Last modified: Tuesday, November 10, 2009
IU Cinema director candidates to visit IU Bloomington
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nov. 10, 2009
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Four candidates for the position of IU Cinema director will visit the Indiana University Bloomington campus and speak at public forums during the next two weeks starting Thursday, Nov. 12.
Last month, university officials conducted a groundbreaking ceremony for IU Cinema, formerly the University Theatre. The building will be renovated and converted to a state-of-the-art cinema facility with rehearsal and performance space for the Department of Theatre and Drama and new classrooms and offices.
The renovation will create a 300-seat cinema, which will accommodate performances by the Department of Theatre and Drama, campus film festivals and series, film studies courses and visits by well-known filmmakers and scholars.
The IU Cinema director will be responsible for the cinema's mission; planning and administration; programming and education; developing stakeholders and audiences; fundraising and finance; and creating standards and practices.
"Indiana University has a long and well respected history of film studies, and our campus is home to some superb film collections," said Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson. "The IU Cinema promises to be the perfect venue for showcasing our film collections, and the director will provide the leadership and management of this exciting new facility."
A search committee, appointed by Hanson, selected finalists to visit campus and interview with faculty, staff, students and administrators. The four candidates and the dates they will be on campus are:
- Julia Gibbs, Nov. 12, 4:30 p.m., IMU State Room East
- Tom Yoshikami, Nov. 13, 4:30 p.m., IMU Solarium
- Jon Vickers, Nov. 16, 4:30 p.m., IMU State Room East
- Sally Shafto, Nov. 19, 4:30 p.m., IMU Frangipani Room
Candidate cover letters and curriculum vitae can be found at: https://www.indiana.edu/~vppp/recruitment/cinema_director.shtml. A public presentation and reception with each candidate will be held during each visit. Please RSVP to iucinema@indiana.edu if you plan to attend these sessions.
Jonathan R. Michaelsen, chair of the Department of Theatre and Drama and the Brown County Playhouse, looks forward to working with someone "with great expertise, who can reach across various disciplines and who has both a good knowledge of film and theater and also a good knowledge of a university." Michaelsen added that the new space will be a wonderful place for students and faculty to work on independent projects.
"The renovation is going to be glorious for us in so many ways," Michaelsen said, adding that the new classroom and office spaces in the building will be a great boon for the department. "I think the new IU Cinema director will be a wonderful colleague with whom we can collaborate."
"The IU Cinema will be an excellent addition to IU and to the community at large," said Professor Greg Waller, chair of the Department of Communication and Culture and chair of the IU Cinema director search committee. "The search committee was very pleased with the high quality of the applicant pool, drawn by the unique opportunity this position offers and by the university's extraordinary commitment to film studies and to the experience of cinema. We look forward to introducing the campus community to the four finalists."
About the Applicants
Julia Gibbs
Julia Gibbs has a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and has studied in Switzerland and Indonesia. For the past 10 years, she has served as assistant director of the Film Studies Center at the University of Chicago. She has also served as technical manager at the Film Studies Center and has taught courses at Columbia College-Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Sally Shafto
Sally Shafto has a B.A. in classics and art history from Skidmore College, an M.A. in art history and archaeology from Columbia University, an M.A. in film studies from the University of Iowa, a Ph.D. in film, art and aesthetics from the University of Iowa and a post-doctoral fellowship from Princeton University. She has served as an independent curator, translator for Cahiers du cinéma, director of The Bijou at the University of Iowa, and executive director of The Big Muddy Film Festival in Illinois.
Jon Vickers
Jon Vickers has a B.S. in civil engineering from Michigan State University. He has served as manager and cinema director at the Browning Cinema, University of Notre Dame and currently serves as managing director of the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center at Notre Dame. He has owned and operated multiple businesses, including a refurbished arthouse theatre, the Vickers Theatre, in Three Oaks, Michigan.
Tom Yoshikami
Tom Yoshikami has a B.A. in political science and film studies from the University of Utah, an M.A. in communication arts (film studies) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is a Ph.D. candidate in communication arts (film studies) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Yoshikami has served as film programmer or curator for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cinematheque, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, the Tales from Planet Earth Film Festival and the Wisconsin Film Festival.
