Imagining America Reports: How New Demand for Civic Engagement Is Transforming Campus and Community

Monday, October 13, 3:30 pm – 5:45 pm
Juniper, M2/International Ballroom Level

Organized by Dudley Cocke, trustee, The Bush Foundation. Presented by Dudley Cocke and Jamie Haft, staff/research principal, Imagining America.

Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life (IA) is a consortium of 85 colleges and universities that are re-imagining the possibilities of higher education by using the arts, humanities, and design to transform their institutions into centers for civic engagement and democratic community renewal. In September 2008, IA issued “The Curriculum Project Report: Culture and Community Development in Higher Education,” written by Arlene Goldbard and funded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and Syracuse University. The report synthesizes nine months of research into the obstacles and opportunities to integrate community cultural development education into college curricula. Hundreds of community artists, educators, and friends of the field took part in the interviews and surveys on which the report is based.

Grantmakers will gain an understanding of the state of the rapidly expanding field of community cultural development in higher education and its potential impact on the arts ecology. The session will begin with an overview of the report’s methodology and a summary of its findings. A facilitated discussion with the audience about the report’s impact on the field and on arts grantmaking will follow.

Suggested links:

The Curriculum Project Report: Culture and Community Development in Higher Education
Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life
The IA Curriculum Project