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2001 Charles Fowler Colloquium on Innovation in Arts Education
The Art of Partnership
Held at the University of Maryland on October 12 and 13, this was an opportunity to explore collaborations between schools and communities for the enhancement of learning in music, theatre, dance, and visual arts. The proceedings are available online.
The Colloquium was in two parts:
- A full-day colloquium with featured speakers, highlighted model programs, and moderated discussions: Friday October 12, 2001 from 9 to 5 at the Inn and Conference Center of University College, Adelphi Road and Campus Drive, College Park, Maryland.
- A half-day workshop for representatives from schools and organizations, arts advisory panels and communities, foundations and agencies on how to foster, improve, and sustain formal partnerships in arts education: Saturday, October 13, 2001 from 9 to 12 noon at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at Maryland.
Colloquium guest presenters:
- Steve Seidel, Director of Harvard's Project Zero was our moderator. Dr. Seidel became Director of Harvard's Project Zero in July 2000, and he continues his work as a Research Associate and Principal Investigator and as Lecturer on Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has worked in the areas of the arts and education for over twenty-five years. He trained and worked professionally as an actor and, later, as a stage director. In 1971 he began working in schools. Since 1988, Dr. Seidel has worked on various projects at Project Zero. He is currently Principal Investigator for The Evidence Project, the Arts Survive Research Study, the Making Learning Visible project, and the Project Zero/ International Schools Consortium Partnership. He has also worked as a consultant and evaluator to numerous arts and education organizations, such as the Performing Arts Program for Youth in Atlanta, and the administrative team of the Danvers (MA) Public Schools. His book Arts Survive: A Study of Sustainability in Arts Education Partnerships co-authored with Meredith Eppel, and Maria Martiniello was published this year by Harvard's Project Zero.
- Gail
Burnaford, from Northwestern University and the Chicago
Arts Partnerships in Education (CAPE) spoke on arts programs and professional development. This was a discussion of integration within the larger context of arts in schools. Dr. Burnaford advocates rigorous arts-specific education, but also sees the power of making connections and encouraging transfer. She also spoke about Teacher Action Research. Dr. Burnaford has been a teacher educator for fifteen years; before working in higher education, she was a preschool music teacher and a high school English teacher. Her current research focuses on the processes of arts integration and its implications for teacher development. She consults with the Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education and the Ravinia Festival's Music in the Schools Program in Chicago Public Schools. She shared editorship of Renaissance in the Classroom: Arts Integration and Meaningful Learning (Mahwah, N.J : L. Erlbaum Associates, 2001) with Arnold Aprill, and Cynthia Weiss.
Read Dr. Burnaford's paper, Rethinking Professional Development:'Action Research' to Build Collaborative Arts Programming.
- Craig Dreeszen, Director, Arts Extension Service, University of Massachusetts, Amherst spoke on the maturing of arts and education collaborations. Collaborations between arts organizations and American schools have come a long way since Dr. Dreeszen first described them in the 1991 publication, Intersections: Community Arts and Education Collaborations. He examined some of the ways partnerships have evolved to become more sophisticated and the challenges that remain. Effective school and art partners seem to better appreciate both the substance and process of organizing for arts education that involves schools, artists, and community-based arts organizations. The presentation built upon the earlier work and recent research in educational partnerships. It explored definitions, processes, collaborative planning, assessment and evaluation, and interorganizational principles that apply to the collaborative process. Dr. Dreeszen is an educator, consultant, and writer who works nationally in arts organizational development and planning, community arts and education planning, program evaluation, and community cultural planning. He provides planning and policy formulation, program evaluation, training, organizational development, and meeting facilitation solutions for not-for-profit organizations, foundations, and public agencies. Since 1990 he has directed the Arts Extension Service (AES), University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is also principal consultant of Dreeszen and Associates.
Read Dr. Dreeszen's paper, Trends in Arts Education Collaborations.
- David Myers,
Director of the Center for Educational Partnerships in Music (CEPM) at Georgia State University, focused on research-based "arts" learning. He examined principles of effective partnership derived from an analysis of the particular ways in which collaborative delivery models can support and enhance high-quality arts learning. The relationship among arts specialists, artists, and classroom teachers is a key component of effective instruction in a partnership model. Political and economic benefits of partnerships, though important, should not be used to justify programs that fail to implement research-based principles of arts education. Dr. Myers is Professor of Music, Associate Director of the School of Music, and Founding Director of the Center for Educational Partnerships in Music at Georgia State University. Dr. Myers is currently director of Sound Learning, a project funded by the Texaco Foundation, that partners Georgia State, the Atlanta Symphony, Young Audiences of Atlanta, and the Fulton County and Atlanta City Schools in a curriculum-based music education program. In 1995, he conducted a national study funded by the NEA to identify characteristics of successful partnerships between symphony orchestras and schools. The findings were published in a book entitled Beyond Tradition: Partnerships among Orchestras, Schools, and Communities (Georgia State University, School of Music, 1996) and disseminated to orchestras across the country to assist them with development of their education programs.
Read Dr. Myer's paper, Excellence in Arts Teaching and Learning: A Collaborative Responsibility of Maturing Partnerships.
Abstracts and papers from the Colloquium edited by Marie McCarthy.
Other Resources
- "In districts with strong arts education, the
community - broadly defined as parents and
families, artists, arts organizations, businesses,
local civic and cultural leaders and institutions - is
actively engaged in the arts politics and
instructional programs of the district."
From Gaining the Arts Advantage: Lessons Learned from School Districts That Value Arts Education - Arts education partnerships: books and articles
an annotated database maintained by Americans for the Arts - Learning Partnerships: Improving learning in schools with arts partners in the community:
an online guide by Craig Dreeszen, Arnold Aprill and Richard J. Deasy - Order Fowler Colloquia Proceedings
The biennial Charles Fowler Colloquium is an outreach program of the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library's Special Collections in Performing Arts, home of the Charles Fowler Papers. It is endowed by the Charles Fowler Fund for Innovation in Arts Education whose Advisory Board represents the University Libraries, University departments devoted to fine and performing arts and education, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at Maryland, arts educators and the community. The Board welcomes suggestions for topics and speakers for future colloquia. The Fund gratefully accepts tax-deductible donations. For more information contact Bonnie Jo Dopp, Curator, Special Collections in Performing Arts: (301)405-9256, e-mail vnovara@umd.edu.
- Steve Seidel, Director of Harvard's Project Zero was our moderator. Dr. Seidel became Director of Harvard's Project Zero in July 2000, and he continues his work as a Research Associate and Principal Investigator and as Lecturer on Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has worked in the areas of the arts and education for over twenty-five years. He trained and worked professionally as an actor and, later, as a stage director. In 1971 he began working in schools. Since 1988, Dr. Seidel has worked on various projects at Project Zero. He is currently Principal Investigator for The Evidence Project, the Arts Survive Research Study, the Making Learning Visible project, and the Project Zero/ International Schools Consortium Partnership. He has also worked as a consultant and evaluator to numerous arts and education organizations, such as the Performing Arts Program for Youth in Atlanta, and the administrative team of the Danvers (MA) Public Schools. His book Arts Survive: A Study of Sustainability in Arts Education Partnerships co-authored with Meredith Eppel, and Maria Martiniello was published this year by Harvard's Project Zero.
