From UNC Asheville:
UNC Asheville and The Center for Craft, Creativity & Design (CCCD) have partnered to launch the Center for Creative Entrepreneurship. The new center will create an all-in-one ecosystem to coalesce business resources and training programs to support student and community innovations and craft products. This initiative is supported by the Windgate Charitable Foundation, with an initial grant of $716,500.
For photos, click here.
The three-year investment includes funding for pilot programming, operational support, and facility improvements toward the renovation of The Hive AVL, a shared regional resource center for academic institutions and the location of the Center for Creative Entrepreneurship. The project constitutes the second phase of CCCD’s redevelopment project at 67 Broadway in Asheville known as The Hive AVL.
“The Center for Creative Entrepreneurship will be the Asheville area’s hub for product incubation, design thinking and creative sector entrepreneurship,” said CCCD Director Stephanie Moore. “It’s the first product incubator program for makers in the area and will serve as a cornerstone for makers in the region, particularly the students and early-stage makers who will benefit from professional connections, entrepreneurial resources, and the opportunity to work side-by-side with faculty and visiting artists.”
UNC Asheville and the CCCD will each contribute to the unique programming in the new Center for Creative Entrepreneurship to develop maker-based businesses. By co-locating craft-related academic programming and entrepreneurial courses offered by academic partners and technical service providers, area students and faculty from universities will be able to take advantage of a collective knowledge base. UNC Asheville joins Warren Wilson College, founding academic partner, in the list of academic institutions paving the way for innovative programming that supports the business and entrepreneurial needs of the creative sector. The new center and its programming will be a part of The Hive AVL and supported by additional project partner Mountain BizWorks. A second-floor gallery also will feature student exhibitions.
“UNC Asheville is a leader in creativity and collaboration. Faculty connect our students to hands-on experiences and provide the expertise in innovation and interdisciplinary learning to advance the creative economy. The Center for Creative Entrepreneurship will take this work to the next level. We are bringing our entrepreneurs from the classroom to the community and making sure these students have the resources to succeed,” said UNC Asheville Chancellor Mary K. Grant.
The Center for Creative Entrepreneurship announcement is part of the Jan. 8 closing event for the exhibition “Made in WNC,” at the CCCD, which includes remarks by State Senator Terry Van Duyn and Asheville Vice-Mayor Gwen Wisler, alongside The Support Center, a statewide nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution. The exhibit examines the legacy of craft-based industry (textiles, pottery, and furniture) in Western North Carolina and its influence on artists and designer-makers working in the region – the kind of work that will be advanced and fostered by the Center for Creative Entrepreneurship.
“The Center for Creative Entrepreneurship will help introduce and support a new generation of makers,” said Brent Skidmore, assistant professor art and art history at UNC Asheville. “This intersection between UNC Asheville and the Center for Creative Entrepreneurship is where our students will have pre-professional experiences, bringing forth designs from our makerspaces and connecting to real-world professionals while getting the support that every budding maker wants. The CCE will become the nexus for unique endeavors in craft and design by offering programming that supports this new generation.”
Some background from MountainX archive would give this story some context. http://mountainx.com/arts/art-news/091113state-of-the-arts/
Excerpts below:
After many months of discussion, research and legal counsel, it was confirmed on Tuesday [Aug. 27] that Chancellor Anne Ponder in effect closed the UNC Center,” Stephanie Moore, CCCD’s executive director, told Xpress.
The CCCD, which was previously located at UNCA’s Kellogg Center, tucked five miles west of Hendersonville, recently purchased a building at 67 Broadway St. in downtown Asheville. CCCD will continue operating as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
The resolution, handed down by the UNC General Assembly, stems from a July 11 budget cut issued by UNCA. That budget cut initially severed CCCD from UNCA. But it also spelled out the end for the CCCD’s 16-year run as a state-operated organization. Attempts to partner with Western Carolina University were nullified by the UNC General Assembly’s recognition of the cut as systemwide.
The CCCD’s state funding was initially set up and assigned by UNC’s Board of Governors and General Assembly in May of 1996. In 2009 the UNC school system began eliminating or fusing inter-institutional organizations, which included CCCD, with university partners. The CCCD, or Center for short, was slated for partnership with Appalachian State University, according to Moore and CCCD board president Michael Sherrill. However, Chancellor Ponder and the university provided reason that resulted in UNCA’s partnership with the Center.
Whereas the CCCD was previously a UNC system Center, after 2009 it officially became a UNCA Center, says Joni Worthington, UNC’s Vice President of Communications.
That partnership came three years after UNCA received a $2 million promissory grant from Windgate Charitable Foundation, an Arkansas-based trust and longtime CCCD partner and benefactor. The organization, known for its enthusiastic support WNC craft people; pledged the funds toward the development of a crafts campus slated for construction at the former Buncombe County landfill located north of Woodfin. However, plans for the campus began to dissipate as expenses increased and the economic landscape dimmed. Windgate rescinded that pledge in 2011, shortly after the addition was removed from UNCA’s capitol campaign project.
Those funds resurfaced this March when Warren Wilson College received a $2.1 million grant for the development new programs and the enrichment of existing crafts infrastructure.
The CCCD’s annual budget was created by the state and set up in partnership with the Windgate Charitable Foundation.
But with each year came an annual decrease in funding. From 2010 to 2013 the state’s funding dropped from $201,890 to $182,402 and most recently to $178,957. Windgate’s rose in response to each drop.
“UNCA received a $592,000 cut from the state in the current academic year,” said UNCA’s Provost and Vice Chancellor Jane Fernandes, adding that this was “after absorbing cuts totaling over $10 million since 2009.”
“After Chancellor Anne Ponder had conversations with Michael Sherrill of CCCD and John Brown of the Windgate Charitable Foundation, we concluded it would be best to close CCCD as a UNCA Center and allow it to become an independent entity,” said Fernandes.
The separation is largely one of financial reasoning. Fernandes told Xpress that it will ultimately “protect core undergraduate academic programs, which would have suffered from budget reductions otherwise.”
In a July 24 statement, Ed Katz, UNCA’s associate provost and dean of university programs, also cited CCCD’s “desire to become an organization that includes many public and private collaborators,” the “expectation of continued budget cuts to the university” and the CCCD’s “lack of significant involvement in undergraduate education.”
CCCD’s Henderson County locale led to little student-body interaction and a did little to help bolster growth for the organization’s identity in the university system and Asheville.
In severing the partnership with the CCCD, a valuable connection with Windgate, whose contributions to WNC craft organizations continue to increase each year, has been damaged. So far, 2013 contributions to area artists and arts organizations including CCCD, Warren Wilson College and Penland School for Craft total more than $7 million.