We are really excited to be heading to Seattle for the 2009 Annual Convention. Although Americans for the Arts hosts the convention, it is really YOUR convention. You are the presenters, participants, and consumers of this event. You are the ones who make it successful. We just set the stage for you to connect, listen, and learn from one another.
We are currently accepting proposals to present. DEADLINE: AUGUST 1.
Below are some suggestions for what separates a good proposal from a weak proposal.
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Tagged with: Americans for the ArtsArts-EducationBusinessConventionCultural DevelopmentEmerging LeadersEventsLeadershipPartnershipsPolicyPublic-Art
July 14th, 2008 at 10:13am
Rebecca Borden
by Laura Reeder, Founding Executive Director, Partners for Arts Education, Syracuse, NY
The 21st century movement toward less didactic and more collaborative education for our next generation has been especially focused on the place of the arts in learning. As our schools and community partners work to redesign the classroom with more experiential opportunities, we are also redesigning the shape of leadership and resource delivery to serve these new environments.
As the director of a state-level service organization for arts education, I am trying to determine whether the changes are good or not.
It is good that with popular emphasis on the holistic, simultaneous, contextual, imagistic, and intuitive characteristics of artistic or right-brain function, the arts are seen as an ally to education. Historically, arts and education communities have been allies when they found themselves on the bottom of the funding ladder together. They shared an identity that appeared to take more from society than it could give. That was not so good.
To seize current opportunity and make use of our shared potential, schools, cultural organizations, policymakers, funders, and individuals are using consortia to surround arts education with leadership at all levels and through many perspectives. There is a strengthening of national, professional networks to do this.
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Tagged with: Arts-EducationLeadershipPolicy
July 3rd, 2008 at 12:37pm
John Abodeely
Many members within the Americans for the Arts work in various capacities of Higher Education. We are faculty, staff, students and administrators who touch various combinations of the tracks of Americans for the Arts. Curriculum, co-curricular activities, civic engagement, advocacy, leadership development, you name it, we do it. Colleges and Universities are collectively the largest US employer of artists, commission new works in various artistic media, train the next generation of artists, classroom teachers, leaders and advocates.
All students will eventually become not only members of the creative workforce, but they will also become parents, voters or future board members. In higher education, we have the chance to nurture a passion for the arts - no matter the chosen major.
Americans for the Arts has the research, programs, resources (and the network is the GREATEST resource) and message. This is an appeal to the Americans for the Arts Board and to the strategic planning process - please develop a partnership with the National Associations of College and University Presidents. Help us inform up. Help our leaders in higher education to inform our own boards of trustees.
This is what I will do for you. I (and my colleagues who respond to this post) will identify the informed Higher Education leaders who are already championing the arts in their institutions - arts for ALL of the institution’s constituents; students, faculty, staff, alumni, business partners, etc.
With your support, we will also identify ourselves (and folks, this is where you sign your “John Hancock”) as a new affinity group within Americans for the Arts. We want more opportunity to network with each other. We want to share our successful deployment of Americans for the Arts programs at our institutions. We respond to effective models by adapting what works on one campus to the individual profile of our own.
In the spirit of our host city of Philadelphia….
We, the members of the Americans for the Arts who work in HIGHER EDUCATION, on this, the twenty-second day of the month of June in the year two thousand and eight, declare ourselves as an AFFINITY GROUP within the Americans for the Arts. We accept the responsibility of our sharing the knowledge and message of this noble and venerable organization with our complex and opportunity rich campuses. We pledge to work laterally, across the various vertical organizational structures within, so that we can better inform not only the next generation of consumers, but the next generation of citizens.
- Silagh White
Tagged with: Arts-EducationLeadership
June 23rd, 2008 at 06:31am
Silagh White
I can’t help but view this whole conference experience through the lens of its arrival in my hometown next year. What will we do differently? What worked and what didn’t? What does ‘Metro Natural’ mean? I really want to be able to show off the ‘Authentic Seattle’ character, but also be realistic about what we will be able to do…I didn’t even make all of the sessions I wanted to this year, and I had far less responsibility than I will next time around.
I really enjoyed the presentation I just saw about uwishunu, and am totally blown away by how smart, savvy, and authentic that project seems to be. I hope they come to Seattle next year. I also really enjoyed the panel that Ra and Lisa from Illinois Arts Alliance hosted on succession planning; I did manage to step on a small land mine during that discussion when I suggested that hiring young, capable staff and training them up through the organization was a way to protect yourself from succession crisis…apparently it sounded like I was saying don’t hire people over 35 (I wasn’t). It made me think about a few things for next year:
-Multigenerational Leadership dialogue: It gets a little too ‘us vs. them’ for me…I think we would all be served by being able to hear and learn from each others stories, regardless of age or institution.
-Combined panels with Economic Development and Leadership: In both tracks it was sometimes hard to tell which was which. I think these two areas are closely linked (uwishunu is a good example).
-I have 3 staff under the age of 25, all running different aspects of our program…I’d like to put them on a panel next year and explore what works/doesn’t work about distributed leadership, and what their view of organizational structure is. A lot of people wonder aloud what young people think/want; I suggest we ask them.
-Youth Voice: There is so much dialogue about arts education, but I haven’t seen any youth as presenters. I think that would be really informative
-Sustainability: It appears that this is out theme, and I hope we can explore a wholistic view of the idea of sustainablility…Organizational, environmental, career, operating structure. I have some great ArtVenture ideas for the conference that adress this idea. I also think that susatainability naturally lends itself to crossover between tracks.
I’m just sayin’
I love the people from Tuscon!!!
See you next time…
Randy
Tagged with: Arts-EducationConventionCultural DevelopmentEmerging LeadersEventsLeadership
June 23rd, 2008 at 06:28am
Randy Engstrom
It has been a great Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia. The ARTventure to the Philadelphia School District administrative building boasted a 1,500 piece student art exhibition featuring award winning, stunning, and inspiring works of art in a variety of media by Philadelphia’s children! This was an ARTventure not to be missed if you were seeking inspiration!
The presentation provided by panelists: Dennis Creedon, Ayden Adler, Matt Braun, and Carmen Febo-San Miguel, which was ably moderated by Pearl Schaeffer, was inspiring and provided a true picture of arts education in the School District of Philadelphia which serves more than 167,000 students in grades K-12. The honesty of the presentation allowed me to grasp the struggles and triumphs of partnerships, the bureaucracy and tenacity needed to succeed in a huge school district (the 7th largest in the nation), and to better understand the value of celebrating the successes while continuing to move towards the big goal of all arts for all kids. (more…)
Tagged with: Arts-Education
June 21st, 2008 at 04:03pm
Donna Collins
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