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

will take that money and they will do something
terrific with it.” For a funder to give 20-something
year olds funding when there are people out
there much more established who aren’t getting
that kind of money would be a remarkable
occasion. This would demonstrate to the
funding community that they should have confidence
in young people. But this doesn’t occur
very often. Usually, 20 year olds get the little tiny
grants, and I have always wondered about a
grant program for teenagers. I know Oakland
tried it, but I don’t know if it is still happening.
Amanda Ault: I would like to talk a bit about
the intersection between cultural diversity
and leadership succession. I am going to use
some ideas that were in Sunya Ganbold’s
presentation to illustrate one challenge of
the intersection of those two things. It is illustrated
by her story about how her coworkers
misunderstood her participation within their
staff meetings. They were looking to her to
be a leader. They felt like she had potential,
and they invited her to the table. But then
her actions didn’t meet their expectations of
leadership. Meanwhile, Sunya was participating
using the methods she understood, through
her cultural experience, to be very respectful
and appropriate. Sunya’s story highlights the
challenge of diversity in leadership development.
The narrow expectations and the cultural
competencies of the established leaders may
lead them to misinterpret leadership capacity.
At the beginning of this symposium, I posed the
question: “What is the forum?” “What is the
forum for passing on the tools?” Let’s establish
some concrete forums or processes that will help
us actually pass the torch—this event being an
amazing example of how we can do that.
We are a hybrid of identities; we are a blend of
things that can be seen as a whole. What has
really struck me is that some of the participants
here are representing themselves as a part
of their family lineage. In their professional
practice, they reference their family heritage,
and they reference that blend in a way that
isn’t negative. Referencing that lineage—those
ties—becomes a form of technology. I refer
back to Brenda Allen talking about the parts of
us that are “technology.” I think that our histories
and our multiplicity of histories are assets––technology.
History is technology, legacy is technology,
hybridity is a new technology. Together,
we create questions and lessons that, as James
Early has emphasized in his remarks, are part of
the bigger conversation, the bigger picture.
Samuel Aguiar Iñiguez: Charles, basically I
like your idea. It is really, really strong. To me, a
leadership organization is a place where they
teach people skills. Your Ethos Music Center
is one such place. My premise is that we try
to incorporate as many people as we can.
You talked about possible problems, and I
have a couple of issues with the volunteer thing
and I see some financial obstacles. I say this
because I myself have experienced it. You say
that you accept Americorps and Vista people.
You say you need six months of volunteer
service—maybe it’s less—but it is still volunteer
time. The way I look at that—and I have tried
to do this myself—is sometimes we come from a
financial background that is not very stable. Our
parents can’t pay our bills, and you are limiting
someone who has a lot of skills and wants to
be a part of the organization but who can’t be
a part of it because he or she needs to survive
and doesn’t have time to volunteer. Part of their
income is probably going back to their family.
I am one of those children who had a chance
to be a part of an organization in the past, but
I couldn’t do it because there was an obstacle.
For example, let’s say we, as professionally
employed adults, have a health-club membership
that costs approximately $100 per month.
For college students, that is a lot of money. In
your six-month volunteer scenario, how many
hours of total potential income is that volunteer
losing? That volunteer may actually be paying
$3,000 for admittance into your organization, yet
that part of it is not presented. My concern is
that there is an obstacle here in that you are not
getting as many prominent artists and individuals
who could help you out because there are
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