National Guild of Community Schools for the Arts

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"This is the best opportunity to stay in touch with what is happening in arts education nationally. I always come away inspired."

—Suzanne Hayward, Community Arts Center

69th Annual Conference in Phoenix, AZ
Parc 55 Hotel, San Francisco, CA, November 3 – 6, 2010
REGISTRATION

Sessions

Plenary Sessions
Breakout Sessions: Thursday, November 4, 2010
Breakout Sessions: Friday, November 5, 2010
Breakout Sessions: Saturday, November 6, 2010


We are updating this page regularly. Check back soon for additional sessions!

Plenary Sessions

Arts Education & 21st Century Skills: Thursday, Nov. 4, 9:45-11:15am
Bernie Trilling, 21st Century Learning Advisor and Author, San Francisco, CA
Panelists: Miguel Salinas, Program Manager, Adobe Youth Voices, San Jose, CA
Additional Panelists TBD
What skills do students need to be successful in the 21st Century? How can community arts education providers help students achieve those skills? Join us as we explore those questions with leaders of some of the world’s most successful companies.

Grant Makers and Their Grantees: Who Sets the Agenda?: Friday, Nov. 5, 10:00-11:30am
Bruce Sievers, Visiting Scholar, Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, Stanford University
Panelists TBD
Grant makers have the money, nonprofits provide the programs. Some of the latest buzzwords in philanthropy are “outcomes,” “impact,” “metrics,” and “logic models.” How can such expectations on the part of funders be reconciled with the often intangible, but very meaningful results of arts education? And who decides? Join us as we explore how foundations determine their priorities and have a lively debate about how best to set the philanthropic agenda.

 

Breakout Sessions: Thursday, November 4, 2010

Dance Education Roundtable: Thursday, November 4, 8:00-9:15am
Julia Wilkinson Manley, School Director, Ballet Nouveau Colorado, Broomfield, CO
Jeff Melanson, Executive Director & Co-CEO, Canada's National Ballet School, Toronto, ON
Nancy Ng, Executive Director, Luna Dance Institute, Berkeley, CA
At this interactive round-table you will have an opportunity to meet colleagues (through movement and discussion) and engage in discourse around these guiding questions focused on what it means to be literate in dance:

This roundtable provides a starting point for future inquiry around the topic of dance literacy.

Music Education Roundtable / Welcome Event: Thursday, November 4, 8:00-9:15am
Karen Deschere, President/CEO, Wisconsin Conservatory of Music, Milwaukee, WI
Peggy Quackenbush, President & Executive Director, Hochstein School of Music & Dance, Rochester, NY
Come connect with leaders from other community music education organizations from around the country. Whether this is your first Guild conference or you’re a veteran, this is your chance to network with your peers, identify those facing similar challenges or opportunities, find others who may be able to help, and learn how to make the most of your conference experience. Facilitators will open this session with an activity that will enable you to connect with peers, and surface key goals for your conference experience. We hope this session will help you spark dialogues that you can continue throughout the conference and the year.

Theater Education Roundtable: Thursday, November 4, 8:00-9:15am
Joyce Bonomini, Education Director, Marcia P. Hoffman Performing Arts Center, Clearwater, FL - POSTED
Brian Pearson, Program Director, Community Conservatory, Doylestown, PA
Rick Sperling, Artistic Director, Mosaic Youth Theatre, Detroit, MI
Join theater education leaders from across the country to discuss key issues in theater education, share effective practices, and exchange resources and ideas. We’ll kick off this dynamic session with a brief warm-up activity that will enable you to connect with peers from different organizations, programs and communities. We’ll then break into small groups for focused conversations on topics that are most interesting and critical to you. Past topics have included evaluating theater education programs, training teaching artists, making the case for theater education, and developing effective internship and volunteer programs. We hope this session will help you make connections and spark dialogues that will continue throughout the conference and the year.

Arts Education & 21st Century Skills: The Workshop: Thursday, November 4, 11:30am-12:45pm
Bernie Trilling, 21st Century Learning Advisor and Author, San Francisco, CA
Following the Opening Plenary, join Bernie Trilling for an in-depth and interactive look at the knowledge and skills most needed for our times and discover how arts educators are uniquely positioned to help learners of all ages build these skills. We’ll take a closer look at increasing demands for innovation, creativity and original solutions in the workplace as well as the importance of including the arts in the current STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) movement, turning it into STEAM. And we’ll define the unique needs of today’s learners, including the Net Generation (learners born in the 1980s and 1990s). We’ll review some key tools—such as the 21st Century Skills Arts Map, Trilling’s “Project Bicycle” model and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ Framework for 21st Century Learning—to explore how you can apply 21st Century skills to strengthen and enrich your arts education programs.

