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TTIMonthly News
News Posted 4.28.10
News Posted 4.1.10
News Posted 3.1.10
News Posted 2.1.10
Contact Information
To feature your news about public scholarship in the arts, humanities, and design, e-mail Jamie Haft at jmhaft@syr.edu.
About this News Page
From January to May 2010, Imagining America will collaborate with the Community Arts Network (CAN) to create this News Page. CAN is the primary source for information, exchange, research and critical dialogue within the field of community-based arts. Visit CAN's Web site at www.communityarts.net.
News posted 2.1.10 in collaboration with 
Launch: Public Scholarship Online Book Series
“Civic Engagement in the Wake of Katrina” is the first book in The New Public Scholarship, a series about publicly engaged and “intellectually consequential cultural work.” Edited by Drew University’s Amy Koritz and University of Southern California’s George J. Sanchez, the book documents “the fortitude of civic engagement practice in New Orleans,” and features writing by Carol Bebelle, Jan Cohen-Cruz, Julie Ellison and Mat Schwarzman, among others. Series editors say, “The civic turn in art and design has affected educational and cultural institutions of many kinds. In light of these developments, we feel that The New Public Scholarship offers a timely innovation in serious publishing.” The books are free to read online through digitalculturebooks, a collaboration between the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library. [Link]
Call: Executive Summer Leadership Institute
National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts announces its Community Arts Education Leadership Institute for current and aspiring executive leaders. The five-day seminar will be facilitated by Partners in Performance, Inc. and hosted by Drexel University Arts Administration Graduate Program in Philadelphia, Pa., July 14-18, 2010. At the seminar, participants will discuss core values that influence decision making, critical issues in community arts education and characteristics of effective leadership, and will design an action plan to meet goals. Additionally, participants will share in advanced assignments before the Institute, and will be assisted by follow-up coaching afterwards. Participation is limited to 25 individuals. The application is available on the National Guild’s Web site, and the deadline is March 15, 2010. The Institute is sponsored by American Express. [Link]
PSU Explores Historic Moments of Change
The Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University continues its initiative for scholars, artists, students and community members on moments of great cultural, artistic and political transformation. Moments of Change brings together scholars and artists from many disciplines and provides the opportunity to work collaboratively with several PSU departments and local arts organizations. Each academic year focuses on a different historical period and to a specific time of change; this year, they consider the late 18th century. Institute Director and Musicology Professor Marica S. Tacconi says, “As academics, we are trained to be specialists in a particular field, but often neglect to consider common trends and points of intersection among the disciplines. Moments of Change offers the chance to examine the big picture during particularly vibrant and complex periods in world history.” [Link]
New in Places to Study: Certificate, UWM
CAN has added to its Places To Study database the Cultures and Communities Certificate Program at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. CAN has added to its Places To Study database the Cultures and Communities Certificate Program at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. This university-wide, interdisciplinary program brings together students and faculty from the arts, humanities, education, social sciences and other disciplines. Students reflect critically on their own cultural identity and background, and go off-campus for community-grounded experiences. In addition to working with arts and cultural organizations in the Milwaukee area, students can participate in a service-learning trip to New Orleans. At the completion of the program, students can demonstrate a multicultural understanding of artistic works or performances, and can collaborate productively and communicate constructively with people from diverse backgrounds. To gain the certificate, students focus 15 of their 21 General Education courses. The program is directed by UWM Professors Gregory Jay and Cheryl Ajirotutu. [Link]
Iowa Institute on Ethics of Public Scholarship
Can a creative writer ethically and mutually enrich her art and that of her writing partners, if those partners are teens who have suffered terrible abuse? That’s one of the questions to be discussed by 15 graduate student Fellows from four University of Iowa colleges who will join faculty, students and community leaders at the Obermann Graduate Institute on Engagement and the Academy, January 12-18, 2010. The topic of this five-day institute is public scholarship: scholarly or creative work integral to a faculty member’s academic area, which is collectively created, and yields a public good. Fellows participate in discussions based on readings and panels and debate ethical questions. The Institute culminates in a “Dress Rehearsal,” where Fellows present an idea for an engaged project they plan to carry out in the year ahead. The Institute is co-directed by Iowa Professors Ken Brown and Teresa Mangum. [Link]
New On CAN: The Curriculum Project Dialogues
Today CAN brings you the first in a series of essays about year-long community arts conversations across the U.S. supported by The Community Arts Convening and Research Project. These community exchanges were part of the evolution of the Project, an effort to include as many community members as possible in sharply focused dialogues about local concerns. The first essay is "The Curriculum Project Dialogues" by Jan Cohen-Cruz, director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life. The CACR project contributed support for three conversations about higher education and community cultural development; their jumping-off point was The Curriculum Project, a 2007 study. At New York University, the participants considered local viewpoints about co-teaching by academics and partners they work with in the community. At UPenn, they looked at a multi-year partnership between UPenn music professor Carol Muller and her students with Sister Saida and her students at the Quba Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies, a Muslim K-12 school in West Philadelphia. At Macalester, in St. Paul, Minn., a panel brought examples of robust local campus-community partnerships and the issues they raise. This essay is part of Community Arts Perspectives, a publication of the Community Arts Convening and Research Project, Vol. II, Issue 5. [Link]
Artists for Social Justice Meeting at CalArts
A growing group of young artists meets monthly at CalArts for discussions and lectures and to plan collective actions dedicated to social-justice issues. So says Sue Bell Yank in the new issue of the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest. "Known as the Artists for Social Justice," writes Yank, "several members recently participated in a one-night performance entitled 'Free Free Market' in (L.A.'s) Chinatown focusing on aesthetic exchange and participation as an alternative to the object-driven art market. One gave voice lessons from the rooftop of the small strip-mall location," drawing diners and passersby. "Others wrote letters on demand –- greetings to friends, thank you notes, expressions of love. ...These artists, many newly embarking on careers in a fraught art world, have banded together in a nonhierarchical collective to explore alternative opportunities closely connected to real sociopolitical issues." [Link]
What Makes a Great Teacher?
