Steven J. Tepper, Associate Director



Steven J. Tepper, Associate DirectorSteven J. Tepper is associate director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy and assistant professor in the department of sociology at Vanderbilt.  Prior to Vanderbilt, Tepper served as deputy director of the Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies.

His research and teaching has focused on creativity in society; conflict over art and culture; and cultural participation.  Recently, he has published two cover stories for the Chronicle of Higher Education focusing on creativity and cultural participation, “The Next Great Cultural Transformation,” (with Bill Ivey) and  “The Creative Campus: Who’s Number 1?”  He has also published articles on public art, culture and democracy, literary reading and gender, and the creative economy.   Tepper is co-editor of and contributing author to the  book Engaging Art: The Next Great Transformation of America’s Cultural Life (Routledge 2007).  He is currently completing a book on cultural conflict and social change in American cities.

Tepper holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; a master’s in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government; and a Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University

Email:  steven.j.tepper@vanderbilt.edu