Karen Chandler, Ph.D.

Associate Professor Emerita

Dr. Karen Chandler, Associate Professor Emerita in the Arts Management Program, retired from the College of Charleston in 2022. Since 1999, she taught in its undergraduate and graduate programs with degree options in the Master of Public Administration and Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing programs.  During specific years of her tenure, she served as director of both programs.  The Karen Chandler Arts and Cultural Management Endowed Scholarship provides financial support for students studying in the graduate certificate program.

A classically trained pianist, Chandler is also Co-Founder/Principal of the Charleston Jazz Initiative (CJI) that documents South Carolina musicians who contributed to jazz history in America and Europe. With a National Endowment for the Arts grant, she served as Executive Producer of LEGENDS, a CD of songs by musicians the initiative is studying. She is a recipient of the South Carolina Governor's Award in the Humanities for her leadership and research with the Charleston Jazz Initiative.  

Chandler has also been the recipient of program and research grants in the humanities and performing arts and has served as a grant reviewer with the National Endowment for the Arts and South Arts. She formerly served as director of the College of Charleston's Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, director of the University of Virginia's African American Cultural Center, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Arts Administration Educators (AAAE), among other board affiliations.

Among her most recent publications are "Uniquely Gullah: Africanisms in Jazz” in Arts Management, Cultural Policy, and the African Diaspora, A. Cuyler, ed.; “Bin Yah (Been Here): Africanisms and Jazz Influences in Gullah Culture” in Jazz @ 100: An Alternative to a Story of Heroes, W. Knauer, ed. (Frankfurt: WolkeVerlag); and “Prelude to Gershwin: Edmund Thornton Jenkins” in Porgy and Bess: A Charleston Story, H. Greene, ed. Other publications include Curtain Up on the Friends: A History of the Friends of the Kennedy Center Volunteer Program (John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts) and articles in The Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society.

Now residing in her hometown of Nashville, TN, Chandler continues her work with the Charleston Jazz Initiative and serves as a consultant for the curatorial project, Centering Art | Voices with the Gibbes Museum of Art.

Education

Ph.D., Studies in Arts and Humanities
Graduate Certificate, Management of Nonprofit Organizations
New York University, New York, NY

M.A., Music Education
Columbia University, Teachers College, New York, NY

B.S., Music Education
Hampton University, Hampton, VA