FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 15, 2008
Maura Hurley, Public Information Manager, California Council for the Humanities
(415) 391-1474, ext. 308
mhurley@calhum.org
SAN FRANCISCO — The California Council for the Humanities is pleased to announce that Vanessa Whang has been named the new director of programs. Whang comes to the Council with more than 20 years of experience developing and implementing arts and culture programs on both the East and West coasts. She will assume her new position on October 20, 2008.
“I am very excited that Vanessa is joining the Council,” said Executive Director Ralph Lewin. “She is extremely thoughtful and passionate about the humanities, and she has a deep understanding of California. The breadth and depth of her experience will help us become a better organization.”
Most recently, Whang worked as a consultant in arts philanthropy and cultural equity in New York City, where her clients included the Asia Society, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Among other accomplishments, she designed and implemented a $3 million national pilot program — funded by the Ford Foundation — to support and examine diverse aesthetics and organizational practices in light of the nation’s changing demographics; and she designed and helped implement a $35 million initiative to support contemporary music in New York state.
Previously, Whang served as director of Multidisciplinary Arts and Presenting at the National Endowment for the Arts. In that position she was responsible for allocating between $3 million and $4 million annually to multidisciplinary performing arts presenters, artists’ communities, artistic companies producing interdisciplinary work and new forms, and community-based organizations.
Before that, she was director of APEX (Arts Partnerships for Educational Excellence), a youth-centered arts learning initiative of the East Bay Community Foundation in Oakland that provided networking, professional development and funding opportunities to Bay Area arts organizations, public schools and youth-development agencies. Other positions include a stint as an independent consultant providing project management, planning, fundraising and evaluation services to nonprofit organizations; and seven years as a member of the staff collective of La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley, Calif.
A California native, Whang is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where she majored in English language studies. She also did graduate work in Berkeley’s Ph.D. program in philosophy.
Whang serves on the board of the National Writing Project, a professional development organization for teachers of writing. As a muti-instrumentalist and composer-arranger, she toured nationally with the Latin-American music ensemble Altazor and produced its two recordings for Redwood Records.
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