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Gallery 360. Photo by D. Salafia.

Northeastern University’s College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD) is pleased to announce the launch of a new master’s degree program: The Master of Science (MS) in Creative Practice Leadership. The two-semester, interdisciplinary program is centered on exploring new approaches to leadership in the fields of critical creative practice, cultural entrepreneurship, and innovation in the arts and entertainment industries. Students will have the opportunity to gain skills and knowledge to allow them to keep pace with and play a guiding role in the rapid evolution of the creative industries. The program welcomes both established professionals and recent graduates who aim to become transformational leaders and change agents.

Today’s leaders in the arts and other cultural arenas require an impressive variety of critical, theoretical, and technology-based tools and frameworks to engage in creative practice and entrepreneurship. Northeastern University’s MS in Creative Practice Leadership will provide a core critical and theoretical framework —along with a technological foundation – that enables leaders to reframe established practices, react to new opportunities, engage new audiences, and respond to new challenges. The program will empower leaders to establish, for themselves and their collaborators, a set of ethical and socially responsive principles to heighten the constructive impact of their work.

“We’re very excited about how this new degree connects students to interdisciplinary faculty expertise across diverse forms of creative practice, innovation and tools for leadership and engagement,” said CAMD Dean Elizabeth Hudson. “The program is a bridge between Northeastern’s renowned ecosystem of entrepreneurship and new pathways for thinking about leading creative industries.”

“The aspect of the MS in Creative Practice Leadership that I am most excited about is its combination depth and its breadth. It is anchored in the Music Department, building upon our long standing strengths in music industry training and critical insight, but students will have the flexibility to take courses from and interact with faculty from across the arts, music, theater, design, media and communication in order to reach their particular goals in their chosen discipline,” said Andrew Mall, Assistant Professor of Music. “This flexibility is what makes the program truly interdisciplinary and unique, in that it draws on the strengths of the entire College and not a single department. Because I expect that each year’s cohort will reflect and inform this interdisciplinarity, students will have the opportunity to learn from each other (and each other’s fields) in ways unique to Northeastern. Having completed an interdisciplinary MA degree in social sciences myself, I can attest to the rich experience that emerges from the committed and diverse perspectives of your fellow students.”

The MS in Creative Practice Leadership prepares arts and cultural leaders to thrive in a rapidly evolving future, one where the role and impact of creative practice in society and culture will have profound implications for global sustainability and survival, and for meaningful life experience. It is 32-credit hour program.