Roundtable Presentations 2015
as part of our 52nd Annual Conference
The Loews Atlanta Hotel in Atlanta's Midtown District

Thursday, October 22, 2015
3:30 – 5:15 p.m.

Roundtable presentations are proudly sponsored by:

Theatre Consultants Collaborative is a team of industry veterans and creative thinkers that share a passion for designing spaces that nurture and celebrate the performing arts. TCC helps guide universities, colleges and architects through the complexities of programming, planning and design, as well as the design and integration of specialized performance technologies.

Arts ­ Integrated Interdisciplinarity Takes Center Stage
In June 2015, the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) and ArtsEngine completed a three-year study, funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, mapping the topography of the arts on America’s research university campuses. This is the first qualitative field study of its kind, with over 950 interviews gathered from 43 sites. This study provides a baseline for comparison between universities and programs. While there has always been anecdotal evidence, we now have broad documentation that the practices of arts and design are moving towards the “center” of university culture, and have become increasingly valuable across disciplines, including: engineering, computer science, chemistry, social practice, medicine, and the arts themselves. At the same time, the models and methods to carry out the range of arts-integrative interdisciplinary efforts – whether curricular, research-based, within creative practice, or through the establishment of centers and programs – manifest differently between universities based on a variety of factors. This session will harness the best practices identified though our research, to explore obstacles, interventions and implementation strategies, along with the impact of arts integrated efforts on students and faculty, research, practice, and teaching in other knowledge areas.

Laurie Baefsky, DMA, Executive Director
Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities
734-615-4861
Email

Associates to Baccalaureate Transfers:  Creating Pathways, Clearing Obstacles
Transfers and articulation agreements between community colleges and four-year colleges and universities can be especially challenging in the arts: yes, the students have passed the required courses, but what about the audition or portfolio or placement process?  According to a 2012 report from the Department of Education, 81% of students who enter community colleges intend to pursue a bachelor’s degree, but even after they transfer, they are completing at rates lower than their peers who began at four-year colleges and universities.  Research from multiple sources indicates that the more credits students lose, the less likely they are to complete their degrees.  So how do community colleges balance rigor with open enrollment?  How do baccalaureate institutions convey their expectations for incoming transfers—before it’s too late?   In this session, we can share best practices for partnerships that are successful, and brainstorm ways to smooth out pathways that feel more like obstacle courses. 

Deborah E. Preston, PhD, Dean for the Arts
Montgomery College
240-567-5031
Email

Best Practices in Community Engagement through the Curriculum
Courses in arts appreciation and creativity are great at teaching the general student about art and culture but can fall short of engaging the student in a transformative way.  This discussion focuses on how a curriculum can be designed to support student engagement with the arts and artists of their region to support an understanding and involvement that goes beyond the textbook and the slide.  This conversation seeks to share what programs and courses have been developed that provide opportunities for active community engagement through the design of the curriculum. What is being done now?  What has worked and what hasn’t?  What are some things yet to be tried?

Edward S. Inch, Dean
College of Arts and Letters
California State University Sacramento
Email

and

Ernie M. Hills, Director
School of Music
California State University, Sacramento
Email

Creating T-Shaped People:  The VCU da Vinci Center
As stated in a 2008 US NSF report, cross-disciplinary programs are best able to manifest an innovation culture and foster an environment in which innovation can thrive because transformational innovations often occur at the intersection of multiple disciplines rather than isolated within them.  The cross-disciplinary nature of innovation further highlights the need for different thinking, and more specifically, “T-shaped people.”  Advocated by Tim Brown, CEO and president of IDEO, the “T-shaped people” model portrays someone deep in one disciplinary area (e.g., arts, business, or engineering) and augmented with broad knowledge of all aspects of innovation activity.

We discuss the experience of the VCU da Vinci Center in creating T-shaped people.  Founded in 2007, the VCU da Vinci Center is a collaboration of VCU’s Schools of the Arts, Business, Engineering and College of Humanities and Sciences.  Its aim is to advance innovation and entrepreneurship through cross-disciplinary collaboration. We discuss the inhibitors, implications, and value derived from cross-disciplinary innovation programs like the da Vinci Center along with suggestions for conceiving, implementing, and honing cross-disciplinary programming.

