Roundtable Presentations 2017
as part of our 54th Annual Conference
Crossing Boundaries

with
Alliance for the Arts at Research Universities
Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design
Canadian Association of Fine Arts Deans 

The Halifax Marriott Harbourfront
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Thursday October 19, 2017
2:30 - 4:00pm

in the Foyer outside the Nova Scotia Ballroom

You will have the opportunity to attend three, 25-minute sessions
(with five-minute breaks for transition, between)

Roundtable Presentations are proudly sponsored by

Theatre Consultants Collaborative is a team of industry veterans and creative thinkers who joined forces in October 2003 to assist our clients through the complex process of theatre programming, planning and design, as well as the design and integration of specialized performance systems. Our goal as The Collaborative is to connect with users, architects and engineers to craft exciting and unique venues where performance comes to life. Through our work, we help translate the exacting design criteria of a performance space into a physical form that enhances that fundamental relationship between performer and patron.
www.theatrecc.com  

Acting Lessons for Leaders

As artists, our creative work can be the primary lens through which we see the world; it is a fundamental tool for interpreting life. But artistry can also teach us a great deal about effective leadership. My experiences as a professional theatre artist have taught me five important leadership lessons: The Power of Purpose, The Power of Context, The Power of Listening, The Power of Partnerships, and The Power of Community. Hear how a life in the arts prepared me for leadership in the academy.

Harrison Long, Associate Dean
College of the Arts
Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies
Kennesaw State University
[email protected]

Arts Across Borders: Facilitating Student Projects Abroad

Carnegie Mellon University’s interdisciplinary, cross-college fieldwork project with the National Arts Schools of Havana will be featured in this presentation. Learn more about the challenges and opportunities with regards to funding, pedagogical processes, learning outcomes, evaluation, travel logistics, internal/external promotion, and cross-cultural diplomacy and exchange. Table participants will all be invited to share their experiences in offering student projects abroad.

Director, Master of Arts Management Program
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA  15213
(412) 268-8930
[email protected]

Arts Research and the Future of the Art School

This discussion will focus on the interface between arts research (especially as understood from the notion of “research into practice”) and the future of the art school. In particular, we will discuss the concrete challenges that we have over funding prospects through: national endowments (or rather the lack of them); and how the arts disciplines need to regard research as one of those opportunities for radical change. 

John Baldacchino, Director of the Arts Institute and Professor of Arts Education
School of Education and the Arts Institute
Arts Institute, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 
B136 Lathrop Hall, 1050 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706-1304
(608) 890-3314
[email protected]

Creative Path to College Success

The College of Visual and Performing Arts at NIU will be piloting an innovative and immersive program for under-served students utilizing the arts disciplines as a gateway to college success-- The Creative Path. This roundtable will offer the current status of the program and provide details of the curriculum, learning outcomes, and resources needed to implement the program.  Central to the program are a sequence of two courses in an arts discipline that introduce the tools of the artform and how to apply those tools to a project designed by the students to fulfill a commission from a community organization.  Embedded in the course will be SLOs that align with general education competencies in writing, reading and quantitative reasoning.  Feedback, suggestions, and critical observations from colleagues is desired and welcome.

Paul Kassel, Dean 
College of Visual and Performing Arts
School of Theatre and Dance 
Northern Illinois University
[email protected]

Cultivating Talent at Cuyahoga Community College

Community colleges are well positioned to be an ideal incubator for a highly diverse and talented group of students seeking to transfer to four-year programs.  The dialogue we hope to have is to explore ideas on how we can collaborate with four-year institutions on providing support to our lower income students through the transfer process AND once they arrive on campus.

Paul Cox, Dean of Creative Arts
Cuyahoga Community College
Metropolitan Campus
Center for Creative Arts
2900 Community College Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44115
(216) 987-0271
[email protected]

Amy Parks
2900 Community College Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44115
(216) 987-6130
[email protected]

Dr. Brenda Pongracz, Assistant Dean, Creative Arts
2900 Community College Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44115
(216) 987-0290
[email protected]

The Concept of Place has Changed Forever

In this morning’s presentation, Futurist David Houle looked at the recent phenomenon that humanity has moved from a place-oriented to a space-oriented consciousness and identity. Join David at this Roundtable Presentation if you’d like to continue the conversation.

