Well, I'll speak as an MBA and a fundraiser (though I grew up as a
   musician and a museum-goer).  I got my MBA in 1981 from SUNY
   Binghamton's Arts Management program, a full-scale MBA with several
   symposia for the arts component.  Since then, I have been working as
   an administrator in various museums large and small, and am now the
   Director of Corporate and Science Development at The New York
   Botanical Garden.

   In my administrative experience, I would say that content people make
   no better leaders, as a group, then people with administrative
   backgrounds.  While I agree that it is easier to take a person with
   content expertise and teach them business skills, there is one thing
   that is *very* hard to teach someone who has made their way as a
   scientist, art-historian, historian, or educator.  That is the vision
   of the institution as a whole.

   Curatorial people, historically, have had serious differences with
    with education people, as have research people.  In a place like the
   Garden, which has three equally important programmatic aspects to its
   mission (horticulture, botanical research, and public education),
   finding a scientist or an educator  or a horticulturist who is able to
   balance all of those interests, as well as raise money with passion,
   conviction, and experience is at least improbable.

   Therefore, the Board hired someone who is among New York's best
   fundraisers, is able to synthesize complex information into a
   compelling overview, and is able to act as a balance among the
   curatorial, research, horticultural, and public aspects of the
   Garden's mission.

   Administrators who aspire to be directors really do require a
   special set of skills, and the ability to understand and convey the
   programmatic importance of the museum.  Without those, then I think
   that there is fair scope for the types of resentment that have been
   voiced here over MBA-types or accountant types.  By the same token,
   content people need more than accounting or business or even
   fundraising skills to be effective directors, they need an overview of
   institutional interests.  Without those, scientists and historians do
   not make effective directors.

   Eric Siegel
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