Research by: 
Kenneth B. Kahn, Ph.D.
Professor of Marketing and Executive Director of the VCU da Vinci Center
Virginia Commonwealth University

Presentation by:
Allison N. Schumacher
Program Director of Product Innovation
Email

Designing and Renovating Performance Facilities: Don’t Let Good Projects Go Bad!
Theatre consultants Curtis Kasefang and Jason Prichard describe ‘best practices’ in the design process as well as the pitfalls and how to avoid them.

Curtis Kasefang, Principal
Theatre Consultants Collaborative
Email

and

Jason Prichard, Principal
Theatre Consultants Collaborative
Email

Fine Arts Facilities Expansion is Now Approved . . . what’s behind and what’s ahead?
Fine Arts programs are sometimes faced with the good prospect of expanding their facilities. Often, such expansion may also include a plan, or need, for reassigning or reconfiguring existing facilities.  This discussion is a sharing of experiences learned from two different and separate projects: one of recent approval and commencing of construction, and the other of a completed building addition/renovation, both in medium-size Fine Arts Colleges. Some of the discussion aspects may include logistical considerations, strategic goal implications, ADA considerations, fundraising experiences, sound quality implications, ongoing challenges in the new construction project and/or lessons learned from the finished project, and the impact not only in the program(s) for which the expansion building is projected, but also for other programs in the college.

Martin Camacho, DMA, MBA
Dean
Fain College of Fine Arts
Midwestern State University
940-397-4243
Email

and

Kelly C. Styron
Dean
College of Liberal and Fine
Tarleton State University
Email

Night Blooms - Theatre as a Catalyst for Dialogue and Intercultural Exchange
Thanks to its investment in fully embodied expression, theatre enjoys a singular power to catalyze difficult dialogues and stimulate significant learning. Margaret Baldwin (playwright) and Karen Robinson (director), faculty in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at Kennesaw State University, discuss how Baldwin's play Night Blooms has served as a stimulus for interdisciplinary collaborations across academic departments, community engagement, and profound intercultural exchange. Set in 1965 Selma, Alabama, on the day of the historic Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery, Night Blooms explores with humor, empathy, and clashing viewpoints, how families live through extreme social and generational change. Throughout its development (beginning in 2006), Baldwin and Robinson have used Night Blooms to engage students, faculty, alumni, professional artists, and audiences in discussions around race, place, and identity. Following its 2010 world premiere at Atlanta's Horizon Theatre Company, the play has been the centerpiece of an intercultural exchange with Paderborn University in Paderborn, Germany, and was featured in Selma's March 2015 fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the Voting Rights Marches.

Margaret Baldwin, Senior Lecturer and General Education Coordinator
Department of Theatre and Performance Studies Kennesaw State University
Email

and

Karen Robinson, Professor and Interim Chair and Coordinator of Internships
Department of Theatre and Performance Studies Kennesaw State University
470-578-4446
Email

Preparing the 21st Century Musician: Music Schools in the Real World
Recognizing the rapidly changing world of art music in America, the DePauw University School of Music recently launched the 21st Century Musician Initiative, a complete re-imagining of the skills, tools and experiences necessary to create musicians of the future instead of the past—flexible, entrepreneurial musicians who find diverse musical venues and outlets in addition to traditional performance spaces, develop new audiences and utilize their music innovatively to impact and strengthen communities. This effort has included a major curricular overhaul that includes required courses in entrepreneurial skills for 21st Century musicians, increased exposure to successful 21st Century musical artists and living composers, increased community involvement and audience development, a renewed focus on the education of future musicians and audiences as well as genre-bending concerts in atypical spaces. This roundtable will focus on creating the musician of the future as well as success and horror stories in leading substantive change. Other change efforts will be welcomed to the discussion as we explore how to better prepare musicians for the real world.

