Anne Hogan, PhD

By ballet standards, Anne Hogan began studying late.  Chapman University’s Dean of the College of Performing Arts (CoPA) and Musco Center for the Arts took her first class at the age of 12.

She may have donned ballet slippers later than most, but a look at Hogan’s career, which includes dancing with the Boston Ballet, shows she has been right on time for what she describes as her “nonlinear life and career.”  This includes joining Chapman last July.

Since her arrival at the University, Hogan, who has extensive experience in national and international academic leadership within the arts, has made significant strides in enhancing the school’s educational offerings and Musco Center opportunities for the public.

“I am excited about overseeing CoPA and the Musco Center, the latter of which is a beautiful gem of a venue,” says Hogan.

As Mark Geddes, Musco’s Director of Operations & Administration, sees it, “Anne comes at a pivotal time in Musco Center’s development to further refine and broaden the programming offerings to students and the community at large,” he says.  “We are already beginning to benefit from Anne’s tremendous national and international arts experience and her entrepreneurial and academic spirit and approach to building a strong collaborative and inclusive arts community.”

Massachusetts Beginnings

Hogan grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts, a town just south of Boston, where she spent winters ice skating on a neighborhood pond and summers visiting Wollaston Beach.  When someone at a community rink saw her ice skating and suggested she’d like ballet, Hogan decided to give it a try and immediately fell in love with the dance form.  By the time she was in high school, she had earned a Ford Foundation Scholarship and started performing as an apprentice with the Boston Ballet.  When she graduated from high school, she joined its second company, and a year later became a member of the main company.

“I was fortunate in those years to be a part of the Boston Ballet Company under the directorship of Violette Verdy, one of ballet’s greatest ballerinas,” says Hogan, who also danced for a year with the Pacific Northwest Ballet.  “I had an amazing career that included international tours, which shaped my perspective and drove my desire to explore and live in other cultures.”

While Hogan loved dancing, she also greatly enjoyed her academic studies.  When she decided to end her ballet career at the age of 27, she went to college.

“I had a dream of being a university professor,” says Hogan, who earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a master’s and PhD from Brown University, all in English Literature.

International Experiences

Toward the end of her studies, Hogan made the decision to live in Europe.  “I had started writing my dissertation on the works of English stage and film director Peter Brook, who specialized in Shakespeare’s plays, when I mentioned to a colleague at Brown how I would like to live in Paris.  He said, ‘What’s stopping you?’ I responded by moving to Paris.  It was a crazy move, because I didn’t speak a word of French or have any working papers.”

In France, Hogan taught at the American University of Paris as an adjunct professor.  Then one morning she woke up and decided she also wanted to return to ballet class, which she did. Eventually, she co-founded a small dance company with two other women in Paris.

In 2000, Hogan took a teaching and administrative position with the London Contemporary Dance School, later becoming Associate Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Languages, and Education at London Metropolitan University and Director of Education for the Royal Academy of Dance, also in London.  In addition to honing her skills in academia during this time, she became experienced in fundraising and donor relations.

Return to the U.S.

After spending more than 22 years in France and the U.K., Hogan decided to return to the States in 2016.  Then, in 2017, she became Dean of the College of Communication and Fine Arts at the University of Memphis, where she oversaw the school of dance, music, and theater, which included visual arts, film and communication, journalism and architecture.

“That was a wonderful experience,” says Hogan, who during her time in Memphis worked with colleagues in the final phase of the campaign for the Scheidt Family Performing Arts Center, a $40 million venue.

Five years later in 2022, Hogan joined Ithaca College in New York as founding Dean of the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance. While she enjoyed that position, when the opportunity arose to potentially work at Chapman, she decided to head west and check it out.

“I realized that my career had primed me for the position as Dean of CoPA,” says Hogan.  “I already knew of Chapman’s reputation as a high-quality educational institution and was impressed with the school’s growth trajectory in a relatively short period of time.  I was also very excited about the world-class Musco Center and stunning Sandi Simon Center for Dance.  When I came to campus for interviews, the staff and faculty were very welcoming, and the students were amazing.

“I’ve worked in a wide variety of institutions, and from my perspective, Chapman is the goldilocks in terms of the right size,” continues Hogan.  “The university is small enough that professors know the students and are able to provide personalized education and mentorship, but not so small that there aren’t plenty of opportunities for the students to grow.”

Hogan was also drawn to Chapman’s proximity to the Pacific.  “I grew up near the beach and have always loved the ocean,” she says.  “The morning of the interview, I went to Newport Beach Pier, where I saw a school of dolphins jumping up and down.  I thought that was a good sign.”

Plans for CoPA

Hogan is excited about the opportunities for advancement at CoPA.  “We are poised to accelerate our national and international visibility.  This includes creating more interdisciplinary opportunities,” she says.  “There will be more fluidity and border crossing between performing arts and other disciplines and a more holistic understanding for students of the various art forms and production and management elements.  We aim to give students personalized training in the artistic, technical and entrepreneurial skills needed to succeed in performing arts today.”

According to Julianne O’Brien, Chapman’s Interim Associate Dean, College of Performing Arts, CoPA is in good hands with Hogan.

“Under Anne’s leadership, I see CoPA and Musco becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, distinguished and integrated,” she says.  “Anne is a big thinker, who has performed with one of the top ballet companies in the world and has authored and edited several important books and articles in the theater and dance fields, as well as taught master classes to countless students and artists around the globe.  Her incredible pedigree, expertise and visionary leadership place CoPA at a new threshold of possibilities.”

To Hogan, her mission at Chapman is far reaching.  “The arts are an essential aspect of being human,” she says.  “People can’t realize their full potential without engaging with the arts in whatever way, shape or form that may be.  The arts fundamentally enhance empathy by allowing us to see the world through different perspectives and at an emotional and intellectual depth that we can’t find anywhere else.”