Cleveland’s failing Institute unaninmously re-elects its leaders
NewsThe CIM, which has lost its heads of conducting and brass instruments in the past few weeks, last night unanimously re-elected its leadership.
Major donor Susan Rothman was renewed for a fourth term as board chair. Puppets Paul Hogle, Scott Harrison and Brian Foss were reappointed President & CEO, Executive Vice President & Provost, and Chief Financial Officer respectively.
The announcement begins: ‘One of the most successful chapters in CIM history has drawn to a close. At the same time, another has just begun…’
You really couldn’t make it up.
The place, which offers basically nothing different than any other boring run of the mill conservatory, proposes a “moon-shot,” to become tuition free. And a moon-shot is what they would need to go from a $90 million endowment, with steadily rising expenses, diminishing donations, and an inability to increase tuition to keep up with costs, to tuition free. And, then they explode publicly, for things that were all self-inflicted wounds. Their problem? They were imagining they could be the Curtis of the mid-west, by going tuition free. Their competitive edge? Hiring a more diverse staff, but remaining a very conservative musical and educational organization otherwise. Where are they heading now, with serious declines in the number of American high school students entering college, a sluggish Chinese economy, and all the negative publicity? Probably to the very bottom of the barrel of independent music conservatories across the globe. A moon shot? Perhaps, but more specifically, they may just be the Apollo 11 mission.
Some fun facts: CIM just this week recorded an increase in applications for the next academic year (significantly up from last year). Fundraising and philanthropy at the institution has increased substantially in the last 8 years…
Now now, Susan, I thought I told you to close your laptop and stop commenting here. Do I need to tell all the commenters about how those application numbers are inflated? Or should I tell them about all the fundraising lies? Or maybe your personal misdeeds? There are just so many disasters and lies to keep up with nowadays!
Thanks to you Midwestern Trumpers .o one knows who to believe.
By your own numbers, applications are up by 30 over last year, or 3%. Hardly significant. Stop spinning.
CIM got 12 trumpet applicants for the next academic year….(SIGNIFICANTLY down from last year). Given that 6 trumpet spots are opening up due to current students transferring, that’ll be a 50% acceptance rate. Many prospective students have applied in reluctance and as a safety school.
Paul Hogle is literally donor repellent. Anyone with a brain knows that Hogle hasn’t even come close to the fundraising that David Cerone achieved.
If you really want proof of CIM in ruins, ask yourself why they are planning to admit 80 undergraduates for next year, as opposed to the 54 they did this year. Isn’t the plan to reduce class size so that they can reduce tuition? What happened to the “moonshot”? Maybe they’re running out of money?
The only way Paul Hogle knows how to run a music school is into the ground. The board should’ve expected this given his track record in Detroit, Atlanta, and San Antonio.
Get rid of him. #SaveCIM
At a music conservatory, reducing class size may not significantly reduce tuition. A lot of the cost is in facilities and there are costs related to major lessons, which are 1:1 student-teacher, that never scale. At a heavily tuition dependent institution like CIM, reducing class size could actually make them less profitable and force the cost of attendance to rise, since tuition dependent institutions require full pay students to help fund scholarships and aid. Fewer full pay students, means less money for scholarships. Unless, someone lays $500 million or so, so they can get near tuition free. But as noted earlier, they have a $90million endowment. Sure, if they could do fewer operas, have less technology, provide less support for students, and hold back rising costs for everything, increase the number of full pay students, they might be able to lower tuition, while hollowing out the things that make conservatories appealing. The plan at CIM didn’t make any sense to begin with.
I think you must mean Apollo 1, that blew up on the launch pad….
Sorry, yes, a typo, not Apollo 11, but 1. Thanks!
You may have your Apollo missions mixed up. I think you’re referring to 13, not 11.
Dude I think you meant Apollo 13.
Unbelievable.
It’s Scott Harrison, not Paul. If you’re going to call someone a “puppet”, get his name right.
We keep reading about CIM on this blog. Could someone, once and for all, tell us what they are supposed to have done wrong, charge by charge. Because I am none the wiser. All I see is negative language, but no substance. What is going on there, exactly?