D. Mark McCoy, Ph.D.
Dean
DePauw University School of Music
Email

Recruiting Practices to Attract Students in Performing and Visual Arts: Successes, Strategies and Best Practices
When artists/teachers and prospective students communicate, interact and create, the result can be relationships that lead to student enrollment.  How do we make opportunities to connect with prospective students?  What are the best practices for attracting the next freshmen class in your undergraduate programs?  What are the benefits to faculty and programs for making these connections? This session will offer strategies and successes applicable to any visual or performing arts unit.  Examples will be drawn from practices at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas.

Dr. Stephen Eaves
Chair, Division of Fine Arts
Professor of Music
Friends University
2100 W. University Ave.
Wichita, Kansas 67213
(316) 295-5849
Email

STEAM Consortium: Organizing and Presenting a Large Scale Collaboration Between the Arts and Engineering as a Community Outreach Project
The Multi-media work Icarus at the Edge of Time provides a stimulating opportunity to merge visual arts, music, film, storytelling, Greek mythology and the understanding of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.  The challenge of the production is bringing all these facets together.  This session will offer advice in planning and leading a dynamic collaboration of this magnitude to fruition based on the experiences of the Texas Tech University College of Visual & Performing Arts and College of Engineering.

Keith Dye, Ed.D.C.T.
Associate Dean for Undergraduate & Curricular Issues
College of Visual & Performing Arts
Texas Tech University
806-438-4316
Email

The Arts and Distance Learning: Opportunities and Challenges
This roundtable session examines the path the College of the Arts at Kennesaw State University pursued to create a well-laid foundation for distance learning experiences in all disciplines. This includes: the opportunities to motivate, encourage, and incentivize faculty; strategic courses that are easily transitioned to a virtual platform; challenges for faculty, staff, and students in increasing virtual arts offerings; and (re)defining the experiential nature of arts instruction.  The session will also address how the arts, which have naturally and traditionally responded to cultural shifts, can proactively engage with the distance learning revolution in the trajectory of arts education.

Edward Eanes
Professor of Musicology and the Distance Learning Coordinator
College of the Arts at Kennesaw State University
Email

and

April Munson
Associate Professor and Program Coordinator of Art Education
College of the Arts at Kennesaw State University
Email

The Practice of Creative Youth Development in a Higher Education Environment
Jeff Poulin, Arts Education Program Coordinator, Americans for the Arts
202-371-2830 ext. 2041
Email

In the newly named field of Creative Youth Development, practitioners focus their work in arts and culture towards positive youth development goals. Many programs were profiled in the Wallace Foundation’s Something to Say report; these programs particularly focus in the out of school time setting. What are the implications for Higher Education? Should institutions be observing these models for their student engagement programs? Should the next generation of arts practitioners and arts educators be well versed in these theories? How does social justice play a role? Join Americans for the Arts for a discussion of these questions and the future implications for the Creative Youth Development and Higher Education fields.

Unleashing Value Through Collaboration
In this talk, David Yager, Dean of the Arts at UC Santa Cruz will explore how the arts can unleash their value and achieve their full potential by collaborating across departments/disciplines.  The UC Santa Cruz Film and Digital Media Department and the new gaming program are examples of this success, in which existing departments and programs have reached across historic barriers to achieve greater success than would have been possible working in isolation.  At UC Santa Cruz under Dean Yager’s leadership, traditional film courses are enriched by sound studies in Music, animation in Art, and concepts of movement and drama from Theater Arts, all of which have helped catapult the Film and Digital Media program to 7th in the rankings.  Similarly, the UC Santa Cruz Art Department which is launching a new gaming program has collaborated with Film and Digital Media, Digital Arts and New Media, Theater Arts, Music, and with colleagues in the Baskin School of Engineering to create a truly innovative program that expands the boundaries of traditional gaming curricula in academia.

David Yager, Dean
University of California at Santa Cruz
Email

Using SNAAP Data: Lessons from the Field
You have your SNAAP data. Now, what do you do with it to make a meaningful impact? This roundtable will provide examples and share ideas from SNAAP participants (including many ICFAD members) on how to use SNAAP data about the educational experiences and diverse career paths of your alumni.

Sally Gaskill, Director
Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP)
Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research
812-856-0735
Email