Tag Archives: Door to Door

Campus Community Mourns Robert Wood

Posted on by

Muhlenberg trustee Robert Wood died October 29 after a long fight with brain cancer. He was 67. Although Wood, an Allentown businessman, was a graduate of Cornell University, the Wood family has been associated with Muhlenberg for many decades. In 1948, Wood’s family business, Wood Dining Services – at the time run by Wood’s father, Milton “Scotty” Wood – provided Muhlenberg with its first food dining services, a partnership that still continues after 63 years. Since its founding, Wood Dining Services had become the fourth-largest food-service company in the nation. In 2001, the company was purchased by the Sodexo Group, one of the largest food-service management companies in the world. Wood worked at Sodexo through 2009. The new campus restaurant at Muhlenberg, dedicated in August 2010, is named the “Ilene and Robert Wood Dining Commons,” after Wood and his wife.

The College benefitted from Wood’s generosity in other areas as well. Muhlenberg’s athletic stadium, built in 1999, is named Scotty Wood Stadium, and Bob Wood served as a chair for another of his father’s namesakes, the Scotty Wood Tournament, the annual men’s and women’s basketball tournament that began in 1982 at Muhlenberg.

Wood and his wife dedicated much of their lives to charitable work. “Bob could have hired servants to do anything he wanted done,” says Muhlenberg President Randy Helm. “Instead he chose to serve others.” Wood also was involved with the Harry C. Trexler Trust, the Allentown Art Museum and the United Way of the Lehigh Valley. It also was not at all rare to find Wood conducting unplanned acts of charity for those in the area who needed it most, and there are many nonprofit organizations throughout the Lehigh Valley that have been effected by Wood’s altruism.

Helm sums up Wood’s character best when he says, “He was unfailingly kind, unfailingly generous, always ready with a good idea, a kind word, an offer of help…he had so much to be proud of but was always modest.” A memorial service was held for Wood on November 2, in Egner Memorial Chapel.

Business Professor Monitors the Arts’ Vital Signs

Posted on by

Students who sign up for Roland Kushner’s classes are often surprised when he breaks out his guitar to sing a song related to the day’s lecture. But Kushner, an associate professor of business who teaches classes in management, strategy and arts administration, says he has always had “a natural affinity for the arts.” That’s a passion that served him well as co-author of the latest edition of the National Arts Index, a prestigious annual compilation of 81 national-level economic indicators that measure the health and vitality of arts across the United States.

The second edition of the Index, published last winter by Americans for the Arts, is based on data compiled between 1998 and 2009. It measures indicators such as artist income, volunteering at arts-related organizations, arts-related employment, attendance levels at events and copyright applications.

The breadth of the Index makes it a valuable tool for leaders of arts organizations and policymakers. “The arts have always needed advocacy and support in the United States,” says Kushner. “That is why it is vital for us to ask the question, ‘How are the arts doing?’”

In some ways, the Index found, the answer to that question is “relatively well.” In the past decade, for instance, non-profit arts organizations grew at a faster rate than any other non-profit sector. In fact, between 2003 and 2009, a new nonprofit arts organization was founded every four-and-a-half hours on average, according to the Index. During that time, there also was a 23 percent increase in the number of tourists who visit arts events or take advantage of arts activities across the nation.

A number of Muhlenberg students assisted Kushner in conducting his research. Alumnus Ariel Fogel ’11, says the project allowed him to combine his two majors—behavioral economics and music. Fogel worked on the early stages of the “Local Arts Index,” which uses many of the same indicators as the national index to provide a community-by-community comparison of the nation’s arts sector, allowing each participating community to see how they compare on a national scale.

Kushner says the arts have always played a critical role in his professional life. Since moving to the Lehigh Valley from Canada in 1980, he has supported and been a leader in numerous local arts organizations. He was Managing Director of Bethlehem’s Musikfest from 1984 to 1987 and Director of Development for the Bach Choir of Bethlehem from 1987 to 1990. For seven years, before joining the Muhlenberg faulty in 2006, he led Kushner Management Advisory Services, where he counseled organizations in the arts and other sectors. It was while running this company that Kushner became involved in co-authoring the Index.

Kushner is also a musician who sings and plays acoustic and electric guitars, the long-necked mandolin and the piano. He plays his own material and occasionally performs in venues throughout the Lehigh Valley. On campus, Kushner played an integral role in designing and implementing the new arts administration concentration within the business major, which he expects will have attract about a dozen students each year. Now, along with Randy Cohen, his co-author and Vice President of Research at Americans for the Arts, Kushner says he looks forward to seeing just what impact the Index has on arts in the United States.

He says he hopes the study will “elevate the conversation” about the importance of the arts and will also help legislators, appointed officials and funders as they make arts-related decisions. “The arts are in our hearts; they are in our souls. They motivate so many people and there are so many communities that rely on the arts. They are a part of our identity.” And, as it turns out, they’re also a perfect fit for a Muhlenberg business professor.