The Atlantic reports on educational research from Teach for America’s 20 years of experience, and the findings may resonate for community artists and public scholars working in schools. Teach for America is a nonprofit that recruits college graduates to spend two years teaching in low-income schools. To find out what makes a great teacher, the organization tracked test-score data, linked to each teacher, for 85 to 90 percent of students taught by Teach for America teachers. Common tendencies of great teachers include: “they avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy and budgetary shortfalls.” [Link]
New in Places to Study: Certificate, UW
CAN has added to its Places To Study database a newly offered graduate Certificate in Public Scholarship at the University of Washington. This cross-disciplinary, 15-credit program is for graduate students interested in: public scholarship and other fields that work with culture as a form of public practice; campus-community partnerships; new forms of scholarly dissemination such as digital publication, multimedia formats and performance; emerging trends and methodologies; and other topic areas. The program begins with an introductory course, Scholarship as Public Practice, and culminates in a practice-based Capstone Project. One goal is for students to “engage creatively and critically with public and applied forms of scholarship in research, teaching and/or community-engagement projects.” Pending approval, the program will accept applications in Spring 2010 and admit its first cohort of six to twelve fellows for Fall 2010. [Link]
PSU Plans Understanding Sustainability Conference
Portland State University’s spring conference, Understanding Sustainability: Perspectives from the Humanities, seeks to encourage innovative dialogues between diverse groups that are not always in conversation. This second annual international conference will take place in Portland, Ore., on May 20-22, 2010. Conference planners hope to attract: artists and activists shaping ideas of green ethics and aesthetics or new strategies of political participation; local designers, city planners and social-service providers who are building Portland’s reputation as a leader in sustainability; humanities scholars working in fields such as eco-criticism, green cultural studies, environmental ethics, philosophy of science and environmental history; and social scientists working in the areas of social sustainability, environmental justice, environmental economics and sustainable business practices. The goal of the conference is to develop innovative green frameworks for environmental scholarship, activism, research and policy. [Link]
New in Places to Study: Studio 804, KU
CAN has added to its Places To Study database a one-semester design-build course, Studio 804, at University of Kansas School of Architecture and Urban Planning. During the course of the semester, students carry out all aspects of building an affordable structure in the community, from working with building code and zoning officials, hiring third-party inspectors, communicating with engineers and neighborhood associations, signing contracts, doing estimates and driving nails. Program leaders believe, “The urban residential crisis in Kansas City, Kansas, demands that our work be a part of the renewal of the city. Building in these neighborhoods helps reinforce the climate for positive change within the city through the language of modern architecture.” The program is now accepting applications for fall 2010 and spring 2011; visit Studio 804’s Web site for information. [Link]
Richland Celebrates Science through Art, Texas
Richland College will celebrate the opening of its platinum certified LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) science building with community engagement and art. Dean of Instruction and Professor of History and Humanities Carole Lester says, “Although it’s a science building, community engagement and the arts will be front and center. Artists were engaged in the design of the building, so that the building itself is a work of art. There are permanent large-scale artistic installations, including a DNA model, a twelve-foot-tall pendulum and a running mural along the first floor depicting artists’ interpretations of all of the sciences.” The two-day celebration, beginning January 28, 2010, will include a dedication ceremony, a symposium on Art, Science and Sustainable Community featuring local artists and community activists and a regional juried art exhibition, WATER: More or Less. [Link]