For reasons I’m too embarrassed, exhausted or simply unwilling to discuss, I’m seated at the Phoenix Airport at 7:00 a.m. on my way home to LA. I’m not a fan of overnight flights, and I’m extremely un-fond of three hour airline delays - especially when I could have stayed at the airport hotel and swam in the pool or worked out. Oh well. Time for a recap.
This conference rocked. For those that have been reading my posts, I can be a bit of a tough love kind-of-guy. (more…)
Tagged with: ConventionEmerging LeadersLeadershipPartnerships
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:44am
Terence McFarland
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
Yesterday’s highlight: Joyce Fellow Adam Thurman challenging the Americans for the Arts Board of Directors to give “us”—a new generation of emerging leaders of color—a voice on that board.
The board’s response? A direct invitation to work with their strategic planning and diversity committees in providing feedback on their strategic plan draft.
Adam, I think that’s a yes.
Tagged with: AdvocacyArtsConventionEmerging LeadersLeadership
June 22nd, 2008 at 09:12am
Julie Bates
This marks my first ever foray into the world of BLOG…Please pardon any typos, as I am still a practitioner of the ‘Raptor’ typing technique, utilizing 3 fingers on each hand…ironic I know being a Seattlite, but I digress.
Yesterday I facilitated my first panel, and it was a great experience. Perhaps the best part was being able to spend most of the day with my collegue Anne Corbett from Cultural Development Corporation in DC. She’s such an inspiration, and I’m glad the conference gave us so much time to connect personally and professionally. We were sad that 2 of our original panelists needed to cancel due to tragic circustances, but our stand in, Matthew Kwatinetz, stepped in admirably. As is turns out, having to ‘wing’ the panel more than expected worked in our favor, as we had WAY more people show up that the room was capable of holding. I arrived early and started setting up chairs in a circle; our vision was to host an ‘UNpanel’, where we went without Power Point and instead tried to facilitate a conversation amongst all the people in the room… (more…)
Tagged with: AdvocacyConventionCultural DevelopmentLeadershipPartnerships
June 21st, 2008 at 04:05pm
Randy Engstrom
Next Posts
Previous Posts
