The Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT), whose membership has supported MIT's artistic initiatives for more than 40 years, announced new leadership at the CAMIT executive committee meeting this week. President L. Rafael Reif appointed Rick Stone SM ’76 as the new chair of the council. Karen Arenson ’70 will serve as vice chair. Each will serve three-year terms.
Philip S. Khoury, associate provost and the Ford International Professor of History, thanked the current executive committee and welcomed the new leadership. “We are grateful to Jane Pappalardo for her outstanding service as CAMIT chair, to vice chair Karen Kaufman, and to the entire executive committee for their unwavering support in furthering the arts at MIT, whether through the popular tickets program that allows students to attend performances and museums in the Boston area, the CAMIT grants program that awards funding for student and faculty arts projects, or prizes such as the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT. CAMIT’s support of numerous programs in the arts plays an essential role in the vibrant culture of creativity in the MIT community.”
Stone is a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management. Now retired, Stone taught English and biblical literature at the beginning and end of his career. In between, he was in commercial and investment banking in New York. He also serves on the board of the MacDowell Colony, as chairman of the Paul Taylor American Modern Dance board, and is chair emeritus of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Foundation. He and his wife, Terry Stone SM ‘76, moved to Boston from North Carolina several years ago when she became the executive vice president and treasurer of MIT.
Arenson was a writer and editor for 30 years at The New York Times, where she focused primarily on economics and finance and on higher education, and occasionally squeezed in articles on the arts. An economics major at MIT, she also earned a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University. She served as president of the MIT Alumni Association and as a member of the MIT Corporation and its executive committee. She joined CAMIT in 2008, and is also a member of the List Visual Arts Committee Advisory Committee, where she has led the effort to expand the student loan art collection.
CAMIT was founded in 1972 by former MIT President Jerome B. Wiesner, and is an international volunteer group of alumni and friends established to support the arts at MIT. The council’s mission is to act as a catalyst for the development of a broadly based, highly participatory program in the arts, firmly founded on teaching, practice, and research at the Institute, and to conduct arts-related fundraising activities on behalf of MIT. The CAMIT’s programs are funded entirely by the annual contributions of its members.
The 99 CAMIT members, most of whom attended MIT, hail from around the globe. Be they practicing artists or leaders of industry, all CAMIT members have a passionate interest in the arts. Directed by Susan Cohen, CAMIT welcomes new members on an ongoing basis.