Develop Your Strategy for Financial Sustainability: Thursday, Nov. 4, 11:30am-12:45pm
Jan Masaoka, Editor-in-Chief, Blue Avocado
Every nonprofit has a business model, whether you know it or not. And most nonprofits today are hybrids, combining earned income with contributed income and volunteerism. This fast-moving workshop will show you what your current business model is, and how to adjust it for a financially sustainable model understanding that programming and finances must be discussed together. The session is based on Nonprofit Sustainability, a forthcoming book that Jan co-authored.

Increasing Participation and Diversity in Community Arts Education (Part One): Thursday, Nov. 4, 11:30am-12:45pm
Donna Walker-Kuhne, President, Walker Communications Group
With the goal of increasing participation, this morning session will explore strategies and tactics for engaging diverse communities in community arts education programs. We will:


Part Two of this session will be presented in the afternoon and will build off of lessons learned in Part One. You may participate in Part One without attending Part Two, although you are encouraged to attend both sessions.

Increasing Participation and Diversity in Community Arts Education (Part Two): Thursday, Nov. 4, 2:30-5:30pm
Donna Walker-Kuhne, President, Walker Communications Group
Building on Part One in the morning, we will review case studies of community arts education organizations that have successfully increased enrollmentin today’s economic climate, and those that have enhanced the diversity of their faculty, programs and student populations. We’ll also examine how you can enhance community building at affordable prices by using interactive marketing tools like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, as well as engage in creative collaborations that leverage the exchange of skills and resources.

During the second half of this afternoon session, we’ll break into small groups to design community engagement and marketing campaigns for a variety of arts education programs, e.g., a series of spring classes at a community arts center, a theater-based summer camp, a choral or band program for seniors, or an after school media program for teens.

You’ll come away with plenty of practical ideas you can execute back home!

Delegates are encouraged to attend both the morning (Part One) and afternoon (Part Two) sessions; however attendance at both is not required.

Keeping the Fire without Burning Out: Strategies for Personal and Professional Renewal: Thursday, Nov. 4, 2:30-4:30pm
Ronnie Brooks, Director, James P. Shannon Leadership Institute and Wilder Center for Communities, Amherst Wilder Foundation, St. Paul, MN
The session will introduce participants to the concept of personal and professional renewal and to strategies they can apply to ensure their ongoing energy, effectiveness, satisfaction and sustainability in the work they love and have chosen. It will challenge participants to think about positively and fully leading their lives and not being overwhelmed by them. The session will be engaging, interactive and participatory.

Managing in a Changed and Changing Economic Reality: Thursday, Nov. 4, 2:30-5:30pm
Nicole Simoneaux, Manager, Nonprofit Finance Fund, New York, NY
Paula Smith-Arrigoni, Lender and Consultant, Nonprofit Finance Fund, New York, NY
Planning in today’s uncertain environment requires both nonprofit leaders and their funders to
know where an organization stands financially and to understand how much financial risk they
can tolerate. To make good decisions, nonprofits and their funders not only need accurate,
up-to-date, and clear financial information, but also the ability to interpret and use this financial information to plan and manage.

This three-hour “super-session” will include the following modules:
1. Operating in a Flawed System: Challenges of Nonprofit Finance
2. Assessing Your Nonprofit’s Current Financial Situation
3. Business Choices
4. Tools for Tough Times (cash flow planning, program profitability modeling, scenario planning, the C.O.R.E continuum of nonprofit collaborations)

Summer Sun Winter Moon: Collaborating Across Divides: Thursday, Nov. 4, 4:15-5:30pm
Rob Kapilow, conductor, composer, and commentator
Darrell Robes Kipp, poet and co-founder of the Nizipuhwahsin Center
This session will be a pre-publication report on the first national study of teaching artists, the human resource at the heart of community arts education. Today, teaching artists are also increasingly important to arts education in American schools, and many work in both community and school settings. By providing gateway and more advanced educational experiences in the arts, teaching artists’ work is vital to building the future of the arts and to the arts’ role in building communities. When we think about innovation in arts education—in pedagogy, in curriculum—we need to look at teaching artists. They are critical to the fulfillment of community arts education organizations’ missions. The Teaching Artist Research Project collected survey data from 3400 artists and 750 program managers in a dozen community study sites coast to coast, and conducted in-depth interviews with more than 160 artists, managers, funders, and school administrators. The study gives us the first comprehensive picture of who teaching artists are, what they teach, in what kinds of settings, the conditions of their work, their skills, assets, and needs, and the ways their teaching affects their art practice. The study also suggests ways community arts education leaders can help make teaching a sustainable career option for artists over the long term and how, by supporting teaching artists’ security and development, we can increase access to quality arts education.

