Baltimore ‘poised for a tremendous rise’: new MICA president Samuel Hoi

For 36 years, Fred Lazarus has served as the president of the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). MICA during the Lazarus years is given credit for boosting Baltimore’s Station North Arts District. (Baltimore City Paper, writing in January 2013, said, “There would be no Station North if it were not for the Maryland Institute College of Art, especially under the guidance of Fred Lazarus.”)
But last month MICA announced a new president, Samuel Hoi, who has led the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles for 14 years. Hoi begins his tenure at MICA on July 1. So what made Hoi leave the West Coast for Baltimore?
“Baltimore has always struck me, even when I was in D.C., as poised for a tremendous rise,” he said in an interview with Cara Ober, founding editor of the Bmoreart blog. “When I came for the interviews, I felt the vitality and a momentum of renaissance here, with people moving back into the city and some exciting developments already in place.”
Read the full Q&A with Samuel Hoi at Bmoreart
Watch a video with remarks from Samuel Hoi on his new position: