As the University of Chicago continues to strengthen the arts, we are pleased to announce that Bill Brown and Bill Michel will continue providing leadership to UChicago Arts. As of July 1, Bill Brown assumed the role of Senior Advisor to the Provost for Arts and Bill Michel assumed the role of Executive Director of UChicago Arts and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.

Bill Brown is the Karla Scherer Distinguished Service Professor in American Culture in the Department of English Language and Literature, the Department of Visual Arts, and the College. He has served as Chair of the English Department, as Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division, as Deputy Dean of the Humanities, and, most recently, as Deputy Provost for the Arts. As the Provost’s Senior Advisor for the Arts, Bill Brown will serve as Chair of the Provost’s Arts Steering Committee, comprised of faculty and staff across campus. The committee will work closely with leaders across the arts to advance the ideas developed within the Report on the Future of UChicago Arts—2020 and 2025, to support the arts across campus, and to continue cultivating the many ways that the arts contribute to the intellectual life of the University and the cultural vitality of Chicago. Bill Brown will also work with colleagues across the University to maintain an overarching view of the arts ecology, working to integrate the arts within the University’s scholarly and pedagogical missions, and to refine the ambitions that will ensure our ongoing success across the arts.

Bill Michel, a graduate of the College and the Booth School of Business, has most recently served as the University Arts Advisor and Executive Director of the Logan Center for the Arts. He has worked to establish creative collaborations across the University and throughout Chicago, to support the development of the Arts and Public Life Initiative and the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, and to sustain the Logan Center as a site where the University contributes powerfully to the vibrant arts community at the University, on the South Side, and across Chicago. As the Executive Director of UChicago Arts and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (which will continue to serve as the coordinating hub for UChicago Arts), he will work closely with faculty, students, and staff across the University to advance arts priorities on campus and catalyze arts partnerships across the University, in Chicago, and beyond. Bill Michel will also provide senior administrative leadership for UChicago Arts and oversee financial planning, communications, and development. Bill Michel will continue to serve as Interim Director of the Smart Museum while the search for a new director is completed.

Please join me in thanking Bill Brown and Bill Michel for their insight and energy, past and future, in advancing our University-wide arts efforts.

Daniel Diermeier
Provost