship both at their own school and in the field as a whole. Apli, the award’s namesake, was the founding Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Millikin University, where she helped shape academic programs including the introduction of art entrepreneurship in 2003. 

“I see this award as a kind recognition, but also a challenge — a challenge to continue to create teaching resources that not only serve my students, but also our colleagues and the field,” Hart said in a statement. 

“Jim has truly created something fundamentally new and unique to the practice of arts entrepreneurship.”

Dr. Josef Hanson

Hart is a professor and the director of SMU’s Arts Entrepreneurship program. He also pioneered the Meadows Artist Bridge, which helps creative SMU students work professionally while still in college.

He is the founder and former dean of the TITAN Teaterakademi (The International Theatre Academy Norway), in Oslo. TITAN Teaterakademi is the first theatre entrepreneurship institute of its kind in Europe.

SMU’s Arts Entrepreneurship program utilizes art entrepreneurship games, designed by Hart, to promote hands-on learning. The program’s goal is to educate its creative students on the industry as well as cultivating their imaginative ideas, giving them the tools to increase their chances of succeeding in the artistic world. 

“Unlike many who seek to translate standard business-entrepreneurship practices into terms artists can understand, Jim has truly created something fundamentally new and unique to the practice of arts entrepreneurship,” said Dr. Josef Hanson, president of the Society for Arts Entrepreneurship Education, in a statement. 

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