David Houle
(773) 991-5199
www.davidhoule.com
twitter: @evolutionshift
www.evolutionshift.com
[email protected]

EdgeEffects: A New Platform for Interdisciplinary Scholarship

For the past five years, a2ru has been actively advocating to enable faculty, students, researchers, and practitioners to work collaboratively across disciplines to achieve their greatest insights, work and scholarship. It now debuts “EdgeEffects,” a new demonstration platform and incubator for original, rigorous approaches to interdisciplinary collaboration with the arts. This platform pushes peer-reviewed scholarship beyond the published journal article, toward other multimodal considerations "counting" towards tenure & promotion. 

Laurie Baefsky, Executive Director
The Alliance for the Arts at Research Universities
ArtsEngine / a2ru
University of Michigan
Duderstadt Center, Suite 1400
2281 Bonisteel Boulevard
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
(734) 615-4861
[email protected]

Facilitating Inter-Disciplinary Collaboration Through Design

For universities wanting to provide a holistic combination and synthesis of arts disciplines, the confines of traditionally adjacent programs functioning autonomously is often cemented by facilities that keep these programs separate due to inadequate space, technology, connectivity, and accessibility. These obstacles can be mitigated or eliminated through well-conceived design, whether the school is considering a new arts complex or renovating existing structures. This roundtable discussion will explore the challenges and opportunities of designing for inter-disciplinary collaboration, as well as issues of funding and stakeholder buy-in.

Paul E. Westlake, Jr., FAIA
Senior Principal, Global Cultural and Performing Arts Leader
DLR Group|Westlake Reed Leskosky
Architecture Engineering Planning Interiors
1422 Euclid Avenue, Suite 300
Cleveland, OH 44115
(216) 623.7868
[email protected]

If I Could Do It All Over Again: Facility Planning Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Did you advocate for a collaboration lab, coffee shop or special event space that never gets used? Settle for less storage that is now desperately needed? Bring your sense of humor and best stories of facility project mistakes to this lively conversation. Whether it’s squandered resources, missed opportunities or alienated colleagues, let’s reflect on where it all went wrong.  Share your own story for the benefit of your ICFAD colleagues so they can learn from your experiences.

Nancy Blankfard AIA, LEED AP BD+C HGA, Vice President
HGA Architects and Engineers
420 North Fifth Street, suite 100
Minneapolis, MN 55401

and

Michael W. Haga, Associate Dean
School of the Arts
College of Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina 29424
(843) 953-7766
[email protected]

Institutions & Community Engagement: Discussing our Successes & Failures

How has your institution moved into communities, facilitated programming? What trials, tribulations, and failures can you share so that we can learn from each other? How do you privilege the local voice and still work within your institutional mission? How do you build consensus as an outsider in contested neighborhoods? How do you bring the resources of an institution to bear in a community without appearing to be "the savior" or "the colonizer"?

Paul Coffey, Associate Provost for Research & Community Engagement
Vice Provost & Dean of Community Engagement
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
37 S. Wabash Ave.
Chicago, IL 60603
[email protected]
312 899-5176

Interdisciplinary Core Curriculum within the Production Studies in Performing Arts Major at Clemson University

This BA program has specific concentrations in music, theatre and audio technology with a set of core classes that every student, regardless of their concentration, takes as a cohort. The core curriculum features required classes with topics that include self-promotion through professional website development, mock interviews, discussions with industry professionals, arts administration training, grant writing workshops, arts presenting/leadership instruction, writing/critiquing/presentation skills, and performance attendance at professional events.  Additionally, every student is required to take two 1-credit classes that include backstage, scene shop, box office, costume shop and other related hands-on work in topical performing arts subjects.  Students are also required to prepare and present a final capstone project in their final core course.

Richard E. Goodstein, Dean
College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities
Clemson University
[email protected]

Leveraging the Planning Process to Advance the Arts

As we all know, achieving faculty and staff buy-in when it comes to strategic planning can be “challenging.”  At Penn State over the past several years, we have been in the unusual — and very fortunate — position of aligning unit, college, and university planning in new and innovative ways.  Moreover, we have integrated the planning process into the formulation of goals for the University’s next capital campaign.  Positive outcomes of these efforts have included the designation of “Elevating the Arts and Humanities” as one of five thematic “pillars” in Penn State’s strategic plan, as well as a visionary proposal — supported by the President — for a new cultural district that would link the arts with STEM fields.  This session will explore and analyze strategies pursued and lessons learned.

