One of the leadership positions created for Lehigh University’s Zoellner Arts Center when the university reorganized its management and decided to replace its managing director last month will be filled by the woman who was Zoellner’s first managing director, the institution announced today.
Bethlehem native Deborah Sacarakis, who was Zoellner’s interim director when it opened in January 1997 and for its first year, and since then has been its director of programs and outreach, will become its artistic director effective Aug. 1, Lehigh Provost Pat Farrell said in an e-mail to the campus community today.
Deborah Sacarakis in 2008 photo
Sacarakis did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment left on her office telephone.
“Her vision has helped shape the center’s reputation as one of the premiere venues in the region,” Farrell said in her e-mail. “She has played a key role in bringing world-renowned artists to the university and to the Lehigh Valley, in facilitating extensive collaborations and in the commissioning and creation of new work.”
Farrell said the new position is important in the next phase of Zoellner’s development, “and Deborah’s extensive background and connection to the arts will prove tremendously beneficial as we continue to develop and promote the programming that takes place on Zoellner’s stages.”
Sacarakis’ new position was among two created — the other is administrative director — when at the end of June decided to replace Elizabeth Scofield, who had been the managing director of Lehigh University’s Zoellner Arts Center for 11 ½ of its 14 ½-year history.
Farrell said then that over the past two years, Lehigh has devised and implemented a strategic plan that examined the university’s “core operations, including the operation of Zoellner … to ensure they are in line with the university’s strategic plan and its own mission.”
The changes, she said, “are consistent with achieving our goals and objectives to offer vibrant and high-quality guest artists, music and theatre department performances that enrich student and non-student experiences, and to play a central role in the arts community in the Lehigh Valley and in the academic mission of Lehigh University.”
Farrell’s latest e-mail said Sacarakis, “a long time champion for the arts … has also garnered a reputation for their support outside the university.”
It noted she has been on the board of directors for Allentown’s Mayfair Festival and as president and vice president of Pennsylvania Presenters, a statewide service organization.
She also has served on grant adjudication panels for the state Council on the Arts, the New Jersey Council on the Arts, Dance Advance of Philadelphia, the Berks County Arts Council and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County in Maryland.
Farrell did not indicate when the administrative director job will be filled, but Jennifer Tucker, Lehigh’s assistant vice president of communications, last week said the university is moving as quickly as possible.
The administrative director “is basically going to function as manager of the day-to-day operations and the artistic director will handle programming and guest artist relations. … Obviously they will work closely together,” Tucker said.
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