Fiona Coffey Named Director of the Office for the Arts

Fiona Coffey — the associate director and curator for performing arts at Wesleyan University — will be Harvard’s next Director of the Office for the Arts, the University announced Tuesday.

Coffey will replace Jack Megan, who stepped down in June after serving for over two decades as director of the OFA — which runs programs and initiatives to support student activity in the arts. Coffey will assume her new role on August 5.

“With Fiona’s track record of innovative leadership, we can look forward to a future where the arts continue to be a central and transformative element of the Harvard experience,” Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana wrote in an email to College staff and affiliates announcing the appointment.

“I am eager to see her impact on the next generation of Harvard students,” he added.

Coffey’s work examines Irish drama and theater related to conflict in Northern Ireland, specifically focusing on female writers. She published her first book “Political Acts: Women in Northern Irish Theatre, 1921-2012” in 2016. At Wesleyan, she taught courses on theater history and arts administration.

The OFA oversees the management of several campus venues, including Agassiz Theater, Sanders Theater, and Lowell Lecture Hall. It also runs multiple programs aimed at engaging artists on campus, including a ceramics program hosted at an Allston studio, where Harvard affiliates and the local public can take courses or use the space. The OFA also operates a public art initiative and multiple musical and performance groups.

Under Megan, the OFA expanded its public art displays and fellowship offerings, established a new ceramics studio, and conducted renovations in Farkas Hall. Khurana wrote that he is excited to see how Coffey supports these efforts moving forward.

“Her leadership will sustain current efforts and drive new initiatives, fostering creative expression and engagement across the College, University, and beyond,” Khurana said.

Coffey wrote in an email to The Crimson that she has already felt welcomed to Harvard’s campus and looks forward to meeting students and beginning her new role.

“The OFA has such a remarkable history of supporting and uplifting the extraordinarily diverse range of student art-making at Harvard,” Coffey wrote in an emailed Wednesday. “I am thrilled to join the OFA team to steward this legacy that has been handed off so graciously by Jack Megan.”

—Alma T. Barak and Ben Ali H. Brown contributed reporting.

—Staff writer Elyse C. Goncalves can be reached at elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @e1ysegoncalves or on Threads @elyse.goncalves.