The New Face of Arts Leadership in the West - westaf - The Western ...

Recommendations

Info

not be available to us. Indeed, there are social factors that make our lives very different from the lives of the Baby Boomers. For them, it was free love. For us, it was AIDS; it is AIDS. For them, acid parties. For us, the war on drugs. For them, defense spending. For us, deficit inheritance. For them, first mortgages. For us, still paying off student-loan debts. And now I stand at the cusp of their retirement, as they move onto the next phase of their lives, and they are turning back to ask us, “Who are our emerging leaders?” And we face the possibility of picking up where they left off. Brenda Allen: I was born to lead. Just call me a natural born leader. From elementary school until today, people have asked me to lead and, most of the time, I have agreed. My teachers said I exhibited strong leadership skills. I was president of the Girl Scouts. I was president of the junior high student council. I was chair of my senior social committee in high school. I was vice president of my senior class. I am currently chair of my department. I am constantly courted by people who have positions they think I can lead. During my first class when my students ask, as you did earlier, “What should we call you?,” I say, “She who must be obeyed.” I also say, “Queen B, and the B is going to mean different things throughout the semester.” So, throughout my life, my sense of leadership, as is the case with all of us, has been socially constructed. I was a smart, cute little colored girl that White folks called bright and people in my community expected to represent, even before we called it represent. So, does being a Baby Boomer affect my sense of leadership? You are damned right it does. Because I was raised in a social and political context that encouraged and invited me in particular ways. I was fortunate enough to have role models from within my community and throughout the United States and the world. So there were people like Mr. Murphy at the Settlement House—you all know what a settlement house is?—and Miss Nadine at the Settlement House. There was Martin Luther King, Jr. There was John F. Kennedy, Barbara Jordan, Mother Teresa—on and on. Yes, I definitely enjoyed the “free love.” I also enjoyed disco. In fact, when I lived in D.C. in the 1970s, there was a club that had lunch time disco so, during lunch, you could go dance to Johnnie Taylor’s “shake it up, shake it down; move it in, move it round, disco lady.” 2 And I was one of those disco ladies, OK? However, no acid dropping for me and my friends, no naked dancing—that was a different group. So, it is important to understand there are differences within the groups. Moreover, when the Kent State murders occurred, I was right up the street at Case Western University, where I went to undergraduate school. We held a candlelight march that I will never ever forget, and there were all kinds of marches, as is implied in some of our music. Marvin Gaye said, [Allen sings] “Picket lines and picket signs/ Don’t punish me with brutality/ Talk to me, so you can see/ Oh, what’s going on.” 3 So, I was interested in “what’s going on.” Edwin Starr said, “War! Good God! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again.” 4 James Brown, in the meantime, encouraged and, in fact, commanded me and my contemporaries to “Say it loud! I’m Black and I’m proud!” 5 Therefore, with these kinds of experiences, I grew to think of leadership as something significant and important and something I, if not destined, was socialized to do. In fact, my journey, my story, resembles that of Wilma Mankiller, former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, who said, “My own evolution into a leadership position was born absolutely out of my desire to do something about issues that I thought were important for my people.” 6 In my case, my notion of my people really varies from time to context. My people are African Americans, my people are women, my people are women of color, tenure-track faculty. My people are . . . you get what I am saying. 2
So, leadership has a much different connotation it seems for me than it does for you, Grasshopper. In fact, I have more than one notion of leadership. What do you all think? If you pause for a moment and start thinking about your stories and your experiences of leadership, when I say leader, when I say leadership, what kinds of metaphors come to mind? What kind of analogies come to mind? Yes, mother, protector, guide. So it doesn’t necessarily have to have this negative connotation that I understand is relatively easy to conjure in these days and times in terms of who some of our formal leaders are. So, I believe that, as in your reading packet, authors Aguirre and Martinez 7 point out, how you define leadership influences how you enact leadership, when you think about leadership and diversity. They refer to traditional definitions that often come to mind that speak to things like influence, compliance, followership. I have been reading a book called Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership. 