The Value of Values: The Practical Relevance of Core Values in Individual and Organizational Choice Making: Thursday, Nov. 4, 4:15-5:30pm
Ronnie Brooks, Director, James P. Shannon Leadership Institute and Wilder Center for Communities, Amherst Wilder Foundation, St. Paul, MN
This session will focus on the usefulness of core values to participants as they navigate their organizations, careers and communities. Participants will gain clarity on what we mean by core values, how they are discovered and determined, and how they can be used to establish trust, address challenges and resolve dilemmas.This session will relate conceptually to the earlier workshop “Keeping the Fire without Burning Out.”It too will be engaging, interactive and participatory.

Engaging Adolescents: The Adolescent’s Journey: Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010, 4:15-5:30pm
H. Mark Smith, Program Manager, YouthReach Initiative, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Boston, MA
Käthe Swaback, Program Director, Raw Art Works and Project Leader, Boston Youth Arts Evaluation Project
Adolescence is neither late childhood nor early adulthood. It is its own stage of social, psychological, and physiological development. If we want to successfully engage teens, we need to understand their unique gifts and needs and design our arts education programs accordingly. In this session, we will explore models of adolescent development upon which effective youth arts programs are based.

Breakout Sessions: Friday, November 5, 2010

Brave New World: Kresge, Sustainability, and Where We Go From Here: Friday, Nov. 5, 1:45-3:15pm
Dr. Thomas Wolf, Principal, WolfBrown, Cambridge, MA
In this session, Dr. Thomas Wolf of WolfBrown will report on the Guild’s Kresge Foundation initiative in detail, describe what has been learned about the field, and what future opportunities exist for Guild members as they chart the future within their institutions and their communities. Special emphasis will be placed on 21st century trends and how organizations can become stronger and more effective while garnering new sources of support and developing more efficient systems of program delivery.

Engaging Adolescents: Key Principles and Program Models: Friday, Nov. 5, 1:45-3:15pm
H. Mark Smith, Program Manager, YouthReach Initiative, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Boston, MA
Beth Rubenstein, Executive Director, Out of Site: Center for Arts Education, San Francisco, CA
Community arts education programs for adolescents differ in many ways, but successful programs share certain goals and attributes. This session will explore an array of effective program models in a variety of artistic disciplines. We’ll also identify common philosophies and approaches across the models in order to shed light on the fundamental principles undergirding successful programs.

MPACT: Moving Parents and Children Together toward Community Arts Engagement: Friday, November 5, 1:45-3:15pm
Nancy Ng, Director, Community Development, Luna Dance Institute, Berkely, CA
Patricia Reedy, Director of Teaching & Learning, Luna Dance Institute, Berkely, CA
Engaging parents, families and communities who have limited access to arts programming, then sustaining these programs over time can be a challenging task. Using inquiry-based discussion, lecture, and hands-on activities, participants will examine how Luna Dance Institute's MPACT (Moving Parents and Children Together) builds a family and community culture for learning in the arts, and provides systemic and sustainable arts delivery through parent education and professional education of artist interns, social service providers and teachers. Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on how resource development strategies used in MPACT can be applied to engage parents and professionals in their own arts community. For the past 10 years, MPACT has brought parent-child dance classes to families with the least access to arts education—parents and children residing in domestic violence shelters, residential substance abuse programs, and incarceration facilities; immigrant families; and parents and their children with special needs.

Practicing Innovation in Your Organization: Lessons from the Field: Friday, Nov. 5, 1:45-3:15pm
Moderator: Colleen J. Ross, Manager of Partnership Strategies, EmcArts
Kelly Lamb Pollock, Executive Director, COCA (Center of Creative Arts), St. Louis, MO
Joël Tan, Director of Community Engagement, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
The ability to innovate is a learned strength for organizations. It’s not just a matter of debating the possibilities, selecting one and saying “Go forth and innovate…” Even with bold leadership, resource structures and cultures of nonprofit organizations resist breakthrough change: organizations need a disciplined framework and commitment to specific stages of innovation. As a nonprofit provider of innovation programs to the arts, EmcArts has supported more than 40 organizations across the country in uncovering new and creative strategies that create public value. This session features leaders from COCA (Center for Creative Arts) in St. Louis and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, who are using innovation practices to address challenges and launch new ideas in their communities. Kelly Lamb Pollock, Executive Director of COCA, will discuss the creation of COCABiz, a new arts-based learning program that uses multi-disciplinary practices to teach business executives new creative capacities. Joël Tan, Director of Community Engagement at Yerba Buena, shares insights from INSIDE/OUT, Yerba Buena’s breakthrough effort to re-imagine the visitor experience at the Center.
Kelly and Joël will discuss their projects, lessons learned, and the lasting impact on their organizations. EmcArts will also share instructive approaches to help you understand how to get started on your own innovation projects through small-scale experimentation and other cost-effective strategies.

