For the second day in a row, Fund for the Arts CEO Allan Cowen has been featured in the pages of the Courier-Journal. On Thursday, it was a story about a threatening voicemail he left an unsatisfied arts group leader. Today it’s 396 words in the editorial section about that voicemail, and Cowen’s actions as a whole.
The paper praises Cowen’s creativity and strong faith in the arts. But then…
Among his flaws are a Brobdingnagian ego and a temper — perhaps effective for impresarios in the days of Flo Ziegfeld and Billy Rose, but woefully inappropriate in the 21st Century world in which Mr. Cowen operates.
That flaring ego was on full display — and preserved for all to hear — when he left a voice-mail message for the head of a local arts group who had co-written a letter toBusiness First, suggesting that while support of the Fund is vital many visual and cultural groups receive little or no funding. Shannon Westerman, who heads the Louisville Visual Art Association, was told by Mr. Cowen that he had gone “way out of line” and should be discharged. He threatened to talk to Mr. Westerman’s board chair, Benton Keith, to achieve the ouster. And he finished up: “Good luck in your future career.”
Well, for starters, Miss Manners would have been shocked and so are we. Verbal threats have no place in civilized situations; leaving them on a voice mail isn’t just uncouth, it’s downright stupid.
Elizabeth Kramer, who broke the story about the voicemail, will be on State of Affairs today. She’ll discuss her story in the show’s second segment, which begins at about 1:25.
2 comments
March 7, 2011 at 11:27 am
Steve
Welcome to real life. This is precisely how too many bullies hold their postitions. If people complain they are whiney, and if they record and prove the shameless bullying tactics many administrators use the accusation of treachery is applied to the victim. The differentiation between email bullying and old fasioned verbal bullying is another method used to divide any who honestly engage in rational skepticism of leadership goals and techniques. Even if the will to make a change existed, this “might makes right” fallacy is so ingrained in our society that it will take generations to remove.
March 7, 2011 at 11:26 pm
Curtis Morrison
Brobdingnagian is a word? Really?
I wish Keith Runyon hadn’t defriended me on Facebook. He could have taught me big words like that. Sigh.