8 That book offers a similar conception in terms of leadership as the exercise of influence in a group context. The author, however, offers a metaphor of light and shadow and explores how leaders can exert their power for either ethical and good reasons or unethical and evil reasons. He bases this metaphor on the work of educator/philosopher Parker Palmer, who wrote, “a leader is a person who has an unusual degree of power to create the conditions under which people must live and move and have their being, conditions that can either be as illuminating as heaven or as shadowy as hell. A leader must take special responsibility for what is going on inside his or her own self, inside his or her consciousness, lest the act of leadership create more harm than good.” 9 Given that, I think we all lead, whether we accept that role, embrace that title or not. I think, then, we need to be proactive. So, I agree with you, Grasshopper, as you say when you are a leader, someone follows you, someone asks you for your advice, someone trusts you. That means you can choose to cast light, you can choose to engage in leadership practices that are transformative. Shane Moreman: I want to start off by quoting Kanye West: “And I heard ‘em say, nothin’s ever promised tomorrow, today/ And I heard ‘em say, nothin’s ever promised tomorrow, today/ But we’ll find a way/ And nothing lasts forever, but be honest babe/ Hurts, but it may be the only way/ With every worthless word, we get more far away/ And nothin’s ever promised tomorrow, today/ And nothin lasts forever, but be honest babe/ Hurts, but it may be the only way.” 10 Last summer, I had the opportunity to interact with one of the great minds of the behavioral sciences, and that was Dr. Everett Rogers. He is famous for his founding of the diffusion of innovation theory. Therefore, with a very simplified summary, he spent his life theorizing how people adopt new inventions into their lives. For example, some of us buy the Nano iPod early, and some of us buy the Nano iPod late. Of course, there are people within the poles of the late-adopter/early-adopter spectrum—some are leaders, and some are followers. I was lucky enough to be on a panel with Dr. Rogers. The panel was composed of young scholars, all of our research having something to do with media. The piece I included in the packet—he responded to that piece. Like virgins before the king, we did our intellectual dance before him, hoping for his approval and even his desire. After we all had finished and he had responded to us individually, he remarked how intrigued he was with the pattern that almost all of us were interested in—identity. For him, that was the difference between himself as a scholar and us as young scholars. Two months later, Dr. Rogers passed away, and we are left facing how to pick up where he left off. When this WESTAF conference was being preplanned, some of the young leaders in this audience today were asked about leadership. We looked around at each other, and we were quiet. One person was brave enough to 3
Page 1: The New Face of Arts Leadership in
Page 5: The New Face of Arts Leadership in
Page 8 and 9: Table of Contents (continued) B. Th
Page 11 and 12: Introduction By Len Edgerly The New
Page 13 and 14: Symposium Participants The informat
Page 15: Keynote Address: Diversifying the F
Page 19 and 20: directly visible. Sometimes, change
Page 21 and 22: as storytellers, keepers of cultura
Page 23 and 24: tonight. Can you talk a little bit
Page 25 and 26: are we talking about? Is it in the
Page 27: 8 Craig E. Johnson, Meeting the Eth
Page 30 and 31: Ming Luke: My name is Ming Luke. I
Page 32 and 33: am really more interested in social
Page 34 and 35: scholarship is computer-mediated co
Page 36 and 37: “Which is the path?” for the Ze
Page 38 and 39: up to me and asking me who is going
Page 40 and 41: Saturday—I am not certain that we
Page 42 and 43: e that leadership and be in control
Page 45 and 46: Topic One: Language as it Relates t
Page 47 and 48: mainstream. I want them to destroy
Page 49 and 50: Ganbold Presentation This text is a
Page 51: assertions are an effort to avoid l
Page 54 and 55: eal people.” Everybody is “the
Page 56 and 57: videos—How to Remove Birch Bark,
Page 58 and 59: Meaning does not lie solely in the
Page 60 and 61: culture. In that scenario, my audie
Page 62 and 63: show me the way to be the most humb
Page 64 and 65: 3 Helen Dick, How to Remove Spruce
Page 66 and 67:
its celebration of the new year fro
Page 68 and 69:
Response and Discussion Shane Morem
Page 70 and 71:
month, they work together and learn
Page 72 and 73:
In February, we are having a gather
Page 74 and 75:
120 events per year, and they have
Page 76 and 77:
a leader and you have an incredible
Page 78 and 79:
or anything like that, but building
Page 80 and 81:
ut we have to help them help us und
Page 83 and 84:
Topic 3: Leadership Styles in Ethni
Page 85:
ut what we are trying to do is exer
Page 88 and 89:
traditional leadership. There are m
Page 90 and 91:
she wanted to get married. What doe
Page 92 and 93:
I think that it is very important t
Page 94 and 95:
We also have students on our board
Page 96 and 97:
think about sustainability, to thin
Page 98 and 99:
Ideally, when an institution needs
Page 100 and 101:
likely a number of highly qualified
Page 103 and 104:
Topic 4B: Emerging Leaders in the A
Page 105 and 106:
opment programs to help them move f
Page 107 and 108:
to say “no” and learn to say
Page 109 and 110:
complained about lack of support, b
Page 111 and 112:
Summary and Final Comments Shane Mo
Page 113 and 114:
When we were talking about language
Page 115 and 116:
I am a historian and an anthropolog
Page 117 and 118:
am using the analogy that we all ca
Page 119 and 120:
We have to foster and mature young
Page 121 and 122:
List of Preliminary Readings on Lea
Page 123 and 124:
References and Works Cited Aguirre,
Page 125 and 126:
West, Kanye. “Heard ‘Em Say.”
Page 127 and 128:
Symposium Process and Agenda About
Page 129 and 130:
Participants’ Biographies The bio
Page 131 and 132:
her third City of Los Angeles Artis
Page 133 and 134:
the Metropolitan State College of D
Page 135 and 136:
Shandiin Sunrise is creatively buil
Page 137 and 138:
Symposium Observers Lucero Arellano
show all

The New Face of Arts Leadership in the West - westaf - The Western ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?