Engaging Adolescents: Nuts-and-Bolts Strategies to Find, Attract, and Retain Teens: Friday, Nov. 5, 3:45-5:15pm
H. Mark Smith, Program Manager, YouthReach Initiative, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Boston, MA
Kwayera Archer-Cunningham, President & CEO, Ifetayo Cultural Arts, Brooklyn, NY
Tom DeCaigny, Executive Director, Performing Arts Workshop, San Francisco, CA
Where and how do we reach teens, or not lose them as the become teens? Engaging youth as leaders, advisors, ambassadors and peer-to-peer recruiters and partnering with other agencies are just some of the strategies successful teen programs use to recruit and retain a robust community of teens. Artistic and educational excellence, encouraging risk taking and fostering self-expression and are major factors as well.

Teaching Artists and the Future of Arts Education: Learning from and Supporting Artists: Friday, Nov. 5, 3:45-5:15pm
Nick Rabkin, Senior Research Scientist, NORC, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
This session will be a pre-publication report on the first national study of teaching artists, the human resource at the heart of community arts education.Today, teaching artists are also increasingly important to arts education in American schools, and many work in both community and school settings.By providing gateway and more advanced educational experiences in the arts, teaching artists’ work is vital to building the future of the arts and to the arts’ role in building communities.When we think about innovation in arts education—in pedagogy, in curriculum—we need to look at teaching artists. They are critical to the fulfillment of community arts education organizations’ missions.The Teaching Artist Research Project collected survey data from 3400 artists and 750 program managers in a dozen community study sites coast to coast, and conducted in-depth interviews with more than 160 artists, managers, funders, and school administrators.The study gives us the first comprehensive picture of who teaching artists are, what they teach, in what kinds of settings, the conditions of their work, their skills, assets, and needs, and the ways their teaching affects their art practice. The study also suggests ways community arts education leaders can help make teaching a sustainable career option for artists over the long term and how, by supporting teaching artists’ security and development, we can increase access to quality arts education.

Not Your Mother's Board Workshop: Friday, Nov. 5, 3:45-5:15pm
Jan Masaoka, Editor-in-Chief, Blue Avocado
In challenging times, boards have bigger decisions to make, and different and bigger work to do. Organizations may be considering growing, merging, closing, downsizing, and making dramatic changes in activities and identity. Board members are being asked to raise money—often with a new sense of urgency but with familiar low expectations. Jan Masaoka, editor-in-chief of the influential online magazine on nonprofit governance and leadership, Blue Avocado, has earned a national reputation for a new way of thinking about boards and their relationship with their executives. Come for a fast-paced workshop that will take conventional thinking about boards and turn it upside down.

 

Breakout Sessions: Saturday, November 6, 2010

Leading Toward Collaboration and Effectiveness. Saturday, Nov. 6, 9:00-10:15am
John McCann, President, Partners in Performance, Blacksburg, VA
The studies and the data they generate are clear that the complex organizational challenges facing those leading today’s creative enterprises are ones that cannot be solved by the solitary leader. It takes the collective brain trust, the goodwill of our stakeholders, and the effective management of their contribution to move the organization forward. This session identifies the key principles involved and the competencies required to develop the culture, structure and processes essential to solving 21st century challenges with 21st century approaches.

Practicing the Art of Leading: Saturday, Nov. 6, 10:45am-12:00pm
John McCann, President, Partners in Performance, Blacksburg, VA
Based on the competencies, working across organizational boundaries, managing different people differently, and building adaptive capability, etc., required to build organizational collaboration and increase effectiveness, this session will be a fun-filled experience allowing participants to practice first-hand how leadership behavior can influence the performance of others. Participating in the fun and games will be a great way to cap off another terrific Guild conference. The only requirement is a willingness to enjoy and learn!

