Staff
Matt Neves is the Director of the SUU Arts Administration graduate program and has also served as the Associate Chair and Head of Theatre for the Theatre Arts and Dance Department. Prior to SUU, he was the Associate Managing Director of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival and produced the Landmark Shakespeare Company “amid the ruins of British castles.” Matt has degrees in both Arts Administration (M.B.A., Illinois State University) and Theatre Directing (M.F.A., University of Exeter; B.A., Brigham Young University) and he freelances as a professional director. He frequently directs for the Neil Simon Festival and the Hale Centre Theatre.
William Byrnes brings an extensive background in teaching and leadership in the arts to his capacity as Dean of the CPVA. Dean Byrnes is active in the classroom through his teaching in the Arts Administration Program. He teaches graduate seminars in board relations, fundraising and grant writing, economics and financial management, and leadership and organizational development over a two-year rotation. His textbook, Management and the Arts, now in its fourth edition, is widely used in arts and culture management courses throughout the world (including SUU). The translation of the second edition into Chinese was published in 2004.
Before coming to SUU, Dean Byrnes served as a Professor and Associate Dean of Florida State University's School of Theatre for 10 years. He also served as Director of the MFA Theatre Management program while at FSU. He worked for 22 years at Oberlin College, in Oberlin, Ohio, home of a highly regarded liberal arts college and outstanding Conservatory of Music. He started as a Lecturer and left as a Professor of Theatre.
Dean Byrnes maintains a strong international presence with his service on the Advisory Board of the Institute for Languages and Economics (ISW), an international culture management training school located in Freiberg, Germany ( http://www.isw-freiburg.de). He is a member of the Editorial Advisory Committee of the Asia Pacific Journal of Arts and Cultural Management. He was the President of the U.S. Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) in 2000-02. In December 2001, Byrnes was inducted into the National Theatre Conference (NTC), an honorary society of theatre professionals and distinguished educators.
Justin Scholl is a current Arts Administration graduate student from Virginia Beach, Virginia. Justin has an undergraduate degree in Theater from Greensboro College and works in management for the Southeastern Theatre Conference.