When An Academic Exercise Becomes Reality

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During the beginning of November, 2006 I had the pleasure of conducting a mock negotiation exercise with the MBA students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Bolz Center for Arts Administration program. That exercise had the future arts administrator’s playing the role of orchestra musicians who were presented with a bargaining proposal from management that called for a 35 percent reduction in expenditures. Although the details of that exercise are fascinating to …

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Wanted: A Messiah In Cincinnati

The 11/4/2007 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer published an article by Janelle Gelfand which took a hard look at the ongoing process to find a new Dean for the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). The revealing article examines the challenges and outlines the critical value in filling this position with the right person… It is refreshing to see so much gritty detail and attention focused on finding a leader …

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Mock Negotiations: Contrasts & Comparisons

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After completing the mock negotiation session with the MBA students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Bolz Center for Arts Administration program, my mind wandered into contrast and comparison mode and I began to think about what just transpired with the UW-Madison students and how music performance students from the Eastman School of Music responded to a similar mock negotiation session I conducted with them in 2004… I want to preface this …

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UW-Madison Mock Negotiation Reflections Part 2

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Continuing where things left off in Part 1, the MBA students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Bolz Center for Arts Administration program were serving as the orchestra musician negotiation committee in a mock collective bargaining agreement negotiation. After receiving some very bad news about their fictional orchestra’s financial conditions and a subsequent initial proposal from the management to reduce overall expenditures by 35%, the students on the negotiating committee refused to …

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UW-Madison Mock Negotiation Reflections Part 1

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There’s nothing quite like looking at the business from a different perspective. Even more stimulating is when those perspectives come to you from unexpected sources. Such was the case with the mock orchestra collective bargaining agreement negotiations I conducted with the MBA students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Bolz Center for Arts Administration program… Regular Adaptistration readers might remember that I conducted a similar exercise with students from Eastman School of …

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