Press Releases

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Announces Election of Board Officers

At-Large Members Also Elected

Baltimore, MD – June 26, 2007 – Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation (MAAF) elected officers for its fiscal year 2008 at a board meeting in Baltimore on June 8, 2007.  Lisa Frigand was elected to her second term as Chair, Dorothy McSweeny was elected to her second term as Vice Chair, Anthony Gittens was elected to an eighth term as Secretary, and Laura Scanlan was elected to her first term as Treasurer.

Chair Lisa Frigand is Manager, Special Projects, Economic Development for Consolidated Edison Company of New York.  Ms. Frigand is on the Board of Directors of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/NY.  She is also on the Board of Advisors for The Arts and Business Council, Dancing in the Streets, 3-Legged Dog, and Franklin Furnace.  In June 2006, she was honored by the Arts and Business Council of New York with the Encore Award as Business Volunteer of the Year.  She has served on the Mid Atlantic board since 1997.

Vice Chair Dorothy Pierce McSweeny is the Immediate Past Chair of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She serves or has served on the boards of the Washington Ballet, Democratic National Leadership Committee, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Very Special Arts, and the National Symphony Orchestra.  She is a Member of the National Race for the Cure Founding Committee and was chosen Washingtonian of the Year in 1995 by Washingtonian Magazine.  Ms. McSweeny was the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Oral Historian at the White House from1967-1971 and Special Assistant to Speaker of the House, John McCormack, from 1971-1972.  She has served on the MAAF board since 2000.

Secretary Anthony Gittens is Executive Director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and Founder and Director of The Washington, DC International Film Festival. He received the Mayor's Award for Excellence in Service to the Arts, was named Public Humanist of the Year by the Humanities Council of Washington, DC, and Professor Emeritus by the University of the District of Columbia.

Treasurer Laura Scanlan serves on the boards of the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art and Delaware Theatre Company and is a Founding Donor of The Fund for Women. Former positions include the Senior Development Officer for Delaware Community Foundation, Executive Director of the Delaware Division of the Arts, and Senior Vice President of Public Affairs for the First USA Bank One Corporation.  

In addition to the election of officers, the board elected Andrew Chiang, Marian Godfrey, Derek Gordon and Maria Rosario Jackson for additional terms.

Andy Chiang is the Chief Technology Officer for CSI Technologies a legal case management firm in Keasbey, NJ.  He also serves as the Executive Director of the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company.  Chiang works as a bridge of cultures and communities with his business knowledge technology expertise and his passion for the arts.  He an international patent on the business process of dynamic scheduling and management of resources.  In his career as an entrepreneur and technology consultant, he has helped to create processes and systems that are used by some of the largest telecommunications, healthcare, and financial institutions.  He is well known in the Asian American Community as the co-founder of the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company.  He is a member of the Board of ArtPride New Jersey, a former trustee of Dance USA, and he co-founded DanceNJ, the leading advocate for dance in New Jersey.

Marian Godfrey is the Director, Civic Life Initiatives at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia.  Prior to joining the Pew Trusts in 1989, she had an extensive background in nonprofit management handling production, administration, fund raising, and strategic planning for such organizations as Mabou Mines, Dance Theatre Workshop, and La Jolla Playhouse.  She produced film and video projects, including a feature-length film for Mabou Mines which aired on public television nationwide.  She has served as a consultant for performing arts organizations and for foundation and corporate programs including AT&T:  On Stage.  She has served on the boards of Theatre Communications Group and Grantmakers in the Arts.  In 2003, she received the John Cotton Dana Award for Leadership for contributions to museum education from the American Association of Museums.

Derek Gordon is the Chief Executive Officer of the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge (LA).  He is a past President of Jazz at Lincoln Center and a past Senior Vice President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts where he was responsible for the overall planning, management and supervision of programs and operations in the areas of jazz, education and outreach.  He has also worked as Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Louisianan Division of the Arts.  Gordon has served on numerous boards including the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Maria Jackson is a senior research associate in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Center at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC and director of the Institute's Culture, Creativity, and Communities Program.  She has been the principal investigator of the Institute’s Arts and Culture Indicators in the Community Building Project and Investing in Creativity:  A Study of the Support Structure for U.S. Artists.  Dr. Jackson’s research and career have been focused on urban policy, urban poverty, community planning, the role of arts and culture in community building processes, and the politics of race, ethnicity and gender in urban settings.  She is a member of the board of the National Performance Network.

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation welcomes these accomplished professionals and is grateful for their service, expertise, and guidance.

For a complete list of Mid Atlantic’s Board of Directors, please visit http://www.midatlanticarts.org/about/board.html.

Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation supports the richness and diversity of the region's arts resources and promotes wider access to the art and artists of the region, nation and world. The region includes nine states and jurisdictions that are closely related by geography or culture: District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Virginia, and West Virginia.