Biography
Lisa Donovan, PhD, is a Professor of Arts Management in the Fine and Performing Arts Department at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
Lisa has broad experience as an arts educator and administrator in numerous arts organizations including Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Berkshire Opera Company, Barrington Stage Company, Boston University’s Summer Arts Institutes (Theater, Visual Arts and Tanglewood), and University of Massachusetts’ Department of Theater. She also served as Executive Director of the Massachusetts Alliance for Arts Education. Prior to joining MCLA, she served as Associate Professor and Director of the Creative Arts in Learning Division at Lesley University.
Lisa is a widely published author of arts integration and rural arts education resources. This includes her work as editor/author of a five-book series on arts integration published by Shell Education. Her rural research, Leveraging Change: Increasing Access to Arts Education in Rural Areas, was featured in multimedia venues by the National Endowment for the Arts. Her latest book, Teacher as Curator, has been published by Teachers College Press.
Lisa is spearheading several projects that foreground the use of the arts as a strategy for regional change funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Department of Education, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation. She leads the Creative Compact for Collective Impact and the Berkshire Cultural
Asset Network.
Dr. Donovan serves as Co-Director of the Berkshire Regional Arts Integration Network (BRAINworks), and oversees the MCLA Institute for Arts and Humanities. Through BRAINworks, she helped develop and lead the C4 Initiative, which created a countywide blueprint for arts education that is now being tested in other school environments in the U.S.. With BRAINworks she founded the Berkshire Cultural Asset Network, which offers arts education-focused professional development to educators and community engagement staff at regional arts and culture organizations.
Lisa was honored with the 2015 Lesley University Sally K. Lenhardt Professional Leadership Award, the 2016 Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Faculty-Senior Class Faculty Appreciation Award, and the 2017 Massachusetts Art Education Association Friend of Arts Education Award. She was voted Best Professor in 2017 as part of the Berkshire Eagle’s Best of the Berkshires competition and was selected for the Fulbright Specialist Roster. She is currently a Faculty Research Fellow at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival.
She teaches across the country and internationally.
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Dr. Lisa Donovan
Professor, Arts Management
Director, BRAINworks (Berkshire Regional Arts Integration Network)
Fine and Performing Arts Department
Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
375 Church Street
Bowman Hall, Room 322D
North Adams, MA 02147
(413) 662 - 5581
Awards & Honors
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Selected for the Fulbright Specialist Roster
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2025-2026 Jacobs Pillow Faculty Research Fellow
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2023 recipient of the Berkshire 25 Award
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Voted Best Professor in 2017 as part of the Berkshire Eagle’s Best of the Berkshires competition
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2017 Massachusetts Art Education Association Friend of Arts Education Award
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2016 Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Faculty-Senior Class Faculty Appreciation Award
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2015 Lesley University Sally K. Lenhardt Professional Leadership Award