Change Beyond the Classroom: Advocating for Community Arts Education (Part One): Saturday, Nov. 6, 2:45-4:00pm
Jessica Mele, Deputy Director, Performing Arts Workshop, San Francisco, CA
Chrissy Anderson-Zavala, Co-Deputy Director, Streetside Stories, San Francisco, CA
Brian Wiedenmeier, Development Director, Performing Arts Workshop, San Francisco, CA
There has never been a better time to advocate for arts and arts education. A recent survey by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy found that for every dollar invested in non-profit advocacy, 90 dollars came back to the community in the form of government and private funding. This two-part workshop will explore the definition and role of advocacy in community arts education. Participants will explore the following questions: To what extent can 501(c)3 organizations legally engage in advocacy? What are some effective models for advocacy programs within direct service organizations? How can I craft the most effective message to policymakers? Why should my organization spend time on advocacy when we already have our hands full providing arts education to our community?

PART ONE: Models for Advocacy
After 45 years as a leader of direct service arts education, Performing Arts Workshop (the Workshop) recently embarked on a new Advocacy Action Plan. Streetside Stories is currently exploring the role that advocacy can play in furthering their mission. The Workshop’s Jessica Mele and Streetside’s Chrissy Anderson-Zavala, who also serve as the Advocacy Co-Chairs of the Arts Provider’s Alliance of San Francisco, will discuss why and how their organizations have become more involved in advocacy and facilitate a discussion amongst participants about the most pressing advocacy issues faced by community arts education providers across the country, how direct service can be leveraged to fuel successful advocacy, and how to secure the funding to underwrite a sustained and effective advocacy program.

Change Beyond the Classroom: Advocating for Community Arts Education (Part Two): Saturday, Nov. 6, 4:15-5:30pm
Jessica Mele, Deputy Director, Performing Arts Workshop, San Francisco, CA
Chrissy Anderson-Zavala, Co-Deputy Director, Streetside Stories, San Francisco, CA
There has never been a better time to advocate for arts and arts education. A recent survey by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy found that for every dollar invested in non-profit advocacy, 90 dollars came back to the community in the form of government and private funding. This two-part workshop will explore the definition and role of advocacy in community arts education. Participants will explore the following questions: To what extent can 501(c)3 organizations legally engage in advocacy? What are some effective models for advocacy programs within direct service organizations? How can I craft the most effective message to policymakers? Why should my organization spend time on advocacy when we already have our hands full providing arts education to our community?

PART TWO: Advocacy Action Session
As direct service providers, we often speak passionately about the work that we do. However, too often we are unsure of how to represent that work to policymakers. In this workshop, participants will share current advocacy issues in their communities, roll up their sleeve to develop effective “message frames” for arts education advocacy, and practice crafting and delivering their own advocacy “pitch.”

Composing Change: YOLA and the El Sistema Movement: Date and Time TBA
Gretchen Nielsen, Director of Educational Initiatives, Los Angeles Philharmonic
Leni Boorstin, Director of Community Affairs, Los Angeles Philharmonic
Dan Berkowitz, Manager of Youth Orchestra LA (YOLA)
Gustavo Dudamel’s signature El Sistema-inspired initiative, YOLA or Youth Orchestra LA, is flourishing in South LA and ready for expansion. The YOLA EXPO Center Youth Orchestra program (YOLA’s first site) is a partnership of the LA Phil, The Harmony Project (a Guild member), and the EXPO Center, a City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks facility. In three years the program has grown to engage 300 students, ages 2-17, in free, high-quality, intensive music education. A second site opens in the fall at a community center in central LA, Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA). The LA Phil also convenes over 50 like-minded organizations and individuals several times each year to rally around a new vision for LA - where every neighborhood’s pride is its youth orchestra, where every child, no matter his or her background or resources, can experience joyful, rigorous music making.

What does ‘orchestra as community’ mean, and what is critical in order to strengthen ‘pro social’ outcomes as well as music skill development? What about this ensemble-focused program is transferable to different disciplines and settings? What can be learned from the intense challenges and rewards of this three-way collaboration? How does one convene like-minded organizations? How does this program engage families and community constituents to create a sense of ownership? What new resources have appeared during the journey? The LA Phil YOLA team considers these concepts in a robust discussion, with a bit of audio-visual aid showing Gustavo Dudamel in rehearsal with our young musicians.

Program Planning Meeting Notes

On Feb. 22, the Guild hosted a meeting in San Francisco to begin planning the conference program. The 50 participants identified a host of opportunities and challenges confronting community arts education providers. We have synthesized the notes from this discussion into questions that will inform the development of the conference program: Download the Planning Meeting Notes (PDF)