Bill Michel (A.B. ’92, M.B.A. ’08), a long-time advocate for arts programming at the University, will be the first executive director for the Logan Arts Center, administrators announced early this month.

Currently the Assistant Vice President for Student Life, Michel will assume his new role on January 1, 2010.

Michel, who has served on every planning group involved in the Logan Center’s development, said he had been thinking about the position since spring quarter of last year.

“I’ve been engaged in developing the center since the beginning,” he said. “As the position developed and the opportunity became available, it became a wonderful way to build on my passion for the arts and the University.”

Michel was involved in University Theater (UT) as an undergraduate—he stage managed several shows, worked as student staff, and occasionally appeared in cameos as himself—and became UT director after he graduated. His experience with the arts, he said, drew him to administrative positions that helped foster arts on campus.

“Creativity and the arts provide a crucial perspective to the critical inquiry that is at the core of the University’s mission,” Michel said. “I’ve believed that since I arrived.”

The Logan Arts Center, one of the University’s major construction projects in the next several years, is expected to open in the spring of 2012 next to Midway Studios. Envisioned to remedy a lack of arts facilities on campus, the center will hold painting and sculpture studios, a late-night café, and several practice and performance spaces, including a 450-seat auditorium.

“We want it to be a place where faculty and students can come together to create art, and encourage interaction and collaboration among various types of art forms,” Michel said.

Michel said that architects are currently finishing plans for the outside appearance of the building and that those designs would be shown to students by the end of the quarter.