The Council for the Arts at MIT is led by an Executive Committee, which is made up of a Chair, Vice Chair, and Treasurer, past Chairs of the Council, and the current chairs of the Council’s standing committees. Standing committees include the Annual Meeting Committee, the Arts Scholars Committee, the Communications Committee, the Grants Committee, the Membership Committee, the McDermott Award Selection Committee, and the Student Art Awards Committee.

Karen Arenson. Credit: L. Barry Hetherington.

Karen Arenson

Karen Arenson ’70 was a writer and editor for 30 years at The New York Times, where she focused primarily on economics and finance and on higher education, and occasionally squeezed in articles on the arts. An economics major at MIT, she also earned a masters degree in public policy from Harvard. She served as president of the MIT Alumni Association and as a member of the MIT Corporation and its executive committee. She joined the Council in 2008, and became Vice Chair of CAMIT in 2015.  As a member of the List Visual Arts Center Advisory Board, she has also been working to expand the List’s student loan art collection.

Communications Chair, Council for the Arts at MIT

Past Vice Chair, Council for the Arts at MIT
2015-18

Barbara J. Hughey

Chair, Arts Scholars Committee

Philip S. Khoury

Philip S. Khoury is Ford International Professor of History and Associate Provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As Associate Provost, Khoury is responsible for overseeing MIT’s non-curricular arts programs and initiatives, including the MIT Museum and the List Visual Arts Center. He is also directly engaged in MIT’s strategic planning for international education and research; MIT’s efforts to promote the public understanding of science and technology and existing activities and new opportunities at the intersections of MIT’s five schools: Architecture and Planning, Engineering, Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Management, and Science.

Ex Officio

Leila W. Kinney, Executive Director of Arts Initiatives and the Center for Art, Science & Technology. Credit: Culture Magazine.
Leila W. Kinney, Executive Director of Arts Initiatives and the Center for Art, Science & Technology. Credit: Culture Magazine.

Leila W. Kinney

Leila W. Kinney is the Executive Director of Arts Initiatives and of the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST), working with Associate Provost Philip S. Khoury, the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P), the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), the Creative Arts Council, the Council for the Arts at MIT, the MIT List Visual Arts Center, and the MIT Museum, to advance the arts at MIT in the areas of strategic planning, cross-school collaborations, communications and resource development.

Ex Officio

Sheila Lemke

Vice Chair, Grants Committee

Larisa Leventon

Rick and Terry Stone. Credit: L. Barry Hetherington.
Rick and Terry Stone. Credit: L. Barry Hetherington.

Rick Stone

C. F. Stone III ’76 goes by “Rick” and is a graduate of the Sloan School of Management, 1976. Now retired, Rick taught English and biblical literature at the beginning and end of his work career. In between, he was in commercial and investment banking in New York. Rick also serves on the boards of the MacDowell Colony and the Paul Taylor Dance Company. He and his wife Terry moved to Boston from North Carolina several years ago when she became the Executive Vice President and Treasurer of MIT.

Past Chair, Council for the Arts at MIT

2015-18