“All I see is negative language, but no substance”
The same could be said for the majority of posts on this blog.
It should be remembered that CIM allegedly harbored William Preucil for years despite allegations of sexual misconduct with students–he was suspended and resigned, then fired as concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra: https://www.npr.org/2018/07/30/634023068/cleveland-violinist-faces-further-fallout-after-sexual-misconduct-allegations That was five years ago, but it is a context for the current eruption of anger at CIM admin and trustees.
More recently, Carlos Kalmar, the primary conducting faculty member, was accused of bullying and discriminatory behavior towards the students in the orchestra. This article tells part of the story:
https://van-magazine.com/mag/cleveland-institute-of-music-carlos-kalmar-discrimination-bullying/
A Title IX investigation cleared Kalmar, and many, many students and some faculty viewed that as a whitewashing. It got to the point that students showed up without their instruments for orchestra rehearsal. Kalmar was then put on leave for the semester while the administration continued to claim there was no issue with him. The semester is nearly over, and there is no word about whether he will return.
Michael Sachs, principal trumpet in the Cleveland Orchestra and head of the brass faculty at CIM, got a letter from management criticizing him for something that he denied ever saying. I think the accusation was that he had said that CIM should be torn down to the ground or something of that nature. He then resigned in anger at the false accusation and accepted a teaching position at Curtis (while still remaining principal trumpet down the street from CIM at Severance Music Center). Five of his students asked to withdraw from CIM.
Many students and alumni have now written a letter of protest to CIM’s Boards of Trustees, which continues to act as if everything is just fine:
https://slippedisc.com/2023/12/72-trumpets-blast-clevelands-failing-institute-of-music/
The bottleneck seems to be at the top of the bottle…
Hogle, Harrison, and Rothman should be ashamed of their deplorable behavior. The destruction of CIM is squarely on their heads, and it is a crime to both its students and faculty. All three should be equally ashamed for lying to their community and issuing propaganda to the public. At this point, the whole world can see right through their smoke screen. Hogle, Harrison, and Rothman need to be forced to resign. CIM needs change and the only way forward starts with the departure of its three top administrators.
CIM continues to lead the way in brilliant administrative appointments. We all work for the same fools.
The propaganda coming out of CIM lately would make Kim Jong Un proud.
Clown car.
… at what is CIM failing?… please, enlighten us…
Thank you for the invitation to enlighten you. What has happened is a series of incidents in which CIM administration has failed to provide a safe environment for its students in which they can study without emotional or sexual abuse. Please start your enlightenment by reading my lengthy message above that summarizes much of what has happened recently, and also read a prior Slipped Disc article on past incidents that CIM covered up for years: https://slippedisc.com/2023/03/conservatoire-honours-journalist-who-exposed-its-violin-prof-as-a-sex-pest/ (there is a link in that article to a more detailed Washington Post report that may require a subscription). CIM is essentially doing **now** what Curtis initially did several years ago when Lara St. John accused her former teacher Brodsky of sexual assault–denial, and cover-up. Note that eventually Curtis issued a public apology to her. CIM is still in the denial stage.
As someone who was lucky enough to walk the hallways of this institution during its golden years, witnessing the demise of CIM’s reputation at the hands of its leadership makes me incredibly sad. If one has any idea at all how the propaganda machine works, they’d see right through all of this right away.
Paul, can you not see that your pride and stubbornness is blinding you to the errors in your leadership? What kind of leader is he who does not lend his ear equally to all the people, especially the most vulnerable? Yes, decisions will often create division and invite criticism, but good leaders navigate such waters with wisdom and humility, and a confidence that does not seek to stamp out dissent. Instead you seem to be stoking the fires of great division within your community, pitting faculty against faculty, leadership against the students. Those who dare challenge and speak out against your decisions are systematically purged from the system, while those who pander to your every word receive unjust rewards, for their compliance and flattery rather than their merit.
If money and buildings are what you mainly boast of at the end of the day, I dare say that as the leader of an institution dedicated to the nurturing of hopeful young musicians, you may have missed the point altogether.
The first rule of tennis is “Always Change a Losing Game”.