Barbara Korner, Dean
College of Arts and Architecture
Penn State University
[email protected]
and

Andrew Schulz , Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Research, College of Arts & Architecture
Penn State University
124 Borland Building
University Park, PA 16802
(814) 863-0408
[email protected]

Performing Arts Facilities Planning to Support Cross-Discipline Collaboration

Performance spaces often form a nexus among multiple departments and disciplines: theatre, music, dance, and an increasingly broad range of academic and community users outside the arts. As such, they provide an opportunity for productive collaboration and increased understanding among users from different parts of the school and the larger community. What’s more, flexibility that allows multidisciplinary use can assure that these spaces are in use and in high demand; there’s nothing worse than an underutilized performance space. Good facilities planning can help to make these important spaces accessible to many user groups and to multi-disciplinary events, activities, and productions: robotics competitions, science exhibitions, TED-style presentation-demonstrations are increasingly in the mix with the arts. Join a round-table discussion with an acoustical consultant and a theatre consultant and learn how to plan for your school and community to get the most out of your performing arts facilities and to be ready for the challenges that come with this cross-disciplinary approach. The hosts will share experiences and lessons from recent projects that chose various planning paths toward providing performing arts spaces to foster collaboration.

Benjamin Markham, LEED AP, Director, Architectural Acoustics Group, Principal Consultant
Acentech
33 Moulton Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 499-8000
[email protected]
and
Curtis Kasefang
Theatre Consultants Collaborative
519 Polk Street
Raleigh, NC 27604
USA (919) 546-0288
CAN (647) 556-6017, ext. 103
[email protected]

The Politics of Facilities: Lessons Learned from Elected Officials and University Leaders

Like most universities, the University of Florida College of the Arts’ facilities planning and expenditures fit into two distinct categories: addressing ongoing maintenance, and strategic acquisition and construction. While facilities and space are among the most important components of teaching and creative practice, they are also among the most difficult to fund. Since 2014 the UF College of the Arts has sharpened its focus on facilities, and worked to acquire space off of campus as well as to push forward the funding and governmental mechanisms for a new School of Music building as well as a renovated Marching Band Field. These processes required significant collaboration with university leadership, with elected and appointed officials, and with the faculty and students impacted by these efforts. This roundtable will address some of the “lessons learned” through the fits and starts, twists and turns, and political realities that continue to unfold as we pursue new facilities for artistic practice and education. Some of the topics covered include navigating the needs of the many university and political stakeholders involved, challenges faced squaring pedagogical needs with funding, and how to keep projects moving despite shifting timelines and other bureaucratic surprises.​

Lucinda Lavelli, Dean
College of the Arts
University of Florida
1389 Stadium Rd., Room 101
Gainesville, FL   32611
(352) 273-1491
[email protected]
and
Anthony J. Kolenic, Assistant Dean
College of the Arts
University of Florida
1389 Stadium Rd., Room 101
Gainesville, FL   32611
(352) 273-1481
[email protected]

SNAAP: Its Latest Findings

The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project has collected and analyzed data from more than 200,000 arts graduates. In this Roundtable, we will share insights on the most recent findings that have relevance to arts deans. Topics may include the latest information on “How connected arts alumni are to their institutions?;” “What are the trends over the last few years regarding business and entrepreneurial education for arts students?;” “What diversity issues can SNAAP shed light on?” We will provide handouts of all the findings.

Sally Gaskill, Director
Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP)
Center for Postsecondary Research
Indiana University School of Education
[email protected]
(812) 856.0735
snaap.indiana.edu

Supporting Our International Students (And the Faculty Who Teach Them)

While increased international student enrollment in our colleges has largely enhanced our campus communities, it can also bring practical, cultural, pedagogical, and resourcing challenges. In this roundtable session, we’ll share what’s working and what isn’t, and explore how we can best meet the needs of our international students and the faculty who teach them.

Kim Russo
Associate Provost for Academic Administration
Otis College of Art and Design
[email protected]
(310) 655-6979